 |
|
    |
 |
||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At the very top of the north side, in the damaged area just above the upper Tree of Life, a fragmentary runic inscription ssu/s is still legible: it would seem, a fragment of another version of the sacred name gessus, Jesus. We have already seen that the sacred name was also inscribed in runes in the space between the human (majestas) and symbolic (Agnus Dei) portraits of Christ on the west side, and that the crossed paws of the converted animals at the feet of the majestas visually echoed the X-shaped initial rune for “g” in that version of the sacred name. As further references to X-patterns can be discerned in the panels of insular interlace on the south and north sides, a major feature of the cross-shaft is its continued references to the sacred name Jesus Christ. The Bewcastle designer seems to have designed the whole cross as a “sign of the Son of Man” (Matt 24:30), a central and ancient Christian metaphor. The Bewcastle community, who hoped that their names would be inscribed in the Book of Life (as in the scroll blessed by Christ in majesty on the west side), commissioned a monument each side of which emphasized that as “living stones” they had been incorporated, by Baptism and the Eucharist, into Christ the “living stone,” the “corner-stone, chosen and precious” (I Peter 2:4-10). Other visual metaphors for this hope are the birds and animals who feed from the grapes of the great Tree of Life on the east side. Another central theme of the Bewcastle Cross is how, through the cross, Paradise is restored. Christ, in the panel where he blesses the beasts who acclaim him, is presented as the Second Adam who, from the beginning of Lent, “was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him” (Mark 1:13). Adam had been placed in Paradise as lord of the animals late on the sixth day of the week of creation (Gen 1:26-31), a Friday. Now, by his heroic death, on Good Friday at the ninth hour, Christ has restored in human beings the majestic divine image (Gen 1:27) that Adam had lost. The Bewcastle Cross was designed to be lived with. Members of the Bewcastle community, who each day saw the sun illuminate the sides of the cross in due order, would have become gradually aware of its dynamic and progressive unity. The north side, touched slantingly by the sun’s rays only near the height of summer, provides the first stage of the program. The chequers of its carefully-framed central panel associate the cross with both light and darkness: an idea developed by the sundial on the south side. From morning to evening the sun progresses from the great image of the Tree of Life on the east side, via the south side with its sundial, towards the human and animal images of the west side. This daily progression suggests that east and west sides are also to be related to each other as balanced images: thus the Tree of Life leads to the Book of Life; Christ’s blood (the vine-scroll) to Christ’s body; feeding birds and animals to confident and majestic humans in harmony with animals. The sundial, which indicates the seasonal course of the sun more reliably than its daily course, suggests an important relationship between the two majestic standing human figures on the upper half of the west side, Christ blessing the scroll of the Liber Vitae, and John the Baptist acclaiming the Lamb of God, who alone can open that scroll and reveal the names of those to be saved (Rev 5:9) (fig. 7a). John the Baptist was conceived six months before Christ (Luke 1:36); while Christ was the light of the world (John 1:4-5; 9:5), his cousin the Baptist was not himself the light, but came to testify to the true light which enlightens everyone (John 1:8-9). The Baptist himself had expressed their relationship in the following words: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). The early medieval liturgy associated these scriptural themes with the cosmic imagery of the sun’s yearly course. It celebrated the physical conceptions of Christ and John at the equinoxes of the Julian calendar: Christ on 25 March (the eighth day before the kalends of April), when the sun begins to get the upper hand over the darkness, and John on 24 September (the eighth day before the kalends of October), when the sun begins to be conquered by the autumnal darkness. It celebrated the births of Christ and John at the solstices: Christ’s on 25 December (the eighth day before the kalends of January) when, at the darkest time of the year, the sun begins to “increase” against the winter dark; and John’s on 24 June (the eighth day before the kalends of July) when the sun, having reached its apogee, begins to “decrease.” This Christian solar cycle, which is reflected for example in the martyrology of Bede,21 can be summarized as follows: 1. a[nte] d[iem] VIII Kalendas Ianuarias (25 December) Nativitas Domini [dies crescens: a growing day] 2. a[nte] d[iem] VIII Kalendas Apriles (25 March) ADNUNTIATIO DOMINI ET PASSIO EIUSDEM [dies crescens: a growing day] 3. a[nte]d[iem] VIII Kalendas Iulias (24 June) Nativitas S. Ioannis Baptistae [dies decrescens: a lessening day] 4. a[nte] d[iem] VIII Kalendas Octobres (24 September) Conceptio S. Ioannis Baptistae [dies decrescens: a lessening day] In short, the early medieval church, by means of the solstices and equinoxes, inscribed a great cross-pattern across the changing year, so as to make each of the four seasons recall the incarnation, and John the Baptist its messenger (Mark 1:2: Latin, angelus). Of these four cardinal dates 25 March, the spring equinox in the Julian calendar, was particularly rich in symbolism: an ancient Christian learned tradition, going back to Tertullian and Hippolytus, held that Christ had died on 25 March, the anniversary of his conception. Such a tradition was accepted by the Irish and British, as well as by Roman tradition followed by the Anglo-Saxons: it showed that Christ, the “powerful lord” of history, did all things at appropriate times and seasons, so that “the heavens show forth the Glory of God” (“Caeli enarrant,” Psalm 19:1) each year as well as each day. A community relatively near cultural borderlands between Anglo-Saxon and Pictish or British territory, interested, as we have seen, in visual symbols of cultural diversity, is likely to have found this tradition appealing. In the seventh century, the different methods of calculating Easter had been a source of tension between some Anglo-Saxon clerics, who followed Roman use, and some Irish clerics, who had a different method of calculating Easter. After such tensions it made good sense to stress an ancient tradition that all these communities accepted: that the first Good Friday had fallen at the ancient Julian equinox, the anniversary (and, from the late seventh century, the feast) of Christ’s incarnation at the Annunciation. On that spring day of birth and death, the day on which the history of the universe had been forever changed, the Roman (Julian) solar cycle within which the Annunciation was celebrated had “met with” the Jewish (Paschal) lunar cycle that determined when the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, should be celebrated. The height of panels three-five of the south side (the foliage panel which contains the sundial within its frame of insular interlace) corresponds closely to that of the two panels of the Christ-Baptist sequence on the west side (fig. 7a). Thus the movement of the sun from the Tree of Life (east side) past the sundial and its flanking panels (south side) towards the Christ-Baptist sequence (west side) gently hinted, each day, at the Christian solar incarnation-cycle. We shall find that the Ruthwell designer found more urgent and vivid ways to show the significance, within salvation history, of the linked births of Christ and John. At Ruthwell the relations between incarnation and passion, between Baptism and Eucharist, between water and blood, become major issues. The Ruthwell CrossThe Ruthwell designer seems to have known the Bewcastle Cross, and to have planned to produce a creative variation on its theological themes. The antiquarian Richard Bainbrigg stated in a Latin note to William Camden, written between 1599 and 1601, that this “cross of wonderful height” then stood within Ruthwell parish church. The cross has a large base, on which later sculptors added a crucifixion panel (on the first broad side, directly under the Annunciation panel). The panel has been dated to the end of the eighth century, perhaps two generations after the cross was first designed and sculpted. When first erected, the cross probably stood in the open air, with its heavy base buried as at Bewcastle. When the Ruthwell cross was brought out of the weather into a building, its base could be left exposed above ground level and the new panel added. The Ruthwell designer included, on the second broad side, a variation of the paired panels at Bewcastle representing Christ acclaimed by the beasts and John the Baptist acclaiming the Agnus Dei. As we have seen, both of these panels refer to Good Friday ceremonies, and Christ was believed to have faced west on the cross. It seems reasonable therefore to suppose that, as at Bewcastle, these panels originally faced west. At Ruthwell Christ acclaimed by the beasts comes at the top of the lower stone, while John the Baptist comes at the foot of the upper stone. The sculptors of the upper stone were given creative freedom to emphasize the individuality of that stone: to provide it with its own lower borders (flat, and suitable for inscription), and to vary creatively the placing of runes and Roman letters, for reasons which we will later examine. One of the most attractive features of early medieval art (as of early medieval liturgy) is the way it accommodates creative variation and artistic independence within an overall unity. The Ruthwell designer produced a radical variation on the concepts of the Bewcastle Cross. The Ruthwell Cross has no provision for inscribing the names of local benefactors or prioresses: it would appear that its designer was not interested in the central feature of Bewcastle, the cross as a symbolic Liber Vitae. There is no longer a sundial, and so a later generation at Ruthwell could think it appropriate to move their great cross inside, out of the sun. As well as eliminating the sundial, the Ruthwell designer avoided patterns of insular interlace such as we find on the north and south sides at Bewcastle: he or she would find other visual means to celebrate what Roman and Celtic traditions held in common. Instead, he or she concentrated on expanding the Mediterranean Tree of Life motif, making it central, and providing it with its own striking ekphrastic vernacular commentary. Two matching Tree of Life images now cover all of the sides of the shaft that originally faced north and south: not only the lower stone, but also the upper stone as far as the transom. The Ruthwell designer altered the shape of the cross-shaft: while the Bewcastle shaft is almost square at the bottom (56 x 54 cm), at Ruthwell the two sides occupied by the Tree of Life are narrower than the other two sides. The other sides (originally facing east and west) were made broad so that extensive figural programs could be sculpted on them but, as we shall see, those programs take their meaning from the great paired vine-scrolls that form the symbolic center of the cross. |
||||||
 |
||||||
|
Academics | Admissions | Alumni | Works | Listen | Look | Contact | Index | Home | Yale University
|