Jane Hawkes

The Lichfield Angel: A Spectacular Anglo-Saxon Painted Sculpture

Excavation within the Gothic nave of Lichfield Cathedral in 2003 revealed three phases of masonry building ante-dating the Norman period. These are likely to relate to the church of St Peter, which Bede described in 731 as housing the timber shrine to St Chad, fifth bishop of Mercia (d 672). A rectangular, timber-lined pit found on the central axis of the building might represent a crypt or burial chamber beneath the shrine. Buried in a small pit alongside this were three fragments of a bas-relief panel of Ancaster limestone, carved with the figure of an angel. They comprise half of the left-hand end of a hollow, box-like structure that had a low-coped lid. This is interpreted as a shrine chest associated with the cult of St Chad. The sculpture, which was broken and buried in, or before, the tenth century, is in remarkably fresh condition, allowing for an in-depth analysis of its original painted embellishment and for an assessment of the monument in terms of its iconography and stylistic affinities, and thus the possible conditions of its production. It is argued that the surviving portion of the panel represents the archangel Gabriel, and that it is one half of an Annunciation scene.

John the Baptist and the Agnus Dei : Ruthwell (and Bewcastle) Revisited

The identity of the figure with a lamb carved on the upper stone of the Anglo-Saxon cross at Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, was interpreted by Paul Meyvaert (in 1982 and 1992), as an apocalyptic image of the Deity instead of John the Baptist. Close inspection of the panel, however, makes it difficult to accept such an explanation. Instead, an adaptation of the early Christian images of the Baptist is proposed, and it is argued that the details of the panel are best understood in the light of the introduction of the Agnus Dei chant into the Mass by Pope Sergius I (687–701), and of biblical commentary which saw the Baptist himself as an apocalyptic figure associated with the Lamb, the paschal sacrifice, commemorated each day in the Mass.

Andrew Reynolds & Leslie Webster (ed.). Early medieval art and archaeology in the northern world. Studies in honour of James Graham-Campbell . li+948 pages, 229 bw 978-90-04-23503-8 hardback €249 &

Having set its agenda, does the book deliver? The result is certainly an excavation monograph that is far more readable than most. In large measure it is an exercise in carefully reporting the excavation of an exceptionally well-preserved tenthto eleventhcentury longhouse with an adjacent stave church and burial ground representing Iceland’s conversion period. The buildings, burials, human remains, artefacts, ecofacts and landscape are all documented and interpreted in a scholarly way, with the theme of chiefly power strategies providing a unifying thread. An exceptionally informative study of pollen and other microfossils illuminates the impact of initial settlement, and finds of charred barley grain in the house document local cereal cultivation, an essential prerequisite for the chiefly feasting (see also Zori et al. 2013). A final chapter provides an international perspective by reporting the evidence of North Atlantic contacts from the major Viking Age town of Hedeby, on the Schlei fjord leading to the Baltic Sea on the Danish-German border.

346.

Abstract The carved stone fragment from Ingleby in Derbyshire has attracted little attention in the scholarly literature on medieval sculpture, largely because the question of its date has been considered particularly unclear. It thus raises interesting questions about dating, about the nature of the models lying behind the carving, and about its iconographic significances, the relevance of which extend far beyond Derbyshire. Here the piece is examined in the light of Anglo-Saxon art, and situated within the context of the later 9th and 10th century, but produced under the influence of artistic conventions dating back to the preceding century in the Insular world and Carolingian Gaul, which in turn look back to the art of late antiquity. The article argues for the influence of visual traditions in its illustration of agricultural tools rather than that of objects perhaps familiar in Anglo-Saxon England, and suggests that the unusual depiction of harvesting, which is perhaps only paralleled elsewhere in art from the South-West, is best considered in the light of the trees set in a rocky and watered landscape, also featured on the stone, and overall presents a set of eschatological iconographic references.