ON THE PRE-NORMAN SCULPTURED STONES OF DERBYSHIRE. 1 83 



and to an artistic feeling in Northumbria and Mercia of which 

 there are few traces among the Saxons, Jutes, and East Anglians. 

 As each fresh piece of evidence is discovered, the argument 

 becomes stronger. The Derbyshire stones are unlike Yorkshire, 

 Durham, and Northumberland. They have affinities with 

 Staffordshire and Cheshire, and with a tongue of land further 

 south in ancient Mercia. The resemblances and differences are 

 not such as to tend to make students dogmatic, but they are very 

 suggestive. The wisest course is to allow that the subject is in its 

 infancy, and to watch and foster its growth. 



It may be well to mention the English sculptured stones to 

 which a date may be assigned by means of an inscription. The 

 great column at Bewcastle (Cumberland), bears among other 

 inscriptions a sentence commencing, " In the first year of 

 Ecgfrith," and reciting that it was in memory of Alchfrith. King 

 Ecgfrith succeeded Alchfrith in 664. At Hackness (Yorks.) are 

 very interesting fragments with inscriptions in runes and in Latin 

 characters of the date of the Lindisfarne Gospels. The most 

 loving mother Oedilburga is named in one of the Latin inscrip- 

 tions, and Bede tells us that King Aldfrith summoned his sister 

 Ethelburga from her abbey at Hackness to his death-bed at 

 Driffield. He died a.d. 705. This ends the list, unless we can 

 be certain of the identification of Eaduulf on the shaft at Alnwick 

 Castle with the Eaduulf who usurped the kingdom on Aldfrith's 

 death. In the Chapter Library at Durham are two shafts from 

 Hexham, which exactly suit the description of the two stone crosses 

 set up to Bishop Acca, mirabili celatura, in a d. 740. • While the 

 Lindisfarne Gospels were being written, a cross was carved and 

 set up in the island, so beautiful that it was carried away by the 

 monks when they left. William of Malmesbury gives a descrip- 

 tion of two very lofty obelisks at Glastonbury, with human figures 

 in various robes, arranged in panels, and bearing their names, 

 evidently Saxon ; and he describes the tomb of the Northumbrian 

 Abbot Tica, who fled before the Danes, as remarkable arte 

 celaturce, as though he had brought the fashion from the north. 

 King Athelstan had the Beverley boundaries marked by four 



