opinions as to the Date of the Crosses 223 



centuries apart in date.' He also maintained that the dialect of the 

 poetic fragments on the Ruthwell Cross is ' considerably earlier 

 than that of the gloss on the Lindisfarne Gospels ' ; he was there- 

 fore in favor of assigning it ' to the eighth century at latest.' 



1889. Sophus Bugge^ repudiated Stephens' rendering, Ccedmon 

 made me, of words which he professed to have found on the Ruthwell 

 Cross, and proposed to read : GODMON MiEFAE/o^I^O. He agreed 

 with Sweet regarding the date of the cross, however, and rejected 

 Miiller's late date of ca. 1000. 



1889. John Romilly Allen ^ said: 'The claim of the crosses at 

 Ruthwell and Bewcastle to be of the seventh century must, we think, 

 be abandoned.' Referring to the attempts of Haigh and Stephens 

 to identify names on the crosses with those of persons known to 

 history, he remarked ^ that they generally either fail to do this, 

 ' or there is some doubt as to the reading of the names in the inscrip- 

 tion which renders the identification valueless.' As to Caedmon he 

 said (p. 210) : ' All trace of the name has disappeared, and it is ex- 

 ceedingty doubtful if it ever existed.' 



1890. I^ contended that the language of the poetic fragments 

 on the Ruthwell Cross must be as late as the 10th century, and very 

 likety posterior to 950. 



1890. George F. Browne ^ read on the Ruthwell Cross : t KEDMON 

 MIE FAUGEpO. 



1891. Eduard Sievers^ beheved the inscription on the Bew- 

 castle Cross, if correctly reported by Stephens and Sweet, to be late, 

 and therefore a bunghng copy of an earlier original. 



1891. William S. Calverley^ virtually accepted Stephens' date 

 of 670 for the Bewcastle Cross. 



^ German translation by Brenner, under the title, Studien iihei- die Ent- 

 stehung der Nordischen Gotter- und Heldensagen 3. 494 ff. ; the passage in 

 question was translated by me in Mod. Lang. Notes 5 (1890). 77-8. 



- Mo7i. Hist. Brit. Church, p. 159. 



3 P. 223 .- cf. p. 209. 



* Academy 37. 153 (March 1). 



5 Academy 37. 170 (March 8) ; cf. h^s Theodore and Wilfrith, p. 239. 



^ Anglia 13. 12, note, written in January, 1890 (see p. 31, below). This 

 opinion he reaffirmed in 1901 (Paul, Grundriss der Germ. Phil., 2d ed.. 

 1. 256). Sievers (1901) will not allow any Anglian runes, with the exception 

 of a single one on a coin, to be earlier than the 8th century. 



' Early Scidpt%ired Crosses, p. 40 ; cf. p. ix. 



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