this increase of the Scandinavian element in the population we may probably attribute the peace and prosperity which prevailed during the time of Olaf, King of Mann. All the conditions point to his long reign, 1103-1153 A.D., as a period favourable to the erection of some of the more costly crosses on the Island. In 1154, after his death, the connection with Norway was drawn closer by the subjection of the Manx bishopric to the archepiscopal see of Drontheim. The invasion of the Scots in 1228, which reduced a large part of the Island almost to a wilderness,* the subsequent decline of the Norwegian power, and the final cession of the Island to Alexander III. of Scotland in 1266, after the battle of Largs, in which many of the Manx chiefs of Scandinavian lineage perished, are events which point to the first half of the 13th century as the probable limit of the period to which the runic monuments may reasonably be attributed. On historical grounds, therefore, we may assign the runic inscriptions in the Isle of Mann to the two centuries of Scandinavian Christianity and Norwegian power, from about 1050 to 1250. It would also be reasonable to suppose that the crosses with Celtic names and pure Irish ornament belong to the earlier part of this period, during which the influence of the ancient Celtic art and of the Celtic population continued to be strong; while the crosses with Norse names and Scandinavian ornament may be referred to a later time. after the Scandinavian element had been strengthened by the influx of fresh Norwegian settlers about the year 1100, and by the ecclesiastical union with Norway which took place in 1154. We have now to examine how far these historical inferences are borne out by the internal evidence furnished by the monuments themselves, that is, by the artistic quality of the ornament, and by the contents, the dialect, the palæography of the inscriptions. We may deal first with the artistic style displayed in the ornamentation of the crosses. A few are of unmistakably Irish character, a few are as markedly "Chronicon Manniæ," p. 90. |