This was one of the most important ChristianChristian Name originally given to disciples of Jesus by outsiders and gradually adopted by the Early Church to designate all members of the church. sites in the early medieval north of England. It was part of a double monasteryDouble Monastery A monastic centre inhabited by both men and women who lived separately from each other but worshipped together (though separated by barriers). In Anglo-Saxon England double monasteries were ruled over by an abbess, but in the later medieval period leadership was increasingly assumed by men. In the later Middle Ages, religious orders were founded specifically as double orders. The Gilbertine religious order was an order of double houses, founded in England in the twelfth century to support the female contemplative life, but male canons soon came to dominate. Other orders with double monasteries were the Fontevraudines and (briefly) the Premonstratensians., the other site being at MonkwearmouthMonkwearmouth Dedicated to St Peter the monastery was founded by Benedict Biscop in 674, as a sister house of Jarrow, on land given to him by King Egfrith of Northumbria near the mouth of the River Wear (now in Co. Durham), after his return to England from Rome with Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. Details of its foundation and activities are recorded by the Venerable Bede, most notably in his History of the Abbots, and his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. It was destroyed in c.867 and 1070; re-founded in 1074 and became a cell of the monastic cathedral of Durham in 1083 remaining so until 1536 and the Dissolution of the Monasteries across the river, founded in c.681 by Benedict Biscop, and St Ceolfrid was its first abbotAbbot Head of an abbey of monks. There were originally two churches linked by a passageway, but what survives is the much-rebuilt smaller eastern church. A carved slab records the date of the church’s dedication as 23 April 685, and the walls of the chancel are mostly of the late-7th century. The lower section of the tower is 8th century and was originally part of the passageway linking to the larger church. A large amount of carved stone from the 8th and 9th centuries survives, some in the church and other pieces in JarrowJarrow Dedicated to St Paul the monastery founded by Benedict Biscop in 684, as a sister house of Monkwearmouth, on land donated by king Egfrid of Northumbria by the River Tyne, after his return to England from Rome with Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. Details of its foundation and activities are recorded by the Venerable Bede, most notably in his History of the Abbots, and his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Bede died here in 735. The monastery was destroyed in c. 867 and again in 973; but may not have been deserted since in 1022 the bones of Bede were carried from Jarrow to Durham cathedral. Re-established in 1074, it ultimately became a cell of the monastic cathedral of Durham in 1083 and remained so until 1536 and the Dissolution of the Monasteries Hall Museum. Some of the earliest stained glass in the country, dating to the late 7th century, is preserved in the church windows. The monasteryMonastery The house of a religious community was repeatedly raided by Vikings from the late 9th century onwards and was apparently in ruins by the mid-11th century.
References: Taylor and Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, vol. 1, pp. 338-49.