from langford to south cerney: the rood in anglo-norman ... - from langford to... · from langford...

172 JBAA, vol. 165 (2012), 172–210© British Archaeological Association 2012

doi: 10.1179/0068128812Z.00000000012

From Langford to South Cerney: The Rood

in Anglo-Norman England

RICHARD MARKS

The George Zarnecki Memorial Lecture for 2010

Two fragments of a fi gure of Christ crucifi ed from South Cerney parish church com-prise the sole survivor of a Romanesque wooden Rood with an English provenance. This paper argues that it is an example of a Triumphkreuz originally located at the chancel arch of South Cerney church and seeks to establish its relationship to both pre-Conquest monumental stone Rood sculpture and wooden Triumphkreuze in northern Europe and Scandinavia. The Triumphkreuz appears to have been a stan-dard feature of the greater churches of Norman England, but how common it was in post-Conquest parish churches is less clear. While church dedications suggest that devotion to the Holy Cross was particularly strong in south-west England, late-11th- and 12th-century mural painting and sculpture of chancel arches in parish churches over a wide area exhibit a close connection with the Rood.

NEARLY a century ago, in September 1913, during some repairs to the parish church of All Saints, South Cerney (Gloucestershire), the remains of an artefact of great signifi cance were discovered.1 In a cavity behind three irregular stones about 8 feet from the fl oor to the north of the western crossing arch were two fragments of a wooden fi gure of Christ crucifi ed: one comprising the head and the other the foot, ankle and part of the shin from the right leg (Figs 1–4, 8, 9, 13, 25). Not only is this one of only two representations of what will be argued as the English version of the Triumphkreuz surviving from between the Norman Conquest and the Reformation (with a further two in Wales), it is also a unique relic of English Romanesque wooden fi gurative carving of the highest quality.2 Unsurprisingly, the fragments attracted the attention of George Zarnecki and he wrote more meaningfully about them than anyone else has done. This alone would be suffi cient justifi cation for choosing them as the subject of this lecture. A second factor is the volume and nature of research which has been carried out and is still continuing on the Triumphkreuz since the South Cerney Christ was displayed in George’s seminal English Romanesque Art exhibition of 1984.

Given the importance of the image, it is remarkable that the most substantial schol-arly study remains that of George’s catalogue entry in this exhibition.3 This lecture will seek to address fi ve questions. Firstly, what can the remains tell us about the original appearance of the fi gure? Secondly, can any further light be shed on its date and creation? Thirdly, what was its original location and function? Fourthly, what light does the South Cerney Christ shed on the history of the Romanesque monumen-tal crucifi x in the English parish church? And fi nally, by way of a postscript, what might have been the circumstances of its (partial) preservation?

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From Langford to South Cerney

original appearance

HAVING been on loan to the British Museum since the English Romanesque Art exhibition, the two fragments were fi nally acquired for that institution in 1994 from the vicar and parochial church council of South Cerney.4 They are of extreme fragility,

Fig. 2. South Cerney: Christ head profi le

© R. Marks

Fig. 1. South Cerney: Christ head and right foot (British Museum reg. no. 1994, 1008. 1, 2)

© Trustees of the British Museum

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Fig. 3. South Cerney church: west crossing arch

© Nick Salter

comprising little more than the gesso, which is largely intact and consists of a single layer of paint which shows no signs of subsequent retouching or replacement — a matter perhaps of some signifi cance, as we shall see later. In 1953–54, a previous restoration of the nose was replaced and coloured to match the original polychromy. The only other intervention took place in 1986, when old restoration to the chin was reconstituted.5

The head (Figs 1, 2, 13, 25) is elongated, with eyes closed and down-turned mouth, all rendered in a uniformly pale fl esh-tone; the drooping moustaches, short beard with locks terminating in tight curls and rope-like hair in parallel braids parted in the centre and running behind what remains of the ears are all rendered in burnt umber. A shallow horizontal indentation near the base of the hairline at the front and sides may indicate a version of the fi llet, ribbon or circlet depicted in several late Saxon manuscripts, although there is no trace of paint loss through friction with a metal

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Fig. 4. South Cerney church: location of Christ fragments

© Nick Salter

object (Fig. 5).6 Eyelashes are represented by a thin line and there are traces of eye-brows. The angular foot (Figs 1, 8, 9) pierced for the nail is rendered in the same pale fl esh-colour as the head. As for dimensions, the foot from heel to toe is just under 113 mm. The length of the head is 155 mm, the width 72 mm and depth 77 mm.

In the absence of torso and limbs, any attempt to reconstitute the original fi gure makes it a prime candidate for the application of Donald Rumsfeld’s famous (or infamous) dictum about known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns — or at least the fi rst two. In the known knowns category is its iconographical type. Even in its fragmentary state this is a work of expressive power and subtlety, evoking the mortality of Christ the man and His suffering on the cross. The pallor, closed eyes, down-turned mouth, prominent cheekbones and sunken cheeks as well as the skin stretched tautly over the bones of the foot emphasise that this is the dead Christ. The angular bent toes convey the agony of the Crucifi xion, albeit counterbalanced by the expression of calm repose characterising the head. This representation of Christ on the cross is distinguishable from that of Christ, the crowned king whose open eyes unequivocally affi rm His triumph over death. Both types were known in England from at least the 11th century (Figs 6, 7). The foot pierced by the nail and the angle of the latter show that both feet must have rested side by side on the suppadaneum, as Lethaby observed (Figs 1, 8, 9).7 Thus the image can be confi rmed as belonging to the four-nail, not three-nail type of Christ crucifi ed which found its way into England during the second half of the 12th century, but does not appear to have become signifi cant before c. 1200.8

The known unknowns are multiple and include the form of the loincloth, arms and legs as well as the cross on which the fi gure was set, whether the Christ was accom-panied by the Virgin and St John the Evangelist, the wood from which the fi gure was carved and the original dimensions of the fi gure and its cross. George suggested that the height of the crucifi x when complete was just over 760 mm, but he must have been referring solely to the corpus and not the cross. By way of comparison, Norwegian crucifi xes from Leikanger and Horg are both approximately 1.5 m high and their Christ fi gures have more or less the same height as George estimated for South Cerney (Figs 10, 11).9

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Fig. 5. London, British Library MS Cotton Tiberius C.VI, fol. 13r: Crucifi xion

© British Library Board

There are, however, clues as to certain features. The shin shows that the leg did not rise in a continuous straight line from the heel, as on the Leikanger Christ, but, in common with the Horg fi gure, was angled outwards from vertical alignment with the foot (Fig. 8). Taken together, this suggests that the knees were bent, in analogous fashion to many continental and Scandinavian wooden Romanesque Christ crucifi ed fi gures and also found in England; the sagging bodily stance further emphasises Christ’s death on the cross (Figs 6, 12). The head also must have drooped (Figs 2, 13), but the rendering of the full beard shows that it stood free from the chest. However, nothing of the neck survives to show whether it sagged to one side or hung straight down; two more Norwegian Christs provide examples of both types (Figs 14, 15).10

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Fig. 6. London, British Library MS Arundel 60, fol. 52v: Crucifi xion

© British Library Board

date and origins

ATTEMPTS to date the South Cerney Christ have ranged widely, matched only by the plethora of stylistic referents, although at least there is unanimity that it was carved in England. Lethaby was fi rst into the fi eld, suggesting that there were close affi nities with the Deposition from the Cross fresco in the Holy Sepulchre chapel, Winchester cathedral (which he dated to c. 1180) and the earliest of the Crucifi xion groups painted on the nave north aisle piers of St Albans abbey, now assigned by Paul Binski to c. 1230–35. A late-12th-century date for South Cerney was also advocated by Peter Brieger in 1942, who saw ‘a strong resemblance to the head of the Imerward Crucifi x in Brunswick cathedral’ of the time of Henry the Lion, who was in England on two occasions in the 1180s.11 In 1953, Tom Boase’s volume on English Art 1100–1216, in the Oxford History of English Art series, was published. In this the author

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Fig. 7. Romsey abbey (Hampshire): Rood

© R. Marks

looked for parallels for the treatment of the hair and beard in two manuscripts of c. 1130–50, a Terence from St Albans abbey and the Winchcombe Psalter (Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Auct. F. 2. 13 and Dublin, Trinity College MS 53); neither com-parison is convincing.12 Two years later, in his Sculpture in Britain. The Middle Ages, Lawrence Stone invoked both Spain (I assume he meant present-day Catalonia) and, at home, the Chichester cathedral Raising of Lazarus reliefs from a pulpitum as well as the Albani Psalter; the last two by implication moving the date of South Cerney back to the second quarter of the 12th century (Fig. 16).13 In his catalogue entry for the Barcelona L’Art Roman exhibition of 1961 George Zarnecki assigned the South Cerney Christ to the second quarter of the century. He opted for a more precise date of c. 1130 in the 1984 English Romanesque Art exhibition catalogue, which was repeated in the last exhibition in which it featured, Image and Idol: Medieval Sculpture at the Tate Gallery in 2001.14 In the English Romanesque Art catalogue George took the line that, rather than Spain, the inspiration behind the sculpture, as with the Chichester reliefs, more probably was German; he continued to do so in response to a review by Willibald Sauerländer, who was sceptical about this connec-tion.15 Whatever his views on the ultimate ‘inspiration behind the sculpture’, George never deviated from his conviction that the South Cerney Christ was a work of English craftsmanship. Nonetheless, the implication in much of the literature is that it is not a work of originality, but rather is derived second-hand in some way from a continental model, possibly Spanish, possibly German, without the nature of the relationship ever specifi ed.

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Fig. 8. South Cerney: Christ’s right foot

© Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art

Fig. 9. South Cerney: Christ’s right foot showing angle of nail

© R. Marks

Locating the South Cerney Christ temporally and stylistically is of course fraught with diffi culties. Apart from the sparse remains, there is the complete absence of comparative wood sculpture from 12th-century England — and invocations of monu-mental stone carving, manuscript illumination and Kleinkunst in metalwork and ivory are problematic as these media demand the application of different skills, quite apart from the question of scale. Again, while Romanesque wooden crucifi xes exist in some quantities across the Channel and North Sea, their distribution is uneven: far more survive in Catalonia, Germany and Scandinavia than in France. Moreover, at the time when South Cerney attracted scholarly attention, much of the relevant continental material was little known outside its own national boundaries. As a consequence of recent discoveries, a comparison of the South Cerney head with the treatment of hair, moustache, beard and overall mood on a Christ consecrated in 1147 from a church in the bishopric of Urgell (now in the National Museum of Catalan Art, Barcelona), which at fi rst sight might point to a connection with Catalonia, becomes less convincing when similar features characterise a wooden Christ head at the collegiate church of S. Pierre at Louvain (Figs 17, 18).16

In fact, there is almost no feature of the South Cerney head which cannot fi nd its counterpart in European or Scandinavian monumental sculpture and also small-scale metalwork. The ribbed parallel plaits of hair of South Cerney and Christs from the diocese of Urgell, Catalonia and Louvain can be seen on several cast copper-alloy

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Fig. 11. Crucifi x from Horg, Norway (Trondheim University, Vitenskapsmuseet)

© Oslo University

Fig. 10. Crucifi x from Leikanger, Norway (Bergen, Historisk Museum)

© Oslo University

Christ fi gures from crosses either found in or with widely dispersed provenances embracing England, Scotland, France, Scandinavia and Catalonia; Neil Stratford has argued persuasively that they are of English manufacture (Fig. 19).17 Overall, how-ever, while elements of the South Cerney Christ can be found on continental and Scandinavian Romanesque Roods, nowhere do they occur in such a combination as to suggest a convincing origin for its mode of representation, other than in a very generalised way and one which ultimately must have been derived from Ottonian monumental crucifi xes, such as the earliest extant, that originally over the grave of Archbishop Gero in Cologne cathedral (Fig. 20).18

Is there anything to suggest that the commissioning of a monumental Christ cruci-fi ed image for the parish church at South Cerney was a suffi ciently extraordinary event to demand the services of a gifted carver? South Cerney was no run-of-the-mill settlement. In Saxon times it was of strategic importance through its location in a border zone contested by the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. By 1086 South Cerney was in the possession of Walter of Gloucester, who between 1104 and 1113 gave the parish church of All Saints with the tithes to the Benedictine abbey of St Peter,

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Fig. 12. Barking abbey (Essex): Rood


Gloucester.19 None of the present fabric appears to be of this period, but is a much-restored structure comprising a short square-ended chancel, central tower and nave with a north aisle (the south aisle was added during the 1860s). Chevron ornament characterises the entrance to the tower stairs and the north aisle doorway; the elabo-rate multiple-moulded south doorway (re-set after the 1860s restoration) includes the

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Fig. 13. The back of the South Cerney Christ head

© R. Marks

Fig. 14. Crucifi x from Grindaker, Norway (Oslo, Universitetets Oldsaksamling)

© Oslo University

Fig. 15. Crucifi x from Horg, Norway (Trondheim University, Vitenskapsmuseet)

© Oslo University

183


Fig. 16. Chichester cathedral: Raising of Lazarus relief (detail)


beakhead clasp motif in profusion (Figs 21, 22).20 George Zarnecki argued that beakhead was fi rst introduced from France around 1125 in the cloister of Reading abbey and enjoyed marked popularity in the Thames area, where South Cerney is located. The tower arches were remodelled around or shortly before 1200 but the blocked opening above the west arch which looks contemporary with the nave entrances was retained along with the entrance to the tower stairs (Figs 23, 24).21

South Cerney church was thus rebuilt some years after it was given to Gloucester abbey. Possibly the monastery was responsible for the reconstruction, but its interest may well have been principally pecuniary and a more likely candidate is Miles of Gloucester, earl of Hereford (d. 1143), who had inherited the South Cerney estate. According to a contemporary source he erected a castle here, emphasising South Cerney’s importance in his time.22 Conveniently, too, the dating proposed by George in the Barcelona L’Art Roman exhibition for the Christ matches this neatly. In short, the likelihood is that the sculpture was commissioned for the new building. George also drew attention to a capital in the nearby former priory church at Leonard

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Fig. 17. Crucifi x fi gure (detail) (Barcelona, National Museum of

Catalan Art)

© MNAC – Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona. Photographers Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà

Fig. 18. Louvain collegiate church of S. Pierre: crucifi x fi gure (detail)

© Richard Plant

Stanley, founded between 1121 and 1129, which depicts Mary Magdalene wiping Christ’s feet and shows marked affi nities with the South Cerney head (Figs 25, 26). In 1146 Leonard Stanley became a dependency of Gloucester abbey, and George’s mid-12th-century dating for the capital suggests that it was part of a building campaign undertaken at this time.23 George also considered the doorways at South Cerney and nearby Quenington to be the work of the same carvers; his attribution is supported by the almost identical Harrowing of Hell reliefs in both locations and also the Coronation of the Virgin tympanum at Quenington. Although less accomplished than the Leonard Stanley capital, they are related stylistically; indeed, if weathering on the reliefs is taken into account, conceivably all three may have been by the same work-shop (Figs 27, 28).24 The affi nities at least show that the physiognomy of the South Cerney Christ was current amongst stone-carvers in mid-12th-century Gloucestershire — and even suggest that the fi gure was the work of a locally based carver.

location and function

WHERE was the Christ located and what was its function? The only comment George made on these aspects was that the Christ fi gure was a unique survivor of a type of

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Fig. 19. Bronze crucifi x fi gure (British Museum, reg. no. 1965,

7-4, 1)

© Trustees of the British Museum

Fig. 20. Cologne cathedral: crucifi x of Archbishop Gero

© Bildarchiv Foto Marburg

wooden crucifi x found in every medieval church. It is likely that he meant the Rood placed at the entrance to the choir or chancel and facing the nave. This had already been suggested, albeit with an iconographical reservation, by Aymer Vallance in 1936 and subsequently by David Park and Phillip Lindley, the latter with the caveat that the fi gure seems small for a Rood.25

It will be recalled that the fragments were immured in close proximity to the spring-ing of the arch on the west side of the central tower, which surely indicates the orig-inal location of the Christ crucifi ed fi gure over the original Norman arch (Fig. 3). The latter would have been round-headed and smaller than the present arch and providing suffi cient space for a cross with a height of less than 1.8 m to be placed above — or at least partly above it. If this is correct, the South Cerney Christ was what in German is termed a Triumphkreuz, placed at the east end of the nave and at the entrance to the chancel, a site of profound sacred signifi cance where Christ as lord and king signals His triumph over death and through the ritual celebration of His sacrifi ce in

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Fig. 21 (left). South Cerney church: nave north door

© The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland

Fig. 22 (below). South Cerney church: nave south door

© The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland

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Fig. 23. South Cerney church: east end of the nave

© Nick Salter

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Fig. 24. South Cerney church: access door to tower

© Nick Salter

the Mass offers the promise of salvation; as such it was a prominent focus in liturgi-cal rites, especially during Easter.26 The English term ‘Rood’ in this context is unsat-isfactory as it was applied in the middle ages not solely to the crucifi x in this location, where it has a precise theological meaning, but to representations of Christ on the cross in general.

The origins of the Triumphkreuz are traceable in northern Europe back to Carolingian times, with precursors such as the Rupertuskreuz from Bischofshofen (before 774) (Salzburg, Dommuseum) and several silver-clad monumental crosses or crucifi xes recorded in Carolingian 9th-century cathedrals; the famous plan of the monastery of St Gall of c. 820 shows the altar ‘sancti salvatoris ad crucem’ in the middle of the nave, on which is a cross, rendered on a larger scale than other crosses on the plan and with the text ‘crux pia vita salus miserique redemptio mundi’. How-ever, monumental Roods (that is, with Christ on the cross) could already be found in this century in front of the arch before the eastern apse, as at the abbey of St-Riquier.27 The Triumphkreuz became increasingly popular during the 11th century and in the

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following century it was probably universal from Scandinavia to Catalonia (Figs 10, 11, 14, 15, 18).

When was the Triumphkreuz introduced into England? From documentary sources there is little doubt that the image was a feature of major churches after the Norman Conquest; Brieger even suggested that it may have originated in Anglo-Saxon England.28 Relevant, too, are the series of late Saxon large-scale relief carvings found in churches mostly of minster status within the oolite limestone belt stretching diagonally from Lincolnshire into the West Country (Figs 7, 29, 30).29 Although the locations of the stone Roods vary, a common denominator is their presence over access points; that is, they acted as threshold images. The nave east wall is the site of the robed Christ crucifi ed at Bitton in Gloucestershire and also at Bibury in the same county, where traces remain of the Virgin (Fig. 30); the angels in the same location at Bradford on Avon (Wilts.) almost certainly also indicate the former presence of a Rood.

The pre-Conquest Roods were at the core of a debate between George Zarnecki and Joan and Arnold Taylor over the relationship of monumental stone sculpture with its architectural setting. In 1966, both parties published articles on the subject. While George’s paper was entitled ‘1066 and Architectural Sculpture’, the Taylors opted for ‘Architectural Sculpture in Pre-Norman England’.30 The former argued that the ‘Anglo-Saxons, while very fond of using sculpture to decorate architecture, had little regard for the way in which embellishment was applied to the building’; also that carvings like the Bradford on Avon angels were no more than ‘clearly enlarged versions in stone of illuminations of the Winchester School’. For their part, the Taylors did not attempt to defi ne what constitutes ‘architectural sculpture’, but provided a descriptive catalogue under various headings, one of which comprised the stone Roods (Figs 7, 29–33). Nearly two decades later, in his introduction to the sculpture section in the English Romanesque Art exhibition catalogue, George referred to the pre-Conquest stone Roods but continued to view them as regressive and in the main without reference to their architectural setting. As he eloquently put it, ‘Anglo-Saxon reliefs were pinned to the wall as fl owers or jewels would be to a dress, without being an integral part of it [. . .] Romanesque sculpture, by contrast, was characterised by very close collaboration between mason and carver, who could be one and the same’.31 Nonetheless, the Taylors had a point when it comes to the monumental stone Roods over the chancel arch and even those over entrances. ‘Pinned to the wall’ in low relief the Roods at Headbourne Worthy, Bitton and elsewhere may be, but they are on a monumental scale and are integrated into their architecture, presumably as the churches were constructed; indeed the amount of wall-space allo-cated to them indicates that the buildings were designed with the Rood in mind.32

Whether the Bitton, Bibury or Bradford on Avon Roods over the chancel arches performed the same liturgical functions as the Ottonian Triumphkreuze is uncertain. If Arnold Klukas is correct that Deerhurst had a Holy Cross altar at the east end of the nave in Ottonian fashion (although there is no documentary support for its presence there), this may well have been the case; at the very least Bitton and Bibury show that the placing of the South Cerney Christ in this position had its insular pre-cursors.33 In any event, the Normans in 1066 found a country where the monumental Rood was, in some places at least, already quite literally embedded in the fabric of the church as well as being familiar from their homelands to the new prelates and heads of religious houses who replaced the Saxon incumbents. Amongst these, the

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Fig. 25. South Cerney Christ head


most prominent was Archbishop Lanfranc and the Triumphkreuz and associated imagery and structures he erected in Christ Church cathedral between c. 1070/71 and 1077/78 will be familiar from Gervase’s description. There is no time here to discuss this, other than to note that the crucifi x was accompanied by cherubim (not previ-ously documented elsewhere) as well as the Virgin and St John. Lanfranc was also buried before this Triumphkreuz, and his Decreta contain the fi rst direct liturgical references to it in England.34 It is I think safe to assume that the Triumphkreuz was a universal feature of English secular cathedrals and monastic establishments post-1066, if it was not so before the Conquest.35

south cerney and the TRIUMPHKREUZ in the anglo-norman parish church

AS I have argued, South Cerney had a Triumphkreuz from the second quarter of the 12th century, but was this unusual for Norman parish churches? The most detailed

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Fig. 26. Leonard Stanley church (Glos.): crossing capital with Mary Magdalene wiping Christ’s feet


examination of this question is Carol Davidson Cragoe’s article on ‘Belief and Patronage in the English Parish Church before 1300: Some Evidence from Roods’.36 Carol concluded that, while large-scale Roods were the norm in greater churches before as well as after the Conquest (albeit in a variety of locations), they ‘were not widely used in smaller churches until the late thirteenth century’. She does not claim that they were entirely absent from parish churches, but suggests that where they did occur it was through particular circumstances, notably in churches which had for-merly been Saxon minsters.37 In this category she included South Cerney. However, although this was an estate of considerable importance in the late Saxon period, there is no evidence that its church ever enjoyed minster status. There are other factors which might explain why the presence of a Triumphkreuz here was at the time excep-tional for a parish church. Included with Walter of Gloucester’s gift of South Cerney church to Gloucester abbey was the chapel of St Helena at Halgestone or Hailstone within the parish. Early dedications to St Helena, mother of Constantine the Great and fi nder of the True Cross, are rare and mostly confi ned to northern England. In

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Fig. 27. South Cerney (left) and Quenington (Gloucestershire) churches (right): Harrowing of Hell

© Nick Salter

Fig. 28. Quenington church: Coronation of the Virgin

© Nick Salter

the 8th century, however, there was a nunnery at Abingdon dedicated to her which was destroyed during the Viking raids; subsequently the site of the original monastery formed part of the endowment of the 10th-century Benedictine monastery whose patronal saint was the Virgin. South Cerney was granted to this establishment, and Michael Oakeshott has suggested that the dedication of the chapel at Halgestone refl ected this ancient connection.38 Further indications that the Christ fi gure itself may have enjoyed particular veneration at South Cerney are the worn condition of the little toe (Figs 1, 8), which could have been caused by devotional acts such as touching or kissing; secondly, that the head and this foot were carefully preserved and incor-porated in the wall of the church, which leads one to believe that they were considered as relics.

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Fig. 29. Headbourne Worthy church (Hampshire): Rood

© English Heritage Archive

South Cerney is also located in an area in which there is plentiful evidence of long-standing devotion to the Rood. Church dedications are problematic as the dates by which they were applied are largely unknown. Nonetheless, the concentration in south-west England of nearly one-third of the total of ninety-nine churches dedicated to the Holy Cross or Holy Rood listed by Arnold-Forster must have some signifi cance (Map).39 South Cerney is within a 10-mile radius of seven of these, several of which retain visual manifestations of their dedication, including the four late medieval stone crosses at Ashton Keynes and the reliefs at Daglingworth, two of which depict the Crucifi xion (Fig. 31). George Zarnecki considered that the Daglingworth Crucifi xions and other panels here were the work of post-Conquest Lombard sculptors and thus can be seen as additions to the cluster of late Saxon stone Roods in the south-west to which reference has already been made.40 Richard Gem’s suggestion that the church at nearby Langford dates from c. 1090 also has implications for the two Roods there. There is no reason to dispute a post-Conquest dating for the Langford Crucifi xion group, neither is it out of the question for the robed Christ (Figs 32, 33).41

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Fig. 30. Bitton church (Gloucestershire): robed Christ crucifi ed (reconstruc-tion) (from J. Taylor and H. M. Taylor, ‘Architectural Sculpture in Pre-Norman England’, JBAA, 3rd ser., 29 (1966))

Churches dedicated to the Holy Cross/Holy Rood in the vicinity of South Cerney

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Fig. 31 (left). Daglingworth church (Gloucestershire): crucifi xion relief

© Ron Baxter

Fig. 32 (below left). Langford church (Oxfordshire): Rood over south porch entrance (original arrangement)


Fig. 33 (below right). Langford church (Oxfordshire): robed Christ on east wall of porch

© R. Marks

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There is thus a context in which the presence in the 12th century of a Triumphkreuz in South Cerney parish church is explicable in terms of a localised cult of the Cross and might be considered exceptional. Yet, whilst the evidence of the strength and longevity (spanning the Norman Conquest) of devotion to the Rood in the area is unequivocal, we should be wary of distortion. Quite apart from the problems sur-rounding church dedications, the preponderance of good limestone for carving may account for so many surviving early Rood images in the region of South Cerney.42

This brings us back to the question as to whether the Triumphkreuz was a standard feature in Norman parish churches. It would be remarkable if they were absent from parish churches at this time, given their presence in contemporary churches in Scandinavia (Figs 10, 11, 14, 15, 37, 38).43 Indeed, South Cerney does not stand alone in England. At Kempley (Gloucestershire) and Halford (Warwickshire), the fi gure of St John and traces of the niche for the Virgin survive, Kempley in fresco, Halford carved in stone in low relief and polychromed (Figs 34, 35). In both places, the Christ itself presumably was wooden. Dendrochronology points to a date-range of 1120–40 for the Kempley nave roof and the frescoes have been assigned to c. 1130–40. The Halford reliefs have also been dated to the second quarter of the century, so both schemes are likely to have been executed at much the same time as the South Cerney Christ.44

Two, or in this case three, swallows do not, however, make a summer, and are insuffi cient on which to build any general conclusions. What other kinds of evidence are available? Pre-1200 documentation for anywhere outside the great monastic and cathedral churches is very scanty. Henry of Huntingdon’s The History of the English People 1000–1154 vividly describes atrocities allegedly committed in 1138 by the Scots

Fig. 34. Kempley church (Gloucestershire): nave east wall


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Fig. 35. Halford church (Warwickshire): nave east wall

© R. Marks

under David I: ‘They dismembered priests on their altars. They put on to the bodies of the slain the heads cut off crucifi xes, and changing them round, they put back on the crucifi xes the heads of the dead’.45 The use of the label ‘priests’ shows that it was parish churches rather than cathedrals and monasteries to which Henry was referring and it can only have been large-scale wooden crucifi xes which were being defi led. Although this text does indicate that these were commonplace, it has to be borne in mind that Henry was writing from a political perspective and so may have been guilty of exaggeration. Apart from this, I have come across only a couple of textual sources which refer to lights before crucifi xes in parish churches in the 12th century.46

Carol Cragoe questions whether a Triumphkreuz would have been present in lesser parish churches on the grounds that a Rood under their chancel arches would have had to be very small; and if it was set above the arch it might have obscured any associated paintings.47 Yet the Triumphkreuz derives its status and meaning not from size, but from location. While the Roods of the Anglo-Norman great churches pre-sumably matched their German or French counterparts, in less ambitious buildings there were limitations on their size; in some the outlines and traces of Roods show that they could be very small indeed (Fig. 36).

It would be helpful if traces existed of the means by which Roods were displayed. On the Continent and Scandinavia two methods were adopted in the 11th and 12th centuries: set on a beam (trabs) by means of mortice and tenon, or suspended from

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Fig. 36. East Shefford (Berkshire): nave east wall


199


chains (Figs 37, 38). Beams as supports for Rood groups were recorded by the late 11th century at Canterbury and Winchcombe; is there any evidence for their presence in contemporary parish churches?48 My study of Romanesque chancel arches has been serendipitous rather than systematic, but there are some which do indeed have mortices for beams, as at Bengeo (Herts.) (Fig. 39). On the other hand, many do not. An explanation might be that the beam was not set into the arch but was supported by two posts set against the jambs, as has been suggested for the 10th-century Anglo-Saxon church of St Mary in Tanner Street, Winchester (Fig. 41).49 If this interpretation is correct, it would suggest that Triumphkreuze could be found even in parish churches well before the Norman Conquest; however, the purpose and nature of these structures remain uncertain.

Some Norman churches retain iron hooks embedded either in their chancel arches or in the beams over them (Fig. 40). The problem, of course, with hooks, and morti-ces, too, is the impossibility of establishing whether such interventions were made at the time of, or soon after, the original construction, or were added at a later date. Thus the most rewarding approach is to examine the imagery on and around the chancel arch, as has been done by David Park. He has pointed out that some mural schemes lack meaning without the presence of a Triumphkreuz, notably in most of the so-called Lewes group of churches in Sussex, of c. 1080–1120.50 Clayton has a Christ in Majesty fl anked by symbols of the four Evangelists and seraphim (Fig. 42). Above the chancel arch at Hardham is the Agnus Dei supported by angels, symbolic of both the Second Coming (Revelation 5, 6–14) and the redemptive Lamb of the eucharist, the latter enshrined in the centre of the liturgy with the phrase beginning Ecce Agnus Dei (Fig. 43). The Agnus Dei frequently appears with the Crucifi xion in late Saxon and Norman art and is thus an entirely appropriate accompaniment for a Triumphkreuz.51

It is equally the case, however, that representations both of Christ in Majesty and the Agnus Dei do not have to be associated with a Triumphkreuz. Moreover, even allowing for small-scale representations of the latter, it would be diffi cult (although not impossible) to accommodate a Triumphkreuz below the mid- or late-11th-century Christ in Majesty at Nether Wallop (Hampshire), the lower tip of the mandorla of which can have been no higher than about 1.8 m from the fl oor (Fig. 44). In the pre-Conquest church of St Peter at Barton-on-Humber the evidence points very strongly to a representation of Christ in Majesty over the chancel arch, the relief head of which survives.52

Ultimately, it has to be admitted that the evidence at present is too sparse on which to judge conclusively whether or not South Cerney, Kempley and Halford are merely survivors of what was the norm in terms of Triumphkreuz provision in English 12th-century parish churches, although the indications point this way. I have no doubt that this was the case well before the late 13th century and probably a matter of diocesan edict rather than random decision by individual parishes. If we do consider the possibility that the Triumphkreuz was a standard feature of the parish as well as the great church in Norman England, there are implications for our understanding of Romanesque art. The fi rst and most obvious is to be mindful of the vast quantity and importance of fi gurative wood carving in English churches of the late 11th and 12th centuries, of which we perhaps have to look to Norway to gain some idea (as Martin Blindheim has argued, especially in respect of the Triumphkreuze).53 The second concerns the treatment of the chancel arch. This does not apply solely to fi gurative and decorative wall-painting on and around the arch (and, as at Wingerworth and

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Fig. 39. Bengeo church (Hertfordshire): mortice for

roodbeam

© R. Marks

Fig. 40. Chilcomb church (Hampshire): hooks for Rood

© R. Marks

Kempley, even its soffi ts) but also to its general enhancement (Figs 45, 46). From late Saxon times chancel arches were singled out for special treatment in terms of archi-tectural and sculptural embellishment.54 After the Conquest, the chancel arch became the most prominent internal feature of parish churches. George Zarnecki observed that England has the greatest concentration of elaborately carved Romanesque arches anywhere in Europe, with France a poor second.55 Could this indicate the importance

Fig. 41. Winchester, plan of St Mary’s church, Tanner Street (from M. Biddle, ‘Excavations at Winchester, 1971. Tenth and Final Interim Report: Part II’, Antiq. J., 55 (1975))

203


Fig. 42. Clayton church (Sussex): nave looking east


Fig. 43. Hardham church (Sussex): nave looking east


attached to the Triumphkreuz on this side of the Channel? At Kilpeck (Hereford-shire), the nave side of the chancel arch is adorned with jamb fi gures identifi ed by George as apostles, one of which is certainly St Peter (Fig. 47).56 Executed during the second quarter of the 12th century (possibly in the early 1130s), they had their counterparts in the apostle reliefs on the pulpitum below the Triumphkreuz at Durham cathedral where they acted both as witnesses to Christ’s Passion and as judges at his Second Coming.57 The prestige and signifi cance of this part of the church

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are further emphasised by the multiple and variegated carved voussoirs which impart the character of a canopy of honour or triumphal arch.

preservation

THIS lecture began with an account of the circumstances of discovery of the South Cerney Christ fragments in 1913. It ends, briefl y, with the question of when and why they were concealed and preserved. The years between 1547 and 1553, when all Roods as well as other images were removed and destroyed, is the period identifi ed by several scholars (including George Zarnecki) as being the most likely.58 That the right foot has been roughly snapped off at the shin as if the fi gure had been deliberately muti-lated as an act of iconoclasm is a factor that would favour the Reformation period. On the other hand, the absence of any repainting or retouching of the original layer of polychromy (unlike many continental Triumphkreuze) suggests that the South Cerney pieces were walled up sooner rather than later.59 An obvious occasion is the re-working and enlargement of the tower arches at the end of the 12th century, with a consequent need for a new and larger Rood (Fig. 3).60 If this was the case, the reten-tion and emplacement of the fragments meant that they took on a new function as agents of sacred continuity as well as serving as holy relics.

Fig. 44. Nether Wallop church (Hampshire): nave looking east


205


conclusion

MIGHTY oaks from little acorns can grow. The wood from which the South Cerney Christ was fashioned is unknown, but this lecture has endeavoured to show that the fragments of this fi gure are of great signifi cance, signifi cance which transcends disci-plinary and temporal boundaries: for the story of Romanesque sculpture in England, for the function and meaning of the Triumphkreuz and for the history of the English parish church. At South Cerney, no trace remains of the original setting for the Christ crucifi ed image, but the fragments retain the status of unique historical and artistic survivors. Along with the stone Roods at Langford and elsewhere and in other media, the South Cerney Christ testifi es to the variety of ways in which the Rood was repre-sented in late Saxon and early Norman England, both iconographically and in terms of materials. Its fi rm provenance (an invaluable attribute in its own right) is a precious witness not merely to what we have lost in the way of wood sculpture, but also to the quality of carving which a rural parish church could display in the 12th century. No more than the head and a foot might remain, yet it is still possible to imagine the comfort the parishioners of South Cerney who witnessed its installation gained from the serenity of the dead Christ rendered so beautifully by its creator (Figs 1, 2, 25). It could not have found a more worthy advocate than George Zarnecki, both intellectually and personally.

Fig. 45. Kempley church (Gloucestershire): soffi t of chancel arch

© R. Marks

Fig. 46. Wingerworth church (Derbyshire): soffi t of chancel arch

© R. Marks

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Fig. 47. Kilpeck church (Herefordshire): chancel arch west face

© Ron Baxter and the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland

207


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research for this paper was carried out as part of a project on the Triumphkreuz in medieval England, which was funded by an Emeritus Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust. I am most grateful to the British Archaeological Association for inviting me to give this lecture in honour of my fi rst teacher in the discipline of the History of Art, to whom I am indebted for so much in my career. James Robinson, Curator of the Medieval Collections in the Department of Prehistory and Europe, British Museum, kindly permitted me to examine the fragments of the South Cerney Rood, as did Charles Little in respect of a Catalan Romanesque crucifi x in The Cloisters, New York. Dr John Munns generously loaned me a copy of his unpublished doctoral dissertation on the cross in Anglo-Norman England. Lucy Abel-Smith brought me into contact with Nick Salter who took the excellent photographs of South Cerney and related churches. All other debts of gratitude are I hope acknowledged in the endnotes and photographic credits.

NOTES

1. A. C. Stephens, ‘Particulars as to the Discovery of Head in South Cerney Church near Cirencester, Gloucestershire’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 2nd ser., 28 (1915), 18–19 (with notes by W. R. Lethaby on p. 17); anonymous pamphlet, All Hallows Church South Cerney Glos. Fragments of a 12th Century Rood (Reading 1964).

2. For a defi nition of the Triumphkreuz see below, 185, 188.3. English Romanesque Art 1066–1200, Arts Council exhib. cat. (London 1984), no. 115.4. British Museum registration nos 1994, 1008.1 (head), 1994, 1008.2 (foot).5. British Museum conservation reports, 1953–2008.6. The Romsey Rood (Fig. 7) originally had a metal crown of some kind: see B. Raw, Anglo-Saxon

Crucifi xion Iconography and the Art of the Monastic Revival (Cambridge 1990), 129.7. Lethaby (as n. 1), 17.8. P. Binski, Becket’s Crown. Art and Imagination in Gothic England 1170–1300 (New Haven, CT and

London 2004), 219; G. Cames, ‘Recherches sur les origines du crucifi x à trois clous’, Cahiers Archéologiques, 16 (1966), 185–202; J. M. Munns, ‘The Cross of Christ and Anglo-Norman Religious Imagination’ (unpub-lished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2010), 98–104.

9. M. Blindheim, Painted Wooden Sculpture in Norway c.1100–1250 (Oslo, Stockholm, Oxford, Boston 1998), 44–45, 49–50, pls 4a, b, 12.

10. Ibid., 46–47, 50–51, pls 7a, b, 13.11. Lethaby (as n. 1), 17; Binski, Becket’s Crown (as n. 8), 172, fi g. 144; P. H. Brieger, ‘England’s

Contribution to the Origin and Development of the Triumphal Cross’, Medieval Studies, 4 (1942), 95.12. T. S. R. Boase, English Art 1100–1216 (Oxford 1953), 213. For the dating of these two manuscripts,

see C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, 1066–1190, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London 1975), 86–87, 102 (nos 53, 73).

13. L. Stone, Sculpture in Britain. The Middle Ages (Harmondsworth 1955), 65. The Chichester nexus was probably taken from George Zarnecki, who noted a relationship, albeit one derived from the affi nity of both the reliefs and the South Cerney head with the Shaftesbury Psalter (London, British Library MS Lansdowne 383) (G. Zarnecki, ‘The Chichester Reliefs’, Archaeol. J., 110 (1953), 117, pl. 26b).

14. L’Art Roman, Council of Europe exhib. cat. (Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela 1961), no. 554, pl. XLVI; English Romanesque Art (as n. 3), no. 115; R. Deacon and P. Lindley, Image and Idol: Medieval Sculpture, Tate Gallery exhib. cat. (London 2001), 38–40 (entry by P. Lindley).

15. English Romanesque Art (as n. 3), no. 115; W. Sauerländer, ‘English Romanesque at the Hayward’, Burlington Magazine, 126 (1984), 515: ‘The idea that German Ottonian sculpture infl uenced such pieces as the [. . .] Crucifi x from All Hallows [. . .] was one I found diffi cult to endorse’; G. Zarnecki, Further Studies in Romanesque Sculpture (London 1992), 179–80.

16. For the Urgell Christ, see M. Castiñeiras and J. Camps, Romanesque Art in the MNAC Collections (Barcelona 2008), 148–50, pl. 106. The Louvain Christ is published in L’Art Roman (as n. 14), no. 93, where it is dated to c. 1200.

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17. N. Stratford in English Romanesque Art (as n. 3), 233, nos 230, 232–33, 235. For other examples, see Munns, ‘Cross of Christ’ (as n. 8), ills 108–13, 123b. Peter Bloch, however, considers most of these fi gures to be French (P. Bloch, Romanische Bronzekrucifi xe (Berlin 1992), 212–16).

18. M. Beer, Triumphkreuze des Mittelalters. Ein Betrag zu Typus und Genese im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (Regensburg 2005), 177–80 (with further bibliography).

19. M. Oakeshott, ‘Saxon South Cerney’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 117 (1999), 119–26; idem, ‘The Early Churches of South Cerney’, Cirencester Miscellany, 4 (2000), 4; D. P. Dobson, ‘Anglo-Saxon Buildings and Sculpture in Gloucestershire’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 55 (1933), 266, 274; D. Walker, ‘The “Honours” of the Earls of Hereford in the Twelfth Century’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 79 (1960), 174–211, esp. 198. For the relevant charters, see Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucesteria, ed. W. H. Hart, 3 vols (Rolls Series, xxxiii, 1863–67), i, 69, 224. 227, 246; iii, 4–5. At least one of these was a forgery of c. 1146–48; see The Original Acta of St Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester c.1122 to 1263, ed. R. B. Patterson (Gloucester 1998), 35–37, no. 44.

20. For the church, see D. Verey, B/E Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth 1979), 407–08; Oakeshott, ‘Early Churches’ (as n. 19), 5–6.

21. G. Zarnecki, Later English Romanesque Sculpture 1140–1210 (London 1953), 5–8; idem, English Romanesque Art (as n. 3), nos 129–31; idem, Studies in Romanesque Sculpture (London 1979), 19–35. Ron Baxter informs me that he is broadly in agreement with George’s dating for the Reading cloister, but is inclined to put it around 1130. See also A. Borg, ‘The Development of Chevron Ornament’, JBAA, 3rd ser., 30 (1967), 122–40. The dating of the tower arches was confi rmed for me by Peter Draper.

22. Walker, ‘The “Honours” of the Earls of Hereford’ (as n. 19), 198; see also J. K. West, ‘Architectural Sculpture in Parish Churches of the 11th- and 12th-Century West Midlands: some Problems in Assessing the Evidence’, in Minsters and Parish Churches. The Local Church in Transition 950–1200, ed. J. Blair, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph, 17 (Oxford 1988), 161–62.

23. Zarnecki, ‘The Chichester Reliefs’ (as n. 13), 117.24. G. Zarnecki, ‘The Coronation of the Virgin on a Capital from Reading Abbey’, Journal of the

Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 13 (1950), 10, pl. 3a; fn. ref. in Verey, B/E Gloucestershire (as n. 20), 408. The school of thought which considers the relief to be pre-Conquest can be discounted: D. Talbot Rice, English Art 871–1100 (Oxford 1952), 154; Dobson, ‘Anglo-Saxon Buildings’ (as n. 19), 273–74 identifi es both South Cerney and Quenington as probably by the same (pre-Conquest) workshop. T. F. Mackay agrees regarding their affi nities, but argues that they were executed in the 12th century by Saxon masons (‘Anglo-Saxon Architecture and Sculpture in the Cotswold Area’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 82 (1963), 92). See also M. Q. Smith, ‘The Harrowing of Hell Relief in Bristol Cathedral’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 94 (1976), 103; idem, ‘The Carved Stone in South Cerney Church’, Antiq. J., 15 (1935), 203–04. I am indebted to Lucy Abel-Smith for drawing my attention to the relevance of the Quenington carvings.

25. A. Vallance, English Church Screens (London 1936), 12; D. Park, ‘Romanesque Wall Paintings at Ickleton’, in Romanesque and Gothic: Essays for George Zarnecki, ed. N. Stratford (Woodbridge 1987), 159, 166; S. Rickerby and D. Park, ‘A Romanesque Visitatio Sepulchri at Kempley’, Burlington Magazine, 132 (1991), 31; Deacon and Lindley, Image and Idol (as n. 14), 40 and by the present writer in Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (Stroud 1994), 38.

26. R. Haussherr, ‘Triumphkreuz’, in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie (Rome, Freiburg, Basle and Vienna 1974), 4, cols 356–59; idem, ‘Triumphkreuzgruppen der Stauferzeit’, in Die Zeit der Staufer. Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur, exhib. cat. (Stuttgart 1977), vol. 5; idem, Der Tote Christus am Kreuz (Bonn 1963); idem and C. Väterlein eds, in Die Zeit der Staufer Supplement: Vorträge und Forschungen (Stuttgart 1979), 131–68; Beer, Triumphkreuze (as in n. 18); G. Lutz, Das Bild des Gekreuzigten im Wandel (Petersberg 2004); Brieger, ‘England’s Contribution’ (as n. 11); J. E. A. Kroesen and R. Steensma, The Interior of the Medieval Village Church (Louvain, Paris, Dudley MA 2004), 214–37.

27. Beer, Triumphkreuze (as n. 18), 170–95; C. Kosch, Kölns Romanische Kirchen. Architektur und Liturgie im Hochmittelalter, 2nd edn (Regensburg 2005); E. Fernie, The Architecture of the Anglo-Saxons (London 1983), 150.

28. See references in O. Lehmann-Brockhaus, Lateinische Schriftquellen zur Kunst in England, Wales und Schottland vom Jahre 901 bis zum Jahre 1307, 5 vols (Munich 1955–60); Brieger, ‘England’s Contribution’ (as n. 11), 85–89.

29. H. M. Taylor and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 2 vols (Cambridge 1965), passim; J. Taylor and H. M. Taylor, ‘Architectural Sculpture in pre-Norman England’, JBAA, 3rd ser., 29 (1966), 3–51; E. Coatsworth, ‘Late Pre-Conquest Sculptures with the Crucifi xion South of the Humber’ in Bishop Aethelwold: His Career and Infl uence, ed. B. A. E. Yorke (Woodbridge 1988), 161–93; idem, ‘The “Robed Christ” in pre-Conquest sculptures of the Crucifi xion’, Anglo-Saxon England, 29 (2000), 153–76; Mackay, ‘Anglo-Saxon

209


Architecture and Sculpture’ (as n. 24); Raw, Anglo-Saxon Crucifi xion Iconography (as n. 6); Fernie, Archi-tecture (as n. 27), 149–51; D. Tweddle, M. Biddle and B. Kjølbye-Biddle, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture in England, IV, South-East England (Oxford 1995), passim. For a more recent discovery, see P. Everson and D. Stocker, ‘A Newly Identifi ed Figure of the Virgin from a Late Anglo-Saxon Rood at Great Hale, Lincolnshire’, Antiq. J., 80 (2000), 285–96.

30. G. Zarnecki, ‘1066 and Architectural Sculpture’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 52 (1966), 87–104; Taylor and Taylor, ‘Architectural Sculpture’ (as n. 29).

31. English Romanesque Art (as n. 3), 146. The force of George’s observation is underlined by the low relief shared by the sculptures and late Saxon ivories.

32. Dodwell also unfavourably compared early post-Conquest sculpture in churches with Anglo-Saxon carving (R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art. A New Perspective (Manchester 1982), 233).

33. A. W. Klukas, ‘Liturgy and Architecture: Deerhurst Priory as an Expression of the Regularis Concor-dia’, Viator, 15 (1984), 90; for Bitton and Bibury, see Taylor and Taylor, ‘Architectural Sculpture’ (as n. 29), 6–9.

34. ‘Supra pulpitum trabes erat, per transversum ecclesiae posita, quae crucem grandem et duo cherubin et imagines s. Mariae et s. Iohannis apostolic sustentabat’ (Gervasius of Canterbury: see Lehmann-Brockhaus, Schriftquellen (as n. 28), I, 179). For Lanfranc’s burial, see The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis Volume IV Books VII and VIII, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall (Oxford 1973), 170; The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, ed. D. Knowles, rev. C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford 2002), 70, 86, 88, 90, 106.

35. Capitals with Passion iconography in the vicinity of chancel arches in churches of higher status are probably indicative of the presence of a Triumphkreuz: cf. Leonard Stanley (Zarnecki, ‘The Chichester Reliefs’ (as n. 13), 117) and Southwell Minster (F. Kelly, ‘The Romanesque Crossing Capitals of Southwell Minster’, in Southwell and Nottinghamshire: Medieval Art, Architecture and Industry, ed. J. S. Alexander, BAA Trans., xxi (Leeds 1998), 13–23).

36. C. D. Cragoe, ‘Belief and Patronage in the English Parish Church before 1300: Some Evidence from Roods’, Architectural History, 48 (2005), 21–48.

37. Ibid., 22–24.38. Historia et Cartularium (as n. 19), III, 4–5; Oakeshott, ‘Early Churches’ (as n. 19), 5. For dedications

to St Helena, see F. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications, or England’s Patron Saints, 3 vols (London 1899), I, 181–89; III, 365–66; A. Binns, Dedications of Monastic Houses in England and Wales, 1066–1216 (Woodbridge 1989), passim; F. Bond, Dedications and Patron Saints of English Churches. Eccle-siastical Symbolism, Saints and their Emblems (Oxford 1914), 72–76. For interest during the fi rst half of the 12th century in St Helena’s British roots, see Munns, ‘Cross of Christ’ (as n. 8), 96, 157.

39. Arnold-Forster, Studies (as n. 38), I, 32–34; III, 2, 367–68.40. G. Zarnecki, ‘Sculpture in Stone in the English Romanesque Art Exhibition’, in Art and Patronage

in the English Romanesque, ed. S. Macready and F. H. Thompson, Society of Antiquaries of London Occasional Paper, ns, 8 (London 1986), 22; Taylor and Taylor, ‘Architectural Sculpture’ (as n. 29), 15, and J. Hunt, ‘A Figure Sculpture at Upton Bishop, Herefordshire: Continuity and Revival in Early Medieval Sculpture’, Antiq. J., 89 (2009), 200, hold to a pre-Conquest stance.

41. R. Gem, ‘L’architecture préromane et romane en Angleterre. Problèmes d’origine et de chronologie’, Bull. mon., 142 (1984), 255, 266; also Fernie, Architecture (as n. 27), 171; Gem’s post-Conquest date for Langford is accepted by J. Blair, Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire (Stroud 1994), although he assumes a late Saxon date for the Roods (136, 179–80). For bibliography on the Langford Crucifi xion reliefs, see above, n. 29.

42. See above, n. 29. 43. A. Andersson, Medieval Wooden Sculpture in Sweden, vol. II. Romanesque and Gothic Sculpture

(Stockholm 1966); also Kroesen and Steensma, Interior (as n. 26), pls 11.3–5.44. D. Kahn, ‘The Romanesque Sculpture of the Church of St Mary at Halford, Warwickshire’, JBAA,

133 (1980), 64–73. For Kempley, see Rickerby and Park, ‘Visitatio Sepulchri’ (as n. 25); B. M. Morley and D. W. H. Miles, ‘The Nave Roof and Other Timberwork at the Church of St Mary, Kempley, Glouces-tershire: Dendrochronological Dating’, Antiq. J., 80 (2000), 294–96.

45. Henry of Huntingdon, The History of the English People 1000–1154, ed. and trans. D. Greenway (Oxford 2002), 69. The Latin text is ‘. . .presbyteros super altaria detruncabant, crucifi xorum capita abscissa super caesorum corpora ponebant, mortuorum vero capita mutuantes super crucifi xa reponebant’ (Henrici Archidiaconii Huntendenunensis Historia Anglorum, ed. T. Arnold (Rolls Series, lxxiv, 1879), 261).

46. The Cartulary of Newnham Priory, ed. J. Godber, 2 vols, Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 43 (Bedford 1963–64), II, 324, no. 736. See also H. M. Thomas, ‘Lay Piety in England from 1066 to 1215’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 29 (2006), 186.

47. Cragoe, ‘Belief and Patronage’ (as n. 36), 25.48. Lehmann-Brockhaus, Schriftquellen (as n. 28), I, 179 (Canterbury); II, 634 (Winchcombe).

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49. M. Biddle, ‘Excavations at Winchester, 1971. Tenth and Final Interim Report: Part II’, Antiq. J., 55 (1975), 312, fi g. 15.

50. Park, ‘Ickleton’ (as n. 25), 166; Rickerby and Park, ‘Visitatio Sepulchri’ (as n. 25), 31. 51. Ibid., loc. cit. As well as being a standard feature on Anglo-Saxon and Norman crosses in ivory

and metalwork, the Agnus Dei appears on the reverse of Romanesque crucifi xes and on the frescoed arches above, or in close proximity to, the original locations of Catalan Triumphkreuze (Castiñeiras and Camps, Romanesque Art (as n. 16), pls 30, 33, 38).

52. An observation made by Cragoe (‘Belief and Patronage’, as in n. 36), 22; also W. Rodwell (with C. Atkins), St Peter’s Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire. A Parish Church and its Community. Vol. 1 Part 1. History, Archaeology and Architecture (Oxford and Oakville 2011), 341–46; R. Gem and P. Tudor-Craig, ‘A “Winchester School” Wall-painting at Nether Wallop, Hampshire’, Anglo-Saxon England, 9 (1981), 115–36; Pamela Tudor-Craig subsequently has argued against the identifi cation of the fi gure in a mandorla as a Christ in Majesty, but I still favour this hypothesis (P. Tudor-Craig, ‘Nether Wallop Reconsidered’, in Early Medieval Wall Painting and Painted Sculpture in England, ed. S. Cather, D. Park and P. Williamson, British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 216 (Oxford 1990), 89–104).

53. Blindheim, Painted Wooden Sculpture (as n. 9), 28–38. That said, the physiognomy of the South Cerney head does not fi nd close comparisons in extant Norwegian Romanesque Triumphkreuze.

54. Fernie, Architecture (as n. 27), 164–68.55. F. Henry and G. Zarnecki, ‘Romanesque Arches Decorated with Human and Animal Heads’, JBAA,

3rd ser., 20–21 (1957–58), 1.56. Zarnecki, Later English Romanesque Sculpture (as n. 21), 10–12; idem, ‘Regional Schools of English

Sculpture in the Twelfth Century: the Southern School and the Herefordshire School’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1950). See also J. F. King, ‘The Parish Church at Kilpeck Reassessed’, in Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Hereford, ed. D. Whitehead, BAA Trans., xv (Leeds 1995), 82–93; M. Thurlby, The Herefordshire School of Romanesque Sculpture (Little Logaston 1999), 40, 67–69 (who questions whether the fi gures are apostles, apart from St Peter); J. Hunt, ‘Sculpture, Dates and Patrons: Dating the Herefordshire School of Sculpture’, Antiq. J., 84 (2004), 185–222; R. Baxter, ‘Whose Heritage? The Problem of the Shobdon Arches’, JBAA, 163 (2010), 160–61.

57. Two panels survive from the Durham pulpitum of 1155–60; the apostles are lost, but are recorded in the Rites of Durham. See T. E. Russo, ‘The Romanesque Rood Screen of Durham Cathedral: Context and Form’, in Anglo-Norman Durham, ed. D. Rollason, M. Harvey and M. Prestwich (Woodbridge 1994), 266–67.

58. Zarnecki in L’Art Roman (as n. 14), no. 554; Boase, English Art (as n. 12), 213; Deacon and Lindley, Image and Idol (as n. 14), 39. For accounts of the fate of Roods during the Reformation, see M. Aston, ‘Cross and Crucifi x in the English Reformation’, in Macht und Ohnmacht der Bilder. Reformatorischer Bildersturm im Kontext der europäischen Geschichte, ed. P. Blickle, A. Holenstein, H. R. Schmidt and F. J. Sladeczek (Munich 2002), 253–72; E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England c.1400–c.1580 (New Haven, CT and London 1992), 408–503 (iconoclasm generally); also my forthcoming study of the Triumphkreuz in medieval England and Wales. The Roods at Kemeys Inferior and Mochdre in the National Museum of Wales also survived by concealment within their respective parish churches (M. Redkna p, ‘The Medieval Wooden Crucifi x Figure from Kemeys Inferior, and its Church’, The Monmouthshire Antiquary, 16 (2000), 11–43; J. D. K. Lloyd, ‘Two Figures from the Rood at Mochdre, Montgomeryshire’, Montgomeryshire Collections, 53 (1954), 110–15).

59. See, for example, T. Frøysaker and K. Kollandsrud, ‘The Calvary Group in Urnes Stave Church, Norway: A Technological Investigation’, in Medieval Painting in Northern Europe: Techniques, Analysis, Art History, ed. J. Nadolny (London 2006), 43–58.

60. I am indebted to Philip Lankester for drawing my attention at the lecture to the possible signifi cance of the broken-off foot.

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