The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture is a monumental undertaking, with each volume revealing new material, bringing new insights and, to a greater or lesser extent, allowing us to rewrite the histories of the areas covered. This volume on Derbyshire and Staffordshire is no exception. Covering an area that was divided between Mercian and Danish control, we might expect it to reveal some of the differences between the two cultures and this is immediately clear in the division of the sculpture into three primary regional groups: the Trent Valley and Peak groups in Mercian territory, and the Pennine Fringes groups in the areas of Scandinavian settlement. However, the volume also reveals the depth of difference between the two regions and periods covered as well as, interestingly, some subtle overlaps in the form, function and imagery of the sculpture. What also comes through, even though not addressed in a dedicated essay, is the number of influential women associated with some of the religious and secular centres of sculptural production. There is Æthelflæd, of course, but also Abbess Ælfthryth and her successors at Repton – Wulfrun of Wolverhampton and Werburgh, daughter of Wulfhere of Mercia, among them.

The catalogue of individual sites and monuments is preceded by excellent background essays introducing the historical study of Anglo-Saxon sculpture in the area (Hawkes), regional geology (C Roger Bristow), topography and the regional distribution of the sculpture (Sidebottom), the historical background (Barbara Yorke and Sidebottom), the Repton sculptures (Martin Biddle), the Anglian period sculpture (Hawkes), the Scandinavian period sculpture (Sidebottom) and general conclusions (Hawkes and Sidebottom). The essays reveal that the vast majority of the sculpture that survives is from the Scandinavian period and from Derbyshire, and that distribution is uneven with very few monuments in southern Staffordshire and distinct regional groupings in both counties. During the Anglian period, production was centred at a limited number of sites in the Peak District and along the Trent Valley and included iconographically complex and stylistically sophisticated figural scenes, suggesting the presence of influential ecclesiastical networks that looked to early Christian art of the fifth and sixth centuries, especially the art of Rome. In the Scandinavian period figural imagery was rare, with much of what survives consisting of warrior imagery, and abstract, geometric and animal ornament predominated. There are clear regional and sub-regional groupings based on shared forms and motifs, but while these shared forms and motifs may have carried specific meanings, we are no longer able to identify them (p 88).

There are a few typos and other minor errors, and I do have a few quibbles. For example, it is quite rightly stated that some of the scenes found on the Anglian sculptures are not attested elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon art (p 81), but surely what is meant here must be art of the Anglian period as some of the scenes listed, like the Harrowing of Hell, do appear in Anglo-Saxon art of the eleventh century. It is possible to question the accuracy and complexity of some of the reconstructions, most notably the monumental free-standing stone cross, Repton 1, which is based on the taper of the single, relatively small, fragment that survives, the famous Repton stone. More generally, there is a distinct imbalance between the amount of attention devoted to those monuments that include scriptural or Christian imagery, especially the Anglian period monuments, and those that do not. To a certain extent this is understandable, as there are textual sources to which we can turn to tease out what the individual scenes, and the larger narratives of which they are a part, might have meant, but this could have been balanced by more attention to what meanings might have been conveyed, if only in terms of regional networks, by the non-figural or iconographically less complex imagery of the Scandinavian period. And finally, it would have been helpful to have included photographs that allow the reader to get a sense of the architectural context of some of the fragments reused in later church structures such as Aston-on Trent 1 or Darley Dale 4. If, as is suggested for Aston-on-Trent 1, the fact that there was no attempt to hide the fragment in the structure so that its visibility seems to have been important, then a sense of just how visible it is, to whom and from what angle becomes potentially important.

These are, however, minor quibbles. Derbyshire and Staffordshire is an enormously rich and rewarding collection of essays and catalogue of sculpture. The authors and the Corpus team are to be congratulated on a volume that will certainly add significantly to our knowledge of both Anglo-Saxon art and the culture and history of the region covered.