missionaries erected these stone crosses and carved upon them the figures of the Saviour and His Apostles, displaying before the eyes of their hearers the story of the Cross written in stone.  The north of England has many examples of these crosses, some of which were fashioned by St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, in the eighth century.  When he travelled about his diocese a large number of monks and workmen attended him, and amongst these were the cutters in stone, who made the crosses and erected them on the spots which Wilfrid consecrated to the worship of God.  St. Paulinus and others did the same.  Hence arose a large number of these Saxon works of art, which we propose to examine and to try to discover the meaning of some of the strange sculptures found upon them.

[Illustration:  Strethem Cross, Isle of Ely.]

In spite of iconoclasm and vandalism there remains in England a vast number of pre-Norman crosses, and it will be possible to refer only to the most noted and curious examples.  These belong chiefly to four main schools of art—­the Celtic, Saxon, Roman, and Scandinavian.  These various streams of northern and classical ideas met and were blended together, just as the wild sagas of the Vikings and the teaching of the gospel showed themselves together in sculptured representations and symbolized the victory of the Crucified One over the legends of heathendom.  The age and period of these crosses, the greater influence of one or other of these schools have wrought differences; the beauty and delicacy of the carving is in most cases remarkable, and we stand amazed at the superabundance of the inventive faculty that could produce such wondrous work.  A great characteristic of these early sculptures is the curious interlacing scroll-work, consisting of knotted and interlaced cords of divers patterns and designs.  There is an immense variety in this carving of these early artists.  Examples are shown of geometrical designs, of floriated ornament, of which the conventional vine pattern is the most frequent, and of rope-work and other interlacing ornament.  We can find space to describe only a few of the most remarkable.

The famous Bewcastle Cross stands in the most northern corner of the county of Cumberland.  Only the shaft remains.  In its complete condition it must have been at least twenty-one feet high.  A runic inscription on the west side records that it was erected “in memory of Alchfrith lately king” of Northumbria.  He was the son of Oswy, the friend and patron of St. Wilfrid, who loved art so much that he brought workmen from Italy to build churches and carve stone, and he decided in favour of the Roman party at the famous Synod of Whitby.  On the south side the runes tell that the cross was erected in “the first year of Ecgfrith, King of this realm,” who began to reign 670 A.D.  On the west side are three panels containing deeply incised figures, the lowest one of which has on his wrist a hawk, an emblem of nobility; the other three sides are filled with interlacing, floriated, and geometrical ornament.  Bishop Browne believes that these scrolls and interlacings had their origin in Lombardy and not in Ireland, that they were Italian and not Celtic, and that the same sort of designs were used in the southern land early in the seventh century, whence they were brought by Wilfrid to this country.