Durham, also known as De situ Dunelmi, Carmen de situ Dunelmi[1] or De situ Dunelmi et de sanctorum reliquiis quae ibidem continentur carmen compositum,[2] is an anonymous late Old English short poem about the English city of Durham and its relics, which might commemorate the translation of Cuthbert's relics to Durham Cathedral in 1104. Known from the late 12th-century manuscript, Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1. 27, Durham has been described both as "the last extant poem written in traditional alliterative Old English metrical verse"[3] and as being placed "so conveniently on the customary divide between Old and Middle English that the line can be drawn right down the middle of the poem."[nb 1] Scholars have dated the poem either to the twelfth century or to some point in the second half of the eleventh century.
Durham is often considered to be a rare Old English example of the genre of encomium urbis, or urban eulogy, and has also been described as elegiac poetry, a riddle and an occasional poem.
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