NATURE 



265 



' p 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1908. 



.l/.l.VA ARCH.'EOLOGY. 

 jl/aii.v Crosses; or the Inscribed and Sculptured Monu- 

 ments of the Isle of Man from about the end of the 

 Fifth to the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. 

 By P. M. C. Kermode. Pp. xxii + 221. (London: 

 Bemrose and Sons, Ltd., 1907.) Price 63s. net. 

 "HIS handsome volume contains notes and illus- 

 trations of the inscribed and sculptured stones of 

 "the Isle of Man from the time of its conversion to the 

 end of the Scandinavian rule, that is to say, from 

 the close of the fifth (?) to the beginning of the thir- 

 teenth century a.d. The individual descriptions are 

 preceded by some ninety pages on the early history of 

 the island and the leading features of the monuments 

 as a whole. These are of great value for the study of 

 Celtic art in general, and many readers — all, indeed, 

 . who are unable to study the crosses on the spot — will 

 give them more attention than the remainder of the 

 book. In view of this fact and the somewhat recon- 

 dite nature of the subject, it may not be out of place 

 , . if we touch on the more important of their contents 



before proceeding to speak of particular instances. 

 .: The earliest monuments in the island are, without 



question, the rude boulders inscribed with Oghams. 

 In language, formula, and characters these do not 

 differ from those of the fifth century in Pagan Munster, 

 but if we are to judg^e from the frequency with which 

 the names of Irish ecclesiastics occur in the appella- 

 tions of the Manx keeils or chapels, and the dedica- 

 tions of the parish-churches, it seems reasonable to 

 suppose that the Irish came to Man to christianise 

 it, and that the Ogham writing was introduced by, 

 and the stones erected to the memory of, Christians. 

 The date of the conversion of the Celtic Manx is un- 

 certain, but we know that it was in the sixth century 

 that the Irish missionaries began to wander over 

 Europe, and it would have been strange indeed if they 

 had neglected a people so near at hand. The advance 

 among them of the new creed, though never actually 

 checked, was fated to be disturbed some three cen- 

 turies later by the raids of the Vikings. They ap- 

 peared in the Irish Sea in 798, and harried the island 

 at intervals during a considerable period. At the end 

 of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century, it 

 began to be definitely occupied by the Scandinavian 

 invaders, and for the next hundred years it was ruled 

 by the successors of Olaf the White, King of Dublin. 



The Northmen, as we have said, did not attempt 

 to stamp out Christianity among their Manx subjects ; 

 on the contrary, our author thinks it not unlikely that 

 the Celtic church revived, and that the later Celtic 

 pieces carved in relief and highly decorated were 

 erected during this period. The conversion of the 

 settlers themselves he shows ground for assigning to 

 the first quarter of the eleventh century, and it is 

 significant that after 1050 we hear of a Norwegian 

 bishop, " Hroolwer or Hrolfr," who, according to 

 the chronicle, was succeeded by another, William, 

 before Godred Crovan began to reign in 1075. The 

 year of Hroolwer 's coming or death is unknown, but 

 NO. 1995, VOL. 77I 



this mention of him enables us to fix approximately the 

 date of our first Scandinavian monuments, which 

 cannot be earlier than 1025 or 1030, and as in one of 

 his inscriptions (Kirk Michael 74) Gaut claims to have 

 made all the crosses in Man, we must suppose enough 

 time to have elapsed for the late Celtic pieces to have 

 been overlooked. Yet neither from this nor from the 

 appearance of the Norwegian ecclesiastics should we 

 be justified in assuming a break in the continuity of 

 the Celtic Church; that there was no such thing is 

 shown by the fact that the later Scandinavian pieces 

 preserve the Celtic type, and are found on ancient 

 sites dedicated to Celtic saints. But if its ascendency 

 was undisputed by the Northmen it was fated to pass 

 away before another power; the year 1170 saw the 

 foundation of the Abbey of Rushen, and this resulted 

 in the virtual subjection of the Manx hierarchy to the 

 great English house of Furness. Under these new 

 conditions the native school of art ceased to develop, 

 the foreigners being opposed to anything savouring of 

 paganism, such as the Runic inscriptions, or likely to 

 interfere with the spread of Catholicism. The Gothic 

 cofhn-lid at Rushen may well have belonged to one of 

 the last of the Scandinavian rulers. In any case it 

 is unlikely that the specimens of Celtic art in the 

 island arei any of them, later than the beginning of 

 the thirteenth century. 



From the circumstances of their production our 

 author passes on to speak of their distribution and 

 artistic features. As most of us are aware, they form 

 part of the monumental system of the early British 

 Church, which was an extension westward of that 

 of Christian Rome in the period succeeding the death 

 of Constantine. They will be found, however, to show 

 distinct local peculiarities. Of the 116 pieces discussed 

 in the book forty-five are classed as Scandinavian, 

 seventy-one as of earlier date. Maughold has by far 

 the greater number, thirty-seven ; P^Iichael comes next 

 with ten, Braddan with nine. Both groups alike are 

 of local rock, usually clay-slate, derived from the 

 immediate neighbourhood. Almost all are sepulchral, 

 and though described as crosses, they are, strictly 

 speaking, cross-slabs, upright, rectangular blocks, 

 varying from 2 feet 6 inches to 6 feet in height, 

 by about fifteen to twenty-four inches wide, and from 

 two to four inches thick. A few are wheel-headed or 

 rounded; only in two late instances is the stone itself 

 cruciform. 



We are not surprised to find that the pre-Scandin- 

 avian monuments are more numerous in the old 

 parishes Maughold, Braddan, Conchan, Rushen, 

 Lonan and German. After the Ogham-stones already 

 mentioned come a certain number with crosses in- 

 cised, linear or in outline, all of them plain except 

 for three with hexafoil and one with triquetra. A 

 further stage is reached by those with the figure sculp- 

 tured in relief. Of the stones of this group, seven 

 show practically no decorative treatment, thirteen are 

 plain or have decorations only of the simplest, cross- 

 lets, pellets, bosses, &:c., while the remaining eighteen 

 have geometrical designs, zoomorphic interlacings, 

 and figure subjects. These latter are hard to date 

 exactly, but they clearly reached down to the period 

 of the Scandinavian occupation if they did not overlap 



