The Ruthwell Cross

Book excerpt: The Ruthwell Cross, a late seventh-or eighth-century high cross in the kirk at Ruthwell in the Scottish Borders, is one of the most intriguing examples of sculpture to survive from the early Middle Ages. With its Latin inscriptions, a Runic poem related to the "Dream of the Rood," and an extensive program of finely carved images, the cross has long attracted the interest of scholars from a variety of disciplines. Bringing together papers delivered at a conference sponsored by the Index of Christian Art in Princeton in 1990, this illustrated volume addresses some of the most debated issues surrounding this major literary and artistic monument of Anglo-Saxon culture. The volume begins with an introduction to the historiography of the cross by Brendan Cassidy. Robert T. Farrell discusses the fate of the cross from the seventeenth century, its current state of preservation, and its reconstruction; David Howlett uncovers patterns of significance in the Latin and Runic inscriptions; Douglas MacLean suggests the most likely date for the cross on the basis of contemporary historical events; Paul Meyvaert addresses the message of the iconographic program in the light of the theology and religious beliefs of the time. The volume also contains an extensive bibliography and the complete series of sixteenth-to nineteenth-century drawings and engravings of the entire cross and of its parts.