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The Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Eric Mercer
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Extract

The stone crosses at Ruthwell in Dum- friesshire and at Bewcastle in Cumberland are probably the most discussed pieces of sculpture in the British Isles (PLS. XLI-XLII). It is right that they should be, for they have aartistic content that is high by any standards, they wholly outclass any possible contemporaries in Western Europe, and they are among the earliest examples of a notable and long-lasting form of Saxon art. Moreover, they are not only of importance to the art-historian but to the historian as well, for they have qualities that tell us a great deal about the culture, the religious feelings and even the political development of the society that erected them. It is therefore a matter of more than ordinary concern to establish, as firmly as the evidence allows, their date and their origin. All but one of the major critics of the last forty years-J. Br~ndsted, Sir Alfred Clapham, Sir Thomas Kendrick, Mr Lawrence Stone and Mr Ralegh Radford-are agreed that they are of the late 7th century, or at the latest of the first decade of the 8th. Only W. G. Collingwood has proposed a different date, in the mid-late 8th century, and he has had no supporters.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 38 , Issue 152 , December 1964, pp. 268 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1964

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References

Notes

[1] A date of c. 740 for the ‘Acca’ cross from Hexham is possible but far from proven; Kendrick, T. D., Anglo-Saxon Art (1938), 134, n. 1 Google Scholar; Hunter Blair, P., Celt and Saxon (ed. Chadwick, N. K., 1963), 89, n. 2 Google Scholar.

[2] Op. cit., 132.

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[5] Kendrick, 133; Stone, 11–13.

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[7] Op. cit., 11–16.

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[19] Op. cit., 54, 57.

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[23] Op. cit., 12.

[24] The Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses (1957).

[25] antiquity, 1955, 85.

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[31] Op. cit., 16.

[32] Op. cit., 134.

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[35] Op. cit., 11, 11–16.

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[38] Kendrick, 134–6, 143; Stone, 16.

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[42] Bolgar, 109.

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[45] Ibid., 278.

[46] Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd ser., XVI (1953), 1–24 Google Scholar; but see also ibid., 3rd ser., XVIII (1955), 1–18.

[47] The Celtic Church in Scotland (1935); St Ninian & the Origins of Christianity in Scotland (1940).

[48] Simpson, F. G. and Richmond, I. A., Trans. Cumberland & Westmorland Ant. & Arch. Soc., n.s. XXXVI, 1936, 172–82 Google Scholar.

[49] Op. cit., 182; also ibid. n.s., XXXVIII, 1938, 231.

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[51] Ibid., 3rd ser., XXVIII, 1949–50, 82–3; Celt and Saxon (ed. Chadwick, N. K., 1963), 42Google Scholar.

[52] K. Jackson, in antiquity, 9 55, 84.

[53] Op. cit., 104.

[54] Bruce-Mitford, R. L. S., The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (1956), 57Google Scholar.

[55] Warburg and Courtauld Journal, VI, 1943, 18 Google Scholar.