Ruthwell description of stone

Event ID 1084200

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1084200

Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Ruthwell 1 (Ruthwell Cross), Dumfriesshire (St Cuthbert): inscribed Anglian cross

Measurements: H 5.20m; W base 0.69m, shaft 0.53m tapering upwards to 0.33m, upper arm 0.23m; D base 0.46m, shaft 0.46m tapering upwards to 0.23m.

Stone type: red sandstone

Place of discovery: NY 1006 6820

Present location: in Ruthwell Parish Church.

Evidence for discovery: first recorded around 1600, the cross stood intact at Ruthwell until 1642 when an edict of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland ordered its destruction. The larger fragments were re-used as benches inside the church until restoration work in 1772 when they were taken out into the churchyard, where other fragments lay. The minister, Rev Henry Duncan, had the cross re-erected in the manse garden in 1823, commissioning a new fragment to replace the missing side-arms and centre of the cross-head. The top arm was added back to front. Publication of Duncan’s drawing of the cross led in 1844 to the recognition that the runic inscription relates to the Anglo-Saxon religious poem known as ‘The Dream of the Rood’. The cross was taken into state care in 1887 and taken into the church to stand in a specially designed new apse. In 1931 a fragment of an original side-arm was found in the manse and displayed alongside the restored cross.

Present condition: originally carved in two sections joined by a mortise and tenon joint, the felling of the cross caused the lower section to break into two and the upper section into at least five fragments. The centre of the cross-head and most of the side-arms are still missing, though presumably somewhere in the churchyard. The carving is damaged and worn but reasonably clear.

Description

This magnificent cross is carved in deep relief on all four faces of the shaft and faces A and C of the top arm of the cross-head. The base of the shaft is rectangular, above which it tapers upwards, and the arms of the cross-head are cusped. Each carved face is bordered by a flat-band moulding. Faces A and C of the shaft each bear four figural panels of unequal sizes and separated by flat-band mouldings, the top panels being above the joint between the two sections of the monument. Faces B and D are carved with long panels of continuous inhabited vine-scroll. The mouldings on faces A and C of the shaft bear inscriptions in Latin, which describe the enclosed figural scenes, while the vertical mouldings on faces B and D bear an inscription in Anglo-Saxon runes, which is part of a poem ‘The Dream of the Rood’. The iconography of the figural panels relates to the New Testament, and the poem, narrated by the cross itself (the rood), tells the story of the Crucifixion.

Face A (north). On the top arm is carved a bird on a twig with berries and on the lower arm two frontal figures. The top panel on the shaft bears a frontal robed figure with nimbus, carrying a lamb, interpreted as St John with the Lamb of God. The next panel shows a large robed figure with nimbus, standing frontally with feet resting on two animals, Christ above the beasts. Below is a panel with two robed figures with a large round object between them, seen as Paul and Anthony in the desert sharing bread. The next panel shows a figure on horseback holding a small figure and is interpreted as the flight of the holy family into Egypt. The basal section is plain but uneven.

Face C (south). The top arm bears a human figure in profile with a bird, possibly the apostle John with his eagle, and the lower arm an archer in profile with a bow. The top panel on the shaft is carved with two human figures in profile and facing one another, possibly Mary and Martha. The next panel shows a frontal figure with a nimbus, holding a square object, and at his feet a bent figure in profile, interpreted as Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Christ and drying them with her hair. Only the upper part of the next panel survives, showing two figures in profile facing one another, that on the left with a nimbus, though to represent Christ healing the blind man. Th next panel down depicts two frontal figures, each with a nimbus, seen as the Annunciation. The base of the shaft bears a cross, possibly added later.

Faces B and D both bear long panels of vine-scroll with berries, the scrolls of which are inhabited by birds and animals, both frontal and in profile.

It has been argued that this monument was originally an obelisk, to which an upper section with a cross-head was added within the early medieval period. There is now a huge body of published comment and analysis about the Ruthwell Cross.

Date range: late seventh to mid eighth century.

Primary references: Stuart 1867, pls 19-20; ECMS pt 3, 442-8; Cassidy 1992; Stancliffe 2017.

Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2019.