A Brief History of Crayke : The Saxon, Viking and Norman Periods

It is recorded that Cuthbert, a monk and later Bishop at Lindesfarne (c. 634-687), was so much admired by Ecgfrid, the Saxon king of Northumbria, that he added greatly to the possessions of his church.  Among his donations was the vill of Crayke (Saxon ‘Creca’) in 685, together with all the surrounding land within a circuit of 3 miles [5], i.e. c. ½ mile radius from the hilltop.  It seems that Crayke was intended to be a resting place for the Bishop Cuthbert on his frequent journeys between Lindesfarne and York. 

Though there is no archaeological evidence to support it, nor any support from the writings of his contemporary, Bede (c.673-735, a prolific writer who also journeyed between Jarrow, Lindesfarne and York), some sources speculate that Cuthbert founded a monastery on Crayke hill which continued for more than 200 years. [6],[7],[8],[9]  This story has a distinctly mythical air about it, though the remoteness of Crayke at that time, situated deep in the ancient forest of Galtres, could perhaps lend some plausibility.  Alcuin, then a monk in York, testified to this remoteness when he wrote of an anchorite (hermit) named Etha who ‘led an angelical life’ dwelling ‘on a lonely hill’ in the ‘wilderness’ of the deep forest [10].  The hermit Etha, according to much later writings of Simeon of Durham [6], died at Crayke in 767 and it is perhaps unlikely that a man living in the close proximity of a monastery at that time would qualify as a hermit.  Moreover, and somewhat confusingly, Simeon (c. 1060 – 1140) also tells that a party of monks fleeing from the Viking invaders with St Cuthbert’s body was given hospitality by Abbot Geve at this monastery for 4 months in the year 883.  The Vikings, who occupied York in 867 and made a practice of destroying all religious establishments, seem unlikely to have left a monastery only 12 miles or so outside York unmolested.  Furthermore, it is recorded that Ella, another of the Saxon kings of Northumbria, launched an abortive attack on the Vikings occupying York from Crayke some few years earlier than St Cuthbert’s body was said to have rested there in 883 and it seems unlikely that the place would have remained undiscovered in these circumstances [10].  These were turbulent times, and Simeon’s reference to the monastery - in an account written some 200 years or so after the events - appears to be highly speculative.

The Saxons recovered control of Northumbria finally in 948 when the last Danish king Eric was defeated at the battle of Castleford by the Saxon king Eadred [1].  However, a Danish earl named Thured [1] appears to have remained in control of at least part of Crayke in the year 990, though it had reverted entirely to the Saxon Bishops of Durham (Cuthbert’s successors) by the time of Domesday (1086) [11].

There certainly was no monastery at Crayke at the time of Domesday, and the writer of the respected Victoria History was highly sceptical about its existence [12].  Knowles and Hadcock[13] also make no mention of a monastery at Crayke, though they and others [7],[14],[15] do present evidence for there having been a hospital or hospice there, St Mary de Pratis, at the much later date of 1228.