Hoard Gold Cross: context, use and date.

Abstract.  The Easter gold cross found in the Staffordshire Hoard could have been central to the Easter liturgy at Lichfield as presumably initiated by Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon. This dates it to late 7th century to early 8th century. It is a national treasure and totemic of the Romanising of liturgy in the early church.

The folded gold cross in the Staffordshire Hoard[1] sets out the whole of the Easter celebration.[2] The wider context of the cross requires explanation,[3] in the same way undertaken for stone crosses showing aspects of the passion. [4]

Drawing of the recovered cross with the replica held by Lichfield Cathedral. Thanks to the Dean and Chapter. The cross is a crux gemmata, a jewelled cross.

 

Zoomorphic imagery on the cross depicting Holy Week emphasises an important theological issue debated in the second half of the seventh century. Easter initially did not have its own feast[5] and when it coincided with the Jewish feast of the Passover the two were conflated; the word Paschal was often used to refer to Easter. Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem ending in death and resurrection was a 7-day observance, whereas Passover lasted 8 days. This concurrence continued until the Council of Nicaea, AD 325, when it was decreed Easter was to be observed always on a Sunday following the fourteenth full moon of the Jewish month of Nisan (equivalent to March-April), so separating it from the precise time of the Passover. Despite this on rare occasions the two festivals still coincided. 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, led Bede to write that all present agreed, ‘That all keep Easter Day on the Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon of the first month.’[6]  From the late-7th to early-8th century, Easter now took an enhanced position in the Christian calendar.[7] Making Easter distinctive became part of the papal mission, as conveyed by Augustine of Canterbury in his failed meeting with Welsh priests, c. AD 600.  Later it was emphasised in a letter, according to Bede, from Archbishop Laurence, c. AD 610, to his bishops and British priests.[8] It is argued the cross displayed and reinforced this papal instruction; the foremost issue of the time. 

Various schismatics continued to believe Easter should be celebrated at the same time as the Jewish Passover on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, the day of the full moon, whatever the day of the week that happened to be, and became known as Quartodecimans or ‘Fourteeners’.[9] Along the two lower panels of the stem are animals with fourteen limbs. These are separated from the upper panel depicting resurrection by a large central garnet; separating Easter was critical. Using zoomorphs to cryptically tell the essentials of Holy Week must be another example of Anglo-Saxon riddling.[10] Zoomorphic creatures are giving glory to God through the perfect union of all in paradise.[11] Christ and saints are not explicitly on the cross,[12] but all the creatures are in harmony with a clear message for everyone.

How might the cross have been used?

A plain back to the cross as well as the garnet roundels having large holes suggests the cross was attached to a wooden base and this could have been the cover of a book.[13] Its unfolded size of c. 300 mm would suit the front of an altar display book. It fits the Lindisfarne Gospels, which is 365 mm high and 275 mm wide. Also, St Chad’s Gospels, probably written at Lichfield[14], which is now 308 mm high and 235 mm wide, after being trimmed a few centimetres in the past. The hoard report noted prestige manuscripts would certainly have had decorative metal fittings.[15]

St Chad’s Gospels with the cross attached to the front.

 

If the cross was unattached, it could have been linked to the Veneration of the Tree-of-Life Cross, which is part of the Good Friday rite recorded in the years 381‑384 in Jerusalem by the pilgrim Etheria.[16]^,  How it was used in the 7th and 8th centuries has to be inferred; liturgy can only be guessed from comments from the Synod of Whitby and markings for liturgical readings in gospel books.[17] An imagined procession carrying a jewelled cross-reliquary in the early-8th century has been described.[18] It could have been used in the  liturgical drama enacted over Easter[19] mentioned in The Dream of the Rood poem. Later accounts described the gospels taken to the altar on Holy Saturday night, together with a wrapped cross and wafting incense, so re-enacting the preparation of Christ’s body.[20]

Suggested date for the cross

Many objects in the Staffordshire hoard are stylistically intermediate between the regalia of the Sutton Hoo assemblage, c. 625, and the earliest manuscript animal art, typified by the Book of Durrow, c. 650 x 675.^[21],[22] Symons thought the hoard was hidden around 650‑670.^[23] Fern considered the Style II artwork of the hoard ranged in date from c. 570 to c. 650 with the art of the cross amongst the latest.^[24] This dating has related to the strife that eventually gave a Mercian supremacy. Cavill linked it with Penda defeating Oswald in 642^[25] and Fern with Penda’s demise, 655, in the battle near the river ‘Winwaed’.^[26] In 2019, a monumental review of archaeology by Carver concluded Christianity in Britain was largely not signalled in material culture (artefacts, burial items and sculpture) until the last quarter of the 7th-century and then it led the ideological field for 150 years.^[27]  Blair concluded the monastic boom started in the years around AD 670.^[28] The momentous change was the formation of an indigenous ecclesiastical establishment which could stand on its own feet. The earliest cathedral close to the find spot, namely St Peters Lichfield, fits into this timeframe. Therefore, if the cross was associated with this early cathedral, it would best fit into Carver’s ‘formative two period,’ 675–750.^[29]

From the fourth century in the Mediterranean region there was a reluctance to depict Christ suffering on the cross and a reservation to see him solely as human, so with rare exceptions was shown in symbolic form. This was rescinded in 692, by canon 82 of the Quinisext Council held in Constantinople. So, a cross without human forms would best fit into a post-692 period. One of the earliest surviving real images of the crucifixion appeared on the east face of the Ruthwell Cross followed by representations in the Durham Gospel fragments and the St Gall codex,^[30]  all being 8th-century. If there was a progression for Christian pictography from decorative forms based on abstract, geometric patterns^[31] to semi-natural plant and animal decoration (zoomorphism) and finally developing into flat, stylized figures of biblical characters including Christ,^[32] the gold cross with zoomorphism would conform to the intermediate designs in the early to mid-8th century.

A late-7th to early-8th century date presents a possible historical association. The cross must have belonged to an important church led by a notable bishop at this time.^[33] Also, the Easter trope points towards association with someone adhering to the canonical laws decreed in 672 and imputes connection with Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon, 634 x 710. Wilfrid believed strongly in the centrality of Easter and his fervent promotion for Roman observance throughout much of England.^[34] He was instrumental in developing the early church-cathedral in Lichfield.

If the cross had a lifetime of use, it places the burial of the hoard to a much later time.

[1] See hoard item catalogue No. 539, online at Archaeology Data Service (ADS), The Staffordshire Hoard: An Anglo-Saxon Treasure. Also, 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).

[2] See the post, ‘Easter Hoard Cross and Bishop Wilfrid.’

[3] See note 1, Fern, Dickinson and Webster (2019), Chapter 7, 286–299. Chapter 10,352–360, looks at the meaning of the whole hoard.

[4] J. Hawkes, ‘Anglo-Saxon sculpture: questions of context’. Northumbria’s Golden Age, ed. J. Hawkes and S. Mills. (Stroud,1999), 212.

[5] , M. W. Herren and S. A. Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity (Woodbridge, 2002), 56.

[6] J. McClure and R. Collins, Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford, 1994), 181. The ‘Computus’ was, at the Spring Equinox, 19, 20 or 21 March, the length of daylight equals the length of night. At the first full moon that follows, assuming there is no cloud, the 24 hours is filled with full moonlight and full sunlight. Light has overcome darkness. Easter is then the first Sunday that follows.

[7] See note 2, Herren and Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity, 57.

[8] See note 2, McClure and Collins, Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 76–7.

[9] Vita Sancti Wilfrithi chapters 5, 12, 14 and 15, see B. Colgrave, The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus (Cambridge, 1927).  Also, T. M. Charles-Edwards, ‘Wilfrid and the Celts’. Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conferences ed. N. J. Higham (Donington, 2013), 245.

[10] The nearest in shape might be the biting zoomorphs depicted in the Book of Durrow, fol. 192v in Trinity College Library, c. 650 x 675. See L. Laing and J. Laing, Celtic Britain and Ireland: Art and Society (London,1995), 128, illustration F. Those on the cross are simpler and connected with a ribbon. There are isolated quadruped animals on other items in the Staffordshire Hoard, such as pommel catalogue no. 52, and intertwined serpents on the forward-facing edge of the helmet cheek piece, catalogue no. 591, though they are not biting.

[11] See note 2, Herren and Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity, 224.

[12] Christ’s image on a cross does not appear until the eighth century, see note 2, Herren and Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity, 234.

[13] D. Symons, The Staffordshire Hoard (Birmingham, Birmingham Museums Trust, 2014); 36. The alternative of a stand-alone cross or a cross used in procession is set out in C. Fern, T. Dickinson and L. Webster (2019), 101–2. see note 1. An altar or processional cross had been suggested, see K. Leahy and R. Bland, The Staffordshire Hoard (London, 2009), 36, but there is no fitting at the base of the cross and would therefore have to be attached to a backing board.

[14] P. James, ‘The Lichfield Gospels: the question of provenance,’ Parergon, 13 (1996), 61.

[15] C. Fern, T. Dickinson and L. Webster (2019), 94, 117and 230. On page 118 the spurious argument is given the absence of key liturgical items, such as a chalice, portable altar or paten, or vestiges of jewelled gospel covers shows items in the Hoard were not a haul of precious loot from a monastery or church, but chosen for a purpose. This ignores some items could have been connected to a church, and sacred liturgical items would not be items for a hoard. Circular arguments are being used.

[16] P. Murray and L. Murray, The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture (Oxford, 1996), 541.

[17] See note 2, Herren and Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity, 236, note 9.

[18] É Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical images and the Old English poems of The Dream of the Rood, (Toronto, 2005), 344.

[19] M. B. Bedingfield, The Dramatic Liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2002), 135.

[20] Ibid. 154.

[21] The date for the Book of Durrow has been disputed; see N. Netzer, ‘Framing the Book of Durrow Inside/Outside the Anglo-Saxon World. Form and Order in the Anglo-Saxon World, AD 600–1100 ed. S. Crawford, H. Hamerow and L. Webster (Oxford, 2009), 75, who examines the various views and posits an Irish or Ionian origin and a late seventh or early eighth century date giving comparisons of its decoration with metalwork, especially items having millefiori squares.

[22] D. Klemperer, J. Butterworth and P. Greaves, ‘Beowulf’s Mirror. Reflections on the Staffordshire Hoard’. The Anglo-Saxons and Mercia, ed. M. Dick, 2, 3, (2014).

[23] D. Symons, The Staffordshire Hoard, (Birmingham Museum: 2014), 13.

[24] 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), 91.

[25] P. Cavill, ‘Some sidelights on Byzantine influence in Anglo-Saxon England Iconographer’s Rev. (2011), 15.

[26] C. Fern, ‘Key artefacts from the Staffordshire Hoard’. Life on the Edge: Social, Political and Religious frontiers in early Medieval Europe (Wendeburg: 2017), 435.

[27] M. Carver, Formative Britain. An Archaeology of Britain, fifth to eleventh century AD, (London and New York: 2019), 618.

[28] J. Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, (Oxford: 2005), 79.

[29] See note 7, M. Carver, Formative Britain. An Archaeology of Britain, fifth to eleventh century AD, 450.

[30] M. W. Herren and S. A. Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity, (Woodbridge: 2002), 251.

[31] Ibid,.191.

[32] J. Hawkes, ‘Design and decoration: re-visualizing Rome in Anglo-Saxon sculpture’. Rome across time and space: cultural transmission and the exchange of ideas, c. 500–1400 (Cambridge, 2011), 204.

[33] Bishop Paulinus carried ‘a great gold cross’ to Kent when he fled York, AD 632, see J. McClure and R. Collins, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford: 2008).

[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).

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