334 Theory as to the Origin of the Crosses 



either ever had a cross-piece ^ — divided into panels that are filled 

 with figure-sculpture, and enclosed in frames bearing legends de- 

 scriptive of the figure-sculpture. We next have to account for a 

 similar rectangle or trapezoid bearing a vine, with or without inter- 



^ The top of the Bewcastle Cross— if such it really was— formerly in the 

 . possession of Sir Robert Cotton, could not have been a cross-piece. What 

 we are told is (letter from Cotton to Camden before 1623, when Camden 

 died) : ' I receaued this morning a ston from my lord of Arundell sent him 

 from my lord Wilham [Howard]. It was the head of a Cross at Bewcastell. 

 All the letters legable are thes in on[e] line,' etc. (James Wilson, in Trans. 

 Cumb. and Westm. Antiq. and Arch. Soc, N. S. 10. 504 ; cf. Victor, Die North. 

 Runensteine, p. 15 ; Ole Worm, Danicorum Monumentorum Libri Sex, Copen- 

 hagen, 1643, p. 161 ; Kemble, in Archceologia 28. 346-7 ; Camden, Britannia, 

 ed. Gough, p. 455). Besides, MS S. Cotton Domitian A. xviii. 37, and Julius F. 

 vi. 313, after giving the runic inscription, RIK^S DRUHTNiES (Cotton's 

 letter and Worm read Y for U), add : ' This Inscription was on the head of 

 a Cross found at Beucastell in 1615. The length of the stone, bein the head 

 of the Crosse — 16 inches. The breadth at the upper end — 12 ynches. The 

 thicknes— 4 inches' (Wilson, p. 503). As the Bewcastle Cross is 13 by 14 

 inches at the top (Collingwood, in Victoria Hist. Cumb., 1. 255 ; Early Sculpt. 

 Crosses, p. 43), it is evident that, if this block belonged to our cross, it could 

 not have been the cross-piece. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of it as a 

 part of the cross at all, since its length, 16 inches, would ill have fitted the 

 longer face of the cross at top — 14 inches ; its breadth, 12 inches, would have 

 been too short for the breadth of the cross — 13 inches ; and its thickness, 

 4 inches, would have been unimpressive on the top of a cross 14^ feet high, 

 being an addition of scarcely more than 2 per cent to its height (Colhngwood. 

 in Victoria Hist. Cumb. 1. 255, must therefore be in error when he says : 

 ' With it the cress would have been about 21 feet high from the base of the 

 pedestal,' since the pedestal cannot be as much as two feet in height ; see 

 the photographs). In one direction it would have overlapped the existing 

 cross an inch on each side ; and in the other it would have fallen short by 

 half an inch on each side. If we suppose an intervening cross-piece, we are 

 no better off : what figure would be cut by a stone 4 inches high, over a 

 cross-piece duly proportioned to a monohth 14| feet high ? And if, in order 

 to gain a height of 16 inches for it, we suppose it stood upon its smallest 

 face, how would a thickness of 4 inches look in the top-piece, as contrasted 

 with that of 13 or 14 inches in the main shaft? 



If we were to think of the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses as obelisks, 

 rather than crosses — and so various early writers on the monoliths of the 

 North term the monuments they describe — we should be interested to 

 consider whether any Egyptian obehsk could have been known to North 

 Europeans of the Middle Ages. Now, whatever obeHsks may have been 

 overthrown or buried at Rome in that period, we are certain at least that 



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