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• ADS Collection: 351

Introduction

This resource brings together consistent information on the stone sculptures produced in England between the 7th to 11th centuries AD, providing a near comprehensive account of the emergence and development of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian stone sculptural traditions.

The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture project dates its official inception to 1972. This long-running project, led at the Department of Archaeology at Durham University for over 40 years by Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp, was developed to document, research and publish all instances, fragmentary and whole, of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian sculpture, ranging from standing crosses, grave markers and fonts to architectural fragments, dating to the 7th to 11th centuries AD.

Since the project began, it has published a series of illustrated volumes that provide coverage of early medieval sculpture all historic English counties by region [2].

Each volume provides a full catalogue, recording information on the location, date and context of the sculptures, as well as the form, decoration and condition, complemented by a comprehensive photographic record.

In its last phase the project has released a near complete dataset for England, including catalogue entries, photographs, published volumes in digital format, and digital models of selected sculptures. This national dataset provides consistently recorded information in a searchable and downloadable format on over 6000 individual monuments.

The founding volume on County Durham and Northumberland [4] sets out a grammar for the iconography of Anglo-Saxon sculpture and determined a common vocabulary that has evolved over time along with many new discoveries but remains the consistent foundation on which all later data has been collected and organised. This system, published separately in 1991 as The Grammar of Anglo-Saxon Ornament [5] is provided here as well, along with digital editions of all published volumes in the series.

The project has been supported by the British Academy, The Pilgrim Trust, The Aurelius Trust and The Headley Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The preparation and release of the dataset as an online resource with the Archaeology Data Service has been enabled by funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council [6] and longstanding support from the British Academy.

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1. Cramp, R, 2006. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture Volume VII. South-West England. Oxford University Press for the British Academy.
2. Durham and Northumberland (I), Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North-of-the-Sands (II), York and Eastern Yorkshire (III), South-East England (IV), Lincolnshire (V), Northern Yorkshire (VI), South-West England (VII), Western Yorkshire (VIII), Cheshire and Lancashire (IX), Western Midlands (X), Cornwall (XI), Nottinghamshire (XII); Derbyshire and Staffordshire (XIII); Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire (XIV); East Midlands (XV); Norfolk and Suffolk (XVI).
3. Everson, P and Stocker D, 2023. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture Volume XIV. Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. Oxford University Press for the British Academy.
4. Cramp, R J, 1984. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture. County Durham and Northumberland. Volume I. British Academy and Oxford University Press.
5. Cramp, R J, 1991. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture. Grammar of Anglo-Saxon Ornament. British Academy and Oxford University Press.
6. AH/R003536/1. Worked in Stone: Completing the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture.