Appeal to save saint’s book

The St Cuthbert Gospel is the earliest surviving intact European book and is valued at £9m.

The copy of the Gospel of St John, was produced in the north of England in the late seventh-century and was buried alongside St Cuthbert, an early English Christian leader, on the island of Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumberland in around 698AD.

The coffin was moved off to escape Viking raiders and taken to Durham, where the book was found when the coffin was opened at the cathedral in 1104. It is being sold by the Jesuit religious order which now owns it.

Dame Lynne Brindley, the library’s chief executive, said: “The St Cuthbert Gospel is an almost miraculous survival from the Anglo-Saxon period, a beautifully-preserved window into a rich, sophisticated culture that flourished some four centuries before the Norman Conquest.”

The National Heritage Memorial Fund has already pledged half the money needed – £4.5m. Another £500,000 is being provided by two groups and other donations leave £2.75m to find.

The Very Reverend Michael Sadgrove, Dean of Durham, said: “This wonderful book links us directly to Saxon Christianity of the north of England, and to the North’s best-loved saint, Cuthbert himself. We are in the British Library’s debt for having taken this initiative. We must make sure it succeeds.”