Ruthwell Cross

People

• 

  Henry Duncan

  Minister who gathered the broken pieces and re-erected the cross in the manse garden in 1823

• 

  Nikolaus Pevsner

  Art historian who called the Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses 'the greatest achievement of their date in the whole of Europe'

• 

  John Mitchell Kemble

  Scholar whose 1840s readings of the runes advanced the Dream of the Rood interpretation

• R

  Reginald Bainbrigg

  Antiquarian who first recorded the runic inscription around 1600 for William Camden's Britannia

• F

  Fred Orton

  Scholar who argued the monument may originally have been a column rather than a cross

Cultural influences

• Insular art tradition — Anglo-Saxon crosses are closely related to contemporary Irish high crosses; the Ruthwell Cross is the most famous and elaborate Anglo-Saxon monumental sculpture and bears the largest figurative reliefs on any surviving Anglo-Saxon cross.

• Christian iconographic programme — the carved panels form a sophisticated, unified scheme depicting Christ and biblical scenes, 'almost an academician's monument', remaining one of the most extensively studied visual programmes of the early Middle Ages.

• Old English poetry — the runic inscription contains lines similar to lines 39–64 of The Dream of the Rood, possibly making the cross a candidate for the oldest surviving text predating any manuscript of Old English poetry, though many scholars believe the runes were added later, perhaps as late as the 10th century.

Connections

• 

  Bewcastle Cross

  Closely related Northumbrian cross, probably by the same artists, sharing the very similar Christ-and-beasts panel

• 

  The Dream of the Rood

  Old English poem whose lines are echoed in the cross's runic inscription (Vercelli Book version)

• 

  Franks Casket

  Early-8th-century Anglo-Saxon work of similar age, also bearing runic text

• K

  Kingdom of Northumbria

  The Anglo-Saxon kingdom to which Ruthwell belonged when the cross was made

Discovery & excavation

In culture

• The cross has been a major focus of art-historical and literary scholarship for centuries, described as 'one of the most extensive and most studied of all surviving visual programs of the early Middle Ages'. The Visionary Cross project (Catherine Karkov, Daniel Paul O'Donnell, Roberto Rosselli Del Turco) 3D-scanned it in 2012.

What to look for

• Christ and the beasts

  The large north-side panel showing Christ treading on the beasts (or 'Christ as Judge recognised by the beasts in the desert'), surrounded by a unique Latin inscription naming Jesus Christ the judge of righteousness.

• The Mary Magdalene panel

  The south-side panel of Mary Magdalene drying Christ's feet, bordered by the longest Latin inscription on the cross.

• The desert scenes

  Other identified scenes: Saints Paul and Antony breaking bread in the desert, the Flight (or Return) into/from Egypt, the Healing of the man born blind, the Annunciation, and a later Crucifixion.

• The runic inscriptions

  The runic inscriptions carved at the sides of the vine-tracery, recorded since around 1600, containing lines paralleling The Dream of the Rood.

• The Evangelist figures

  The surviving Evangelist figures (St Matthew and St John) on the arms of the cross-head; the side arms and centre roundel are modern replacements.