wandering clerics used to set up crosses in the villages, and beneath
their shade preached, baptized, and said Mass. The pagan Saxons
worshipped stone pillars; so in order to wean them from their
superstition the Christian missionaries erected these stone crosses
and carved upon them the figures of the Saviour and His Apostles,
displaying before the eyes of their hearers the story of the Cross
written in stone. The north of England has many examples of these
crosses, some of which were fashioned by St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of
York, in the eighth century. When he travelled about his diocese a
large number of monks and workmen attended him, and amongst these were
the cutters in stone, who made the crosses and erected them on the
spots which Wilfrid consecrated to the worship of God. St. Paulinus
and others did the same. Hence arose a large number of these Saxon
works of art, which we propose to examine and to try to discover the
meaning of some of the strange sculptures found upon them.

[Illustration: Strethem Cross, Isle of Ely.]

In spite of iconoclasm and vandalism there remains in England a vast
number of pre-Norman crosses, and it will be possible to refer only to
the most noted and curious examples. These belong chiefly to four main
schools of art--the Celtic, Saxon, Roman, and Scandinavian. These
various streams of northern and classical ideas met and were blended
together, just as the wild sagas of the Vikings and the teaching of
the gospel showed themselves together in sculptured representations
and symbolized the victory of the Crucified One over the legends of
heathendom. The age and period of these crosses, the greater influence
of one or other of these schools have wrought differences; the beauty
and delicacy of the carving is in most cases remarkable, and we stand
amazed at the superabundance of the inventive faculty that could