Grammar of Anglo-Saxon ornament: a general introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture

Antiquity, Dec, 1999 by N. James

PAUL EVERSON & DAVID STOCKER. Lincolnshire (Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture V) with ROSEMARY CRAMP. Grammar of Anglo-Saxon ornament: a general introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture. xviii 510 pages, 30 figures, 8 tables, 494 b&w photographs, with li pages, 28 figures. 1999. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 0-19-7261884 hardback with 0-19-726098-5 paperback 130 [pounds sterling] together.

In suitably monumental format produced to the highest standards comes the latest volume of the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture. The first part of the book comprises short chapters on earlier research, the historical background, the geology, and on style and ornament before and during the Scandinavian period. There follows a sustained discussion of the groups that have been identified among crosses, grave covers and grave markers. There are brief sections on architectural sculpture and nonrunic inscriptions. Conclusions are presented, including a landscape-historical interpretation of the Christian missionary effort and a discussion of the art's wider historical implications. The authors go on to remark on continuity and even, in some respects, increase of production and use into the Norman period. The greater part of the book is taken up by the catalogue of monuments and fragments, listed by parish (cf. the style of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England). Supplementary lists are appended. The photographs are superb. Helpfully added is Prof. CRAMP's Grammar.

Mrs GUIDO's sustained study of beads in museums in England and on the Continent is published with notes on manufacture and analysis by Julian Henderson and Justine Bayley and an introduction and short conclusion by the editor. Mrs GUIDO distinguished 13 types of bead. A gazetteer lists her thousands of examples and a list of the sites is provided too.