Amongst the early Christian monuments of the British Isles the Scottish cross-slabs form a well defined group. They are related to the Irish and Manx crosses of the 7th and 8th centuries and show occasionally some connexion with Northumbrian art. But, out of motives borrowed from these different sources, there was evolved in Scotland a type of monument peculiar to that country. The erect slab was constantly preferred to the free-standing cross, and, although a flat style of carving, similar to the Irish style, was used, and many of the Irish motives—spirals, interlacing and occasionally animal-interlacing—were adopted, the spirited rendering of hunting scenes and fantastic animals, and the use of the cross, framed in the slab as in a page of manuscript, gave to these monuments a definite originality.