Ruthwell Cross

A monumental stone cross decorated on all sides with relief carving, erected on the shores of the Solway Firth in south-west Scotland in the early to mid 8th century. It…

A monumental stone crossCross Instrument of torture and execution used in the Roman Empire. The means by which Christ was put to death and therefore the primary symbol of the Christian faith, representing the means by which he is believed to have won forgiveness for humankind. The Cross may be represented as Tau-shaped (like a capital T); with a shorter cross-bar or with a circle enclosing the upper intersection (Celtic). In medieval art a cross made of living branches signifies the Tree of Life. St Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, is said to have discovered the True Cross (i.e. the Cross in Jerusalem on which Christ died) in 326. decorated on all sides with relief carving, erected on the shores of the Solway Firth in south-west Scotland in the early to mid 8th century. It shares many details in its carved decoration with other Anglo-Saxon sculpted monuments all thought to have been produced by sculptors associated with the Wearmouth-JarrowJarrow Dedicated to St Paul the monastery founded by Benedict Biscop in 684, as a sister house of Monkwearmouth, on land donated by king Egfrid of Northumbria by the River Tyne, after his return to England from Rome with Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. Details of its foundation and activities are recorded by the Venerable Bede, most notably in his History of the Abbots, and his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Bede died here in 735. The monastery was destroyed in c. 867 and again in 973; but may not have been deserted since in 1022 the bones of Bede were carried from Jarrow to Durham cathedral. Re-established in 1074, it ultimately became a cell of the monastic cathedral of Durham in 1083 and remained so until 1536 and the Dissolution of the Monasteries monastic complex. In addition to the pictorial images that fill the shaft, it is incised with sentences in Latin that link the carved images to the liturgy of Holy WeekHoly Week Commemoration of the final days of the story of the death and Resurrection of Jesus. Maundy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper (Christ's sharing of the Passover Meal with his disciples) at which he instituted the Eucharist, washed the disciples' feet and commanded that that they should love one another as he loved them. Good Friday is the day commemorating the Crucifixion of Christ. On Holy Saturday a vigil is kept in preparation for Easter Sunday and the Paschal candle is lit. On Easter Sunday the Resurrection is celebrated, and verses in runes that recount, in Old EnglishOld English The language and vernacular (English) literature of the Anglo-Saxons in England between the fifth and eleventh centuries., the poetic tradition of the vision of the cross which is preserved in a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon manuscript known as the Vercelli Manuscript.