Fig. 1 8. 



cpwetoriwa' 

 -Whale's Bone Tablet for Writing, Blvthburgh (|) 



ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



to the British Museum in 1902. The site formerly belonged to the priory 

 of Black Canons, a cell to the abbey of St. Osyth, Essex, founded in the reign of 

 Henry I,''"but the writing-tablet here illustrated (fig. 18) is certainly of earlier 

 date. The two leaves 

 (one now missing) were 

 evidently fastened to- 

 gether by a cord or 

 thong passed through 

 both pairs of holes, 

 and the sunk panel or 

 panels filled with wax, 

 which was written 

 upon by means of a 

 style, a pointed instru- 

 ment of pen form made 

 of bone or metal. The 

 leaf itself is made of 

 whale's bone, and 

 though rubbed and 

 broken still bears an 

 interlaced design that 



suffices to fix its date and origin. The use of such tabellae among the 

 Romans is well known, but the material employed was generally wood, and 

 only a few examples are preserved in this country, though styli are common ; 

 and the special interest of the Blythburgh tablet is that it was evidently made 

 and used at a time when parchment was in common use, and such a primitive 

 method of correspondence or note-taking might be supposed extinct. The 

 system did, however, survive into the Middle Ages, but this is the only Anglo- 

 Saxon specimen known ; the resemblance of its ornamentation to that of the 

 Book of Kells suggests an Irish origin, and throws light on its approximate 

 date. Though hardly two authorities agree precisely as to the date of that 

 famous Irish MS., most would assign this kind of interlacing to the 8th or 

 9th century ; and though St. Felix, who converted East Anglia, himself came 

 from Burgundy, it is quite probable, that during the supremacy of Northum- 

 bria, monks and missionaries introduced literary utensils from the north of 

 England, where the Irish (or Scotic) influence was strong. St. Columba not 

 only introduced the monastic rule into Scotland, but founded monasteries in 

 Burgundy, the home of St. Felix himself ; and the occupation of Lindisfarne 

 in 635 by Aidan, who made it his see, was the signal for a great missionary 

 movement in England. After the battle of the Winwaed in 655 East Anglia 

 passed under the influence of the Northumbrian king Oswiu, and the relics of 

 Irish monasticism might be expected in Suffolk after that date ; but in spite 

 of a large number of monuments displaying the interlaced patterns, it has not 

 yet been found possible to assign exact dates to much work of this description. 

 The bottom panel of the south face of the Bewcastle Cross has, however, a 

 close resemblance to that on the tablet, and there are good reasons for assign- 

 ing that well-known monument to the 7th century,"^ which is indeed indicated 

 by the inscription on it, and the interlacing motives are now generally held 



"" Proc. Soc. Aiitlq. xif, 40. "" F.C.H. Cumb. i, 255-6. 



