opinions as to the Date of the Crosses 219 



In 1840, J. M. Kemble^ held the view that the dialect of the poetic 

 , fragments on the Ruthwell Cross was ' that of Northumberland in 

 the seventh, eighth, and even ninth centuries.' 



From the year 1856 opinion entered on a new phase, and the con- 

 jectures of two or three men led to an assignment of the crosses to 

 the 7th century ; but in later years dissent from this view has been 

 constantty gromng. Chronologically arranged, the chief expressions 

 of opinion have been as follows. 



1856. Daniel H. Haigh's version of the principal inscription on 

 the Bewcastle Cross was presented by Dr. Charlton at the January 

 meeting of the Society of Antiquarians of Newcastle-on-Tyne.^ 

 Haigh believed the Bewcastle Cross was erected in memory of Ale- 

 frith, and that it was to be assigned to about 665 A. D.^ Because 

 of the resemblance of the Ruthwell to the Bewcastle Cross, he postu- 

 lated for the former a date in the same century, and was thus led to 

 attribute the fragments of The Dream of the Rood on the Ruthwell 

 Cross to Caedmon.^ 



1857. John Maughan read the word Alcfrid on the Bewcastle 

 Cross,^ and therefore referred the cross to about 670.^ 



1861. Daniel H. Haigh' thought that the Ruthwell Cross might 

 ' possibly ha^^e been brought from Bewcastle, and once have stood 



show that runes were employed by the Norsemen after their conversion 

 to Christianity (runas afud Septentrionales gentes, post receptam ab Us Christ- 

 ianam religionem, in usu aliquandiu fuisse). In 1726 Gordon {Itinerarium 

 Septentrionale. pp. 159, 160) quotes with approval Nicolson's opinion that 

 our runic inscriptions are Danish (cf. Chalmers, Caledonia, 1890, 5. 62). 

 Chalmers, in 1824, says (referring to Pennant's Totir 3. 85-6) : ' It cannot 

 be older, if so old, as the ninth century, though tradition is silent about 

 the time and the cause of its erection ' {ibid.) ; elsewhere he says (2. 467) 

 that it ' may possibly have been erected by some of the followers of Halfden 

 the Dane [ca. 875].' 



With reference to the Bewcastle Cross, Bishop Xicolson, in his famous 

 letter to Obadiah Walker (1685), thought it a work of the Danes; and in 

 1742 George Smith {Gent. Mag. for 1742, p. 369), said : ' None beUeve the 

 ObeMsk to be older than 900.' He also thought it Danish. 



^ Archceologla 28. 357. 



- Maughan, Memoir on the Roman Station and Runic Cross at Bewcastle, 

 London, 1857, p. 31. 



3 Ibid., p. 25. 



* See my edition of The Dream of the Rood, pp. xi, xii ; and cf. p. 41, 

 below. 



^ See p. 41, below. ^ Memoir, p. 27. 



' The Conquest of Britain by the Saxons, p. 37. 



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