Crayke is a village and civil parish in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, England, about two miles east of Easingwold.
The parish was formerly a detached part of County Durham (until 1844), due to its connection with St Cuthbert and the Bishop of Durham, who had a castle at Crayke.
The seventh-century king Egfrith granted Crayke to the church in 685 to be used by Cuthbert on his visits to York, to which end Cuthbert founded a monastery here. Cuthbert died in 687AD. The monk Aediluulf wrote a poem Carmen de Abbatibus between 803 and 821 about the history of his monastery, and some scholars propose that the monastery, which was in the circle of Lindisfarne, was in Crayke. (For instance, Michael Lapidge in Anglo-Latin Literature 600-899, Hambledon Press, London 1996) According to the chronicler Symeon, the Northumbrian King Aelle appropriated Crayke and used it as his headquarters during the unsuccessful campaign against the Danes in 867. He also reports that when the congregation of St Cuthbert was wandering homeless during the seven year period 875-882 the monks remained four months at Crayke.
In Norman times the Bishops of Durham constructed a castle over the monastic cemetery.
Links with Cuthbert and the bishopric of Durham are recognised in the dedication of the 1436 Anglican church to St Cuthbert, and the naming of the pub as the Durham Ox, (an allusion to the foundation myth of Durham).
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