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This paper investigates some of the ways in which the idea of Rome was exploited in inscriptions in the British Isles during the early Middle Ages in order to evoke the Rome of the Empire or that of the Church and St Peter. In Wales and Western Britain, inscriptions can suggest a political identification with 'Roman' traditions. For the recently converted Anglo-Saxons, inscriptions were a means of identifying with the Rome of St Peter. Various devices are considered, including the re-use of Roman inscribed stones. The honorific use of the centre of an inscription for a key name and the symmetrical balancing of elements around the centre in an eleventh-century inscription at Deerhurst are shown to derive from prestigious inscriptions in Rome.

Excavation to the immediate west of the castle revealed considerable evidence of occupation (probably not continuous) dating from c. 1200 to at least the mid-sixteenth century. Most of the structures uncovered were associated with the medieval burgh not the castle. The first timber buildings gave way to a fourteenth-century tannery, probably when the castle was in ruins and unoccupied. The tannery gave way to two phases of residential buildings, either of masonry or set in stone foundations. The latest of these structures were set against a new boundary wall, all probably dating to the mid-sixteenth century when the adjacent road, the Scores, was realigned. From an earlier period, Beaker sherds indicate prehistoric settlement, although no associated features could be identified. There are specialist reports on: `Coins' by Nicholas M McQ Holmes (635); `Small finds' by D Caldwell (635--45); `The inscribed stone' by John Higgitt (646--7); `Prehistoric pottery' by Helen Smith (647--8); `Medieval pottery' by George Haggerty & Robert Will (648--69); `Mammal bones' by Finbar McCormick (669--71); `Bird and fish bones' by Sheila Hamilton-Dyer (671--2); `The micromorphology of a buried soil' by Stephen Carter (672--4); `Palaeobotanical analysis of samples from period 3 pits A, B & C' by Coralie Mills (675).

THE FRAGMENTARY REMAINS of a lead plate have recently ban found in excauations near St Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale. North Yorkshire. An inscripton on it appears to refer to a reliquary, ossuary or ...

Medieval Vision and Image in Early Christian England. By George Henderson. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Pp. xviii, 292. $90.00.) The wealth, variety, and inventiveness to be found in the art of early medieval Britain and Ireland owe much to the interaction of cultures. In Ireland and in the Celtic-speaking areas of Britain (British, Pictish, and Scottish), distinctive regional and 'national' traditions developed in the post-Roman period drawing to some extent on older traditions of Celtic curvilinear design. Elsewhere, in the English kingdoms, Germanic-speaking settlers from the Continent ('AngloSaxons') were, by around 600, patronizing work in which interlacing animals were a dominant motif. The visual culture of this phase is mainly represented by high status secular metalwork, often of superlative quality, such as can be seen, in an English context, in the grave-furnishings of the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo. The gradual adoption of Christianity by the English during the course of the seventh century, partly following the papal mission led by Augustine of Canterbury from Rome and Gaul and partly from the already Christian Irish, brought Insular cultures into fruitful contact with each other and with the Continent. One of the most striking products of this interaction was the development of a shared artistic style, a visual koine, now usually known as the 'Insular' style. This style is probably best known in the decoration of the Insular gospel-books of Durrow, Lindisfarne, and Kells. George Henderson has written widely on medieval art and, in recent years, on early Insular art. His Vision and Image is an imaginative and stimulating exploration of art produced in England during the seventh and eighth centuries within wider Insular and European contexts. His approach is thematic rather than chronological, and the thickets of controversy on dating and provenance are therefore largely, and for present purposes justifiably, ignored. There are rewarding discussions of familiar objects such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Franks Casket, and the Ruthwell Cross, but the arguments also make much use of less familiar and sometimes of lost material. The Insular style of manuscripts such as the Book of Durrow is seen as a dynamic "visual experiment" drawing on a range of secular traditions. This new style had the dual advantage of being familiar and accessible to secular patrons and viewers and also, as can be inferred from its widespread adoption, of "acceptability in many parts of the British Isles." In line with recent thinking, the Prankish contribution to seventh-century Anglo-Saxon visual culture is stressed. Henderson speculates, plausibly, that "working drawings" may have played a role in the transfer of motifs from secular metalwork to the ornamentation of Christian manuscripts. He then investigates Anglo-Saxon responses to visual sources imported following the adoption of Christianity, rightly stressing that these imports may have been in very different styles. …

The Book of Kells (Fine Art Facsimile volume) and The Book of Kells, MS 58, Trinity College Library, Dublin, Commentary, edited by Peter Fox, Luzern: Fine Art Facsimile Publishers of Switzerland, Faksimile Verlag Luzern, 1990, 383 pp., 26 colour plates, 85 b. & w. illus., $15,000

SummaryThe early Anglo-Saxon dedication inscription at Jarrow is described, transcribed, and translated. Its purpose is considered and its contents are analysed and compared to Anglo-Saxon and Continental inscriptions, liturgical calendars, and papal documents. The stages in the execution are discussed. The lettering is shown to be in a relatively pure Roman capital without Insular forms. The other inscriptions of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow are considered in relation to the dedication inscription. Three probably consecutive palaeographical groups are suggested and similarities to lettering in manuscripts from the same centres are noted. The contents of extant and recorded inscriptions, including those attributable to Bede, are examined for evidence of their historical contexts. Most of the inscriptions emerge as characteristically ‘Roman’ products of the two houses.

At Kebister, Shetland, a settlement site spanning from the Neolithic to the 19th century was surveyed and excavated between 1985 and 1987, in advance of oil-related developments. Among the surface mounds visible before excavation, the only clearly delineated feature was a large rectangular structure which proved to be of post-medieval date. In 1986, an elaborately carved armorial stone was discovered, lying face down immediately outside the sole surviving entrance to the building. It had probably been originally inserted into the wall above the door and lay where it had collapsed as the building decayed. As will be argued, the arms are almost certainly those of Henry Phankouth, a shadowy figure who was archdeacon of Shetland from 1501–1529; and the building they adorned may have been a collecting point and temporary store for teinds (tithes) and rents delivered to the archdeacon in kind. Archaeological and historical research following these discoveries has opened a window on a little known period...