218 Introduction 



in a comparatively infertile region/ remote from centres of population, 

 on nearly the same parallel of latitude (Ruthwell, 54^ 59' 40" ; Bew- 

 castle^, 55° 4'), and certainly within 30 miles of each other. 



It is especially to be noted that modern writers are practically 

 unanimous in assuming that they belong to the same period and 

 school. Postulating this, we have only one problem to solve in our 

 attempt to date the two crosses. 



If they are not the work of the same artist, they are certainly of 

 the same school.^ 



Ruthwell and. Bewcastle are of the same school. . . . Their re- 

 semblances give them a place together far above other high crosses 

 in our district or around it.* 



To the same period the Ruthwell cross must be assigned, for there 

 cannot be the least doubt that they are the product of the same work- 

 shop, even if they did not come from the hands of the same artist.^ 



At Ruthwell, some five and twenty miles distant, is a cross of such 

 similar make and sculpture, that it must be similarly dated.® 



II. OPINIONS AS TO THE DATE OF THE CROSSES 



Earlier students were inclined to consider both the RuthweU and 

 Bewcastle crosses as Danish, and therefore to assign them to a com- 

 paratively late period.'^ 



1 See p. 148. 



2 Long. 2040, W. Some maps give the name of the village as Shopford. 

 ^ J. R. Allen, Monumental History of the Early British Church, p. 208. 



Similarly Rivoira, Burlington Magazine, April, 1912, p. 24. 



* CoUingwood, Notes on the Early Sculptured Crosses, Shrines and Monu- 

 ments in the Present Diocese of Carlisle, p. 43. 



^ Greenwell, Catalogue of the Sculptrcred and Inscribed Stories of the Cathe- 

 dral Library, Durham,, p. 46. 



^ Prior and Gardner, ' Mediaeval Figure- Sculpture in England,' Archi- 

 tectural Review, July, 1902, p. 7. 



' Thus of the Ruthwell Cross Nicolson says in 1697 (see my ' Notes on 

 the Ru.thwell Cross,' P^lb. Mod. Lang. Assoc, of America 17. 370) : ' The 

 former [the Latin inscriptions] are exactly in the same character with these 

 Gospels [a Latin MS. referred to] : which (I confess) I judged to be later 

 than the tenth century.' Hickes, on p. 5 of the Icelandic Grammar pub- 

 lished in 1703 as Part III of his Thesaurus, speaks of a motive for pubhshing 

 the first plates of the runic inscriptions at RuthAveU to be that he might 



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