The Decorative Sculpture : Knotwork 299 



afforded by the entire absence of any design at all like it in Ireland 

 during pagan times, though metal weapons and ornaments of that 

 period are richly decorated. The origin of the interlacing principle 

 as an element of ornamental design is a difficult problem to solve. 

 It may, perhaps, be a development of the patterns of the tesselated 

 pavements so common in late Roman work. It appears to have follow- 

 ed the spread of Christianity, and it occurs far beyond European hmits, 

 being found as a frequent decoration in early Coptic and Ethiopic 

 manuscripts.^ 



In Ireland, which was the cradle of the art, it is suggestive that these 

 elaborately intricate patterns are not so characteristic of the monu- 

 ments as of the manuscripts. The earlier Irish monuments are com- 

 paratively plain and unadorned ; among the earlier manuscripts, on 

 the contrary, there are many that are profusely decorated. It thus 

 appears that it was only when the art had been brought to a high 

 degree of excellence that it began to be generally apphed to stone and 

 metal work in Ireland. There is no reason to suppose that the course 

 of its development was different in Scotland. . . . While it is manifest 

 . . . that a national system of art like this of the Scottish monuments 

 is described in correct terms by saying that in all the essential features 

 of its individuality it differs from every other, it does not necessarily follow 

 that its essential elements must have originated in Scotland or in Ireland. 

 . . . When I say, for instance, that interlaced work is one of the special 

 characteristics of the Celtic school of art, I do not mean that the Celts 

 were the only people who have used interlaced work, or that its invention 

 was due to them. . . . For instance, we find interlaced work on Baby- 

 lonish cyhnders, on Mycenian ornaments and sculpture, on Alexandrian 

 manuscripts, on Ethiopic manuscripts and metal- work, and on Pompeian 

 bronzes. . . . We find it on the mosaic pavements of the time of the 

 Roman occupation of Britain, and on Christian mosaics of later time 

 in the early churches of Italy and France. We find it also existing 

 as an architectural decoration applied to the ornamentation of churches, 

 both externally and internally. The jambs of the doorway of San 

 Zeno at SanPrassede, in Rome, built by Pope Paschal I., about A. D. 

 820, are ornamented with a running pattern of interlaced ribbon-work 

 of four strands, which might have appeared on the shaft of a sculptured 

 cross in Scotland or in Ireland. ... In the church of Chur, in Switzer- 

 land, founded in 1178, there were found seventeen fragments of slabs 

 sculptured with designs of comphcated interlaced work arranged in 

 panels. Among them is one on which is sculptured a cross of interlaced 



^ Greenwell, Catalogue, pp. 48-9. Cf. Allen, Mon. Hist. Brit. Church, 

 pp. 147-151 ; Early Christ. Mon. of Scotland 2. 143. The varieties of inter- 

 laced work are described in detail by Allen, Early Christ. Mon. of Scotland 

 2. 140-307, where the Bewcastle patterns will be found. 



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