File:Vanishing England (1911) (14748530926).jpg

Identifier: vanishingengland00ditc (find matches)
Title: Vanishing England
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson), 1854-1930
Subjects: England -- Description and travel England -- Antiquities
Publisher: London : Methuen
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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aviourand His Apostles, displaying before the eyes of theirhearers the story of the Cross written in stone. Thenorth of England has many examples of these crosses,some of which were fashioned by St. Wilfrid, Archbishopof York, in the eighth century. When he travelledabout his diocese a large number of monks and workmenattended him, and amongst these were the cutters instone, who made the crosses and erected them on thespots which Wilfrid consecrated to the worship of God.St. Paulinus and others did the same. Hence arose alarge number of these Saxon works of art, which we pro-pose to examine and to try to discover the meaning ofsome of the strange sculptures found upon them. In spite of iconoclasm and vandalism there remains inEngland a vast number of pre-Norman crosses, and itwill be possible to refer only to the most noted andcurious examples. These belong chiefly to four mainschools of art—the Celtic, Saxon, Roman, and Scandi-navian. These various streams of northern and classical
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288 VANISHING ENGLAND ideas met and were blended together, just as the wildsagas of the Vikings and the teaching of the gospelshowed themselves together in sculptured representationsand symbolized the victory of the Crucified One over thelegends of heathendom. The age and period of thesecrosses, the greater influence of one or other of theseschools have wrought differences; the beauty and delicacyof the carving is in most cases remarkable, and we standamazed at the superabundance of the inventive facultythat could produce such wondrous work. A great char-acteristic of these early sculptures is the curious inter-lacing scroll-work, consisting of knotted and interlacedcords of divers patterns and designs. There is animmense variety in this carving of these early artists.Examples are shown of geometrical designs, of floriatedornament, of which the conventional vine pattern is themost frequent, and of rope-work and other interlacingornament. We can find space to describe only a few ofthe

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