8 - The Problem of Man: Carved from the Same Stone

Summary

In art-historical discourse the carved stone monuments of the early medieval Insular world are often defined by their particular historical contexts, rigidly applied to monuments that cannot be dated precisely. Monuments are divided into chronological and geographical corpora using periodisation and perceived political and ethnic boundaries to categorise, taxonomise, and contextualise them into regional ‘groups’ and collections. These artificial ‘groups’ and taxonomies are often seen as rigid rather than constructed. While this categorisation can be a useful means of understanding and interpreting these monuments, it can also deny the shared materiality and visuality of early medieval stone sculpture, neglecting the common cultural understanding of sculpted stone monuments as symbols of religion, power, and perhaps even identity. This discussion will address the manner in which stone sculpture on the Isle of Man problematises the scholarship that surrounds it, particularly that scholarship's antiquarian interests and origins, alongside similar regional ‘groups’ of carved stone monuments.

Interest in the history of the Isle of Man has historically been problematic. The Isle of Man was central to the Insular world, particularly during the period commonly referred to as the ‘Viking Age’, being located on several maritime routes and occupying a strategic position between the Viking kingdoms of York and Dublin. Administratively, it was associated from time to time with the Kings of Orkney, and by 1099, Magnus III of Norway was also King of Mann. However, when it comes to the study of the Isle of Man, in particular its sculpture, Man is often seen as peripheral – an issue which this essay and my current research seek to reassess.

It is necessary to examine the historiography of the Manx crosses in order to fully and critically appraise current scholarship. Richard Bailey's Viking Age Sculpture in Northern England (1980), the title of which suggests that it might examine sculpture with Scandinavian influence in broader terms, discusses Man only in comparison to sculpture found in England, supposing that the so-called English ‘Danelaw’ has precedence. Similarly, the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, with its focus on the modern geographic regions defined by English county boundaries, necessarily also uses Manx material only as comparanda, as does the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.