opinions as to the Date of the Crosses 



225 



not depend on its legend. The style and workmanship are surer 

 proofs of its origin.' Referring to both crosses, he observed^ : ' How 

 unlike this work is to 12th century carving can be seen at once by 

 comparing the sketch of a floral scroll opposite with Bridekirk Font.' 

 1901. P resumed and extended my investigation of 1890, and 

 came to the same general result as then. 



1901. WiUiam G. Collingwood^ observed of the Bewcastle Cross: 

 ' It can ... be classed with many other works done in the flush of the 

 great renaissance of the late seventh century, in which Benedict Bisc- 

 op and St. Wilfrith were leaders, and king Alchfrith and his wife 

 Cyniburg, and her sister and brother Cyneswitha and king Wul there 

 of Mercia (all named on this cross) were chief patrons. It is not of 

 the Hexham school, but of a school of that age and character, from 

 which came many fine works quite alien in spirit to the art of North 

 England in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and impossible to have 

 been executed in that period of storm and stress, when the churches 

 were ravaged by the Danes ; and it is equally impossible to class it 

 as Norman. The archaeological evidence is all in favour of the date 

 assigned to it by the inscription — the first year of king Ecgfrith, 

 670—71 A. D. ; and it has a great importance in the history of art 

 as the starting-point from which not only all our Cumbrian sculpture 

 was derived, but (with Ruthwell cross, its younger sister) the model 

 for much of that so-called Hiberno-Saxon art which has been con- 

 fused with it.' 



1902. Edward S. Prior and Arthur Gardner, ^ following Maughan, 

 considered the Bewcastle Cross as ' well dated to the year 670.' They 

 added : ' At Ruthwell ... is a cross of such similar make and sculp- 

 ture, that it must be similarly dated.' 



1902. Henry Rousseau ^ assigned the Ruthwell Cross to the 9th 

 century, when Northumbria was occupied by the Danes. As to 

 Caedmon, he regarded the name, supposing it to be on the cross, 

 as that of the sculptor.^ 



1902. Karl D. Biilbring' declared that of early AngUan poetry 

 we possess, for the most part, only late and corrupt copies. Among 



1 P. 43. 



2 ' IS'otes on the Ruthwell Cross ' (written December, 1900), pp. 375-390; 

 cf. pp. 32 — 33, below. 



3 The Victoria History of the County of Cumberlatid 1. 256-7. 



* ' Mediaeval Figure- Sculpture in England,' Architectural Review 12. 7. 

 ' ' La Ruthwell Cross,' Annales de la <Societe d' Archeologie de Bruxelles 

 16. 70. 



6 P. 67. ' Altemjlisches Elemenlarbuch, pp. 8-9. 



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