A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



shape of the metal shrines of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and is prob- 

 ably similar to the tomb of St. Chad at Lichfield, which Bede ^ says was 

 ' made like a small dwelling-house.' * The monument is rectangular in 

 plan : the two gabled ends are vertical, and the two sides incline slightly to- 

 wards each other : and the two top faces meet in a ridge like the roof of a 

 house. It is 3 feet 5 inches long by 2 feet 4 inches high by i foot 2 inches 

 wide. The two ends are plain. The two sides are each sculptured with an 

 arcade of six round-headed arches, with pairs of leaves in the spandrils, and a 

 figure of a saint under each arch. The figures are draped, and have a nimbus 

 round the head. In one case the nimbus is cruciform, showing that the figure 

 is intended for Christ. The figure to the right of Our Lord holds a key, and 

 that on the left a lily, being the symbols of St. Peter and the Blessed Virgin. 

 Some of the figures have books in their hands, and one has a beard and the 

 hair on the head sticking up in a very curious fashion. These figures are 

 probably meant for the Apostles, but they do not carry any emblem by which 

 each individual can be identified.* The pupils of the eyes of the figures are 

 indicated by small drilled holes. The two sloping sides of the roof of the 

 monument are each divided into four panels containing scrolls of foliage with 

 birds perched on the branches and dragonesque creatures whose tails form 

 interlaced work. There are three round holes bored in the front of the stone, 

 and two in the back, looking as if they were intended to receive metal bars 

 for some purpose. 



Nothing is known of the history of this tomb, nor is there anything to 

 connect it with the abbot Hedda (who with his monks was slaughtered by 

 the Danes in 870) except the account given by the spurious Ingulf of the 

 monument erected to their memory. Mr. M. H. Bloxam supposes it to be 

 more probably of the eleventh century, and suggests that it may have been 

 placed over the body of St. Kyneswith after its translation from Castor to 

 Peterborough by Abbot JEAfsi. Mr. J. T. Irvine believed that it formed a por- 

 tion of a shrine, the remaining fragments of which are built into the exterior 

 walls of the chancel of Fletton church near Peterborough.* 



The only Saxon churches in Northamptonshire which afford examples 

 of symbolical or decorative sculpture in their architectural details are those at 

 Barnack and Earls Barton. 



The following pieces of sculpture are to be seen on the exterior of the 

 Saxon tower at the west end of Barnack church : — 



South Side. — Close to the top of the upper story and nearly in the middle a triangular-headed 

 window with pierced tracery formed of two bands twisted together and interlaced with two circular 

 rings. Below this window and immediately above the string-course at the bottom of the upper 



an earlier style. At Heysham in Lancashire there is a row of graves (perhaps of the Anglo-Saxon period) 

 cut in the solid rock, and at the head of each is a rectangular socket, evidently intended to receive the tenon 

 of an erect cross (see E. L. Cutts' Manual of Sepukhral Slabs, 14). Towards the end of the pre-Norman 

 period the recumbent slab became more important than the erect crosses at the head and foot of the grave, and 

 was highly ornamented, as in the example at Peterborough. In the twelfth century the head and foot stones 

 were discarded, and the recumbent cross-slab was henceforth the most usual kind of sepulchral monument. 



1 Eccl. Hist. iv. 3. 



2 Another shrine-shaped monument corresponding exactly to this description, and having the roofing 

 tiles indicated, was found a few years ago at St. Andrews (see Early Christian Monuments of Scotland, 361). 



3 It was not until a late period that a separate emblem was assigned to each of the Twelve Apostles (see 

 J. R. Allen, Early Christian Symbolism, 314). 



* See the Proc. Soc. Antiq. ser. 2, xiv. 156, where the monument is illustrated. It is also described in a 

 paper on ' Early Christian Sculpture in Northamptonshire,' by J. R. Allen, in the Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. xix. 



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