Abstract
The carved figural program of the tenth-century Gosforth Cross (Cumbria) has long been considered to depict Norse mythological episodes, leaving the potential Christian iconographic import of its Crucifixion carving underexplored. The scheme is analyzed here using earlier exegetical texts and sculptural precedents to explain the function of the frame surrounding Christ, by demonstrating how icons were viewed and understood in Anglo-Saxon England. The frame, signifying the iconic nature of the Crucifixion image, was intended to elicit the viewer’s compunction, contemplation and, subsequently, prayer, by facilitating a collapse of time and space that assimilates the historical event of the Crucifixion, the viewer’s present and the Parousia. Further, the arrangement of the Gosforth Crucifixion invokes theological concerns associated with the veneration of the cross, which were expressed in contemporary liturgical ceremonies and remained relevant within the tenth-century Anglo-Scandinavian context of the monument. In turn, understanding of the concerns underpinning this image enable potential Christian symbolic significances to be suggested for the remainder of the carvings on the cross-shaft, demonstrating that the iconographic program was selected with the intention of communicating, through multivalent frames of reference, the significance of Christ’s Crucifixion as the catalyst for the Second Coming.
Highlights
The Gosforth Cross (Cumbria) (Figure 1) is perhaps one of the most well-known monuments produced in Anglo-Saxon England during the period of Scandinavian settlement in the late ninth and tenth centuries
The Gosforth Cross has traditionally been viewed as a visual presentation of mythological episodes associated with Ragnarök
Consideration of its immense scale, the selection of its monumental cross-form with stepped base and the placement of the Crucifixion scheme imply that it was intended as a major Christian monument in the landscape, rather than one in which Christian theology was “enriched and ‘illustrated’ by the
Summary
The Gosforth Cross (Cumbria) (Figure 1) is perhaps one of the most well-known monuments produced in Anglo-Saxon England during the period of Scandinavian settlement in the late ninth and tenth centuries. Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW and culturally removed written versions of the myths continue to be invoked to identify the carvings This approach has led to the Gosforth carvings and those of other monuments mentsbeing beingregarded regardedasas‘illustrations’. Christianthe theological expressed by expressed by the arrangement of the Crucifixion scheme appear to be complemented by the accompanying (deliberately ambiguous) figural schemes elsewhere on the cross-shaft It is worth reconsidering the potential symbolic significance(s) of the Crucifixion within its monumental context—that of the cross—which was unequivocally associated with Christianity
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