THE RUTHWELL Cross. 45 
ments of later period. These remains lie along or near the 
Roman roads in most cases, as do the earlier monuments in 
England, for the Roman roads were the ordinary routes of 
travel through a country then chiefly wild. Following the 
east coast, we find Anglian stones at Coldingham and Aber- 
lady; along the road from Redesdale over the Cheviots, the 
fine work of Jedburgh, and decadent Anglian at Lasswade and 
Abercorn. By the road north from Carlisle, at Hoddom there 
was an abbey very rich in monuments—the stone now at 
Edinburgh seems to connect with the early 9th century style 
of Heysham, near Lancaster, and in Fig. 19 I attempt to 
restore three crosses from the photograph in Early Christian 
Monts. of Scotland of fragments at Knockhill. At Thornhill 
are late Anglian stones, some from Closeburn and Glencairn, 
and at Cairn in Ayrshire is another. These shew that the 
Ruthwell Cross does not stand alone, though it happens to 
have been preserved while others have been ruined. 
But in order to show reasons for giving so early a date 
to this Cross, we must pursue the history a little further, 
illustrating the styles of the later periods to which it has 
sometimes been attributed. 
Early in the ninth century the political and social decad- 
ence of Northumbria began to set in; and the crosses showing 
Anglian tradition still unbroken, but degenerating, seem to 
find their place between 800 and 867, when the Danes in- 
vaded. After that, there was a period of transition until the 
Anglo-Danish or Viking Age style began to find itself, about 
925. During the 11th century influences from the South of 
England modified the Viking art; and when the Norman con- 
quest was complete the old monuments were thought, as the 
Norman abbot Paul of St. Alban’s (1077-1088) called them, 
‘‘ rudes et idiotae,’’ and often broken up to be built into new 
church walls, from which many have been recovered. 
Fig. 20 represents the shaft at Collingham with the 
Apostles, drawn in the style of 9th century Anglo-Saxon book 
illustration. Fig. 21 gives the parts of three shafts in Halton 
church, near Lancaster; the first rather debased from Otley 
(Fig. 15), but repeating the motive of a figure kneeling before 
an angel, who here holds a tablet or Book of Remembrance. 
