Easter Hoard Cross and Bishop Wilfrid

Abstract.  The folded great cross found in the Staffordshire Hoard has zoomorphic imagery which is decoded for the first time. Its profound iconography conveys the Easter message that belief in crucifixion and resurrection will heal with eternal life. A 7th century cross emphasising Easter could have been initiated by Bishop Wilfrid of Mercia. The cross could have adorned the cover of the St Chad’s Gospels. 

An incomplete, jewelled gold cross,[1]now called The Great Gold Cross, was recovered as part of the Staffordshire (Hammerwich) Hoard together with five roundel attachments, two garnets and a ‘D’ shaped stone.[2]  The parts have been reassembled in the most likely way and a replica has been made with missing bits added. A slightly different and personalised reconstruction has been given.[3]

Drawing of the recovered cross with the replica held by Lichfield Cathedral. Permission given Dean and Chapter. The cross unfolded is c. 300 mm (12 inches) tall.

 

The folded gold cross is extraordinary for its explicit depiction of Easter and salvation and is remarkable for this being depicted in Anglo-Saxon zoomorphic imagery. Its profound and beautiful artwork makes the cross a national Christian treasure, that is wrong to keep in a museum since it belongs to a Christian centre and particularly Lichfield Cathedral. It emphasises Easter for the early English, Roman church at the time it was being established and connecting it with Bishop Wilfrid adds to this historical significance.

Appearance

 The ends of the arms have leaf shaped extensions which are most likely vine leaves illustrating a ‘tree-of-life’ motif symbolising spiritual growth.[4] Vine motifs are seen on Acca’s stone at Hexham, Northumberland and the standing crosses at Bewcastle, Cumbria, and Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire.[5] Such crosses have been linked with the reforms of Bishop Wilfrid and his mission to connect the northern churches especially with the Church of Rome.[6] It is argued the gold cross is contemporary with free-standing stone high crosses in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria and churches of southern Ireland having grapevine motifs and espousing communion with Rome. This linkage is not original; the three stone crosses have previously been envisaged as monuments imitating gold and jewelled crosses, of which some are seen in mosaics in Rome churches.[7]

 

Between the roundels and garnets of the cross are five incised panels containing non-figurative, semi-naturalistic zoomorphs.[8] This animal art is interpreted here as having cryptic biblical references rooted in the seventh century. The following explanation begins with the deciphering of panels from the bottom stem of the cross and continues by moving upwards and then outwards along the arms of the cross.

Lower stem panels below the central garnet.

 

The lower stem panel of the cross has five ribboned zoomorphs, each identifiable with a single eye. The five figures are taken to refer to the five days from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday in Holy Week. The bottommost zoomorph is small and represents Palm Sunday, this being the Lord’s Day with an avoidance of activity, including dietary restriction. The zoomorph has a large hand above the head and has the appearance of waving, such as with a palm leaf. The uppermost fifth zoomorph has an extra limb to its sinuous body and is taken to be showing an upturned foot washed on Maundy Thursday. The hind leg has an upturned, trailing paw, it is repeated with the two zoomorphs in the next panel, showing they remain washed and spiritually unsullied.

The panel above has two more zoomorphs and symbolically presents crucifixion. At the bottom of this panel is a chain of four linked rings which could be a skeuomorph to show the arrest and shackling of Christ at the end of the fifth day. A raised, sharp point at the bottom left side of this panel has to denote the spear of the Roman soldier, John XIX. v. 34. The top zoomorph under the large garnet has a distinct tilted-ring around the body close to the head. The position of this ring is either the crown of thorns, or is a nimbus and tilted to show Jesus is dead. The eye of this zoomorph is indistinct. There is a total of thirteen feet in the two panels below the central garnet which presumably represents Christ and the twelve disciples. 

Panel above the central garnet

 

Above the central garnet is a small panel separated by a crossline from the top panel. It shows two sinuous appendages, taken to be arms with rings and ending in three fingers. It has the general shape of the letters ‘IHS’, or nearer still the alternative ‘JHS’, a Christogram using the first three capital letters of the name for Jesus in Greek. The name was incised on Cuthbert’s oak coffin in runic letters, c. AD 698,[9] and the zoomorph panel is similar in shape to the three incised runic letters. The small panel would reflect Christ in a small rock tomb on Holy Saturday and its shape resembles the headpost added to many crucifixes. Using arms to signify the name of Jesus would not be unusual, there is considerable Biblical[10] reference to portray him as the arm of God. A ring around the arm recalls the Anglo-Saxon signature for kingship and could be relevant.

Above the line in the top panel are two entwined ribbon animals with mouths touching. The bodies of these animals have simpler ornamentation; studs along the body are absent and eyes are again indistinct. If this panel characterised Easter and resurrection, their appearance is inevitably schematised and a biblical context is offered. Interpreting the two zoomorphs as touching in an embrace recalls reference to John XIII, v34, I give you a new commandment that you love one another. This is elaborated in Galatians. V, v14 and 15, “For the whole law is summed up in one commandment. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. If you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another”.

Zoomorphs biting bodies, tails and legs are numerous in the artwork of the Anglo-Saxons, but these two zoomorphs are unusual in having touching mouths. The south side of the Ruthwell cross near to the top has two figures in an embrace. A pair of remarkably similar zoomorphs with interlocking jaws were carved on the jambs of the entrance porch to St Peter’s church, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland. These late seventh-century figures appear to be embracing each other and their ribbon bodies intertwine to form a tau cross.[11] They could have reminded all who enter the church to love one another.

Monkwearmouth zoomorphs. Image thanks to N. Platts.

Drawing of zoomorphs at Monkwearmouth on the entrance porch jamb.

 

A similar representation is on an early eighth-century grave cover or marker known as the Herebericht stone[12], also at Monkwearmouth, with two confronted animals (birds?) above a cross with squared arms.[13] Did the gold worker of the cross know the sculpture at the church at Monkwearmouth and if this was so, a date of late-7th or early-8th century could be given by association?

 

Ó Carragáin thought the paws of the two animals on the Bewcastle cross originally crossed over to form a Chi- ‘X’ shape for the first Greek letter of Christ, but weather had obliterated this. It is more obvious in a panel on the north side of the Ruthwell cross.[14] The sinuous bodies of the zoomorphs in the top panel of the gold cross clearly show an ‘X’ shape. If the gold cross imagery was contemporary with the two stone crosses, a date in the first half of the 8th-century is recalled.[15] Finally, the two hands, each with three digits, of the two sinuous zoomorphs point upwards to the top garnet, as if holding high a ‘living stone’[16]; a theophany. Bede viewed the living stones metaphor as the faithful in the new temple or church.[17] Christ holds the equivalent trope of a ‘Book of Life’ on the Bewcastle cross.

 

If the stem of the cross showed zoomorphic representation of the days leading to crucifixion and resurrection then the side arms show imagery of salvation.[18]

Side arm panels and its iconography labelled for the figurative river and associated fruits.

 

The two side panels are thought to refer to Psalm I. v3 and particularly to a vision expressed in the Book of Revelation, XXII. v1 and v2.^[19] This vision consists of a river which proceeds from the throne of God that flows to the people of the church who are embraced by the side arms. The river-of-life is envisaged with a fruit tree growing on each side of the bank producing 12 kinds of fruit.^[20] The fruit tree is the tree-of-life and underlines the whole cross being a tree-of-life allegory. The ribbon body is deciphered as a river because it has two lines of raised studs that are tear-shaped eliciting the appearance of flowing water.^[21] The elbow pieces are analogous in shape to a stalked fruit and there are 12 on the cross; 4 on each side arm and 4 on the top panel. There are animal heads at the ends looking outwards and this suggests they have a protective function.^[22] It fits with a following verse in Revelation XXII, v15, outside are those who love and practice falsehood. Dogs were seen to symbolically guard against those who sin and by extension harm the fidelity of the church. The inside dog on the left arm has its ear missing and this could artistically refer to three verses later in which everyone is exhorted to hear the words of Revelation otherwise they lose their share in the tree of life. To illustrate this trope of dogs looking outwards see St Chad’s Gospels in which Luke, on page 218, sits on a chair with finials shaped as dog heads looking outwards and on guard.^[23]

 

Dogs (bottom left and right) looking outwards on Luke’s Incipit page of St Chad’s Gospel.

 

Bede, in his ‘Commentary on Revelation,’ c. AD 703, emphasised the fruit as the reward for Christian obedience, Romans VI, v21–22 and Galatians V, v22, and is a metaphor for all time, that is 12 months and thus 12 fruits. In Bede’s words the Lord gives eternal health and the eternal food of life.^[24] The arms of the cross are stretching outwards and healing all by offering everlasting life. This sentiment was in Tatwine’s riddle 9 describing a cross using the words, “Now I appear iridescent; my form is shining now. Whoever enjoys my fruit will immediately be well for I was given the powers to bring health to the unhealthy”.^[25] Tatwine, c. AD670 x 734, was a monk at Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire, and appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, AD731 x 734, by King Æthelbald of Mercia. He could, like Bede, have been concerned with the healing of people out of reach of the Mercian church. A similar animal ornamentation occurs on the impressed silver-gilt foils around the rim of a Maplewood bottle found amongst the grave goods in the Sutton Hoo ship burial, c. AD 620–c. 630.^[26] This similarity does not necessarily make the two items contemporaneous or make the bottle decoration explicitly Christian,^[27] but could be an image that was loved and copied over several generations.[28]

 

The sponsor of the gold cross has instructed obvious and profound iconography to convey the Easter message that belief in crucifixion and resurrection will heal with eternal life. Most crux gemmata are eschatological and have crucifixion imagery, sometimes on the reverse side.^[29] It could have been inspired by the gemmed cross^[30] set up, year 417, by Theodosius II, 408 x 450, on the altar of the true cross in the Sepulchral complex in Jerusalem.^[31] The same imagery, that is Christ crucified, Paradise, Tree-of-life, and Revelation, is evident in the Byzantine mosaics of various Italian churches from the 6th-century^[32] and would most likely have been seen by bishops on their pilgrimage to Rome. This suggests the sponsor could have been Bishop Wilfred of Ripon and Hexham, 634 x 710, who went on three pilgrimages to Rome. The Easter trope points towards association with someone adhering to the canonical laws decreed in 672 after the Synod of Whitby, 664.[33] Wilfrid believed strongly in the centrality of Easter and his fervent promotion for Roman observance throughout much of England.[34] After Wilfrid was exiled from Northumbria, he turned to Æthelred of Mercia, 690–692, and was acting bishop for the Middle Angles.[35] Then, with Bishop Headda of Lichfield, c. 691 x 716–27, a close relationship with Mercia continued and lasted for eleven years, between 691/2 to 703.[36] By the end of Wilfrid’s life there existed a large network of monasteries in Mercia owned and influenced by him.[37] Wilfrid, aged c. 76 in early 710, in front of ten witnesses at Ripon, including two Mercian monks, ordered his treasurer to open the church treasury, spread out the gold, silver and precious jewels and distribute them to his abbeys and monasteries in Northumbria.[38] Around this time, after 709, Wilfrid made his last journey to Mercia, met Mercian abbots and gave away endowments.[39]  It is possible he passed on jewelled objects to his Mercian brethren before he died at Oundle, 24 April, 710, [40] with burial at Ripon. Foot concluded material prosperity seems both to have marked out the Wilfridian houses and to have bound them to their patron. There is good reason Lichfield would have been in his, ‘kingdom of churches’ and perhaps a beneficiary of liturgical objects.[41] Wilfrid was at the centre of Romanising England as well as developing the cathedral-church at Lichfield.

 

Is there a historian who would like to pursue this important history and publish?

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[1] It measured folded 114 mm long, 74 mm wide and 1.3 mm thick, see catalogue No. 539 online at Archaeology Data Service (ADS), The Staffordshire Hoard: An Anglo-Saxon Treasure. The hoard contained five cross-shaped objects and other objects with crosses displayed on them.

[2] C. Fern, ‘Magnificent was the cross of victory: the great gold cross from the Staffordshire Hoard’, Barbaric splendour. The use of image before and after Rome, ed. T. F. Martin and W. Morrison (Oxford, 2020), 78–86.

[3] C. Fern, T. Dickinson and L. Webster eds. The Staffordshire Hoard. An Anglo-Saxon treasure. Research Report of the Society of Antiquaries, No. 80. (London: 2019), 100.

[4] Refers to the tree in the middle of paradise according to the visions of Ezek. XVII, 22–24 and Dan. IV, 7–14. Also, the tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden, Gen. II, 15. The cross as a tree is poetically described in The Dream of the Rood, c. eighth century, R. Hamer, A choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse (London, 1970), 160-1. Lines 7 and 8 state it is covered in gold and gleams with jewels. The extensions have been described as animal ears, possibly equine, Fern ‘Magnificent was the cross of victory’, 84 and 94.

[5] Acca’s Cross is in The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture,1, 174–176. The Bewcastle cross is in The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture, 2, 61–72, see <http://www.ascorpus.ac.uk>.

[6] W. Herren and S. A. Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity, (Woodbridge: 2002), 207.

[7] J. Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, (Oxford, 2005), 137.

[8] Fern described the cross as combining a Christ-in-victory message with animal art of northwest Europe rooted very probably in pagan pre-Christian belief. See note 2. Fern, ‘Magnificent was the cross of victory.’ 78.

[9] R. Page, An introduction to English Runes (Woodbridge, 2006), 171–2.

[10] Isaiah, 51 v9 is one of around 40 references to the arms of Jesus.

[11] Animal shown in E. Wamers, ‘Behind animals, plants and interlace: Salin’s Style II on Christian objects.’  Anglo-Saxon/Irish relations before the Vikings ed. J. Graham-Campbell and M. Ryan (Oxford 2009), 182, is described as a crane bird zoomorph in The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture, 1, 125–6 is labelled reptilian. There is a superficial resemblance to the main zoomorph in the Durham Gospels (Durham A. II. 17, fol. 2r), late seventh century.

[12] The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture, 1, Monkwearmouth, 5. 1040 x 530 x 180 mm.

[13] J. Hawkes, ‘Symbolic lives: the visual evidence’ The Anglo-Saxons from the migration period to the eighth century: an ethnographic perspective. (Woodbridge, 1997), 322.

[14] É. Ó Carragáin, ‘The periphery rethinks the centre: inculturation, Roman Liturgy and the Ruthwell Cross’. Rome across time and space. Cultural transmission and the exchange of ideas, c. 500–1400 ed. C. Bolgia, R. McKitterick and J. Osborne. (Cambridge, 2011), 4, 79.

[15] It is generally thought the two crosses were produced by the same team of sculptors who were foreign and importing Continental artistic concepts, Herren and Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity, 237–9. A Statement of Significance for Historic Environment Scotland, 2019, dates the Ruthwell Cross to c. AD 730s.

[16] I Peter 2, v 4, ‘Come to him, a living stone’.

[17] From Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels, Book 2, 24.

[18] The explanation was first published in a book, R. Sharp, The Hoard and its History. Staffordshire’s secrets revealed (Studley: 2016).

[19] Ibid R. Sharp, (2016), 56. Biblical references are from the Biblia Sacra Vulgata, fifth edition Bible.

[20] “And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of the street, and on both sides of the river, the tree bearing fruit twelve months, yielding its fruit and leaves are for the healing of nations”. The alternative to the Vulgate in the N.R.S.V. Bible is found at 258.

[21] The rivers could allude to the four rivers which watered the Garden of Eden, Genesis. II, v10–14. The rivers were named as the Phison, Geon, Tigris and Euphrates. On the cross arms are 4 rivers each ending in four animal heads. Four rivers frequently appear in the Rome apse mosaics issuing from Christ’s throne or from below His feet, see P. Murray and L. Murray, The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture (Oxford, 1996), 433. The tear-shaped studs have been suggested to be hair on an animal’s body, see C. Fern, ‘Magnificent was the cross of victory: the great gold cross from the Staffordshire Hoard’, Barbaric splendour. The use of image before and after Rome, ed. T. F. Martin and W. Morrison (Oxford, 2020), 85.

[22] The bears at the end of hogback stones might have had a similar protective role, see M. Carver, Formative Britain. An Archaeology of Britain, fifth to eleventh century AD (London and New York, 2019), 555. A cat forms the border to Luke’s incipit page of the Lindisfarne Gospels, fol. 139r, and is thought to be a guardian at the entrance of the underworld, see M. P. Brown, Painted labyrinth. The world of the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, 2003), 30. F. Wallis, Bede: Commentary on Revelation (Liverpool, 2013), 284 gives Bede’s comment on Revelation 22, v15 as ‘the savage ferocity of shameless men assaulting the church from the outside’.

[23] See page 218. <https://lichfield.ou.edu/content/luke-portrait-pg-218> [accessed February 2020].

[24] See note 21, Wallis, Bede: Commentary on Revelation, 280.

[25] M. J. B. Allen and D. G. Calder, Sources and Analogues of Old English Poetry. The Major Latin texts in translation (Cambridge, 1976), 56.

[26] London, British Museum object 1939,1010.122–7,1, see K. Hoilund Nielson, ‘Style II and all that: the potential of the hoard for statistical study of chronology and geographical distribution’. Papers from the Staffordshire Hoard Symposium ed. H. Geake (London, 2010).

[27] There is no justification in labelling any of the burials, Sutton Hoo horse, ship and bed burials, as Christian, see Carver, Formative Britain. An Archaeology of Britain, fifth to eleventh century, 34.

[28] It is feasible the bottle contained a drink, Comey thought sweet mead or ale, which would give healing of a sort. Placement in the middle of the burial chamber must have had a funerary significance. See, M. G. Comey, ‘The wooden drinking vessels in the Sutton Hoo assemblage: Materials, morphology and usage’. Trees and timber in the Anglo-Saxon World. Medieval History and Archaeology, ed. M. D. J. Bintley and M. G. Shapland (Oxford, 2013), 117.

[29] The recently installed cross icon hanging above the nave at Lichfield Cathedral has jewels on the east side representing the Staffordshire Hoard.

[30] The existence and form of this monumental cross has been questioned, see C. Milner, ‘Lignum Vitae or Crux Gemmata? The Cross of Golgotha in the Early Byzantine Period. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 20, (1996), 77–99.

[31] J. Hawkes, ‘Venerating the Cross around the year 800 in Anglo-Saxon England’ The Jennifer O’Reilly Memorial Lecture (Cork, 2018), 4.

[32] M. Baghos, ‘Christ, Paradise, trees and the Cross in the Byzantine art of Italy’ J. of Orthodox Theology, 9, (2018).

[33] At the Synod of Whitby, AD 664, it was established how Easter should be fixed, made distinct and kept separately. It had to be restated in the first of ten decrees at the Council of Hertford (Herutford), AD 672. A meeting on 24 September, convoked by Archbishop Theodore with Bishop Winfrith of Mercia, 672 c.676, present and Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon attending by a proxy.

[34] M. Laynesmith, ‘Anti-Jewish rhetoric in the Life of Wilfrid’, Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013).

[35] C. Cubitt, ‘Appendix 2: The Chronology of Stephen’s Life of Wilfrid’. Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 345–347.

[36] M. Capper, ‘Prelates and politics: Wilfrid, Oundle and the Middle Angles’. Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 262.

S. Foot, ‘Wilfrid’s monastic Empire. Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 31. At least six have been suggested between AD 691/2 and 703, see P. Coulstock, The Collegiate Church of Wimborne Minster (Woodbridge, 1993). Capper, ‘Prelates and politics: Wilfrid, Oundle and the Middle Angles, 263, mentioned Bath, Oundle, Ripple, possibly Inkberrow and Chester. Evesham and Wing have some claim, see D. Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, fifth ed.’ (Oxford, 2011), 448. Also, Worcester, Leicester and Medeshamstede (Peterborough) with its satellite minsters at Breedon-on-the-hill, Woking, Bermondsey and perhaps Hoo (Kent) and Brixworth, see Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, 83. Foot, Monastic life in Anglo-Saxon England c. 600–900, 258–269, included Repton and Thorney. Mercian monks were regarded as part of the Ripon Community according to Stephen, Vita Sancti Wilfrithi, chapter 64,138.

[38] Vita Sancti Wilfrithi, 63, 136–137. See A. Thacker, ‘Wilfrid, his cult and his biographer.’ Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 10.

[39] J. Blair, The church in Anglo-Saxon Society, (Oxford: 2005), 96.

[40] C. Stancliffe, Dating Wilfrid’s death and Stephen’s life’ Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 21.

[41] S. Foot, Monastic life in Anglo-Saxon England c. 600–900, 26. See note 20.