Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/620

 A HISTORY OF NORFOLK much later than the end of the eleventh century. The most ancient type of recumbent slab found in Great Britain is of small size, rectangular in shape, and more nearly approaching a square in its proportions than an oblong.^ The slab was generally sculptured with an ornamental cross, and had the name of the deceased inscribed on the background. Such tombstones were used to mark the position of the burial place, but were not intended to indicate the size and shape of the grave, as in the case of the later recumbent body-stones. The sepulchral slabs of Norfolk, therefore, belong to the long and narrow type of the recumbent monument which was prevalent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, rather than to the short and square type of the eighth and ninth centuries. The ornament on the Norfolk slabs consists exclusively of plaitwork, indicating that the earlier and more elaborate forms of decoration, such as knot-work, key-patterns, spirals, and zoomorphs, had quite died out in consequence of the degradation of the Hiberno-Saxon style which set in after the Danish invasions began in the ninth century and culminated with the Norman conquest in 1066. The small erect cross at Whissonsett was probably sepulchral, although it bears no inscription showing that such was the case. The form of the cross is more Celtic than Saxon, the circular ring connecting the arms, and the raised boss in the centre of the head, being features which are of common occurrence on the early Christian monuments of Wales * and Cornwall.* Crosses of very similar character to the one at Whissonsett have been found at Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire, and at Cambridge.* The ornament on the Whissonsett cross consists of interlaced work only, and the patterns are either simple plaits or are composed of Stafford knots. The Norfolk and Cambridgeshire crosses which have been mentioned are probably of the same date ^ as the recumbent sepulchral slabs, and may have been used as head-stones in connexion with them. The decoration of the broken cross-shaft from the site of St. Vedast's Church, Norwich, now in the Norwich Museum, differs altogether from that on the recumbent sepulchral slabs and erect crosses just described, as the designs sculptured upon it are purely zoomorphic. The treatment of the animals with the head bent back, the double outline to the body, and the spiral curves where the limbs join the body, appear to be Scandinavian rather than either Celtic or Anglo-Saxon. This would indicate that the Norwich cross-shaft belongs to the middle period of pre-Norman art in Great Britain just after the first of the Viking invasions, when the Celtic influence through Northumbria was beginning to decline, but before the decadence of the style had finally set in. The zoomorphs on the Norwich stone may be compared with those on the monuments of the same age at Nunburnholm (Yorks.), Hickling (Notts.), St. Alkmund's (Derby), and at Kirk Braddan and Kirk Michael in the Isle of Man. The Saxon churches of Norfolk do not present any examples of archi- tectural details sculptured with figure subjects or ornament. There are no pre-Norman inscriptions of any kind in Norfolk. 1 J. R. Allen, Early Christian Symbortsm, I lo, 1 16, and 123. ^ J. O. Westwood, Lapidarium Walliae. s A. G. Langdon, Old Cornish Crosses. ' i.e. the end of the pre-Norman period. 558
 * Now in the museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society {Jrch. Joum. xi, 70 ; xii, 201).