Mitford Women’s Institute meets in the Community Centre on the second Wednesday of every month for a formal meeting and to hear talks from a wide range of interesting speakers.
MITFORD WI
MEETING REPORT.
NOVEMBER 2010.
The Golden Age of Northumbria
In a time of recession and doom-laden headlines, it was reassuring and enlightening to go
back to the time between 625 and 788 AD – The Golden Age of Northumbria. This was a time when
the seat of the most powerful king in the country was in the Castle of Bamburgh.
We heard how the Northerners were converted from Paganism to Celtic Christianity, which
gave rise to the greatest inspirational leaders that England has known. There was St. Cuthbert, who
preferred the peace and remoteness of Lindisfarne, St. Aidan who created the Lindisfarne Gospels
and the Venerable Bede who we have to thank for the magnificent manuscripts, written on vellum
and painstakingly produced, so that Christianity could spread by the written word – all living and
working in Northumbria, which at that time stretched as far North as Melrose and the hills beyond
and south through County Durham.
By the end of the talk, members felt proud to live in a part of the country which is not only
so beautiful and wild, but has such a history of leading England in the spread of Christianity.
