MISS STOKES'S "HIGH: CROSSES."*
WE rejoice to see that the Royal Irish Academy has not for- gotten its splendid traditions as the promoter of archwalogical research in Ireland. The publication of accurate illustrations and descriptions of the high crosses which form so unique and impressive a branch of Irish antiquities is a real service to archreologists ; and how carefully and beautifully it is being done every one will understand when the author and draughtswoman is Miss Margaret Stokes, who has devoted a lifetime to the study and illustration of the art of her country. The importance of the fifty or more high crosses dotted about sixteen of the counties of Ireland lies partly in their peculiarity of form and the fact that such crosses are extremely rare elsewhere, and partly in the symbolism of their curious sculptures. The form, as Miss Stokes says, "may be held to have originated in Ireland, where the Eastern form of the cross within a circle was changed to a Latin cross with the circle, by lengthening the central line so as to form a shaft or pillar, and by extending the arms and head beyond the circle." It would appear that this shape of cross remained unaltered in Ireland, contemporaneously with the round towers, from at least the ninth to the twelfth century, and it is remarkable to notice that not only do these high crosses seem to belong exclusively to sanctuaries, bat in perhaps three out of four cases they are clearly associated with round towers or their sites. That they were set up, after the fashion of the ancient pillar- stones, to mark the boundaries of the sanctuaries per- mitted to fugitives by the Brehon law is fairly established. We read in a canon of the Hibernensis, "Let the boundary of the sanctuary have signs round it Wherever you may find the sign of the Cross of Christ injure it not. Three persons consecrate the boundary of the sanctuary, the king, the bishop, the people." Many of these crosses are mentioned by name in the Annals of the Four Masters, who refer to the capture of fugitives at the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnois. Outrages of sanctuary were, of course, not impossible in the lawless days of early Ireland, and we read in the Lebar Brew of a company of satirists who were pursued by Mael-bresail, and sought protection in vain under "the Cross of the Satirists" of the Church of Rahen. But satirists are doubtless ferae natarae, liable to be killed at eight; and prob- ably the author of the Drapier's Letters would have found the Cross of Hurt Suanaig a poor defence if Chief Justice Whiteway had caught him there. The erection and the blessing of such crosses are referred to in the Life of St. Columba; and the Tripartite Life records St. Patrick's setting up of more than one high cross,—"et digito suo signavit locum, et crucem posuit ibi," as the Book of Armagh phrases it. But of course many of these crosses were not connected with sanctuaries. St. Patrick was an assiduous visitor of crosses ; "whether he were in a chariot or on a horse, he used to fare to every cross," and when once he forgot to do so, it turned out that the cross was set over a heathen's grave, which explained the omission. Standing crosses, however, were seldom used for sepulchral monuments, and there is no doubt that their chief use was to mark the sanctuaries. We can hardly attach much importance to the story which Miss Stokes adduces as possible evidence of offerings being laid at the foot of a high cross. Bresal had profanely seized a cleric's hand to restrain him from building a church near a pigsty in Leinster—surely a proper and natural protest—and Bresal being slain, his pro- fane hand was brought by a hawk and laid at the foot of Cross Sailech in the presence of St. Findian. So, at least, says the Book of Leinster. But we must leave it to Mr. Lang to explain by the mysterious methods of folk-lore. It is sufficient to know from a comparison of numerous citations • The High Crosses of Castledermot and Durrow. By Margaret Stokes, Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy. With 12 Illustrations. DubUn: Royal Irish Academy. [21s. net.]
from Irish historical and legendary literature that "the ancient sanctuaries were marked by high crosses outside the ramparts, and that they were under the invocation of certain saints, and offered protection to the fugitives who sought shelter under their arms."
To the student of Christian iconography the high crosses of Ireland are exceptionally interesting. Their numerous
panels are filled with sculptures of Scriptural scenes, the connection and order of which puzzle the uninitiated, but are often simple enough to those who have learnt the grammar of this traditional art-language in The Byzantine Painter's Guide, the Biblia Pauperum, or the illustrated naedimval Bestiaries. One has to examine the sculptures of the crosses by exactly the same method as one studies the stained a indows of Milan, the Certosa of Pavia, the frescoes of Giotto, or Byzantine mosaics. It is a study of Biblical symbolism, systematically arranged to express the truths of Christianity. "A hieratic cycle of subjects came into use, not necessarily for doctrinal purposes, but as expressive of religious faith." The student of these Irish monuments must not only know this symbolism, and the method of teaching by type and antitype, if he wishes to understand the art of the crosses, but "he should also be acquainted with the history of the founder or first bishop of the Church to which the cross belonged, events of whose life have occasionally been illustrated in one panel of the monument; and lastly, he should have had experience in tracing the intricate designs and characteristic patterns of Irish art." In these subjects Miss Stokes is herself pastmistress. Her treatment of iconography was never better shown than in her essay on the bas-relief on the cross at Monasterboice in the Reliquary of last April, where the mosaics of Torcello and the figures in the Campo Santo at Pisa, illustrating bell, are brought into connection with similar scenes on the Irish cross, and the long prevalence of a tradition of representation, which may have travelled from Italy to Ireland in the ninth or tenth century, is indicated.
The Royal Irish Academy is indeed fortunate in obtaining Miss Stokes's services for this monumental work. It is executed with her invariable thoroughness, not merely in the elaboration of the descriptions, the fullness of historical re- search, and the minute working out of the subjects of the sculp- tures, but also in the perfection of the illustrations. The method employed will commend itself to all archmologists. First, photographs were taken, full face, and in as broad sunshine as possible. These are reproduced in the first plate. But photographs can never by themselves truly represent these crumbling sculptures, stained by lichens, or worn away almost to perfect smoothness, so that only a sidelight brings out the pattern of the decoration. Accordingly, the photographs were enlarged and printed in platinotype ; then careful rubbings were made of each separate panel, a work of con- siderable labour and difficulty ; and the enlarged photo- graphs were finally gone over with the help of the rub- bings, and the high lights touched in. By this plan the true, as distinguished from the apparent, outlines were brought out distinctly, and the result is as accurate and clear a reproduction of the monuments as can be attained.
The crosses illustrated in the present part are the north and south Crosses of Castledermot and the Cross of Darrow. The former belonged to the ancient monastery in County Kildare, of which some scanty ruins still remain, including the chancel arch and the eloietech or bell-house, with its old rough masonry and square-headed apertures. The Darrow Cross in West Meath belonged to the church founded by St. Columba in the sixth century "in the field of oaks" (Dearmach, Dermog, Darrow), as Bede records. This cross is almost all that remains of the " beautiful church." and of the "devout city of a hundred crosses." All three monuments are covered with Biblical scenes in high relief, and the Durrow Cross has also an inacription which seems to identify its founder with Dablithach, the Steward of Darrow, who died in 1010, according to the Four Masters. The three ex- amples illustrated in this sumptuous work, however, full of in- terest as they are, only whet one's desire to see the rest of these monuments adequately represented in the same manner. Far too little attention is given in England to the remains of the extraordinary development of artistic work in Ireland in the so-called "dark ages," with which we have nothing that can be put in comparison. Students on the Continent have found out the importance of Irish art in the history of decorative design, and no one who visits the unique collec- tion exhibited in the National Museum at Dublin can fail to be amazed at the delicacy and originality of the work, and the beauty and true artistic feeling of the decoration. Miss Stokes has done more than any one living by her Hand- book of Early Christian Art in Ireland, and her other writings, to unseal the eyes of the unobservant, and it may be trusted that this edition of the famous crosses, with their curious symbolism and their moving histories, may lead more students to investigate one of the most captivating and mysterious chapters in the history of medieval art.
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