Northumbrian crosses of the pre-Norman age / by W.G. Collingwood.

  • W. G. Collingwood
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Northumbrian crosses of the pre-Norman age / by W.G. Collingwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pillow-stones. From these he goes on (Plate VII and following) to a great variety of small headstones and slabs, some of which have ‘ Celtic ’ crosses, some of Anglian form; they might range from the ninth to the eleventh century. And in Wales we find a round-topped headstone with a wheel-cross, at Nefyn (Westwood, ‘Lapidarium Walliae’, plate 83), and a little slab at Merthyr Mawr {ibid, plate 29) very like the Birtley stone without its inscription. Westwood assigns this to the twelfth century; the second stone {ibid. Fig. 4) at the same place is certainly late as indicated by its plaits. This short review suggests that small slabs, pillow-stones and head-stones, varying in local style, were usual over a wide area; and in general they run on from pre-Danish times through the Viking Age to the twelfth cen¬ tury. Their simpler forms were a cheap kind of stone monument, but perhaps out of this type was evolved the ampler grave-cover. In North¬ umbria we find a number of exam¬ ples, and can argue to more. For in¬ stance, the rock-cut graves at Hey- sham, near Lancaster, of course had figure 19 covers, and they are late tenth to early eleventh century, because the chapel of St Patrick which stands near them must be the tenth century building of a Christian Northman from Ireland.* The larger cross-slabs at Jarrow and Monkwearmouth (Fig. 19) are in bold relief, unsuited to lying flat; they would catch the dirt in their hollows, their relief would be abraded, and they would soon be defaced. They may have been upright headstones, but the question is not important for our present purpose. They are figured here to show the shapes of their crosses, ranging them with the smaller slabs we have already examined. Bishop Browne has remarked that the name of Hereberecht has been added to a readymade stone (‘ Notes on . . . Monkwearmouth’, 12); and this means that the type was common and that the ‘Celtic’ cross was in use in Northumbria at Anglian sites and with Anglian inscriptions. And as the tall crosses which we have yet to dis¬ cuss were certainly contemporary, but show no such ‘ Celtic ’ shapes, it follows that Jn rrow Monkwearmouth. *The history of Heysham is shortly this: an Anglian wooden church of the eighth or ninth century to St Peter, with the ninth century stone. This church being decayed, Norse settlers from Ireland in the tenth century built, with local Anglian help, the chapel to St Patrick, and cut these rock-graves, also the hogback in the eleventh century. A stone church to St Peter on the old site was built before 1094, when it is mentioned; and rebuilt in the twelfth century. The fancies about St Patrick’s visit need not be taken seriously.
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