Durham Priory

From the time when Bishop Aldhun in 995 brought the body of St. Cuthbert from Chester-le-Street and built 'the White Church on Dunholme' for its reception, the church was served by a body of secular clergy to whom generous gifts of lands, &c., had been made by Cnut and other benefactors. The secular canons, with their wives and children, were driven out by Bishop William, and replaced by the monks of the newly restored monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. To this course, in which he was supported by both papal and royal authority, the bishop was moved by the appalling state of desolation to which his diocese had been reduced. Three times during the previous fourteen years it had been…