Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Pages tanned. Nice older book in good condition. Year 1943. Softcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> The Ruthwell Cross has for long had a strong attraction for antiquarians on account of its runic inscriptions. It was a spectacular achievement of 19th century scholarship to have deciphered the runes and to have confirmed the readings through the subsequent discovery of the Vercelli manuscript. In 1924 followed J. Brondsted’s Early English Ornament a first and successful attempt to bring the monument into line with corresponding works of art in the Mediterranean by restricting the study to the ornament. T. D. Kendrick’s brilliant pages on the “Northumbrian Crosses” (Anglo-Saxon Art 1938) are still centred on the problem of the ornament. The present paper is exclusively devoted to the figure subjects of the Ruthwell Cross. Although these have often been discussed singly the meaning of the programme as a whole has never been explained nor have the scenes been studied in relation to the repertory of Mediterranean art. The intricate question of dating will be treated here without reference to either the literary and epigraphic evidence of the inscriptions or to the stylistic analysis of the ornament. Since all previous attempts at reaching a solution on those lines have not met with undisputed acceptance it has seemed justifiable to start on a new course and to fight shy of the former lines of approach. (MP)