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Making Histories: The Sixth International Insular Art Conference   

Humanities Research Centre (Berrick Saul Building), University of York
Monday 18th - Friday 22nd July 2011


Overview

The art of the insular world has been the focus of specific study through the International Insular Art Conference meetings for over 25 years. The result has been a body of scholarship that has advanced our understanding of the material on many fronts. This Conference aims to continue this trend, by addressing the various ways in which the art, in all media, can be understood, as well as the ways in which that understanding itself has been constructed.

The meeting will be held in the Bowland Lecture Theatre in the Humanities Research Centre (Berrick Saul Building), on the University Heslington campus.

Further queries should be addressed to Dr Jane Hawkes

Registration

Registration now open

Accommodation

There is a wide range of accommodation within the city of York, with excellent transport links to the Heslington campus. 

York Commercial also provide Bed and Breakfast and self-catering accommodation at the University.

Visitors are advised to book early. 

Abstracts

 

 

Nick Baker (University of York)

 

 

Engaging with the Divine: The Evangelists as Tools for Contemplation

 

 

Work by recent scholars, such as Michelle Brown and Jennifer O’Reilly, have placed the creation of pictorial depictions of the four evangelists in manuscript art, both as portraits and symbols, within the context of the exegetical material that circulated in the Insular world. This paper builds upon this pioneering work and considers how these images may have elicited spiritual responses/ experiences - compunction and contemplation – in those well-versed in this literature. By considering these images in light of the writings of Cassian, Gregory the Great and Bede, it will be argued that they were carefully constructed and not the result of chance, nor the random selection of artistic motifs. It is suggested that feathered wings, wide-open eyes and polychromic interlace frames were all employed to assist the viewer ‘engaging with the divine’.

 

 

 

 

Justine Bayley (Portable Antiquities Scheme)

 

 

Metalworking in Viking Dublin

 

 

The excavations carried out in the 1960s and 1970s in the area around Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin produced large quantities of finds and debris that provide evidence of the metalworking processes that were carried out there in the 10th and 11th centuries. This paper will illustrate a selection of these finds and will summarise what they tell us about the ways in which the craftsmen who worked in Dublin made objects, out of both precious and base metals. Many metalworking tools were also found, and the ways in which they were used will be discussed. Examples of metalworking finds that are sufficiently specific to allow identification of some of the objects being made in Dublin at this time will be illustrated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alice Blackwell, Susy Kirk and Martin Goldberg (National Museums Scotland)

 

 

The Norrie's Law Hoard

The Norrie's Law Hoard sits at a unique position in connecting insular art and objects of wider insular currency with the symbolic system used by the Picts of Northern and Eastern Scotland.  The hoard has never been fully published and the accounts surrounding its discovery are vague and contradictory.  There has always been a focus on particular art-objects in the hoard and the bulk of the material has been ignored. 

          This paper will attempt to tease out some of the object biographies and history of the hoard as a whole, as well as contextualise the Norrie's Law Hoard within a wider research project on Early Historic silver. One aspect commonly illustrated is the presence of pairs of objects in the hoard.

          Yet, as Robert Stevenson long ago pointed out, one of the pins appears to be a copy of the other and this observation could be extended to the other pairs, or at least there is certainly a worn version and a pristine version of each pair.  Potentially this occurrence of original and new version from the same hoard might inform us about the minutiae of object development and typological sequence as variation creeps in through recreation.  Potentially it might also tell us a different story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meg Boulton (University of York)

 

 

‘The End of the World as we Know It’: The Eschatology of Symbolic Space/s in Insular Art

 

 

The ways in which the Anglo-Saxons articulated space are not overly analysed in the scholarship on the art of Anglo-Saxon England over and above some discussion in studies of Anglo-Saxon architecture. Nevertheless the literature and visual arts of the region in its early Christian period (7th-9th centuries) demonstrate considerable thought on the subject. Bede, for instance, presents complex ideas about the conceptualisation of space in relation to time and place in his treatises on the tabernacle and the temple. Equally complex are the visual articulations produced in Anglo-Saxon England, and this is well illustrated by the so-called ‘Last Judgement Ivory’, conventionally dated to the turn of the 9th century. This paper will explore the ways in which this object renders time and space in an overtly eschatological setting when such entities cease to have meaning within a Christian frame of reference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michelle Brown (School of Advanced Study, University of London)

 

 

From Eastern Deserts to Western Isles: Aspects of Eastern Influence on Insular Art

 

 

Eastern influences upon the Christian culture of Britain and Ireland, c. 550–850, are difficult to pinpoint but hauntingly pervasive. Ever since Edmund Bishop commented on traces of liturgical influence from the eastern churches, since Kathleen Hughes highlighted the distinctive eremitic nature of Irish monasticism, and Françoise Henry began to detect corresponding stylistic and iconographic links, it has been acknowledged that there was an eastern component to Insular religious life and art, usually attributed to second-hand influences disseminated via southern Gaul and Spain.

 

          So, what do these influences comprise? Were they cultural coincidences, parallel responses, part of a broader European absorption of sporadic eastern influence, or might they, on occasion, betoken actual contact between these far-flung regions? The answer is probably ‘a bit of each’, but given the growing body of evidence that I will rehearse here, including some fascinating new finds, it would seem that some of it at least resulted from direct prima facie contact and cultural exchange between the Near East and these far-flung western isles of Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandra Burke and Conor Newman (National University of Ireland, Galway)

 

 

Symbolism on Zoomorphic Penannular Brooches

 

 

The potential for symbolic meaning attaching to the ornamentation of zoomorphic penannular brooches (ZPBs) is widely acknowledged, particularly following Margaret Neike’s all-too-brief exposition of the Christian iconography present on the ZPB from Ballinderry crannog no. 2 at IIAC 2 (Edinburgh1992). Further analysis of this brooch by Newman and Walsh (IIAC 5, 2007) revealed even greater levels of sophistication and exegetical nuance in the symbolism, combining Tree-of-Life and Resurrection iconography.

          Building on dedicated research on the symbolism of ZPBs by one of the authors (Burke 2006-8), this paper aims to analyse of the symbolism present on ZPBs, exploring, inter alia, the ostensibly contradictory symbolic registers of the serpentiform bicep and the ancillary ornamentation which is almost invariably Christian. Unlike many decorative types, ZPBs straddle the pagan-Christian transition. Thus, some of the decorative motifs are demonstrably Christian, whereas others belong to the corpus of pre-Christian ones adopted over to the new credo. In broad terms, the zoomorphic form of the brooches is of pre-Christian stock and probably represents a bicep or mythical two-headed animal. Whether originally intended as such, its serpentiform is also conducive to Christian narratives of rebirth and renewal, death, resurrection and salvation. Drawn on the body on an animal, the position of the ancillary ornamentation, particularly that on the ‘forehead’ acquires extra significance.

          Consideration will also be given to treatment of the pins of ZPBs, the more elaborate examples of which compliment the ornamentation of the terminals. Ornamentation of the pin shank, corresponding to the point where it crosses the hoop will also be discussed as will the manner in which pins have been damaged.

          The paper will also discuss the anthropology of wearing such objects and their ornamentation. The possibility of totemic significance in the developmental origins of the form is worthy of consideration as is the spectrum the possibility that one or two of the larger specimens may have contained relics.

 

 

Laura Cleaver (Trinity College Dublin)

 

 

Gerald of Wales on Irish Art: Objects, Stories and Images in the Making of History c.1200

 

 

In 1185 Gerald of Wales visited Ireland in the entourage of Prince John, who would later succeed his father the English King Henry II as acknowledged ruler of the country.  Following this visit Gerald wrote an account of the land, its people and its history, which he dedicated to Henry II. The Topographia Hibernica seems to have circulated widely in England in the decades after its creation, and by 1200 some luxury copies included images illustrating elements of the narrative. In this account of the Irish and their land Gerald included brief descriptions of particular buildings and objects. A well-known example is Gerald’s account of the of the Book of Kildare, which has frequently been quoted in connection with surviving Insular manuscripts, and in particular the Book of Kells. Yet whilst Gerald noted the subtle artistry of the manuscript and the aesthetic qualities other objects, his references to buildings and works in other media always formed part of a broader narrative.  Thus many of the sites and objects were noted for their religious significance, or identified as part of particular customs and practices, rather than for any artistic merit. Moreover, although the miraculous creation of the Book of Kildare was presented as an event of the distant past, on the whole Gerald offered little information on the dates of the objects he described, instead linking them with contemporary practices. Similarly, in identifying many of the selected objects as being particular to Irish culture, Gerald obscured the fact that twelfth-century Ireland boasted works of both art and architecture in a wide range of styles. This paper will thus consider the evidence provided by Gerald and illustrated copies of this work for the nature of art in Ireland in the late twelfth century, and its significance in shaping attitudes towards medieval Irish art in both the twelfth century and in modern scholarship.        

 

 

Mandie Denton (University of York)

 

 

‘One is Dexterous in Writing Down Words in their Literal Form’: A Semiotic Analysis of the Echternach Gospel's Evangelist Symbol Pages

 

The dynamic visual relationship existing between border, text and image that occurs in the Echternach Gospels evangelist symbol pages offers a tantalising insight into Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards the role of art and its place in Anglo-Saxon society. Through a semiotic consideration of these visual components it is possible to determine some of the underlying philosophical, religious and cultural concerns of its makers while simultaneously unearthing some of the aesthetic values underpinning the images' formal construction. This paper proposes that rather than being under-stood as conventional copies of pre-existing symbolic tropes, Echternach's four symbol pages could equally be regarded as providing a glimpse into the creative strategies employed in the formulation of highly original insular zoa symbols.

 

 

 

 

Nancy Edwards (Bangor University)

 

 

The Early Medieval Sculpture of North Wales: Context, Wealth and Patronage

 

 

Research for A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales, Volume III, North Wales has identified approximately 120 carved stone monuments in the region dating from the seventh to earlier twelfth centuries. During this period the two most important kingdoms were Gwynedd and the north-west and Powys in the north-east but other smaller, more short-lived kingdoms, such as Meirionydd, are also likely to have existed. The stone sculpture of the region comprises not only simple cross-carved stones (predominantly grave-markers) which span the period, but also, from around the ninth century onwards, a range of more ambitious monuments: crosses, cross-slabs, sundials, fonts and possible architectural fragments. These are largely concentrated on the sites of major local churches in the region, though a small number had other functions, such as indicating the ownership of land. Only the Pillar of Eliseg can be dated independently to around the second quarter of the ninth century by reference to documentary sources. Nevertheless art-historical analysis demonstrates that the distribution of the monuments in the region varies over time. More ambitious pieces of sculpture prior to the Viking Age are few and far between with the emphasis on sites but there is a rapid increase from the tenth century onwards, especially on Anglesey and along the coast of north-east Wales, both areas which were the open to Hiberno-Scandinavian contact and in all likelihood settlement. Taking examples, this paper will examine what the sculpture of north Wales can tell us about context, wealth and patronage and will include discussion of how the exploitation of particular types of stone can shed light on these issues. I will focus on monuments such as the Pillar of Eliseg from a possible assembly and royal inauguration site of the rulers of Powys currently undergoing archaeological excavation, the cross-slabs from Llandrinio on the border with England and Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant as well as Viking Age crosses such as Maen Achwyfan and the sculpture of southern Anglesey and Bardsey Island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Farr (Independent Scholar)

 

 

Art History and Empathy: Writing about Insular Manuscript Illumination in the 20th Century

 

 

In Ireland, [interlace] appears as continually rebeginning reverie, fleeing from a chaotic universe, which embraces and conceals within its folds the debris or the germs of creatures. It coils around the old iconography, which it devours. It creates an image of the world which has nothing in common with mankind, an art of thinking which has nothing in common with thought. (H. Focillon, Vie des formes, 1934 [my translation])

Two of the most important twentieth-century historians of Insular manuscript art, Geneviève Louise Micheli and Françoise Henry, were students of Henri Focillon. Focillon credited Insular ornament, which he considered Irish, with creation of a system of ornament based on abstracted, ‘denatured’ forms that was capable of answering all the needs of surface decoration for monumental architecture, the apex of the arts. Micheli maintains this idea, to say that Irish ornament acted as an important intermediary between Antique ornament and Romanesque decoration. In her L'enluminure du haut moyen âge et les influences irlandaises (1939), she uses stylistic comparisons to trace the influence of the Insular style on Continental manuscripts, explaining the success of its spread through Frankia and Germany as a sympathy of styles. Micheli interpreted the material within the framework of formalist theories of Focillon and earlier twentieth century art theorists (Worringer, Riegl, and others), which related to ideas of transcendence of abstraction, psychology of artistic creation, the essential independence of a work of art from interpretation, and surface ornament as a key to understanding artistic progress, much of which is tied to the early twentieth-century development of abstract art. Françoise Henry, although carrying on in some ways the older theories (such as a kind of positivism in Insular art’s transformation of ‘Oriental’ motifs), worked with a more analytical, objective method which reflects later iconographic and archaeological methods and is much closer to present-day art historical methodology of Insular manuscripts studies. This paper will look at the intellectual contexts of Micheli and Henry to consider their influence on twentieth-century Insular manuscripts studies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sally Foster (University of Glasgow)

 

 

The Impact of Victorian and Later Casts of Early Medieval Sculpture on Understanding and Appreciation of Insular Art

 

 

The Victorians well recognised the importance of collections of sculpture for didactic purposes, and this included the creation and inclusion of casts. Not least, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which opened its celebrated and influential cast courts in 1873. Here a cast of the Nigg cross-slab from Pictish Scotland might be compared alongside Anglian, Manx, Welsh or Irish sculpture, or indeed Trajan’s column. Casts of Irish high crosses were recently seen by two million people in Nagoya, Japan, and are now on display at the National Museum of Ireland in a stunning new exhibition that brings together six plaster-of-Paris casts along with a selection of early medieval treasures.

          This paper will explore how casting of early medieval sculptures since the 19th century has contributed and could continue to contribute to the understanding and appreciation of Insular art, particularly sculpture.  This material merits its own biographical study for what it can tell us about the significance and meaning attached to these casts through time, the potential uses of the surviving material, as well as future reproduction/replication technologies in general. The casts also reflect on the perceived significance of their originals and are a chapter in the cultural biography of the stones they are casts of. This will be illustrated through a review of the NMI exhibition and a series of case studies.

 

 

 

 

 

Anna Gannon (St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge)

 

 

Lies, Damned Lies, and Iconography

 

This is a soul-searching exercise on the part of someone whose academic endeavours have been devoted to the study of Iconography in Insular Art.

          Definitions are easy: Iconography can be described as a branch of Art History that sets to provide an irenic way of identifying, describing, interpreting and classifying images with reference to subject matter, themes, conventions and system of symbolism, in an attempt to explore and explain social and cultural values.  Iconography strives to translate the language of images typical of a particular cultural context impartially, and to provide a critical ‘reading’ of imagery. Moreover, one can eloquently argue how far Iconography contributes to the discourse of other academic disciplines, such as History, Semiotics, Anthropology, Sociology and Archaeology, disciplines whose approaches have in turn affected conventional art historical questions and directions. However, this paper seeks for a methodological consensus on the value of Iconography rather than its apologia. 

          In reflecting on how the understanding of early Anglo-Saxon Christian art has been constructed and on the role that Iconography has played in ‘Making Histories’ out of disparate images and considering how it has contributed to a particularly ‘book-oriented’ appreciation of the period, this paper will attempt to address critically iconography and issues of academic rigour and  accountability. However impartial an iconographic approach strives to be, questions of ‘circular argument’ and accusations of ‘bias’ do beset it, particularly when working in highly-specialised fields that rely on a limited range of comparable material, where cross-referencing and inter-disciplinary approaches are the norm, and when dealing with topics that are perceived as unfashionable.

          Taking into account alternative and more nuanced approaches to our historical understanding and to ways of describing the Weltanshauung of Early Anglo-Saxon England, and using a range of examples from the visual arts of the times, including coinage, the paper will consider how far a traditional iconographic approach can be tested, defended, jolted and/or enriched when set against the questions and critique raised through recent scholarship and when confronted by new material evidence.

 

 

 

 

Fiona Gavin (National University of Ireland, Galway)

 

 

Symbolism and Mimesis: New Perspectives on Insular Silver Dress Fasteners

 

 

Based on new research into a corpus of exceptionally accomplished fourth and fifth century AD Insular metalwork, this paper will begin with a brief introduction to what is in effect, a new ornament horizon in Irish metalwork. Comprising mostly dress fasteners viz select proto hand-pins, hand-pins, disc-headed pins and zoomorphic penannular brooches, the corpus is characterised by a combination of crisp, fine-lines and faceted, angular and curvilinear ornament held in tiny panelled friezes and framed by beaded borders.  Though the corpus is defined by exquisite workmanship, hand-wrought ornament and the use of precious metal (silver), this paper will focus on the ornamentation of these objects and its symbolic and mimetic role in late Iron Age Ireland.   

          The palette is dominated by evolved classical, vegetal, and geometric motifs, many of which are ancient symbols associated with apotropaism and divinity, carrying explicit religious and cosmological associations. By examining a selection of the more prominent devices such as leaf-based motifs, triple annulets, saltires and rayed stars, this paper will explore themes such as divinity, fecundity and the cyclicity of life, all of which are suggested by the symbolic content of this assemblage. Evidence for Bacchic associations, the cult of the human head and the survival of the so-called ‘blattkrone’ or ‘leaf crown’ into the first millennium AD  will be considered, as will the presence of  ‘hidden’ ornament which suggests that the objects were invested with protective, talismanic or apotropaic powers.  It will be further argued that these were multivalent motifs that did not transmit one audience-specific message but instead encompassed a complex suite of layered meanings, capable of being interpreted in a number of different ways. Interestingly, this paper will draw analogies with other high status metalwork from neighbouring Roman Britain that also exhibits strong links with agricultural and fertility cults.  It is intended that this examination of the symbolic visual communication of pre-literate Ireland will increase our understanding of the processes involved in the inception of this art and enhance our knowledge of its role in the Insular world during what is a relatively obscure period of Irish history.

 

 

Jane Geddes (University of Aberdeen)

 

 

Who are the Hoodies? Making a History of St Vigeans 11

 

 

The Picts left no documents about their art. In that sense, any analysis of their sculpture is 'making history', creating an interpretation through the lens of the present. St Vigean's stone 11 shows four enigmatic men: two seated on a throne and an encounter between two hooded walkers bearing staves. It is proposed, through a wide range of comparisons, that the scene represents the Trinity being contemplated by two wayfaring men. This iconography was developed though glosses on Psalm 109 and Luke 11, by Augustine, Bede and Aelfric. Walkers contemplating the Trinity was part of the liturgy for Rogationtide, a time when the congregation processed around the parish lands and Luke 11 was the prescribed gospel lection. Innovative depictions of the Trinity are a recognised feature of Anglo-Saxon art in the 10th and 11th century: at St Vigeans there appears to be a Pictish or perhaps Eastern Scottish version of this trend.

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Hall (Perth Museum & Art Gallery)

 

 

Re-making, Re-mediating and Re-mythopoesis: The Sculptured Stone Cross in Popular Cinema

 

 

This paper will offer some reflections on a small clutch of films – including Robin Hood (2010), The Sword of Sherwood Forest, The Secret of Kells, Island at the Top of the World, and Darby O’ Gill and the Little People - that incorporate within their cinematic topographies (early) medieval stone crosses. These are generally depicted as incidental, briefly seen, ‘set-dressing’ details (but they are there) and this paper offers an assessment of how their inclusion within the cinematic frame both signals contemporary (i.e. the time of the film’s setting) urban and rural topography and establishes historical identity. Comparison will be drawn between how (and if) they reflect a recognisable early medieval reality and how or if that reality is re-made for the films’ audiences. The paper forms part of an on-going exploration of biographical approaches to early medieval sculpture

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guy Halsall (University of York)

 

 

Style I and the End of the Western Empire: Politics and Aesthetics

 

 

Abstract Unavailable

 

 

 

 

Jane Hawkes (University of York)

 

 

Creating a View: Anglo-Saxon Sculpture in the Sixteenth Century

 

 

Locating Anglo-Saxon sculpture is relatively easy for those interested in the subject today. The monuments can be accessed in various locales, and the scholarship is growing exponentially. This, of course has not always been the case, and much has been written on the formative roles played by scholars such as W.G. Collingwood and G.F. Browne in increasing access to the material. For, before them, it is generally accepted that most commentators on Anglo-Saxon sculpture were gentleman antiquaries whose overall contributions to the subject form occasional glimpses of monuments partially noted and often misunderstood. This paper will explore some of the reasons why this might have come to be the case, by turning to examine, in their social, political and cultural contexts, the earliest ‘modern’ commentaries on Anglo-Saxon sculpture – those that were produced in the first two generations following the Reformation in England, and emerged from a ‘medieval’ background in which the monuments were largely invisible in the written record.

 

 

George Henderson (Emeritus, University of Cambridge)

 

 

Raven into Dove: Assimilation and Conflation in the Making of a Sacred Image

 

 

In this paper I will consider two very different species of bird, as characterised in the Scriptures and their Commentaries, and will trace the amalgamation of the two in form and function in Early Medieval Art. Though sometimes diametrically opposed, there are openings in the literature where the form and function of the one can influence the other. The process of amalgamation can be seen as part of the on-going reception and adaptation by Insular artists of some of the most central of Christian images.

 

 

 

Luisa Izzi (University of York)

 

 

The Visual Impact of Rome in Anglo-Saxon Eyes: The Evidence of Architecture

 

 

This paper will offer a broad overview of the different ways of interpreting 'Romanitas' when looking at churches (location, re-use of Roman sites/buildings, elements in the architecture, basilica, porticus etc.).

 

 

 

 

Margaret Mannion (National University of Ireland, Galway)

 

 

Glass Beads in Early Medieval Ireland

 

 

This paper concerns the first dedicated survey and analysis of glass beads from early medieval Ireland, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Following a very brief outline of what is the first classification of Irish glass beads of this period, discussion will turn to the performativity of glass beads in early medieval society, exploring, moreover, the relationship between insular and imported beads. The influence of novel, imported styles on insular bead making, as evidenced in the evolution of styles and forms of indigenous beads, will also be discussed.

          The durability of glass ensures its relatively good preservation with the result that glass beads are a common find on archaeological excavations in Ireland. In the early medieval period, monochrome, polychrome and artistically decorated glass beads are represented among excavated assemblages from a wide variety of site types, secular and ecclesiastical. More recent excavations supply the much needed chronology for different types as well as a more detailed picture of the range of social contexts in which beads are found, allowing for further consideration of issues such as patronage and production.

          An impressive palette of artistic styles and motifs was employed to create a highly attractive corpus of unique and elaborately decorative, polychrome beads. As a form of body ornament, glass beads have an ancient and universal history. The paper will discuss the role of beads as part of the repertoire of body ornament of this period, and their inclusion in the assemblages of personal ornaments from high status sites.

          Beads represent one of the ways in which people chose to affirm or declare their cultural affinities or social status. Like all artefacts, they contain information on human biographies and are endowed with meanings which extended far beyond their aesthetic or functional appeal or value as chronological indicators. More recent studies acknowledge the importance of examining the performative role of artefacts of personal adornment, such as beads, in the social arena and how this study can enrich our appreciation of the social agency of material culture and the conventions governing the formation, exhibition and maintenance of individual and collective identities.

Betsy McCormick (University of York)

 

 

‘The Highly Interesting Series of Irish Crosses’: Reproductions of Early Medieval Irish Sculpture in Dublin and London, 1853–1937

 

 

In a nineteenth-century context, reproductions of medieval sculpture were often more important than authentic examples, in terms of the education of artists, designers and the general public, and even to scholarship. More specifically reproductions of early medieval Irish sculpture drew considerable attention on the International stage at exhibitions of art and industry.

          This paper will focus mainly on the legacy of the Irish Industrial Exhibition of 1853, but additionally present ideas on the display of Irish High Crosses at Crystal Palace Sydenham, from 1853 onwards. The exhibition displays of early medieval sculpture played a far more central role in the formation and display of museum collections of medieval art and archaeology, than has previously been suggested. 

          I will argue that the investment of resources in casting and photographing early medieval Irish sculpture was substantial and has been entirely overlooked by scholarship. Intriguingly, the patterns of collecting and display of early medieval Irish sculpture were largely established prior to the first authentic examples being acquired by the emerging national museums. The display of Irish High Crosses in the central courts of the national museums around 1900, for example, derives directly from the displays at the international exhibitions, and the ideas behind them. 

Bernard Meehan (Trinity College Dublin)

 

 

Narrative Scenes in the Book of Kells: New Readings

 

 

The narrative scenes in the Book of Kells are normally said to be limited to the so-called 'Arrest' of Christ (114r) and his Temptation by the Devil (202v), though neither page is limited to a straightforward narrative, as regular attenders at the insular art conferences know well. This paper identifies a number of other narrative scenes which appear, lightly disguised, in the Book of Kells.

 

 

 

Kellie Meyer (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta)

 

 

Text and Image: The Dragon in the Literary and Artistic Traditions of the Insular World, with a Special Focus on the Beast Carved on TR20, from Portmahomack, Easter Ross 

 

 

The composite beast depicted on the Pictish TR20 fragment from the Tarbat dig located at Portmahomack, Easter Ross, was initially identified as a dragon by the excavators. While this creature neither breathes fire nor displays wings, two of the characteristics commonly assigned to dragons, an examination of the physical attributes of dragons found in both Biblical accounts and Biblical sources and analogues reveal that none are described with wings or with fire-breathing capabilities. There is likewise a linguistic confusion between descriptions of dragons, sea-monsters and leviathans, especially once the Hebrew and Vulgate versions of the Old Testament are compared. In the end, both their nomenclature and physical descriptions are often amalgamated. This confusion was carried over into the visual realm in early Christian artistic representations, and with a survey of Insular artistic images, it becomes clear that long, serpentine beasts, with or without wings or fire, might represent any number of creatures from whales to a stylized “hell mouth”.  I plan to provide a thorough survey of the literary sources (mythological, exegetical and liturgical) and artistic images that may have informed the depiction and placement of the creature on the TR20 fragment (as well as provide a possible iconological reconstruction of the cross-slab as a whole). Liturgical and artistic precedence will also allow me to argue that despite its wingless, fireless state, the creature is indeed meant to represent a dragon, the most suitable of beasts within the potential iconographic program hinted at by the fragment.

 

 

Griffin Murray (Kerry County Museum)

 

 

Church Metalwork and Craftsmen in Early Medieval Ireland

 

 

This paper examines the identity of the craftsmen responsible for some of Ireland’s most famous pieces of Church metalwork, including the Ardagh chalice, the Derrynaflan paten, St Patrick’s bell-shrine and the Cross of Cong, to name but a few. The paper first of all looks at what scholars have said about these craftsmen over the last forty years and the proposed processes involved in the design and manufacture of some of these objects. It is argued that the scenarios presented so far are assumptions, probably influenced more by late medieval sources and modern attitudes to art and craftsmanship, then by an examination of the early medieval evidence. A fresh theory is advanced with regard to the processes involved in making these objects, which challenges for the first time the relationships between design and manufacture advanced so far. Using the available sources, i.e. the objects themselves and the inscriptions many of them carry, the early Irish law tracts and the Irish annals, an argument is made on the identity and status of these individuals. Evidence from Anglo-Saxon England is used to support and complement the arguments put forward here on the basis of the Irish evidence. Finally, it is argued that if one wishes to fully comprehend the significance of such elaborate Church metalwork for early medieval Irish society, then it is crucial that one has an understanding, not only of who made it, but of the context in which it was made.

 

 

Carol Neuman de Vegvar (Ohio Wesleyan University)

 

 

On Irish Shores: An Alternative European Source for the Ulster Crosses

 

 

For the last century and more, hypotheses concerning the continental sources of Christian imagery in Insular art have focused on the luxury arts such as manuscript painting, ivory carving and the finest levels of metalwork. Such objects have been considered within the disciplinary purview of art historians as potential sources for Insular artists; lesser media have often been left to the archaeologists as constituting a category of material culture outside art historical consideration. Nonetheless, as art history as a field gradually moves away from the high art-low art distinctions premised on the Renaissance writings of Giorgio Vasari, it is worth considering whether less scarce and valuable object types may have served as vectors of Christian imagery to Insular artists and audiences.

          The media of transmission of Christian imagery into the milieu of the stone cross carvers of Ireland remain an open question. Arguments that imported ivories were the primary vectors founder on the comparative scarcity and frequent recycling of ivory in Carolingian Frankia. One possible alternative conduit of three-dimensional Christian images into Ireland may be the so-called pressblech caskets, catalogued in 1971 by Helmut Buschhausen, of which several strongly resemble Peter Harbison’s “Ulster group” of crosses in coplanar relief, border motifs and combinations of subject matter. The caskets are mostly known from continental graves of the fourth to sixth century; examples from Uley and Stroud extend their distribution into England. Their subsequent archaeological disappearance reflects changing burial practices, but the Winchester reliquary demonstrates continuing production into the late eighth or ninth century. Such caskets may well have been imported into Ireland as portable reliquaries. In the period of the Ulster crosses, Armagh in particular is documented as a major center for the importation and redistribution of relics, which would not have travelled without suitable containers. Such reliquaries, given to Armagh’s daughter houses, would have been regionally available as worthy models for crosses. As yet, no imported figural pressblech mounts have been found in Ireland, nor do the known caskets provide a complete and exclusive parallel for any particular image on the crosses. So the association of caskets and crosses must remain hypothetical, but may provide an alternative to the heretofore quasi-canonical but no less problematic argument for ivories as the primary source for the crosses.

 

 

Jenifer Ní Ghrádaigh (University College, Cork)

 

 

Presenting Eve: The Forgotten Female Audience and the Irish High Cross

 

 

The history of early medieval art in Ireland has been dominated by male perspectives, even though many of the scholars themselves, from Margaret Stokes to Francoise Henry and into the present, have been women.  A neglected area has been the engagement of medieval women with these artworks; thus the ‘viewer’ or ‘reader’ of contemporary scholarship is normalised as the erudite clerical male, even when the patronage and iconography call this into question, as on the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise (909).

          Indeed, the interactions of men and art have frequently been the focus of scrutiny, even when this is not explicitly stated, and this has normalised certain assumptions which require interrogation.  Scholars have often tended to concentrate on two areas when attempting to populate the anonymity of medieval art: the commissioning of artworks by royal patrons—notably building work, but also metalwork reliquaries and sculpted crosses—and the role of the artists or craftsmen themselves, sometimes subsumed within narratives of style, workshop and attribution.  Some few exceptions to this general tendency in the scholarship on Insular art are suggestive of the value of examining images from the perspective of both the male and female viewer, notably Carol Farr’s interpretation of the women depicted on the Ruthwell Cross, Catherine Karkov’s work on the representative strategies used in the depiction of the Virgin and Eve on the Cross of Muiredach, Monasterboice (Co. Louth), and Dorothy Kelly’s highlighting of depictions of the Virgin across the whole corpus of high crosses.  Recently, Carol Neuman de Vegvar has opened up the reading of English crosses by non-élite audiences of both genders.

          This paper will build on their work, to move beyond the clerical male-centred iconographic readings of Irish high crosses which have petrified into a standardised art history.  It will explore the documentary evidence for different audiences of the Irish high cross, before moving on to examine how the sculptures themselves may relate to the female viewer, with a particular focus on the frequency of the depiction of Eve and its implications.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Éamonn Ó Carragáin (University College, Cork)

 

 

Recapitulating History each Day and Year: A Recurring Structural Principle in Irish and Insular High Crosses

 

 

An important structural principle behind many of the Irish high crosses is that Christ’s defeat of death was seen both as a ‘mystery’ and ‘sacrament’ in which human history was ‘restored’ and the fall of man undone. It argues that some, at least, of these crosses were designed so as to provide, each day and each year, a gradual re-enactment of such a recapitulative ‘restoration’ of history. The Irish high crosses were always designed to be erected out of doors, and so (particularly on the occasional days when, in Ireland, the sun was not obscured by clouds) their iconographic programmes were experienced in a dynamic way as the sun swung from east to west: first on the east sides (when, early in the morning, a cross, oriented east-west, threw a cross-shaped shadow), then on the south side (when, at midday, the shadow became like a pillar or even an obelisk), and finally on the west side (when the shadow of the cross was again expanded and ‘restored’ into a full cross-shape). After a brief discussion of the difficulties of determining the original orientations of high crosses, and of ‘ideal’ or ‘liturgical’ ideas of orientation, I examine the four Irish high crosses which contain scenes of ‘the mysterious moment of Christ’s Resurrection’, from his ‘locus resurrectionis’ the tomb. The iconographic details of one of these scenes (Clonmacnoise) have recently been studied in an important article by Anna Maria Luiselli Fadda. The present paper sets out to complement Professor Luiselli Fadda’s study. It examines how this scene, central to Christian theology, plays different roles within the dynamic iconographic ‘recapitulations’ of history represented on the high crosses at Kells (Market Cross), Monasterboice (Tall Cross, or Cross of the Tower), Durrow and Clonmacnoise (Cross of the Scriptures). In these islands, such a dynamic sacramental structure was first developed in the earliest high crosses, at Bewcastle and at Ruthwell, to survive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raghnall Ó Floinn (National Museum of Ireland)

 

 

Antiquarian influences in Daniel Maclise’s ‘The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife’ (1854)

 

 

Daniel Maclise (1806-1870), one of Ireland’s foremost history painters, is probably best known for his wall paintings in the Palace of Westminster. One of his most famous oil paintings, executed on a monumental scale (measuring 309cm x 505cm) is now in the National Gallery of Ireland. It takes as its theme a pivotal moment in Irish history: the marriage of the Anglo-Norman baron Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke (nicknamed Strongbow) to Aoife, the daughter of the Irish king Diarmait MacMurchada (Dermot Mac Murrough) in Waterford on 23 August 1170.  A watercolour version of the same scene also survives. The subject is imbued with complex symbolism and contains many antiquarian references. The paper will examine Maclise’s potential sources in the context of contemporary antiquarian knowledge and of Irish nationalism and compares his use of artefacts, epigraphy and ornament with other works by the same artist and by his contemporaries.

 

 

 

Hilary Paterson (University of York)

 

 

The Art of Defiance: Making and Meaning in Hiberno-Scandinavian Metalwork

 

 

The artistic merit of 7th-8th century insular metalwork has long been recognised, and the methods and styles of its manufacture have been extensively researched by art historians and archaeologists alike. The Hiberno-Scandinavian metalwork of later centuries has, by contrast been largely overlooked in the context of insular art. In academic discourse, the incorporation of Scandinavian styles has seen it considered instead within the wider context of the Viking world, while the inclusion of Hiberno-Viking metalwork amongst the hack-silver hoards of Scotland and Ireland has relegated the dress items contained within them to mere commodities, to be understood in terms of economic development, rather than on the basis of their artistic merit or sartorial significance.

          In many respects, however, Hiberno-Scandinavian metalwork can be seen to have been part of a continuing tradition of established insular technologies and influences, in both its production and use, which is indicated particularly by the bossed penannular and balltype brooches. The similarities and differences to earlier styles that may be observed in their manufacture, use and deposition can be seen, therefore, to reflect wider social changes in early medieval Ireland, which were manifested and motivated materially. As such, the manufacture of such items has the potential to reveal much about their ideal and fraudulent uses as active agents in sartorial communication and their role in native-Viking interactions. The contexts of their deposition, meanwhile, suggest that they represent a peculiarly Irish response to socio-economic changes. In this context the production, possession and display of Hiberno-Scandinavian brooches can be seen as an act of defiance, whereby the smiths and patrons to whom they are attributed intentionally rejected Viking innovations, and contravened the norms of socio-political control and monopolisation.

          This paper will take a multidisciplinary approach to the collective biographies of dress items of Hiberno-Viking type, incorporating evidence derived from the Irish Cycles, Class II and III Pictish stones and High crosses. This will allow for a comprehensive understanding of their social, political, artistic and archaeological contexts, so that they might be interpreted not simply as economic indicators, but as active agents of assimilation and defiance in sartorial communication.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heather Pulliam (University of Edinburgh)

 

 

Singing in the Rain: Rethinking the Environment of Insular Sculpture

 

 

Reproductions of Insular stone sculpture, whether visual or verbal, reflect the methodologies and approaches of their creators.  Early engravings portrayed carved stones as picturesque ruins with improbably legible and symmetrical iconography. By the beginning of the twentieth century, reproductions and descriptions attempted to be more scientific, employing black-and-white photography and removing works from the landscape and environment of their find sites so that like botanical specimens they might be better catalogued, often with the goal of creating a Darwinian evolution in stone. Aspects of this traditional approach have dominated the field throughout the past century. Factors such as cost, legibility, and objectivity mean that we still tend to reproduce, study, and discuss objects as static, line-drawn, black-and-white specimens rather than objects in a living environment.  Such reproductions do not facilitate or encourage investigations into the experiential or phenomenological aspects of monumental sculpture. 

          Exceptions to this trend include—but are in no way limited to—Richard Bailey and Jane Hawkes’ study of colour and the possibility of glass and metalwork insets; Catherine Karkov’s discussion of voice and viewer; Katherine Forsyth’s analysis of the interaction between sculpture and land boundaries; and Éamonn Ó Carragáin’s investigation into the relationship between stones, audiences, and liturgical drama.

          The proposed paper seeks to contribute to the studies listed above by considering Insular sculpture in a living environment, specifically rainfall, which is an undoubtedly prominent feature in the British and Irish landscapes. While a few scholars have discussed the interaction of stone monuments with sunlight, the visual impact of water moving across the surface of the stone has not been examined.  This paper will offer an analysis of several carved stones in Ireland, Scotland and Northumbria, considering how rainfall would have altered viewer’s perceptions of the objects and arguing that these stones make explicit reference to the Church as the Fons Vitae.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stevick (Emeritus, University of Washington)

 

 

Constructing Primary Plans in Insular Designing

 

 

A review of diagnostic features of Insular art by George and Isabel Henderson (The Art of the Picts (2004)), tells us that Insular art is 'essentially abstract and decorative, consisting of a set series of linear rhythmic motifs and patterns, many of them originating in the visual traditions of separate ethnic groups--spirals, scrolls, strap- and cord-work, ... various zigzag motifs, formed into regular step, key and fret patterns.'  It is the 'combination of a number of previously unconnected motifs' that is 'the hallmark of the style' (p. 15). 

 

 

          There is one thing to add: that in all the best work in the Insular tradition, the 'combination of previously unconnected motifs' takes place within plans, or forms, with rigorous and thorough apportionment of areas according to a coherent scheme.  This typically coherent geometry of carpet pages, high crosses, decorative metalwork is as much an essential of Insular art as is any of the decorative motifs and patterns.  It also has an unbroken history begun in earlier Irish art, in still earlier Celtic art, and in a lingering Irish tradition of creating form.  The primary plans of the best pieces belong to a long, sweeping, smooth tradition traceable from an early gold lunula right on through to the Cross of Cong. 

 

 

The best way to understand these formal plans is to learn how to create them. Or the other way about:  reconstructing those plans is a means of constructing an understanding of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colleen Thomas (Trinity College Dublin)

 

 

Missing Models: The Problem of Transmission and Message in Insular Sculpture

 

 

Two Egyptian hermits are at the root of a puzzle in insular art that addresses the issue of transmission in early medieval art and the subsequent interpretation of motifs. In the late third century, Jerome wrote an inspiring story about the hermits Paul and Antony who met in the desert and shared a loaf of bread delivered to them by a raven. A cult of ascetic practice developed after this narrative and the pair became the ideal models of monastic discipline in the west. Fundamental though this narrative may have been there was at least a three hundred year interval between the original story and the earliest extent depictions of its events. The Ruthwell Cross is perhaps the best known example but a small flourish of scenes of the two hermits receiving bread from the raven appeared on Pictish cross-slabs and a more consistent composition was included on ten Irish sculptured crosses.

          Paul and Antony were neither biblical figures nor native saints making them unexpected choices for cross and cross-slab iconography. Christological sequences, typological symbols, abstract ornament and local elements would have been more typical. The hermits were significant to monastic identity, but the scene did not survive from all monastic establishments. Rather it seems to have been used by monasteries within certain spheres and for specific purposes. Oral and literary tradition certainly carried the hermits to the insular world. It is less clear when and how the image itself came to Britain and Ireland and proposals are further complicated by compositional variation among the insular monuments. The uncertainty blurs, among other issues, whether these foreign saints were used in a thoroughly native way or there was an imported use for the image. The presence of the scene featuring Paul and Antony in insular art questions what influences were at work in early medieval Britain and Ireland and how important the source of the motif is to its interpretation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephen Walker (Walker Metalsmiths, Andover NY)

 

 

A Craftsman’s Perspective of the St Ninian’s Isle Treasure

 

 

The series of very similar Pictish brooches in the early medieval St Ninian’s Isle hoard offers some compelling clues into the manner in which these pieces were moulded. Three of the brooches are very similar in their overall design so that a common master pattern is suspected.

Differences in detail suggest that the chip-carving was executed by carving negative versions of the ornament directly in several modified moulds that each began as in impression of the same master pattern. 

          Workshop experiments by the author show that this negative carving technique is a very efficient way to create chip-carved or “kerbscnitt” ornament in cast metalwork. The evidence offered by these brooches could be used to conclude that all cast chip-carved metalwork, including such masterpieces as the Hunterston and “Tara” brooches and the stem of the Ardagh Chalice were also worked by the craftsmen in the negative versions.

          However there are other pieces in the St Ninian’s Isle hoard that show tool-mark signs and other characteristics that indicate that very similar designs were also executed in positive sculpting and that some pieces appear to have been worked in both the positive and negative versions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Niamh Whitfield (Independent Scholar)

 

 

Hunterston / ‘Tara’ Brooches Reconsidered

 

 

Time has now passed since the publication of the late Robert Stevenson’s groundbreaking publications on the Hunterston and Westness brooches (Stevenson 1974, 1983, 1989). Since then a number of studies have appeared by various scholars, which suggest that an update on the context, design, iconography and manufacture of these objects is timely. This is the aim of this paper.

 

Susan Youngs (University of Oxford)

 

 

Histories Claimed or Revealed? New Windows into post-Roman British Metalwork

 

 

Recent advances in our understanding of the nature and influence of late Imperial British culture on the literate and artistic development of the Insular Christian world suggest that some new finds of luxury metalwork deserve attention. Of two British hanging-bowls from recently excavated contexts, one at last provides an early date of deposition coupled with a distinctively roman decorative scheme, while the second opens a window on connections with the Byzantine Empire, a contemporary Christian world. These form the core of a re-evaluation of some well-known material.

Programme

 MAKING HISTORIES

THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL INSULAR ART CONFERENCE

All sessions will take place in the Bowland Lecture Theatre, in the Berrick Saul Building (Humanities Research Centre), on the Heslington Campus, University of York

TIMETABLE

Monday 18th July, 2011

: Registration and Tea

5-6.30pm: Keynote Address.
Michael Ryan: Ireland and Insular Art, 1985-2011          
                    
Chair: Éamonn Ó Carragáin

6.30-8pm
: Reception. ‘Tree House’, hosted by Sculpture Studies Research School, 
                   University of York

 

Tuesday 19th July, 2011

8.30-9am:
Registration

9-11am: Session 1. Making Cultural Contexts 1
.                        
Chair: Anna Gannon
               
Nancy Edwards:  The Early Medieval Sculpture of North Wales: Context, Wealth and Patronage
               
Carol Neuman de Vegvar: On Irish shores: An Alternative European source for the Ulster Crosses
               
Colleen Thomas: Missing Models: the Problem of Transmission and Message in Insular Sculpture
                
Luisa Izzi:  The Visual Impact of Rome in Anglo-Saxon Eyes: The Evidence of Architecture

11-11.30am: Coffee Break

11.30-1pm: Session 2. Making Cultural Contexts 2      
              
Chair: Sally Foster   

Martin Goldberg & Alice Blackwell: The Norrie’s Law Hoard

Susan Youngs: Histories Claimed or Revealed? New Windows into post-Roman British Metalwork

Guy Halsall: Style I and the End of the Western Empire: Politics and Aesthetics                           

1-2.30pm: Lunch Break

2.30-4pm: Session 3. Making Insular Art 1                      
Chair: TBC
   

Niamh Whitfield: The Hunterston/‘Tara’ Brooches Reconsidered

Hilary Paterson: The Art of Defiance: Making and Meaning in Hiberno-Scandinavian Metalwork

Justine Bayley: Metalworking in Viking Dublin

4-4.30pm: Tea Break

4.30-6pm: Session 4.   

Making Insular Art 2
                     
Chair: Niamh Whitfield   

Robert Stevick: Constructing Primary Plans in Insular Designing

Steven Walker: A Craftsman’s Perspective of the St Ninian’s Isle Treasure

Griffin Murray: Church Metalwork and Craftsmen in Early Medieval Ireland                                   



Wednesday 20th July, 2011


8.30-9am: Registration.

9-10.30am: Session 5. Making Symbolic Meanings 1 
                 
Chair: TBC

Fiona Gavin: Symbolism and Mimesis on Dress Fasteners

Conor Newman & Sandra Burke: Symbolism on Zoomorphic Penannular Brooches   

Margaret Mannion: Glass Beads in Early Medieval Ireland

                       

10.30-11am: Coffee Break

11-12noon: Plenary Address.                             
Chair: Rosemary Cramp

George Henderson: Raven into Dove: Assimilation and Conflation in the Making of a Sacred Image

12-1.30pm: Lunch Break

1.30-3pm: Session 6.    Making Symbolic Meanings 2                         
Chair: Chris Verey     

Nick Baker: Engaging with the Divine: The Evangelists as Tools for Contemplation   

Bernard Meehan: Narrative Scenes in the Book of Kells: New Readings

Michelle Brown: From Eastern Deserts to Western Isles: Aspects of Eastern Influence on Insular Art

3-4.30pm: Session 7.    Making Symbolic Meanings 3                 
Chair: Isabel Henderson

Jennifer Ní Ghrádaigh: Presenting Eve: The Forgotten Female Audience and the Irish High Cross

Jane Geddes: Who are the Hoodies? Making a history of St Vigeans 11

Kellie Meyer: Text and Image:  The dragon in the literary and artistic traditions of the Insular world



Thursday 21st July, 2011


8.30-9am: Registration

9-10.30am: Session 8. Making Carved Histories                      
Chair: Kathryn Forsyth   

Éamonn Ó Carragáin: Following the Sun and the Irish High Cross   

Heather Pulliam: Singing in the Rain: Rethinking the Environment of Insular Sculpture

Meg Boulton: ‘The end of the world as we know it’: the eschatology of symbolic space/s in Insular Art.

10.30-11am: Coffee Break

11-12.30pm: Session 9. Making Sculptural Histories                
Chair: Jane Geddes

Sally Foster: The Impact of Victorian and Later Casts of Early Medieval Sculpture on Understanding and Appreciation of Insular art

Betsy McCormick: ‘The Highly Interesting Series of Irish Crosses’: Reproductions of Early Medieval Irish sculpture in Dublin and London, 1853 – 1937

Jane Hawkes: Creating a View: Sixteenth-Century Approaches to Anglo-Saxon Sculptures

12.30-1.30pm: Lunch Break

1.30-3pm: Session 10. Making Art Histories 1               
Chair: Carol Neuman de Vegvar   

Anna Gannon: Lies, Damned Lies, and Iconography

Carol Farr: Art History and Empathy: Writing about Insular Manuscript Illumination in the Twentieth Century

 Mandie Denton: ‘One is dexterous in writing down words in their literal form’: A Semiotic Analysis of the Echternach Gospel's Evangelist Symbol Pages

3-3.30pm: Tea Break

3.30-5pm: Session 11. Making Art Histories 2                    
Chair: Catherine Karkov

Laura Cleaver: Gerald of Wales on Irish Art: Objects, Stories and Images in the Making of History c.1200

Raghnall Ó Floinn: Antiquarian Influences in Daniel Maclise’s ‘The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife’ (1854)

Mark Hall: Re-making, Re-mediating and Re-mythopoesis: The Sculptured Stone Cross in Popular Cinema

                           

5-5.30pm: Roundup: Michael Ryan

6.30-7.30pm: Reception. King’s Manor, hosted by the Centre for Medieval Studies

7.30-9.30pm: Conference Dinner. Refectory, King’s ManorFriday 22nd July, 2011Visit to sites of (insular) interest the environs of York.




Friday 22nd July, 2011 

9.30am: Depart from York (Coach pick-up / drop-off: Leeman Rd, Memorial Gardens, by York Railway Station)

 

10.15-11am: St Andrew’s Church, Middleton

11.30am-12.15pm: St Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale

12.45-2.30pm:  St Mary’s Church, Lastingham, Picnic or Pub Lunch

3-3.45pm:  Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, Ripon

4.15-5.30pm: Church of St Mary the Virgin, Masham            Possible Pub/Cafe Refreshment

6.30pm:  Arrive back in York

 


 

 




3.30-5pm

General Information

General Information


EATING OPPORTUNITIES : York is full of these, but here are some of our tried and tested favourites
(star-rated according to price: *** expensive; ** reasonable; * very affordable)

Cafe No.8:            8 Gillygate            01904 653074            ***

Cafe Concerto:
    21 High Petergate        01904 610478            **

Plunkett’s:        9 High Petergate        01904 637722            **

Lamb and Lion:
    2-4 High Petergate        01904 612078            **

Mamma Mia:
        20 Gillygate            01904 622020            *

Asia Gourmet:        61 Gillygate            01904 622728            *

Meltons Too:        25 Walmgate            01904 629222            ***

Ask, Grand Assembly Rooms:    Blake Street    01904 637254            **

Pizza Express:        17 Museum Street        01904 672904            *

Tokyo Joe’s:        20-24 Swinegate        01904 640222            *

Oscar’s:        27 Swinegate            01904 652002            *

Stonegate Yard:    8-10 Little Stonegate        01904 625870            *

City Screen:        13-17 Coney Street        08717042054            **

Siam House:        63a Goodramgate        01904 624677            **

Wilde’s:        21 Grape Lane            01904 610370            *

Mumbai Lounge:    47 Fossgate            01904 654155            **

The Olive Tree:    10 Tower Street        01904 624433            **



YORK TAXIS :   

            
659:                      01904 659659 
           
Station Taxis:      01904 623332
           
Fleetways:            01904 645333
           
Ebor Taxis:
           01904 641441

Food

 

On Campus

Wentworth Graduate College: Edge Café Bar

Breakfast 8.00 – 9.30am

Lunch 12.15 – 1.45pm

Snacks 9.00am – 4.00pm

Dinner 6.00 – 7.00pm

Bar 12.00 – 4.00pm & 6.00 – 7.00pm

Alcuin College: B Henry’s Café 10.00am – 3.00pm

Seebohm Rowntree Building: Café Barista Coffee Bar 8.30am - 3.00pm

Roger Kirk Centre: Costa@RKC 10.00 - 3.00pm

Biology: Cookies Coffee Bar 10.00am – 2.00pm

Derwent College: Costa@Derwent 10.00am – 3.30pm


In Heslington Village

Brown’s: General Food Store and Deli (great Sandwiches)

Charles XII: Public House

Lord Deramore: Public House

Making Histories Conference Poster