- Early Christianity and its Monuments -
carving. Freestanding monumental crosses are known in southern Scotland, in
particular in areas of Northumbrian influence. Romilly Allen's Class III is a mixed
group, including those crosses erected in south Scotland during Northumbrian
occupation, and the tenth-eleventh-century Whithorn school of sculpture, which
under Irish-Norse influences produced disc-headed crosses similar to later examples
from Wales, Cumbria and Cornwall.
The architectural effect of some crosses on Irish cross-slabs^16 recalls similar fea-
tures on cross-slabs from Pictland and Wales. Freestanding crosses began to appear
with Irish influence from the late eighth or ninth century in west Scotland, where all
three classes of Irish cross form appear - those with pierced rings (e.g. Kildalton,
Islay, Argyll), those with solid rings, and unringed crosses (e.g. Kilmartin, Argyll and
Hamilton, Lanarkshire), and in east Scotland (e.g. Dupplin, Perthshire). The
monastery at Iona, with its easy communications by sea, was a meeting place of many
traditions, lying between Pictland and Ireland, and close to Northumbria. It was an
important artistic centre working in other media (not just stone), and it is generally
believed that it received knowledge of working stone from Northumbria, alongside
knowledge of Irish traditions and of Pictish artistic inspiration, which found expres-
sion in its own form and style of freestanding crosses (Royal Commission on the
Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland 1982; Hamlin 1987: 19). Some of the
Iona crosses have been regarded as an experimental group, though the degree of
influence on them by Pictish and Northumbrian sculpture is a subject of continuing
debate. Iona transferred to Kells, Co. Meath, as a result of early ninth-century Viking
raids. From the early ninth century a tradition of monumental ringed crosses devel-
oped in Ireland, perhaps inspired in part by influences from Iona. Its famous crosses
of St ] ohn, St Martin and St Oran are now considered to date to the second half of
the eighth century (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments
of Scotland 1982: I 8f.), and it has now been argued that the fully developed Irish high
cross is no earlier than c.800 (Edwards 1985: 407).
While ornament drew on Celtic tradition from the ninth century, Scandinavian-
style interlace, animals, figures and occasionally runes were incorporated on
stones found on the Isle of Man. The disc-headed cross-slab was also developed
there, bearing Celtic rather than Norse decorationY
Early Inscriptions
The inscriptions carved on the stones reveal much about individual people in the
different Celtic areas, and the development of the Celtic tongues. The majority of
the early Welsh stones have inscriptions in Latin, often following the wording and
well-formed style of inscriptions in early Christian Gaul and the Rhineland.
Inscriptions ascribed to the late fourth and fifth century are horizontal and use the
formula HIC IACIT, a late vulgar Latin form of the classical Latin HIC IACET
('here slhe lies'), popular in southern and central Gaul in the fifth century. The west-
ern maritime distribution of stones bearing the IN PACE MEMORIAE formula,
common on the Continent, suggests contact with Cornwall and north-west Wales,
while early inscribed stones bearing the HIC IACIT formula from Bodmin
Moor and Dartmoor^18 may indicate a late fifth-I early sixth-century movement of757