found not far away on a boulder at Näsbyholm, Åker, the Gök stone (Wilson 1995 : fig.
153 ). Sigurðr appears elsewhere on a number of other – more conventional – stones in
Scandinavia.
A comparison between the tendril ornament on the Mammen axe and that on the
Norwegian Vang stone demonstrates the roots of the Ringerike style in the Mammen
style. Its deeper roots are more obscure. It has been shown that prototypes for such
elements of the style as the ‘lion’ cannot easily be recognised outside Scandinavia –
either in Anglo-Saxon England or in Ottonian Europe. Its origins cannot, however, be
truly determined. It is reasonable to suggest that the vegetal motifs in both Mammen
and Ringerike styles were derived from England, where the acanthus scrolls of the
Anglo-Saxon Winchester style provide convincing parallels. The presence of the Danes
in England during the whole of the period during which the Ringerike style flourished
strengthens the argument. Although Ottonian motifs, which might serve as prototypes
particularly for asymmetrical tendril scrolls, have been identified; the arguments for an
English origin seem stronger.
The Ringerike style in both Denmark and Norway (and to a lesser extent in Sweden)
provides early examples of Christian iconography. Christianity – a religion that was
ultimately to introduce new styles and new motifs into the north – was seeping in from
both the south and the west; but the Viking styles, conceived in pagandom, were to
survive for some time. A syncretism with the art of the pagan period appears in the late
tenth century; as, for example, on a stone carving from Kirk Andreas in the Isle of Man
(Margeson 1981 : fig. 1 ). It is a syncretism which was to survive. It occurs, for example,
as late as c. 1200 , when the pagan Sigurðr legend appears in a totally Christian context
on the portal from the stave-church at Hylestad, Setesdal, Norway (Hohler 1999 : pl.
220 ).
The best dating evidence for the style comes from the British Isles, where it appears
in various media – manuscripts, stone sculpture, metalwork and woodcarving. The style
was presumably introduced into England with Knut (Canute the Great), in the period
after his assumption of the throne in 1016 ; it chimed well with the Winchester style
and indeed gave it added liveliness. Classically it appears on a rune-inscribed stone from
St Paul’s Cathedral in London (Wilson 1974 ). Its presence in manuscript art helps in
dating, as in the so-called Winchcombe Psalter (Cambridge University Library Ff.I. 23 )
(Wilson 1984 : fig. 276 ), dated to the 1020 s or 1030 s. In Ireland early eleventh-century
dates are provided archaeologically by a number of motif-pieces and other decorated
objects found during excavation in Dublin (Lang 1988 : 18 f.; O’Meadhra 1979 : figs
8 ff.), but it must be stressed that elements of the Ringerike style may be traced in
Ireland long after this (Wilson and Klindt-Jensen 1966 : 143 ff.).
The Ringerike style was incidentally highly influential in Insular art, but most
notably in Ireland, where it was adopted enthusiastically, appearing, for example, on a
number of pieces of religious metalwork and in illuminated service books. Most interest-
ingly it is seen among the bone motif-pieces from Dublin referred to above – the
detritus of metalworkers’ workshops, on which the Irish craftsmen had worked out their
patterns (e.g. O’Meadhra 1979 : figs 114 – 29 ).
In Scandinavia the best evidence for the date of the style is provided by coin hoards
(Fuglesang 1980 : 56 f. and 159 f.), which generally reflect the more reliable English
chronology. To fit the style in sequence after the Mammen style (with which it clearly
overlaps) we may date the Ringerike style between, say, 990 and 1050 – in historical
–– chapter 24: The development of Viking art––