Raising the Dead: Early Medieval Name Stones in Northumbria by Christine Maddern (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Raising the Dead: Early Medieval Name Stones in Northumbria by Christine Maddern Greg Waite Maddern, Christine, Raising the Dead: Early Medieval Name Stones in Northumbria (Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 38), Turnhout, Brepols, 2013; hardback; pp. xviii, 306; 6 colour, 32 b/w illustrations, 12 b/w line art; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503532189. Christine Maddern’s work examines twenty-nine stones incised with a cross and one or more names, either in roman or runic script. Stones incised with crosses but without names are more widespread, but the name stones are seemingly unusual in Anglo-Saxon funerary practice, and most come from two sites. Hartlepool has yielded up nine such name stones, nearby Billingham, one, while seventeen come from Lindisfarne (one now lost), and single examples have been found at Monkwearmouth, Birtley, and Wensley. Most are associated with monastic cemeteries, and date to the eighth century. The name stones stand apart as a group because of their diminutive size compared with other grave furnishings in stone, such as grave covers or upright memorial headstones. As small, flat slabs probably intended to be recumbent or set against a wall, their dimensions and their design bear a strong resemblance to the cross pages of contemporary manuscripts, such as those in the Lindisfarne Gospels, and this similarity would have been all the more striking if they were painted, as residues on one or two suggest. Name stones have usually been described as ‘memorial stones’ or ‘grave markers’, but Maddern looks to eschatological belief and liturgical practice in order to discern the probable function of these stones as signs of belief in, and perhaps anxiety about, the doctrine of bodily resurrection. They seem [End Page 333] to have been regarded as a kind of Liber Vitae and a stimulus to prayer on behalf of the deceased, or even as embodied prayers in themselves. Maddern has compiled a detailed and wide-ranging study of the socio-historical, theological, liturgical, and literary backgrounds, in addition to consideration of the areas of archaeology, iconography, and epigraphy that have formed the primary focus for past study of these stones. The introductory chapters give an account of the stones’ physical nature, epigraphy, and excavation history, followed by discussion of analogous stones from sites such as Clonmacnois in Ireland, and the Lombard monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in Italy. Only at Hartlepool were Anglo-Saxon name stones discovered in a monastic cemetery in situ, during building activity in the 1830s–40s. It has proved a point of controversy whether or not some stones originally lay beneath the skulls of bodies, but Maddern concludes that there is no reason to reject the early accounts making this claim; and the unworn state of these and others suggests that they were interred from the outset. In other words, the inscriptions on the stones need not have been visible to fulfil their function. At Lindisfarne, in contrast, the scattered and fragmented finds might suggest that stones originally resided above ground, perhaps displayed in the main monastic church or another structure, and were later recycled or removed. Although name stones may have played some part in marking the position of a body to prevent intercutting, or to help position the head as a ‘pillow stone’, or, if above ground, to provide a focus for prayer by the living, it is their spiritual meaning that must define their main function. The central chapters of the book focus on burial rites and preparation for bodily resurrection, beginning in Chapter 6 with liturgy. Maddern provides a thorough survey of what can be deduced about Northumbrian belief and practice through examining the surviving evidence from England, as for example in the Stowe Psalter, and from continental sources such as the Old Gelasian sacramentary, ‘Reginensis 316’, whose prototype may have been English. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with writing about, and iconographic representation of, ‘Apocalypse and Last Judgement’, and the documentation of ‘Visions, Penances and Prayers’. Chapter 9 concludes the presentation of evidence, with discussion of the iconography of the stones, before Maddern presents her conclusions in Chapter 10. This book presents a painstaking and detailed exploration of the socio-cultural and artistic...