Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Saturday, 28 November 2020

Irish Standing Crosses - and more besides


Perusing the Internet as one does in the current situation I came across an online article from the Irish Times by Roger Stalley relating to a book he has produced on the sculpted early medieval standing crosses of Ireland - notably those at Monasterboice in County Louth. The very useful article can be seen at Ireland’s high crosses: medieval art and engineering

Similar crosses are, of course, to be found at Iona, at Ruthwell and Bewcastle in what are now the Anglo-Scottish borders, further south in northern England and, once upon a time, at Reculver in Kent where they were seemingly venerated as relics in the sixteenth century.

I have posted before about Northumbrian examples in 2014, although unfortunately it appears that the images have disappeared from the post. It can be read at The Dream of the Rood


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