Reginald of Durham was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 monk and hagiologist.

Reginald, a monk at Durham

Durham

Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...

, was a hagiologist who wrote about the lives of saint

Saint

A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

s. His best known work is about the hermit Saint Godric of Finchale

Godric of Finchale

Saint Godric of Finchale was an English hermit, merchant and popular medieval saint, although he was never formally canonized. He was born in Walpole in Norfolk and died in Finchale in County Durham, England....

. He also wrote about the 7th century Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne

Saint Cuthbert was an Anglo-Saxon monk, bishop and hermit associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, at that time including, in modern terms, northern England as well as south-eastern Scotland as far as the Firth of Forth...

, about Saint Oswald

Oswald of Northumbria

Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death, and is now venerated as a Christian saint.Oswald was the son of Æthelfrith of Bernicia and came to rule after spending a period in exile; after defeating the British ruler Cadwallon ap Cadfan, Oswald brought the two Northumbrian kingdoms of...

, a 7th century marytred King of Northumbria

Northumbria

Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

, and about the life of St Ebba (615–683), daughter of the King of Northumbria who founded a monastery at Ebchester

Ebchester

Ebchester is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated to the north of Consett and to the south east of Whittonstall.The parish church, which is dedicated to St. Ebba is of ambiguous origin, being of partly Norman construction with a foundation, described as being pre-Conquest...

. Ebba was the abbess of a mixed monastery of monks and nuns at Coldingham

Coldingham

Coldingham is a historic village in Berwickshire, Scottish Borders, on Scotland's southeast coastline, north of Eyemouth.As early as AD 660, Coldingham was the site of a religious establishment of high order, when it is recorded that Etheldreda, the queen of Egfrid, became a nun at the Abbey of...

.
Shortly after Ebba's death, the monastery was accidentally burned down in 683 AD. The destructive fire was said to have been an act of God resulting from the sins of its inmates.

Note that the alternative name Reginald of Coldingham, while perpetuated in the Dictionary of National Biography

Dictionary of National Biography

The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...

and the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources

The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources is a lexicon of Medieval Latin, published by Oxford University Press for the British Academy, and sometimes referred to as simply the Dictionary of Medieval Latin or the Medieval Latin Dictionary. After decades of preparatory work, the...

, is spurious.

External links

• Life of Saint Godric – excerpts