Early Medieval Stone Monuments

New insights into inscribed and stone monuments from across Europe in the early middle ages.

Inscribed stones and stone sculpture form the most prolific body of material evidence from early medieval Wales, c. AD 400 1100. Crucial to our understanding of the region s degree of continuity with the preceding Roman culture, Irish settlement, and the development of the early Welsh kingdoms, these Latin or Old Irish inscribed memorial stones instruct us on the language, literacy, and development of the church, among other areas. These two volumes allow us to identify a range of early medieval ecclesiastical sites within a wider landscape and the trace the church s patronage by the secular elite. Accompanied by more than 170 line drawings and elaborate illustrations, this corpus provides fresh new studies of these aspects, revised interpretations of the stones, and many previously unpublished and newly discovered examples."

For well over a millennium, Brechin has been an important religious centre. The area was a key location for the Picts and many examples of their magnificent legacy of stone carving are housed in Brechin Cathedral. This fully-illustrated booklet provides an excellent introduction to the collection.

This volume, the final of three, focuses on the inscribed stones and stone sculpture of north Wales c. AD 400 - 1150. It provides fresh insights and new interpretations of over 150 monuments, many of which have been found since V.E. Nash-Williams's Early Christian Monuments of Wales was published in 1950. It includes an introductory discussion analysing the historical and archaeological context of the monuments, earlier research, geology, form and function, ornament and iconography and the language and lettering of the inscriptions, as well as cultural connections, dating and chronology. The well-illustrated catalogue provides more detailed descriptions and analyses of individual monuments.

Taken from the International Medieval Congress held in leeds in 1998 these six papers, plus introduction, take a more theoretical approach to studying, interpreting and explaining Anglo-Saxon carved stone monuments.

The early medieval period witnessed one of the deepest and most significant transformations of European societies and cultures with the process of Christianisation. The emergence and establishment of Christianity created a new dimension of power in society with an appeal to supernatural forces combined with an access to a broader transnational authority. Carved stones did not merely reflect these changes, but enabled them within northern societies with traditions of sculpture and epigraphic representations. This book looks at three datasets of monuments from Ireland, Scotland and Sweden using an innovative comparative framework to offer new insights on these monuments and the societies that erected them.Analysed through the three major themes of place, movement, and memory, the case studies are presented from a holistic perspective comprising the monument, their landscape settings and historical and archaeological contexts (when available). The results of this research demonstrate that by means of comparisons across national boundaries, new interpretations emerge on the use and functions of early medieval carved stones. The thematic approach adopted emphasises similarities and contrasts in a more efficient manner than a geographical approach, freed from historiographical biases within scholarly traditions of 'Celtic' or 'Scandinavian' archaeologies. Furthermore, a multi-scale analysis places the monuments within their local contexts but also within a broader narrative of Christianisation.