The spirit of St Cuthbert and the spirit of place: Durham Cathedral in Benjamin Myers's Cuddy

AbstractOriginally conceived as a local deity, the Roman genius loci would watch over a place and confer on it its unique identity. In Spirit of Place, Laurier Turgeon notes that whereas in the modern era the ancient concept has undergone secularization, “the spirit of place” still preserves traces of its original supernatural meaning by invoking both “a geographical location, a physical environment” and the intangible human contribution to a particular place (2009, xxxvii), a combination of which determines the place's distinct characteristics. This article discusses the interdependence of the material and immaterial heritage in Benjamin Myers's depiction of the history of Durham Cathedral in his novel Cuddy (2023). Told in a diversity of voices and styles and spanning a period from the Middle Ages until the present, the novel emphasizes the enduring influence of the Anglo‐Saxon saint Cuthbert, affectionately nicknamed Cuddy, but once the most revered saint of Northern England, on the place where he is buried and on the people whose lives have been connected with the cathedral. It is argued that Cuddy is underpinned by the conceit of St Cuthbert as the—both genuine and metaphorical—spirit of the place.