36 THE RUTHWELL CROSS. 
workmen could have brought these designs ready-made from 
abroad, for no such crosses are known in. early Continental 
art. 
The Hexham school is represented by the famous Acca 
Cross (Fig. 3), now at Durham, but almost certainly the grave- 
stone of bishop Acca, who was buried at Hexham in 740 
between ‘‘ two crosses of stone, ornamented with admirable 
carving,’’ as Symeon of Durham says (Hist. Reg., 740). 
Rivoira, who has upset many early dates formerly given to our 
relics, is ef opinion that this cross may be of the middle of the 
8th century (Lomb. Arch., ii., 143). Its design is already on 
the way to a florid development of the simple Hexham motives, 
seen in the shaft now at the Spital, Hexham (Fig. 4), which is 
much more severe in treatment, and looks like an earlier work. 
But on one side it bears a Crucifixion, not unlike that at Ruth- 
well, which has been thought to mark a later period. Now, 
there are over twenty crucifixes on crosses of the 9th and 1oth 
centuries in Northumbria, showing that the subject became 
common, in very various forms of treatment of drapery and 
attitude. But the same variety is seen in still earlier work— 
e.g., 7th century Syrian bronze, fully draped (figured in Forrer, 
Reallexikon, p. 428); 7th or 6th century silver reliquary from 
Birka, Sweden, rudely ‘‘ stylised,’’ apparently with loin-cloth 
(ibid., p. 877); 6th century Monza, full tunic; 6th century 
Achmim, Egypt, nimbed figure between sun and moon, long 
drapery (ibid., p. 427); 6th century gold brooch, Rosenberg 
collection at Karlsruhe, nimbed figure between sun and moon 
and two thieves, full drapery (ibid., p. 427); 5th century, Sta. 
Sabina, Rome, naked figure with loin-cloth; 5th or 6th cen- 
tury, ivory box in the British Museum, naked figure nimbed, 
with loin-cloth (ibid., p. 427); early classic gem, British 
Museum, naked figure with loin-cloth on a T-cross (ibid., 
p- 427). These suggest that there is nothing impossible in 
dating the Hexham and Ruthwell crucifixes to the 8th century. 
The style of art arising at some other centre than Hexham, 
perhaps at one of Benedict’s foundations, is represented by a 
group of crosses in county Durham and north Yorkshire, 
probably contemporary with the earlier Hexham work. They 
connect with St. Cuthbert’s coffin, now at Durham, and pre- 
