Durham Cathedral exists specifically because monks would not stop carrying a body around until they found somewhere permanent to put it, and the bishops who eventually ran the place answered to almost no one but the crown.
A relic that kept moving until it stopped here
Monks fleeing Viking raids on Lindisfarne carried the body of Saint Cuthbert with them for an extended period, moving between temporary locations for well over a century before the community finally settled at Durham and built the cathedral specifically to house his shrine permanently. Later openings of the tomb, recorded across several centuries, reported the body as unusually well preserved, a claimed incorruption that reinforced Cuthbert's reputation and drew continued pilgrimage to the site.
Bishops who ruled like princes
Durham's bishops held the unusual title and powers of Prince-Bishops, combining religious authority with substantial civil, judicial and military power over the surrounding region, a arrangement that developed because Durham sat as a buffer territory against Scotland, requiring a degree of independent regional authority uncommon for an English religious office of the period.
As this entry's companion article covers
The cathedral's early use of ribbed vaulting, credited with anticipating architectural techniques that later defined the Gothic style before it developed more fully in France, is addressed directly in this entry's companion article rather than repeated here.