"This is where the body of St Cuthbert was brought and so Christianity was really established within Durham. Durham became one of the centres for Christianity very early on in the 10th and 11th centuries. Of course Northumberland itself had Cuthbert and Bede in the 7th and 8th centuries. So there was a history of the development of Christianity in the North East. As a result of that it was always a centre of pilgrimage and it was also of strategic importance, the King in London wanted to have a strong person in the North to control the region."
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