38 THE RUTHWELL CROSS. 
(i., 205, 233-4)—a very easy pattern, though requiring neat- 
ness and skill to draw with regularity. 
This development of plaits only follows the usual course of 
art history—simple motives; ingenious elaboration; and then 
devices to give rich effect with saving of intellectual labour. 
The first step in labour-saving was to introduce the second 
member in a plait, which in Italy was known by the middle 
of the 8th century. Now, allowing time for the arrival of 
fresh ideas in Britain by the import of decorated objects and 
the observations of travellers, we get an independent means of 
dating design in our island. The continuous plaits of the 
finest Anglian crosses must be roughly of the first half of 
the 8th century; the plaits imitating them, but of two mem- 
bers, of the second half of that century. Angular plaits and 
freer treatment come into use during the goth, and the ring- 
knot and other easy devices in the roth and 11th centuries. 
None of the fine figured crosses we class as Anglian bear the 
later kind of plaits; none of those we class as Viking Age bear 
the elaborated symmetrical plaits of the Anglian. The Croft 
continuous plait is of early 8th century type; the Bewcastle 
two-member plait is of late 8th century type. And the analogy 
of the Ruthwell Cross to Bewcastle Cross suggests a similar 
date. 
Hackness Cross (Fig. 8) is inscribed in memory of an 
Abbess Ethelburga; which of three named in history is not 
certain (see Searle, 4.-S. Bps., Kings, and Nobles, pp. 282-3, 
and his references). But it must have been made in the 
Anglian age, because the nunnery, founded 680, was burnt by 
the Danes in 869, and not restored until after the Norman 
Conquest. The Normans would not have dedicated a cross to 
an Anglo-Saxon saint with such words as ‘‘ May thy houses 
[nunneries] ever be mindful and love thee, most loving 
mother. Holy Abbess Ethelburga, pray for us!’’ The cross 
is therefore pre-Danish, and its severe scroll and continuous 
plait suggest the middle of the 8th century. 
Of about this time there is a coin of King Eadberht 
(737-758) with’ a beast grotesquely kicking up its hind-leg. 
It may have had some significance; but the same idea is 
repeated on the shortest of the crosses at Ilkley Church (Fig. 
