HIGH CROSSES
but it must have started during, if not before, the reign
of the aforementioned Clann Cholmáin king Máel-
Sechnaill I (846–962), and continued during the reign
of his son Flann (879–916). The iconography would
plead for a date in the period between 830 and 880,
but Conleth Manning would see one of the finest midland
crosses—the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise—
to be contemporary with the building of the Cathedral
there in the first decade of the tenth century. Kells,
outside of Clann Cholmáin territory, a new foundation
from Iona which had wide international contacts, may
have been in the vanguard of the development of the
classical Irish High Crosses as well as the hub for the
dissemination of those more-extensive iconographic
schemes, which—along with the more-naturalistic
sculpture that portrayed them—was probably intro-
duced from France (with little sign of intermediary
stations in England). The similarity in composition
ofHigh Cross panels to those on Continental church
frescoes intimates similar functions (with the crosses
being Ireland’s open-air response, in the country’s
absence of large, well-lit churches suitable for frescoes),
but also encourages the notion that the High Crosses
were originally painted (though not a trace of pig-
ment remains), which would make sense in a scene
like the Mocking of Christon Muiredach’s Cross at
Monasterboice, where the color of the Savior’s cloak
(scarlet or purple) would have been important in trans-
mitting the Bible’s message.
Each cross illustrates a different selection of scrip-
tural events and there are sufficient remains of the
Broken Cross at Kells to demonstrate how the rare
subjects on both sides of the cross were chosen by
someone steeped in the Bible who was able to correlate
the Old and New Testament scenes with one another,
as was done with the frescoes facing one another on
the north and south walls of Roman basilicas. The
symbolic use of water in a number of the scenes chosen
for the Broken Cross was doubtless intentionally
designed to impart the message of the healing power
of baptism, and demonstrates that scene selection on
each cross was anything but random and was intended
to impart a particular idea of church teachings. The
Northern crosses are much stricter in dividing Old and
New Testaments, usually placing each on a different
side of the cross.
One group of crosses in the Tipperary–Kilkenny
border area, centered on Ahenny, was long thought to
be of crucial importance in the development of Irish
High Crosses in the eighth century, but recent research
is suggesting that these very intricate crosses—copied
from models with complicated wooden carpentry tech-
niques and covered with bronze plaques and bosses —
are roughly contemporary with the midland Scriptural
crosses, and were erected either by Máel-Sechnaill I
or his brother-in-law Cerball mac Dúngaile, king of
Ossory.
This earlier batch of High Crosses represents an
important Irish contribution to European sculpture and
forms the largest treasury figure sculpture with biblical
iconography anywhere in Europe during the last quar-
ter of the first Christian millennium. The richness and
variety of their narrative sculptural scenes far surpasses
anything known from Britain or from what is found
on the precious Carolingian ivories on the Continent.
In addition to the crosses with biblical sculpture, which
number over eighty, there are about fifty with purely
geometrical ornament and a further twenty with
bosses—some decorated with interlace akin to that on
a tenth-century wooden example found in the Wood
Quay excavations in Dublin. Others bear no decoration,
which makes them difficult to date, but they can be
classed as High Crosses simply because of their height.
The earlier group of crosses wanes in the course of
the tenth century, and in the twelfth century a new type
of cross emerges. On these crosses, scriptural scenes
are confined to Adam and Eve and the Crucifixion, and
the main feature is the figure of the more-triumphant
Christ with outstretched arms represented in high relief
above or back-to-back with an episcopal figure in
almost equally high relief, possibly symbolic of the
new diocesan organization instituted by the twelfth-
century reform movement in Ireland. These crosses are
found in all four Irish provinces. Two at Tuam, County
Galway, bear inscriptions that again demonstrate king
and church cooperating to erect High Crosses. It is
eminently possible that some of these late crosses,
numbering over twenty, were erected to attract and
impress pilgrims, whose activity was most popular
throughout Europe in the twelfth century.
PETER HARBISONReferences and Further Reading
Cronin, Rhoda. “Late High Crosses in Munster: Tradition and
Novelty in Twelfth-Century Irish Art.” In Early Medieval
Munster: Archaeology, History and Society, edited by
Michael A. Monk. and John Sheehan, 138–146. Cork: Cork
University Press, 1998.
Harbison, Peter. The High Crosses of Ireland. 3 vols. Bonn:
Romisch-Germaniches Zentralmuseum Mainz, 1992.
———. “A High Cross Base from the Rock of Cashel and a
Historical Reconsideration of the ‘Ahenny Group’ of Crosses.”
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy93C (1993): 1–20.
———. “The Extent of Royal Patronage on Irish High Crosses.”
Studia Celtica Japonica6 (1994): 77–105.
———. “The Holed High Cross at Moone.” Journal of the
County Kildare Archaeological SocietyXVIII (Part IV),
1998-9, 493-512.
———. “The Otherness of Irish Art in the Twelfth Century.”
InFrom Ireland Coming: Irish Art from the Early Christian
to the Late Gothic Period and its European Context, edited
by Colum Hourihane, 103–120. Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2001.