The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England

by Catherine E. Karkov (Editor), Sarah Larratt Keefer (Editor), Karen Louise Jolly (Editor)

The cross in early medieval England was so ubiquitous as to become invisible to the modern eye: it played an innovative role in Anglo-Saxon culture, evident in art, architecture, material culture, literature, ritual, medicine, and popular practice. The essays in this volume move us from the place of the cross in the origins of Anglo-Saxon England and the Anglo-Saxon church, to its place in the expansion of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms both within and beyond England. They reach back to the sources, both material and textual, of Early Christian Rome and Jerusalem, and forward to the visionary cross of the Last Judgement. Perhaps most importantly, throughout they challenge existing notions of the development of Anglo-Saxon sculpture, the patronage and audiences of Anglo-Saxon texts, the use of sources, physical and cultural geography and the Anglo-Saxon imagination. In doing so they make important contributions not only to our understanding of Anglo-Saxon England and the place of the cross within it, but also to our understanding of the place of Anglo-Saxon England within the medieval world. CATHERINE E. KARKOV is Professor of Art at Miami University. SARAH L. KEEFER is Professor of English at Trent University. KAREN L. JOLLY is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hawaii Manoa. Contributors: IAN WOOD, ELIZABETH COATSWORTH, ALEXANDER R. RUMBLE, INGE B. MILFULL, KAREN LOUISE JOLLY, DAVID F. JOHNSON, KAROLYN KINANE, JANE ROBERTS, CALVIN B. KENDALL, ELAINE TREHARNE, NICHOLAS J. HIGHAM.

Hardcover

First published March 1, 2006

About the author

Catherine Karkov is professor of History of Art and head of the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. Her research centres on early medieval art, especially Anglo-Saxon art, and she has published two monographs, one on Anglo-Saxon art, and one on the relation between text and image in Anglo-Saxon literature. In the latter, whose focus is on MS Junius 11, she argues that a complete edition of the manuscript leaves out the many illustrations at its own peril; these illustrations occur at dramatic moments in the four poems and help elucidate the allegorical import of many passages.