The Gospels may have been taken from Durham Cathedral during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, ordered by Henry VIII, and were acquired in the early 17th century by Sir Robert Cotton from Thomas Walker, Clerk of the Parliaments.

A modern facsimile copy of the Gospels is now housed in the Durham Cathedral Treasury, where it can be seen by visitors.

From the early 8th century come the Durham Gospels, the Echternach Gospels, the Lindisfarne Gospels ( see illustration at right ), and the Lichfield Gospels.

The Parish Church of St Mary and St Cuthbert is where the body of St Cuthbert remained for 112 years before being transferred to Durham Cathedral, and the site of the first translation of the Gospels into English, Aldred writing the Old English gloss between the lines of the Lindisfarne Gospels there.

It may also have held the Lindisfarne Gospels, now also in the British Library, and other books from Lindisfarne that were, and in several cases still are, at Durham Cathedral.

* Durham Gospels

Also active at Lindisfarne in the late 7th century was the scribe known as the " Durham-Echternach calligrapher ", who produced the Durham Gospels and the Echternach Gospels.

The Crucifixion from the Durham Gospels

The Durham Gospels is a very incomplete late 7th century insular Gospel Book, now kept in the Durham Cathedral Dean and Chapter Library ( MS A. II. 17 ).

The Durham Gospels were written by the same scribe that wrote the Echternach Gospels.

Gospel Book Fragment is another manuscript ( MS A. II. 10 ) in the cathedral library which is sometimes referred to as the " Durham Gospels ", but more usually as the " Durham Gospel Fragment ".

The Liber Vitae of Durham Cathedral includes a list of priests ; two are named Bede, and one of these is presumably Bede himself.

Bede's tomb in Durham Cathedral

Bede's remains may have been transferred to Durham Cathedral in the 11th century ; his tomb there was looted in 1541, but the contents were probably re-interred in the Galilee chapel at the cathedral.

He was buried here, his remains later translated to Durham Cathedral ( along with the relics of Saint Eadfrith of Lindisfarne ).

Viking raids in 875 led to the monks fleeing the island with St Cuthbert's bones ( The bones of St Cuthbert are now buried at the Cathedral in Durham ).

Oswald's head was interred in Durham Cathedral together with the remains of Cuthbert of Lindisfarne ( a saint with whom Oswald became posthumously associated, although the two were not associated in life ; Cuthbert became bishop of Lindisfarne more than forty years after Oswald's death ) and other valuables in a quickly made coffin, where it is generally believed to remain, although there are at least four other claimed heads of Oswald in continental Europe.

* The building of Durham Cathedral begins in Durham, England.

* Durham Cathedral is completed.

* September 3 – St. Cuthbert is reburied in Durham Cathedral.

After his death he became one of the most important medieval saints of England, with a cult centred at Durham Cathedral.

12th century wall-painting of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral

He was buried at Lindisfarne the same day, and after long journeys escaping the Danes his remains chose, as was thought, to settle at Durham, causing the foundation of the city and Durham Cathedral.

Cuthbert's shrine at Durham Cathedral was a major pilgrimage site throughout the Middle Ages, until stripped by Henry VIII's commissioners in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

St Cuthbert's Tomb in Durham Cathedral.

St Cuthbert's Society, a college of Durham University, is named after him and is located only a short walk from the coffin of the saint at Durham Cathedral.

Its historic importance is evidenced by Northumberland's castles, the two World Heritage Sites of Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle, and Hadrian's Wall.

This latter occurs at Durham Cathedral in the nave aisles in 1093.

A fragment of a Gospel Book, now in the Durham Cathedral library and created in northern Britain in the 7th century, contains the earliest example of true knotted designs in the Celtic manner.

* Inventory of the Public Lands Institute Records, 1978-1984 in the Forest History Society Library and Archives, Durham, NC

In 2011 the British Library launched an appeal to buy the closely related St Cuthbert Gospel and said that they intended that this should be displayed in Durham for part of the time.

* Durham County Library website

* North Carolina Room of the Durham County Library Website for an archive which collects materials concerning the city and county of Durham

* Historic Images of Durham, Special Photo Collections at Wichita State University Library.

* New Durham Public Library

The only major surviving building from the Durham College foundation is the east range of Durham Quad, containing the Old Library, which dates from 1421, although elements of the pre-Reformation fabric also survive on the opposite side of the quad, at either end of the 17th-century hall.

These manuscripts include the Cathach of St. Columba, the Ambrosiana Orosius, fragmentary Gospel in the Durham Dean and Chapter Library ( all from the early 7th century ), and the Book of Durrow ( from the second half of the 7th century ).

Symeon's own revised copy can be found in Durham, University Library, Cosin V. II. 6.

Another manuscript ( London, British Library, Cotton Faustina A. V ) seems to represent the text of the Libellus before the revisions found in the Durham manuscript.

* Inventory of the Champion International Corporation Image Collection, 1950-1979 in the Forest History Society Library and Archives, Durham, NC

* Inventory of the Quinault Indian Reservation Collection, 1939-1977, in the Forest History Society Library and Archives, Durham, NC

* Inventory of the Rudolph Wendelin Papers, 1930-2005 in the Forest History Society Library and Archives, Durham, NC

The purchase " involved a formal partnership between the Library, Durham University and Durham Cathedral and an agreement that the book will be displayed to the public equally in London and the North East.

" There is a special display at the British Library until June 2012, and the book is planned to go on display in Durham in July 2013 in Durham University ’ s Palace Green Library.

In the standard account of the development of the Insular gospel book, the Book of Durrow follows the fragmentary Northumbrian Gospel Book Fragment ( Durham Cathedral Library, A. II.