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St Aidan founded the monastery here in AD 635, but St Cuthbert is the most celebrated of the priory's holy men. He was buried in the priory, his remains were transferred to a pilgrim shrine there after 11 years, and found still undecayed - regarded as a sure sign of sanctity!
From the end of the 8th century, the isolated island with monastery was easy prey for Viking raiders. So in 875 the monks left, carrying Cuthbert's remains, which after long wanderings through northern England were enshrined in Durham Cathedral in 1104, where they still rest. Only after that time did Benedictine Durham monks re-establish a priory on Lindisfarne. The ruins of the richly decorated priory church they began in c. 1150 still stand. The small community lived quietly on Holy Island until the suppression of the monastery in by Henry VIII in 1537.