THE RUTHWELL CROSS. oe 
begun 672; St. Peter’s, Monkwearmouth, 675; St. Paul’s, 
Jarrow, consecrated 684. The cross set up by King Oswald 
at Heavenfield in 635 was of wood (Bede, H.E., iii., 2), per- 
haps suggested by the crosses of Columban Iona, where 
Oswald was educated (according to Skene, Celtic Scotland, 
ii., 154; and Adamnan, i., 1, seems to support the statement). 
At the time the crosses now seen at Iona had not been made; 
those mentioned by Adamnan appear to have been wooden, 
like all the early missionaries’ crosses. But these, and especi- 
” 
ally Oswald’s ‘‘ sig-becun,’’ standard of victory, are likely to 
have beer imitated in stone, when stone-carving became pos- 
sible by the importation of craftsmen in 672 and later. 
Ameng the relics of St. Wilfrid’s Church at Hexham are 
parts of a slab (one piece at Hexham, two at Durham) carved 
with naked figures, animals and scrolls. I follow Professor 
Lethaby’s example (Arch@ol, Journ., 1xx., 157) in trying to 
restore these together, though my attempt comes out dif- 
ferent, owing to a difference in measurements (Fig. 2). Com- 
mendatore Rivoira thinks this slab a work of Wilfrid’s time 
(Lomb. Arch., English edition, 11., 143); to me it looks like 
Roman work from Corstopitum, whence Wilfrid’s builders 
took other stones. But it seems to show that decorative 
carving was used in the church. Its style, distantly derived 
from such work as the Ara Pacis Auguste of B.c. 15, 1s fol- 
lowed in the Hunter relief at Jarrow; and this slab, or other 
such, may have served as the first suggestion for the use of 
figure-scrolls in Anglian art. 
Some years, however, must have passed between the in- 
troduction of this kind of ornament into ecclesiastical work in 
Northumbria and the invention of the tall cross, to which it 
was applied. That the work was finely executed from the 
beginning—and we have no rude or tentative examples leading 
up to it—seems to show that it was, at first, some architect’s 
fortunate idea, upon which trained carvers were employed. 
The remains and their distribution indicate two early centres, 
one at Hexham and one more to the east; and the invention 
was probably made towards the close of the 7th century. The 
motives of patterns and the use of the chisel were imported, 
but not the general design of the cross as such; no foreign 
