The Bishops of Durham were no ordinary bishops. Until 1836, they were Prince Bishops, Counts Palatine. Nearly all the powers the king had elsewhere here belonged to the bishop. He had his own parliament (Durham sent no representatives to London), his own coinage and his own armed forces; he had the power of capital punishment. All mines belonged to him. The symbols of this power were the sword of state crossed with the bishop's crook, with the coroneted mitre above. To this day, with London and Winchester, (the capitals of England) he ranks above all other bishops, and at coronations he stands at the right hand of the monarch. Westgate and Eastgate in Weardale marked the boundaries of the Bishop of Durham's deer park (there is also a deserted farmstead at Northgate). This was the second largest in England after the royal park in the New Forest.

The cathedral was begun in 1093, under Bishop William of St Calais, and among those present was King Malcolm III Canmore of Scotland (Macbeth's slayer), soon to be killed himself at Alnwick Castle. The east parts were completed and the nave begun under Bishop Flambard (1099-1128). The cathedral is the first building in England to be vaulted throughout and probably the first in Europe to have been rib-vaulted. This magnificent building combines grandeur and power with such mastery of scale and proportion that the final effect is noble and harmonious. In a 1986 poll in the Illustrated London News, Durham was voted the greatest building in the world, well ahead of the Taj Mahal. Together with the adjoining castle, one of the most complete Norman strongholds in the country, the acropolis at Durham is one of the original nine UNESCO World Heritage sites in Britain. 'With the cathedral of Durham, we reach the incomparable masterpiece of Romanesque architecture not only in England, but anywhere. The moment of entering provides for an architectural experience never to be forgotten: one of the greatest that England has to offer.' So says Alec Clifton-Taylor, presenter of the 'English Towns' television series, while the great authority, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner states:

'Durham is one of the great experiences of Europe to the eyes of those who appreciate architecture, and to the minds of those who appreciate architecture. The group of cathedral, castle and rock can only be compared to Avignon and Prague...'

The long list of Durham's admirers includes Samuel Johnson, Walter Scott and John Ruskin, who thought the ensemble of river, cathedral and castle at Durham to be one of the wonders of the world.
Durham Cathedral contains the tombs of St Cuthbert and St Bede. It also has valuable manuscripts and the oldest piece of needlework in England - the stole and maniple presented to St Cuthbert's shrine by King Athelstan in AD 934. The Lindisfarne Gospels of AD 698, surpassed in grandeur only by the Irish Book of Kells, were taken from the Abbey of Durham by Henry VIII; they are now one of the greatest treasures of the British Museum. Since 1832, the bishops have resided at Auckland castle, a favourite retreat for them since the twelfth century. Bishop de Puiset's great hall at Auckland Castle with its arches and pillars of Frosterley marble is the most beautiful work of the late twelfth century in County Durham. In addition, historians owe a great debt to the bishop for the compilation known as the Boldon Book (1183). The celebrated Domesday Book, quite probably the work of a Durham monk, had stopped short at the Tees. The Boldon Book gives an invaluable insight into the Palatinate of that period.

Bishop Antony Bek, famous for his magnificent retinue, led the second line of Edward I's army with thirty-nine banners and received John Balliol's submission in the castle of Brechin in 1296.. Thomas Dibdin called him the EPISCOPAL BONAPARTE of his time. Later bishops made additions to the castle and cathedral; indeed Bishop Hatfield, who fought at Crecy, provided the prince Bishops with the highest throne in Christendom. A celebrated scholar and statesman to have occupied the bishopric (1530-59) was Cuthbert Tunstall, the friend of Erasmus and Thomas More. Tunstall was also the great-uncle and protector of the saintly Bernard Gilpin (q.v.), the Apostle of the North'.
It was in Tunstall's time that the idea for a college at Durham was first mooted - a project revived in the next century. Things moved slowly and in 1659, the vice-chancellor of Oxford made representations against the creation of a possible rival. The university only came into being in 1832. Student accommodation in the Bishops' Palace is older than any student accommodation in Europe. Durham College at Oxford, to which Durham students were sent between c 1326 and 1544, became Trinity, making the third great Oxford College to owe its origins to Durham - University College had sprung from an endowment by William, of Durham, rector of Wearmouth in 1249, and Balliol, founded as a penance by the widow of John Balliol of Barnard Castle. Brasenose College was also a North Country College. The bronze sanctuary knocker which gave the college its name was retrieved from Stamford, Lincs whither it had been taken by northern students in 1330 following persecution by Oxford's southerners. The Queen's College offered places to scholars from Cumberland specifically and other northern counties until late in the 20th century. Corpus Christi College was founded by Richard Fox (q.v.) in 1517. Fox had become became Bishop of Durham in 1494, and worked as an able diplomat and envoy to Scotland for Henry VII.

John Cosin became Bishop of Durham in 1660 and his remarkable energy and determination to beautify the churches of Durham resulted in screens, stalls and pews of astonishing richness, in a style unique to the county. Apart from the cathedral itself, with its stalls and gorgeous font canopy forty feet high and nine wide, the most sumptuous displays are at Sedgefield, and Auckland Castle. The wonderful work at Brancepeth has been tragically destroyed by a recent fire. The famous Black Staircase in Durham Castle is one of the finest of its time in the country. Elsewhere in the diocese, we owe the idyllic village of Blanchland to the trustees of Nathaniel, Lord Crewe, another eminent bishop (1674-1721).
Not all figures connected with the cathedral have been constructive. During the Harrying of the North by the Normans, Bishop Odo of Bayeux carried off some of the ornaments at Durham, including a pastoral staff 'of miraculous material and workmanship, for it was made of sapphire'. Henry VIII's commissioners stripped the cathedral of much that remained, and indeed stripped the bishops of much of their power. Almost all Durham's glass was destroyed by its prelate, Robert Horne of Winchester between the years 1547-53 and the banner of St Cuthbert, borne into battle at Neville's Cross (1346) and Flodden (1513) was burnt by the wife of the puritan Dean Whittingham (1563-78) in her kitchen fire. Whittingham 'could not abyde anye auncyent monumentes, nor nothing that apperteyned to any godlie Religiousnes or monastical liffe.' He was, however, the principal author of the great Geneva or Breeches Bible, the Bible of Shakespeare.

The lead mines of Weardale made Stanhope a rich living and no fewer than eight rectors have gone on to be bishops of Durham, including the celebrated Dr Butler (1750-52). He was one of many notable scholars and theologians to have occupied the bishopric. Others, in the nineteenth century included Joseph Barber Lightfoot. with his work on early Christian history and his commentaries on St Paul's Epistles, and Brooke Foss Westcott, who wrote a life of Barber, and was famous in his own right for his recension , with F.J. Hort of the Greek text of the New Testament (1871)
At Neasham Ford, and later at Croft Bridge, the Prince Bishops of Durham used to enter the diocese on their appointment and be presented with the Conyers falchion (a type of sword) by the Lord of Sockburn, with these words: ' My Lord Bishop, I here present you with the falchion wherewith the champion Conyers slew the worm, dragon or flying fiery serpent which destroyed man, woman and child; in memory of which, the king then reigning gave him the manor of Sockburn, to hold by this tenure, that upon the first entrance of every bishop into the county, the falchion should be presented.' Bishop Van Mildert was the last to receive the falchion, but the custom has now been revived. The falchion may be seen in the cathedral museum. Bishop Van Mildert donated the castle for the use of Durham university on its foundation in 1832.

Modern bishops of Durham have been no strangers to controversy within the church and outside. The witty and forthright Hensley Henson (1920-39) was alarmed at the evidences of popular discontent as expressed in the hunger marches of the '30s. He and Ellen Wilkinson argued for and against marching from apparently violently opposite points of view. An examination of their letters, however, shows that they were both afraid of the same thing - the end of liberty. No one seems to have felt that the bishop should have kept quiet on a political issue. This, however, was a frequently heard reaction to Bishop Jenkins' opinions, expressed as forcefully as Henson's, but from a different point on the political compass.
The suppression of the monasteries, and northern opposition to the Tudor monarchs' religious policy in Tunstall's time ended the great power of the bishops of Durham. The great tradition of scholarship has continued, however, and whether or not it is the consciousness of the ancient heritage of the Prince Bishops, it remains the fact that when the Bishop of Durham speaks, he is heard.