Anglo-Danish Monuments.
The great variety of ornament found in the North Riding Monuments shows that in four centuries many influences were brought to bear upon the sculptors' art, and much curious development went on, of which we may in the future understand the cause.
Our early sculptors, like the early painters, were men trying hard to express their ideals, which we have to understand before we can appreciate their work. The Anglian people included writers and thinkers like Bede and Alcuin, and that their two centuries of independence in the country of which the North Riding was the centre and heart, were two centuries of a civilization which ranked high in the world of that age. The Danish invasion, so lamentable in its earlier years, brought fresh blood and new energies in its train, and up to the Norman Conquest this part of England was rich and flourishing.
In writing the history of its art, part of the material will be found in these monuments.
The material of which these sculptures are made is usually of local stone. They were carved on the spot and not imported ready made.
In the progress of Anglian art we have the development which began with an impulse coming from the north, and ending with influence coming from the south.
The monuments were possibly executed by Anglian sculptors under the control of Danish Conquerors. Even under the early heathen rule of the Danes, Christians worked and lived, and as each succeeding colony of Danes became Christianised, they required gravestones, and Churches to be carved for them.
Following a generation of transition, at the end of the ninth century, monuments are found displaying Danish taste. The close connection of the York kingdom with Dublin, provides a reason for the Irish influence. Abundant evidence is found in the chain pattern, and ring patterns, the dragons, and wheelheads, which are hacked and not finished into a rounded surface by chiselling.
The Brompton hogbacks are among the finest works of this period.
The Stainton bear, and the Wycliffe bear, are also of this period.
The Pickhill hogback has an Irish-Scandavian dragon, and other dragons are to be seen at Gilling, Crathorne, Easington, Levisham, Sinnington, and Pickering.
New influences came from the Midlands into Yorkshire, after the fall of the Dublin-York kingdom, about the year 950. One instance of this advance in the sculptor's art is to be seen in the round shaft, trimmed square above, at Gilling, Stanwick, and Middleton, which came from Mercia, and passed on into Cumberland, where it is to be found at Penrith and Gosforth. These latter have Edda subjects and appear to be late tenth century.
Gilling has a curious device, which may possibly be the völund wing wheel, and völund appears on the Leeds cross, and also at Neston in Cheshire.
The Scandinavian chain pattern, frequent on the stones of the North Riding, and in Cumberland, is entirely absent in manuscripts. There must have been books at Lastingham, Hackness, Gilling, and other great monasteries, but the stone-carvers did not copy them.
Base and Side of the Ormside Cup.
The Ormside cup, on the other hand, has close analogies with the two important monuments at Croft and Northallerton, which seem to be the leading examples of the finest style, from which all the rest evolve, not without influence from abroad at successive periods. It is to relief work rather than to manuscripts that we must look for the inspiration of the sculptors.
In these monuments linked together we can trace the continuation of the Viking age style during the later half of the tenth century and the early part of the eleventh centuries. The stone carver's art was reviving, stones were becoming more massive, which means that they were more skilfully quarried, the cutting is more close and varied, and on its terms the design is more decorative and artistic, though still preserving its northern character among impulses and influences from the south. But there is no room here for the Bewcastle cross or the Hovingham stone. We have an example of this period's attempt to imitate.
It is probable that the stone carving was a traditional business, began by St. Wilfrid's, and Benedict Bishop's imported masons, and carried on in a more or less independent development as it is to-day.
With the Danish invasion began a period of new influences which were not shaken off until after the Norman Conquest.
The interlaced work was abandoned in the tenth century by southern sculptors, remained the national art of the north. The Manx, Irish, and Scotch kept it long after the eleventh century, and so did the Scandinavians.
The Bewcastle cross in the Gigurd shaft of the cross at Halton in Lancashire, and if this development has been rightly described the Halton shaft is easily understood.
In the period covered by the eleventh century dials inscribed with Anglo-Danish names date themselves. Interlacing undergoes new development, becoming more open and angular, until we get right lined plaits like Wensley, it is better cut, as the later part of the century introduces the masons who rebuilt the churches and began the abbeys. No longer was the work hacked but clean chiselled, and intermingled with new grotesques; we find it at Hackness, in the impost, and in the fonts at Alne and Bowes, where we are already past the era of the Norman Conquest.
Anglian work of the simpler forms and earlier types date 700 A.D.
Full development of Anglian art, middle of eighth century to its close.
Anglian work in decline, or in ruder hands, but not yet showing Danish influence, early ninth century.
Transitional, such as Anglian carvers might have made for Danish conquerors, late ninth century.
Anglo-Danish work showing Irish influence, early half of the tenth century.
Anglo-Danish work with Midland influence, later part of tenth and beginning of eleventh century.
Eleventh century, Pre-Norman.
Post-Conquest, developed out of pre Norman art.
Recumbent monuments were grave-slabs, which may have been coffin lids, such as must have fitted the Saxon rock graves at Heysham, Lancashire, while other forms may have simply marked the place under which a burial was made. They are found with Anglian lettering at Wensley, another has been removed from Yarm, and those of the Durham district are well known.
The two stones at Wensley may have been recumbent, like the Melsonby stones. The Spennithorne slab bears crosses of the earlier Northumbrian type, seen again in the West Wilton slab. At Crathorne are two slabs, with "Maltese" crosses apparently late, all the preceding being of the fine style.
Levisham slab has an Irish Scandinavian dragon.
Grave slabs are found of all periods and styles. Shrine-shaped tombs are known in various parts of England, with pre-Viking ornament. (W. S. Collingwood).
[Runes]
[CHAPTER X.]
Runes.
Before dealing with the Norse and Danish antiquities of Lancashire, of which we have some remains in the form of sculptured stones, and ancient crosses, it would be profitable to inquire into the origin and development of that mysterious form of letters known as Runes or Runic. How many of the thousands who annually visit the Isle of Man are aware that the island contains a veritable museum of Runic historical remains? A brief survey of these inscriptions, which have yielded definite results, having been deciphered for us by eminent scholars, will help us to understand the nature of those to be found in our own county.
We are told by Dr. Wägner that Runes were mysterious signs. The word Rune is derived from rûna, a secret. The form of the writing would appear to be copied from the alphabet of the Phoenicians. The Runes were looked upon, for many reasons, as full of mystery and supernatural power. In the fourth century Ulphilas made a new alphabet for the Goths by uniting the form of the Greek letters to the Runic alphabet, consisting of twenty-five letters, which was nearly related to that of the Anglo-Saxons. The Runes gradually died out as Christianity spread, and the Roman alphabet was introduced in the place of the old Germanic letters. The Runes appear to have served less as a mode of writing than as a help to memory, and were principally used to note down a train of thought, to preserve wise sayings and prophecies, and the remembrance of particular deeds and memorable occurrences.
Tacitus informs us that it was the custom to cut beech twigs into small pieces, and then throw them on a cloth, which had been previously spread out for the purpose, and afterwards to read future events by means of the signs accidentally formed by the bits of wood as they lay in the cloth.
In his catalogue of Runic inscriptions found on Manx crosses, Kermode says that "of the sculptors' names which appear all are Norse. Out of a total of forty-four names, to whom these crosses were erected, thirty-two are those of men, eight of women, and four are nicknames. Of men, nineteen names are Norse, nine Celtic, three doubtful, and one Pictish." This proves the predominance of Norse and Danish chiefs to whom these monuments were erected. Runes are simply the characters in which these inscriptions are carved, and have nothing to do with the language, which in the Manx inscriptions is Scandinavian of the 12th Century.
To speak of a stone which bears an inscription in Runes as a Runic stone is as though we should call a modern tombstone a Roman stone because the inscription is carved in Roman capitals. Canon Taylor traces the origin of Runes to a Greek source, namely, the Thracian or second Ionian alphabet, which, through the intercourse of the Greek colonists at the mouth of the Danube with the Goths south of the Baltic, was introduced in a modified form into Northern Europe, and had become established as a Runic "Futhork" as early as the Christian era. The main stages of development are classified by Canon Taylor as the Gothic, the Anglican, and the Scandinavian.
The Rune consists of a stem with the twigs or letters falling from left or right. This is the most common form to be found, allowing for difference of workmanship, of material, and space. The progress in the development of the Rune may be observed from the most simple plait or twist, to the most complex and beautiful geometric, and to the zoomorphic. The latter has the striking features of birds and beasts of the chase, and also of men, many being realistic; and except the latter are well drawn. The forms of the men are sometimes found with heads of birds or wings. In addition to decorative work we find on three of the cross slabs illustrations from the old Norse sagas. On a large cross at Braddan is a representation of Daniel in the lion's den; and at Bride, on a slab, is a mediæval carving of the fall of Adam, in which the serpent is absent. Both Pagan and Christian emblems derive their ornamentation from the same source, "basket work."
Long after the introduction of Christianity we find the Pagan symbols mixed up in strange devices on the same stones, which were erected as Christian monuments. In the "Lady of the Lake," Sir Walter Scott gives an account of the famous fiery cross formed of twigs.
"The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,
A slender crosslet framed with care,
A cubit's length in measure due;
The shaft and limbs were rods of yew."
"The cross, thus formed, he held on high,
With wasted hand and haggard eye."
Basketmaking is the parent of all modern textile art, and no other industry is so independent of tools. It is the humble parent of the modern production of the loom, and the most elaborate cloth is but the development of the simple wattle work of rude savages. Plaiting rushes is still the earliest amusement of children, the patterns of which are sometimes identical with the designs engraved by our earliest ancestors on their sculptured stones. Interlaced ornament is to be met with on ancient stones and crosses all over our islands. Ancient pottery also shows that the earliest form of ornament was taken from basket designs.
The Lough Derg pilgrim sought a cross made of interwoven twigs, standing upon a heap of stones, at the east end of an old church. This was known as St. Patrick's Altar. This is recorded by a certain Lord Dillon in 1630, who visited the island known as St. Patrick's Purgatory on the Lough Derg, in Ireland. The wicker cross retained its grasp upon the superstitious feelings of the people after the suppression at the Reformation. He says of this miserable little islet that the tenant paid a yearly rent of £300, derived from a small toll of sixpence charged at the ferry. This was probably the last of the innumerable crosses of the same wicker and twigs. (Lieut.-Col. French, Bolton.)