What Is One of the Glories of Anglosaxon Art?

Early Medieval: Art

The Anglo-Saxon period produced highly distinctive art of world-class significance, from the sumptuous metalwork of Sutton Hoo to the glorious illuminations of the Lindisfarne Gospels and the ballsy poem Beowulf.

Interlaced cross-shaft stone carving — An 8th-century interlaced cross-shaft from Lindisfarne Priory, Northumberland

METALWORK

Craftsmanship in metal was highly valued by the commencement Anglo-Saxon settlers. Many early examples survive in the excavated brooches used especially past women to fasten and adorn their clothing.

Even more outstanding metalwork, sumptuously engraved and colourfully inlaid, appears amidst the astonishing treasure constitute with the royal 'ship burial' of the 620s at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. Almost impressive of all is a solid gold belt-buckle busy with patterns of interlaced snakes, showing that such patterns are not, as often now described, purely Celtic.

A similarly rich hoard of mid-7th-century metalwork plant in Staffordshire demonstrates that such riches and exquisite workmanship were not confined to the kingdom of East Anglia.

A gold enamelled mount found at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. Dating from the 9th century, it was probably a mount for a ring. — A gold enamelled mount plant at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. Dating from the 9th century, information technology was probably a mountain for a ring.

CHRISTIAN Art

'Interlace' is besides a distinctive feature of 7th- and 8th-century illuminated Christian manuscripts. Some of the best known were produced in Northumbrian monasteries, including Lindisfarne Priory. The Lindisfarne Gospels, with their gorgeous 'carpet pages', were produced there in the early 8th century.

By nigh 700 English language art was substantially Christian fine art, and it was also manifested in sculpted stone 'high crosses'. Combining interlace patterns with Christian imagery, some – like the ninth-century Cheshire Sandbach Crosses – were originally painted as well every bit carved. Others made later on, nether the influence of Viking/Scandinavian patrons, integrate heathen motifs.

The magnificent 8th-century cross at Ruthwell (once function of the kingdom of Northumbria, only at present in Scotland) incorporates what may be the oldest surviving fragment of Anglo-Saxon poetry, part of a Crucifixion poem called the Dream of the Rood.

Bewcastle Saxon high cross in Cumbria — Bewcastle Saxon loftier cross in Cumbria dates from the eighth century. The three figures on the westward confront of the cross are idea to correspond John the Baptist, Christ and John the Evangelist. The other three sides are covered with patterned reliefs, including interlaced knotwork, and runic inscriptions.

Verse

The primeval English language poetry was probably not written down at all, just memorised for declamation to a harp accompaniment. The famous epic poem Beowulf, which survives in a single manuscript made in virtually chiliad merely describes much earlier events, begins with a shout for silence in the 'mead-hall'.

It likewise depends for its effect on 'heard' rather than read devices similar strings of alliterating words, and on ingenious synonyms – so 'the swan'south bathroom' is the sea.

The starting time English poet whose name we know is Cædmon, a humble lay-brother at Whitby Abbey in Abbess Hild's time (657–eighty). According to Bede, he was of a sudden granted divine power to compose religious verse in English.

Bede's own Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731) was written in Latin, the universal language of learning. Just 150 years later, scarcely anyone in England could write or even understand it – or so Rex Alfred claimed.

Embroidered stole — This embroidered stole was presented at St Cuthbert'southward shrine, originally at Lindisfarne Priory and at present at Durham Cathedral, in 934 by Rex Æthelstan (r.924–39). Items of groovy beauty were frequently commissioned specifically for saints' shrines: the drove of objects found in St Cuthbert's tomb is particularly sumptuous. © Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral

REVIVING A CULTURE

King Alfred of Wessex (r.871–99) set out to rebuild learning in English rather than Latin post-obit the wholesale devastation of English language art and culture that occurred during the mid-9th-century Viking depredations.

The king himself was involved in translating bones Latin works into English which he considered 'necessary for all men to know', sending copies to every English bishopric. The Alfred Jewel, a masterpiece of English language metalwork, is probably the handle of one of the precious word-pointers he sent with them. Alfred's employ of the spoken vernacular (English) language rather than Latin for scholarly works was an innovation, enabling it to develop as a written language much earlier than other European languages.

And English art did revive, despite the farther Viking raids which gave rise to the Battle of Maldon (991), the most moving of the erstwhile-style heroic poems. Amid the revived culture's glories was opus anglicanum ('English piece of work') embroidery, recognised as the finest in Europe (the Bayeux Tapestry represents the apogee of this tradition), and a new 'Winchester Mode' of illuminated manuscripts.

Now in far closer contact with western European networks, the art of Anglo-Saxon England was still flourishing at the fourth dimension of the Norman Conquest.

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