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sion of sinners. But the meaning is still a matter of conjecture.

The Evangelists were held in high honor at this period, and on several of the crosses they are portrayed in their symbolical characters as part man and part animal. These symbolical beasts grow out of the descriptions in the visions of Ezekiel and of the Apocalypse, and first appear in Christian art in the fifth century. It is a curious fact, by the way, that while these symbols of the Evangelists appear in almost all the Celtic manuscripts of the Gospels, they do not appear on any of the crosses of Ireland or Wales.

There is a figure upon the Halton Cross that is unique, and has apparently not the least mystical significance. It is a blacksmith working at his forge, with the tools of his trade depicted all about him. On the crosses at Leeds, Dumfallandy in Perthshire, and Kirkholm in Wigtonshire, there are smith's tools introduced in the ornament. It is not unlikely that these served to show the trade of the deceased person to whom the memorial cross was erected. This custom of carving the tools of the trade upon the tomb or coffinstone goes back to the vaults of the Catacombs, but in England it is not till the Norman period that the custom became at all general.

In addition to the types of picture already mentioned, there are figures of men and women, birds, trees, and animals, the significance of most of which it is difficult to conjecture; these are impossible to classify. Many of them seem to depict scenes of pagan myth intermixed with the Christian, a class which will be reserved for discussion later.

4. The Date of the Interlaced Crosses

Mr. J. R. Allen, from whom we have already quoted much, has, in his discussion of the age of the Ilkley Crosses, reviewed such evidence concerning the interlaced crosses

1 Brit. Arch. Journ. 42. 343.

2 Ibid., p. 336.

3

Brit. Arch. Journ. 46. 341.

of Great Britain and Ireland as gives any clue to their age, and arranged them according to the centuries in which they belong.

According to this table, five crosses belong to the seventh century, three to the eighth, while to the ninth belong all the crosses of the Isle of Man, two English crosses, two Scotch, and several Irish. To the tenth century he ascribes most of the Irish crosses, and to the eleventh and twelfth a few unimportant Irish crosses and slabs.

But this geometrical interlaced ornament, as we have already seen, was Irish in its origin, or at least it was so developed in Ireland as to gain a thoroughly national character. Then it was communicated to the Anglo-Saxons by Irish artists. It was used at first for manuscript decoration, and reached its perfection about the end of the seventh century in such work as that of the Lindisfarne Gospels. But the earliest dated stone in Ireland that bears any ornament whatever of this sort, is the tombstone of an abbot of Clonmacnois, who died in 806.1 This has a single Greek fret around the cross. In Celtic metal-work there is no trace of this ornament before the ninth century, and the famous high crosses of Ireland, the best specimens of this kind of art, belong, undoubtedly, to the tenth.*

It seems strange, therefore, since Ireland was the teacher of England in these arts of ornament, that England should possess ornate crosses in the seventh century, covered with highly elaborated Celtic ornament, when Ireland herself had no trace of anything of the sort, either in stone or metalwork, before the ninth century, while her best specimens belong to a period a full century later.

Upon examining the evidence for the dating of the seventh and eighth century crosses in this list, we find that it is based entirely upon the reading of a name upon the cross. Granted, first, that the reading is correct (which in con

1 Brit. Arch. Journ. 41. 334.

2 Ibid., p. 336.

spicuous examples, as we shall see, it is not), the archæologist continues with two other assumptions: first, that this name refers to a person of the same, or more often, of a similar name known in history; and, secondly, that this cross must have been erected immediately after that person's death.

In dating these crosses, Allen follows respectfully, though doubtfully, the readings and conjectures of Stephens and Haigh. But unfortunately these placed two of the most elaborate and finished specimens in the seventh century, namely, the Bewcastle Cross and the Ruthwell Cross. Upon the latter, Stephens read the inscription in runes, Caedmon me fawed, which he interpreted ‘Cædmon made me;' hence he assigned the cross to the time of Cadmon the poet. On the former he read, ‘In the first year of the king of this realm Ecgfrith;' hence he set for it the date 670.1

But Professor Cook, having made an investigation of the verses inscribed on the Ruthwell Cross from the standpoint of meaning, metre, diction, and phonology, reaches the conclusion that they must be a quotation from the eighth-century poem, The Dream of the Rood, and gives the entire matter of date its final word in his concluding paragraph:

On the basis of this phonological examination we have found that, while the general aspect of the inscription has led many persons to refer it to an early period, it lacks some of the marks of antiquity; every real mark of antiquity can be paralleled from the latest documents. . . . We shall not hesitate, I believe, to assume that the Ruthwell Inscription is at least as late as the tenth century. If now we seek the opinion of an expert, Sophus Müller, on the ornamentation, . . . we shall find it to this effect: “The Ruthwell Cross must be posterior to the year 800, and in fact to the Carlovingian Renaissance, on account of its decorative features. The free foliage and flower-work, and the dragons or monsters with two forelegs, wings, and serpents' tails, induce him to believe that it could scarcely have been sculptured much before 1000 A. D." Vietor has at length

...

1It may be remarked that Haigh made out a very different reading. Archeol. Eliana, q. S. Bugge, p. 93, note.

proved that the Caedmon me fawed of Stephens' fantasy is nonexistent, and we are free to accept a conclusion to which archæology, linguistics, and literary scholarship alike impel.1

The Bewcastle Cross is beyond question a product of the same period as the Ruthwell, so that this also may be removed from the seventh to the end of the tenth century. With these may be grouped the Gosforth Cross also, on account of its shape, size, and ornament. This, too, Stephens pronounced to be 'probably of seventh century date,' no doubt because it evidently belonged to the type of the Ruthwell Cross.

It is of the most importance that, instead of depending upon fancy and guesswork, we can determine with good reason the approximate date of an important cross like the Ruthwell: With this we can group others which have the same characteristics, and thus assign the close of the tenth century as an approximate date for the height of the development of the cross-monument in England. This tallies well with what we know of the cross-monument in Ireland.

There are two other guides. First, as stated above, the scroll-and-foliage-element was derived from Frankish artists, who developed this style in the 'Carolingian Renaissance.' Secondly, the pictorial element (with the characteristic interlaced dragons or serpents) is a product of Scandinavian influence, and dates from the settlement and conversion of the Danes. These will help a great deal in determining the probable age of stones which bear no inscriptions whatever.

We have already disposed of the two most notable crosses which have been assigned to the seventh century. Let us examine the evidence for assigning other interlaced crosses to a period preceding the ninth century, when, as already noted, the interlaced ornament makes its first appearance on stone in Ireland.

16

'Notes on the Ruthwell Cross,' Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. of America, Vol. 17, No. 3.

2 Bugge, p. 493.

3

Calverley, p. 138.

4

Westwood, Introd. v-ix; also Arch. Journ. 10. 278 ff.

The four remaining crosses which Mr. Allen assigns to the seventh century are these, denoted by the locality in which they are found. All four are in England: one at Collingham, dated circa 651; Beckermet, 664; Yarm, 681; Hawkeswell, 690.

Of the Collingham Cross, Allen says, it is 'inscribed in runes to the memory of King Oswini, who was ruler of the Deira in 651.' Here he follows Stephens,' who makes it out: .. Aeftar Onswini, cu and refers it to the King Oswini mentioned above. Anything deciphered by Stephens from a practically illegible inscription may be suspected after his reading of the Ruthwell Cross, to say nothing of the assumption of the king in question. But in this case the cross as depicted by Stephens has both the marks of a late date already mentioned, for the scroll-work and interlaced dragons are conspicuous in its ornament at the expense of the earlier, purely geometric design. It is certain, at all events, that this cross is not earlier than the ninth century.

At Beckermet are two shafts of crosses, one of which,' continues Mr. Allen, 'bears an inscription showing that it marks the grave of Bishop Tuda. Bede mentions that Tuda, Bishop of Northumbria, died of the plague in A. D. 664. . . . This cross is, therefore, probably one of the seventh century.' This reading was given by Rev. D. H. Haigh, whom Stephens calls the 'learned Mr. Haigh,'' an archæologist who could read on the Collingham Cross, for example, eight lines of inscription, where even Stephens himself could make out only the two words we have already quoted. According to Mr. Haigh, the inscription on the Beckermet cross reads as follows (translated):

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