304 Theory as to the Origin of the Crosses 



influence. Some, at least, of these analogues exist in places whence 

 influences might, directly or indirectly, have reached Ruthwell and 

 Bewcastle. These crosses, anomalous when viewed merely in re- 

 lation to the development of Celtic, Danish, or Saxon sculpture 

 upon English soil, are only explicable on the theory of an art which, 

 borrowing elements from these various nationalities, at once har- 

 monized and transcended them. But the art which thus harmonized 

 and transcended these borrowed elements reposed upon a reUgious 

 sentiment which gathered new power from the beginning of the 

 12th century, a sentiment whose warmth and depth evoked po- 

 tentialities which had been latent in the artistic capabilities of the 

 Middle Ages, at once energizing, refining, humanizing, and co-ord- 

 inating what had been nerveless, barbarous, or random in the 

 Byzantine or Lombard sculpture which had preceded.^ 



^ It is instructive to compare the figure of Christ on (St. Cuthbert'.s coffin, 

 which Canon Greenwell {Catalogue, p. 134) is positive was made in 698 (and 

 so Kitchin, Victoria Hist. Durham 1.246), mth those on our crosses. Green- 

 well's description of the carving is as follows (p. 141) : ' The lid contains at 

 the middle a figure of our Lord (see Fig. 34) placed between the symbols 

 of the EvangeUsts arranged in pairs, two over his head and two beneath his 

 feet. The one side has half-length figures of Archangels placed in one row, 

 the other side has similar figures of the Apostles arranged in two rows. The 

 larger end, probably that at the head of the coffin, has two Archangels upon 

 it, the other has a seated figure of the Blessed Virgin holding our Lord on her 

 knees.' GreenweU adds : ' Our Lord is represented on the Hd standing 

 fronting (see Fig. 35). He has a cruciferous nimbus, and wears a dress 

 reaching to the feet, which are naked. His right hand is raised in the act of 

 blessing, and a fold of the dress hangs over the arm. In his left hand, which 

 is covered by another fold of the dress, he holds a book (The Gospels).' 

 Other authorities are in substantial agreement with Greenwell. Thus Enlart 

 (Michel, Hist, de VArt 2. 200) : ' Une curieuse piece du meme musee [Durham] 

 montre ce qu'etait devenue la representation de la figure humaine dans 

 les dernieres annees du VII® siecle. C'est le cercueil de bois de Saint Cutli- 

 bert execute en 698 par les moines de Lindisfarne. Le Christ entre les 

 quatre Animaux, la Vierge, les Archanges, y sont representes en simple 

 gravure au trait, avec une mediocre entente des proportions et des formes, 

 et de fagon conventionnelle et systematique, mais non sans habilete. La 

 tradition byzantine est encore evidente dans ces curieuses figures.' Rivoira 

 remarks {Lomb.Arch. 2. 147) on ' the precious remains of the oak coffin which 

 once held the body of St. Cuthbert, . . . with its representations of Christ 

 between the Emblems of the Evangelists, the Archangels, the Virgin and 

 Child, and the Apostles, poor in drawing but freely cut with the knife or 

 graver, and accompanied by legends in Roman and Runic characters. . . . 



(92) 



