Full Description
While the essays offered in this collection vary in subject, discipline, and methodological approach, they center on the interpretation of the material world, whether that materiality appears in literature, stone, or the artifacts removed from an archaeological dig. The essay deal mainly with the Germanic and Celtic worlds, but incorporate motifs from Eastern Christian and Roman cultures. Contributors address the themes of time in history; societal and ideological change and continuity; iconic style and polysemous textuality; symbolic and representational interpretation; gender-specific economic production; definitions of social and political structures; and social processes of eclecticism and adaptation. Hence the approaches are interdisciplinary, contextual, comparative, and fluid in their integration of texts and images where the text represented is as crucial to the meaning as is the image or object; they therefore represent the study of the material culture of the Anglo-Saxon period at its best. The variety of disciplines represented in the essays and the range of topics covered by the individual scholars give some indication of the enormous scope of the scholarship of Rosemary Cramp, in whose honor this volume was produced. Readers will find that the subjects dealt with resonate with each other in interesting and complex ways. It is an invaluable contribution to scholars of Anglo-Saxon culture and archaeology.
Contents
Abbreviations Introduction by Catherine E. Karkov and Helen Damico The Changing Image, Divine and Human, in Anglo-Saxon Art by Rosemary Cramp Bede and Change by George H. Brown Who Then Read the Ruthwell Poem in the Eighth Century? by Eamonn O Carragain The Boar on the Helmet by Roberta Frank Beowulf and Archaeology - Revisited by John Hines Embroidered Wood: Animal-Headed Posts in the Bayeux "Tapestry" by Gale R. Owen-Crocker Design in the Past: Metalwork and Textile Influences on Pre-Conquest Sculpture in England by Elizabeth Coatsworth Missing Material: Early Anglo-Saxon Enameling by Susan Youngs The Doors of His Face: Early Hell-Mouth Iconography in Ireland by Carol Neuman de Vegvar Constructing Salvation: The Figural Iconography of the Iona Crosses by Jane Hawkes Apocalypse Then: Anglo-Saxon Ivory Carving in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries by Leslie Webster The Class Beads from St. Ninian's Isle, Shetland by Colleen E. Batey Roman to Saxon in East Anglia by Catherine Hills Literary Insights into the Basis of Some Burial Practices in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries by Elizabeth O'Brien Buried Truths: Shrouds, Cults, and Female Production in Anglo-Saxon England by Kelley M. Wickham-Crowley Toward a Definition of the Irish Monastic Town by John Bradley Bibliography Contributors Index of Manuscripts General Index
