Durham Cathedral Priory and dependent bodies before the dissolution of the priory in 1539

In 1083 the bishop of Durham, William of St Calais, founded a Benedictine monastery at Durham, on the site where, in 995, the community of St Cuthbert had established itself, after a period of moving around northern England with Cuthbert's body after the community's departure from the monastery at Lindisfarne in 875. The shrine of St Cuthbert became the focus of the present cathedral, begun in 1093, and much of the status and power which the Durham priory acquired was founded on the saint's reputation. Extensive gifts of land in the region formed a major endowment for the monastery, and it is the maintenance and augmentation of this estate, the position held by the senior monks in the region, and the obligations this placed upon them, that are reflected in the muniments. The care with which these have been preserved reflects the value accorded to them as records not just of the land holdings of the institution, but of the rights and privileges which, once acquired, it guarded jealously.

As well as its extensive lands, the priory acquired the advowsons of numerous churches scattered over an area from the Scottish borders down into Lincolnshire. Through the entitlement to tithes, these spiritualities provided a substantial income. To the income from its lands and its church livings, the priory could also add the profits of the prior's secular and spiritual courts, some pensions, and some income from the sale of surplus produce, livestock, timber and coal. By the early sixteenth century Durham was among the three richest cathedral priories in England. After the loss of Coldingham priory, north of Berwick, in 1462, it had eight dependent cells: the priory of Holy Island and small cell of Farne off the Northumberland coast, the small houses of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth in the north-east of Co. Durham, Finchale priory near Durham, Lytham priory on the Lancashire coast, and Saint Leonard's priory near Stamford in southern Lincolnshire. To these it added its own college - Durham College - at Oxford.

The institution remained a Benedictine priory until 31 December 1539, when it surrendered to Henry VIII, who re-established it as a cathedral administered by a chapter, comprising a dean and twelve canons, which came into formal existence on 12 May 1541; the great majority of the estates belonging to the former monastery were granted to the new body. During the Commonwealth the cathedral chapter was abolished, much of the land was sold off, and the cathedral building was used for a time to hold Scottish prisoners of war; virtually no records survive from this period. After the Restoration in 1660 the cathedral chapter was reinstated, and the estates were reacquired. This situation was maintained until the nineteenth century, by which time Durham's wealth had become proverbial, and a prime target for the advocates of church reform. Some of the chapter's resources were used to found the University of Durham in 1832, but it was the Ecclesiastical Commissioners who effected the most profound changes.

First, in 1840, statutory provision was made to reduce the number of canons, and the estates with which the deanery and canonries were individually endowed were transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. This left untouched the estates with which the chapter was corporately endowed, but in 1868 the bulk of the chapter's land holdings were taken over by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who removed many estate records to London. As these cease to be relevant to current administration they are returned to Durham, and the returned material now forms the separate Church Commission Dean and Chapter deposit.