Cultural and Artistic Antecedents 333 



marked out. Peace and rest superinduced other and better thoughts. 

 Many of the great knights and nobles had grievous offences to atone 

 for. They were living upon the possessions of others— very frequently 

 upon church property ; and their hves had been stained with violence 

 and bloodshed. The wish to make amends as well as to honour God, 

 led them to establish monasteries where their souls might be prayed 

 for, and to which their names, ' in perpetuam rei memoriam,' might be 

 honourably attached. When one leads, another soon will follow, and. 

 the erection and endowment of religious houses soon became the fashion, 

 but hke every freak and sudden feehng, it was only temporary. It began 

 with the twelfth century, and it did not outUve it. . . . Between the 

 years 1120 and 1125 six houses of Augustine canons seem to have been 

 established in Yorkshire.^ 



L'ere des iconoclastes avait, pendant longtemps, aneanti les etudes 

 iconographiques ; elles commencerent a renaitre au XI^ siecle, mais 

 ce ne fut qu'au XII® qu'elles firent de grands progres. . . . Jusqu'a la 

 fin du XI** siecle, on avait rendu la figure humaine de la maniere la 

 plus bizarre et la plus incorrecte. Mais au XII*^ siecle on vit paraitre 

 des statues et des bas-rehefs, qui, sans etre exempts de defauts, etaient, 

 au moins, ramenes a une certaine correction. Cette renaissance de la 

 statuaire contribua puissamment a changer I'aspect des monuments 

 religieux en apportant un element nouveau dans leur decoration. . . . 

 On commen9a au XII'' siecle a sculpter des figures de grande proportion. 

 ... La plupart sont vetues de longues tuniques recouvertes d'une espece 

 de manteau qui s'ouvre par devant.^ 



Le Xord, avant le milieu du XII'' siecle, ne produit qu'une orne- 

 mentation pauvre, barbare, dans quelque acception qu'on prenne le mot.^ 



Au douzieme siecle, apres de longs tatonnements, et des essais labori- 

 eux et informes, la sculpture monumentak etait nee. Silencieuse 

 pendant plusieurs siecles, les pierres etaient devenues eloquentes.^ 



If we are to be warranted in referring the Ruthwell and Bewcastle 

 crosses to 1150, or thereabouts, and to the influence of David I 

 of Scotland, we must examine what detailed considerations appear 

 to favor, and what to oppose, this assumption, so far as the artistic 

 side is concerned. We need to account for the conception of an up- 

 right rectangle or trapezoid — for, it will be observed, we have no 

 proof that either of these obehsks was ever a cross, that is, that 



Raine, Lives of the Archbishops of York, pp. 201-2. 

 Caumont, p. 160. 



Enlart, Manuel d\Archeolo<jie Fran^uise 1. 201. 

 Michel, Hist, de VArt P. 944. 



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