Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture – serie

The rich and diverse visual heritage of Northern Yorkshire in the pre-Conquest period is revealed in this major addition to the much-admired Corpus series. This volume surveys the sculpture in the historic North Riding of Yorkshire (excluding those parts already covered in Volume III). The total of some 400 carvings include important pre-Viking Age monuments, such as the crosses at Croft, Easby and Masham. The excavated sculpture from Whitby Abbey include a range of inscriptions which form crucial epigraphical evidence for our understanding of the pre-Conquest monastery. But Anglo-Scandinavian monuments predominate, with major collections at Brompton, Kirklevington and Lythe. A number of workshops have been identified and it was in this area that the hogback recumbent memorial first appeared. Much of the Anglian sculpture has stylistic connections with western Yorkshire and Mercia, and the wider connections with Europe are manifest in the iconography and styles of the great crosses at Easby, Masham and Cundall/Aldborough. There are strong Irish links with the area in the Anglo-Scandinavian period.This catalogue is a crucial piece in the Corpus jigsaw linking Volumes I, II and III, and marks the culmination of the lifetime's work of a great Anglo-Saxon scholar.

The latest volume in the acclaimed Corpus series completes the cataloguing of the stone sculptures of Yorkshire, and boosts our understanding of the artistic development of southern Northumbria in the pre-Viking and Anglo-Scandinavian periods.The monuments in the historic West Riding of Yorkshire include important collections from Dewsbury, Ilkley, Leeds and Otley, containing individual pieces of the highest quality; and there are fine examples of early architectural sculpture at Ledsham and Rothwell.Many of the finest monuments are connected with important ecclesiastical estates, such as Ripon; the iconography of the sculptures tells us about how these estates continued into the Anglo-Scandinavian period.Introductory chapters set the material within an historical, topographical and art-historical context, and there are specialist contributions concerning the inscriptions and geology of the monuments. There is a full photographic record of each monument which includes many new illustrations. The volume complements Corpus Volume III (York and Eastern Yorkshire) and Volume VI (Northen Yorkshire). It volume will be an indispensable research tool both for students of the early English church, and for all those interested in the relationship between artistic styles and the successive waves of settlement in England.

This volume provides a full analytical catalogue of all known pre-Norman sculpture from this region. As little documentary evidence survives from the area, the sculpture is vital to understanding the early development of the Church, the shifting relationships between communities, and the ways in which political affiliations gave access to a variety of cultural centers across England, Ireland, mainland Europe and Scandinavia. Among the significant carvings are the crosses at Sandbach with their elaborate figural sculpture and the delicate carvings from Halton and Hornby in the Lune valley. Much of the work is of the 10th- and 11th-century Viking period, and shows an intriguing mixture of Scandinavian-derived motifs alongside Christian iconography.Introductory chapters set the material within its historical, topographical and art-historical context.

The stone sculpture of Anglo-Saxon England forms an important source for archaeologists and historians - offering fascinating insights into the thought-world of early medieval people. This volume surveys the western Midland counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire, and provides an analytical catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon stone sculptures of that region.Introductory chapters set the material within an historical, topographical and art-historical context, and there are specialist contributions concerning the geology of the monuments and the analysis of surviving ninth-century paint. There is a full photographic record of each monument which includes many new illustrations. The monuments include important collections of material from Gloucester, Deerhurst and Shrewsbury, as well as individual sculptures of the highest quality such as the Cropthorne cross-head, cross-shafts from Acton Beauchamp and Wroxeter, and the small but exquisite Lechmere Stone from Hanley Castle in Worcestershire. Some of the early monuments from the western borders of the study area are linked to the traditions of the Celtic churches of the west, but much of the material was carved at a time when Mercian art was at its zenith in the late eighth to early tenth centuries. There is also a significant body of carvings from the later tenth and eleventh centuries, but Scandinavian influence - so apparent in Northumbria and much of the rest of Mercia - is notably absent from these western counties until the early eleventh century.This volume shows that Western Mercia offered a vibrant milieu in which influential artistic ideas could develop and spread, not just in carved stone but also in manuscripts, metalwork and other materials, and that, even in the unified Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Mercian craftsmen continued to produce works of the highest quality.

Carved and decorated stone-work is a rare survival from the period before the Norman Conquest. In Nottinghamshire it survives as large crosses and as small fragments - to be found in churches, in public spaces and in museum collections. This is the first book to provide an authoritative listing, description and illustration of all examples of this type of decorated stone sculpture in Nottinghamshire. Each example is illustrated in a substantial catalogue containing high quality photographs, maps and interpretative drawings. In the introductory chapters the authors explore the geological and historical background of the sculptures and provide an overview of the types of style and ornament.The new information revealed by the systematic study of these major survivals of Anglo-Saxon art and archaeology demonstrates the major contribution that this category of material can make to an obscure and under-investigated period in Midlands history. Nottinghamshire emerges with a distinctive identity in the pre-conquest period, having strong connections both with the Mercian state to its south and with the Northumbrians to the north.

This volume in the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Sculpture surveys the counties of Derbyshire and Staffordshire and provides an analytical catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon stone sculptures of that region. Introductory chapters set the material within historical, topographical, archaeological and art-historical contexts, as well as its scholarly framework, and there are specialist contributions concerning the geology of the monuments and the sculpture from the (originally) royal ecclesiastical site at Repton in Derbyshire. There is a full photographic record of each monument, and many of the images were taken specially for the volume.The monuments include important collections of material from Derby (St Alkmund's) and Repton, as well as individual sculptures of the highest quality such as the Lichfield Angel, cross-shafts from Bakewell and Bradbourne, the unique column standing at Wolverhampton and the sarcophagus cover from Wirksworth. Much of the material was carved at a time when Mercian art was at its zenith in the late 8th to early 10th centuries, but there is also a significant body of carvings from the later 10th and 11th centuries when the Scandinavians are known to have been active, although the region marks the fluctuating border between Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon controlled Mercia. This volume thus represents a synthesis of resent research and a complete survey of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian sculpture of the two counties, and will provide a major contribution to the study of pre-Conquest sculpture in Britain. It shows that in the early Middle Ages Derbyshire and Staffordshire offered a vibrant milieu in which influential artistic ideas could develop and spread, not just in carved stone but also in manuscripts, metalwork and other materials, and that craftsmen, working for ecclesiastical and secular patrons, produced works of the highest quality.