Alfred Westou

He is also documented as having translated the remains of Boisil of Melrose Abbey, as well as numerous northern English minor saints of the 7th and 8th centuries: the anchorites Balther and Bilfrid; Acca, Alchmund and Eata, bishops of Hexham; Oswin, king of Deira; and the abbesses Ebba and Æthelgitha.

[6] The modern theologian and historian Benedicta Ward, in her biography of Bede, describes Alfred as a stern teacher to the cathedral's young novices, and states that he was recorded as being respected by the "honest and God-fearing".

Reginald adds that he frequently opened the coffin to wrap the saint's body in robes, and to trim his fingernails and cut or comb his hair and beard.

[11][21][22] Reginald claims that the two exchanged "familiar speech" at times, stating that Cuthbert gave Alfred detailed instructions on what to do with the various saints' relics he collected.

[23] Calvin B. Kendall has suggested that the story of Alfred tending to the body's hair and nails might have originated in a similar account relating to the Norwegian king and saint Olaf, whose body was said to be tended by his son after his death in 1030; according to Kendall, this story would have been known to Turgot of Durham – the prior of the Durham monastery who oversaw the translation of Cuthbert's remains into the new cathedral in 1104 – as he had previously stayed at the Norwegian court.

[38] Alfred is also traditionally reported to have stolen the bones of the scholar and saint Bede (died 735) from its shrine in Jarrow, and translated them to Durham in secret.

When Cuthbert's coffin was opened a few days before its translation to the Norman cathedral, around half a century after Alfred's death, a little linen bag was discovered, subsequently claimed to contain Bede's bones.

The anonymous author states that Bede's bones were known to have been removed from his original burial place in Jarrow; he names Alfred only indirectly as the person who also translated Boisil's remains.

He considers the tradition of Alfred's secret translation of Bede to be "probably apocryphal", inferring that it was invented to provide provenance for the unidentified bones in the linen bag.

[4] Ward describes it as a "strange story", and draws attention to its close parallels with the medieval "pious theft" literary tradition, a genre that embraces wholly fictional accounts.

[15][47] She notes that the earliest written account of the removal of the bones dates from at least 100 years later, there is no external evidence for Alfred's action, and the attendant secrecy meant that the translation did not fulfil its purpose.