272 General Discussion of the Crosses 



3. 6^^iV^i?^- SUBJECTS 

 Under genr e-s\xh]ects we may class the archer of the Ruthwell 

 Cross and the falconer of the Bewcastle Cross, though the former 

 should perhaps rather be considered as a Biblical subject, since it 

 appears to have been introduced with symbolical intent, and to 

 represent the slayer of an evil power. ^ The falconer with his hawk 

 incidentally raises the question of the date at which this sport was 

 introduced into England. 



A. The Archer.2 



The archer, not to speak of the Sagittarius, is sometimes found 

 in France and England,^ in the architectural sculpture of the 11th 

 and 12th centuries. Thus in the southern doorway leading inwards 

 from the narthex (1120—1135) of the Cluniac abbey church of 

 Vezelay, there is, on one pilaster, a serpent with a woman's 

 head, emerging from foliage, and on the other an archer taking aim 

 at her with his bow. The serpent is interpreted by Viollet-le-Duc* 



Scotch : Nigg ; Kirriemuir ; St. Vigeans (Allen, Early Christ. Symbolism, 

 pp. 224-5; Anderson, op. cit., p. liv; Allen, Early Christ. Mon. of Scotland, 

 3. 76, 227, 268). Anderson says (p. Iv.) : ' It is not difficult to account for 

 the special veneration of St. Paul, the first hermit, and St. Anthony, the 

 father of monasticism, in the Scottish and Irish Churches, in whose con- 

 stitution the eremitical and monastic modes of ecclesiastical life were so 

 closely interwoven.' To this explanation may be added the fact that the 

 story of the two is contained in the present Roman Breviary under January 15. 

 The earher day for Paul was January 10, and this assignment is found 

 as early as 'Bede's Martyrologium Poeticum {Misc. Works, ed. Giles, 1. 50; 

 cf. 4. 21) ; also in the Old English Ilartyrology (ed. Herzfeld, E. E. T. S. 

 116. 17), and in the calendars printed by Hampson in his Medii Aevi Kalen- 

 darium (pp. 397, 422, 435, 449), all not far from the year 1000. None of 

 these, however, except the Old English Martyrology, refers to the meeting 

 of Paul and Anthony. Cf. p. 131, note 7, end. 



^ The falconer is sometimes introduced into the labors of the months 

 associated with the representations of the zodiac, so common in mediaeval 

 cathedrals. Thus on the west front of Chartres, on the left side of the arch 

 of the left doorway (Marriage, Sculpt, of Chartres Cath., p. 32), where May is 

 represented by ' a horseman holding his horse by the bridle, and having a 

 hawk on his wrist.' See also on the left side of the arch of the right bay of 

 the north porch (Marriage, p. 176), 'a man with a hawk on his wrist.' 



2 See p. 16. 



^ A capital of about 1150, from the church of San Salvatore at Brescia, 

 is figured by Venturi, Storia delVArte Ital. 3. 217. 



* 7. 438 ; cf. Poree, UAhhaye de Vezelay, p. 40, and see also pp. 37, 44, 

 48 69. 



(60) 



