While it retains many of the trappings of a traditional saint's life, the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto is also a remarkable record of the political activities and property acquisitions of a powerful Anglo-Saxon monastery, and it vividly demonstrates the ongoing relationship between the monks and their patron saint. Written in Northumbria in the tenth or eleventh century, the Historia presents a striking contrast with earlier lives of Cuthbert such as Bede's, and is a valuable teaching text. The present edition is the first to make use of all three surviving manuscripts of the Historia, and is...