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XI.—The Inscribed and Sculptured Stones of Lindisfarne

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

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Extract

In March 1915 I made a short communication to the Society on two gravestones recently found in the ruins of Lindisfarne Priory. The works of repair, in the course of which these stones came to light, have since been continued, with such interruptions as may easily be understood, and are now nearly finished. Other gravestones of the same class have been found from time to time, and a good many fragments of standing crosses and cross-slabs, in addition to those already known, have been added to the collection in the little museum on Holy Island, and it has seemed to me that the time has now come when some general account of these stones may be attempted.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1925

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References

page 255 note 1 Proceedings, xxvii, 132–7.Google Scholar

page 257 note 1 Symeon of Durham, Hist. Dunelmensis Ecclesiae. The coffin of St. Cuthbert yet survives at Durham, though Ethelwold's cross is lost. But another relic of this Odyssey, and one of the first importance to the present inquiry, is happily preserved, namely, the Gospels of Lindisfarne, now MS. Cott: Nero D iv in the British Museum.

page 258 note 1 Symeon of Durham, loc. cit., cap. xxii.

page 258 note 2 Gent. Mag., September 1833, p. 219.

page 258 note 3 Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc., i, 185–96.Google Scholar

page 258 note 4 Compare the inscription—of much later date—on the burial cross of Wulfmaeg, lately found at St. Augustine's, Canterbury, by our Fellow Rev. R. U. Potts, Ant. Journ., iv, 422.

page 259 note 1 xii, 412.

page 263 note 1 Compare for this form the cross facing the beginning of St. Matthew's Gospel in the Lindisfarne Gospels.

page 264 note 1 The effect of marking graves with small slabs laid flat on the ground may be seen to-day in the Cathedral Close at Lichfield, and very pleasant and restful it is. It is easy to see, however, how quickly such stones might be overgrown by the turf and lost.

page 264 note 2 As, for example, after Aidan's translation to the church.

page 265 note 1 It must be remembered that no systematic excavation of the early site at Iona has yet been attempted.

page 265 note 2 The Arts in Early England, v, 96 seqq.

page 265 note 3 The rectangular sinking at the intersection of the cross on one oi the Wensley stones deserves to be noted, from its resemblance to the Lindisfarne examples.

page 268 note 1 The cross-shaft in Auckland church, Durham, is clearly inspired by the Bewcastle and Ruthwell type, and the inferiority of its figure sculpture is most instructive.