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The St Ninian's Isle Silver Hoard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Abstract

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1959

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References

1 The line-drawings Figs. 2–4, 6–8 are by Mrs Eva Wilson. Figs, 5 and 10–14 are by Mr C. O. Waterhouse, M.B.E., the British Museum’s official draughtsman from 1 April, 1915, to 30 September, 1959.

2 F. Henry, ‘Hanging Bowls’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, LXVI, 1936, p. 217 Fig. 5 (c), p. 231 et seq. Typical examples of this distinctive rim-form are the Winchester, Lowbury and Lullingstone bowls.

3 The eleven brooches, Nos. 18–28, are all of approximately the same size : maximum diameters vary between 3.0 and 3.5 in., hoops vary in width between 0.3 and 0.4 in., and pins are between 5.0 and 5.75 in. long. Individual measurements will not be given here.

4 This description supplied by John McKenzie, M.D., F.S.A.

5 V. E. Nash-Williams, The Early Christian Monuments of Wales, 1950, p. 41, Nos. 223, 233, 237.

6 N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon, 1957, p. xxviii.

7 An actual example of a cursive but elegant Insular minuscule is Lowe, CLA, ii, No. 234 (England, 8th-9th century); for a more formal minuscule, see CLA, ii, No. 129 (England, late 8th century).

8 For the Celtic formula ‘x maqi y’ in Ireland, see R. A. S. Macalister, Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum, vol. i, 1945, p. 10; for the Celtic formula and its Latin translation in Wales (the two are sometimes found together on bilingual stones), see Nash-Williams, Monuments, pp. 4–8.

9 Kenneth Jackson, ‘The Pictish Language’, in The Problem of the Picts (ed. F. T. Wainwright), 1955, pp. 140–1.

10 R. A. S. Macalister, ‘The Inscriptions and Language of the Picts’, in Essays and Studies presented to Professor Eoin MacNeill (ed. J. Ryan), 1940, pp. 202–6, Nos. 8–9.

11 Macalister, Inscriptions and Language, pp. 194, 198, Nos. 4, 6.

12 Macalister, Inscriptions and Language, pp. 218–9, Nos. 21–2.

13 For pb. = presbyter see Traube, Nomina Sacra, p. 262; Lindsay, Notae Latinae, pp. 436–7. Capricious abbreviations like s. = servus are common even in MSS. where a formula was well-known or space was short; see Lindsay, pp. 415–7. Sc. for sci. is no worse than D. for Di.; see Traube, pp. 194–7 and E. Hübner, Inscriptiones Hispaniae Christianae, 1871. No. 90. Io. = Iohannes can be found in the marginal Eusebian apparatus of any Gospel-book.

14 Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne, fase. 168–9 (I9S°)> c°ls- 1360—1, quoting De Rossi and Grisar.

15 BHL, No. 5325; Acta SS., June, vol. II, 3rd edn., pp. 324–31.

16 J. Ryan, Irish Monasticism, 1931, pp. 288–9.

17 J. M. Mackinlay, Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland, pt. i, 1910, pp. 278, 280.

18 W. Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century, 1946, pp. 36, 263.

19 Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, bk. V, ch. xxi (ed. Plummer, i, p. 346; ii, p. 335); Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, vol. ii, p. 114.

20 E. Le Blant, L’Epigraphie Chrétienne en Gaule, 1890, pp. 37–40; Le Blant, Nouveau Recueil, 1892, No. 80, a ring inscribed In Di. numine A(men). E. Hübner, Inscriptiones Britanniae Christianae, 1876, Nos. 222–3, 224–5.

21 Marjorie O. Anderson, ‘The Lists of the Kings: II, Kings of the Picts’, Scot. Hist. Rev. xlix (1950), pp. 18–22.

22 Most are brought together in Viking Antiquities II, V and VI (ed. H. Shetelig). Also see Christian Art in Ancient Ireland, I (ed. Mahr) and II (ed. Raftery).

23 PSAS 1949–50, 217.

24 Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England, Vol. V, pp. 318–28.

25 Hanging-bowls taken from the British Isles as Viking loot are, of course, found in Norway.

26 The other, found in the R. Witham, Lincolnshire, was last seen at the Leeds Exhibition in 1864. It was published by Sir Thomas Kendrick in 1941 (Antiquaries Journal XXI, pp. 161–2) from drawings in the Society of Antiquaries Scrap Books. The figure of 146 is the result of a current survey of the subject being made in the British Museum.

27 British Museum, Guide to Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, Fig. 130. G. E. P. and J. P. How, English and Scottish Silver Spoons, Vol. 1, 1952, pl. 3.

28 How, op. cit., pl. 2. (in the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh).

29 Published by Whitley Stokes with a translation in 1882 and reprinted by him in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus II (1903), pp. 252–3. For full bibliography see Kenney, Sources for Early Irish History (1929), pp. 692–9. This information and that which follows with regard to the ritual of confractio panis in the Gallican liturgy has been supplied by the Rev. Prof. John Ryan, S. J., and I am indebted to the Rev. Aubrey Gwynne, S. J., and Mrs G. Keiller for acting as intermediaries in the matter.

30 The rite is still in use in the Byzantine (Russian) rite and it is possible that an instrument for this purpose is still in use. Further research on the subject is required.

31 A. Mahr and J. Raftery, Christian Art in Ancient Ireland, Vol. I, pl. 41, no. 5.

32 Elaborate gold and garnet bosses were mounted on the scabbard of the Sutton Hoo sword, and a sword from the Rhineland of 7th-century date had three pyramidal studs of diminishing size mounted in line down the length of the scabbard, near its mouth. These cones might be greatly elaborated descendants of such studs, but would appear too big to sit very happily on a scabbard.

33 Ancient Emigrants, p. 5.

34 E. A. Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores, Vol. 11, no. 152.

35 Palaeographical dates at this period are generally liable to a fair margin of error. In Codices Latini Antiquiores, VI (p. x) Lowe revises some of the datings given in C.L.A. II, bringing the Book of Durrow from ‘Saec viii’ to Saec vii2, to agree with conclusions derived from its decoration. Durham MS. A. ii 10 he moves back from ‘Saec. viii’ to ‘Saec vii med.’ The Durham Cassidorus would not seem to require so late a dating as c. 750 to judge from its ornamentation, since the Lindisfarne Gospels may now be dated as early as c. 698. (Codex Lindisfarnensis, Vol. II, 1960.)

36 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, XXVIII, 1915–6, p. 93, fig. 5.

37 See J. Anderson, ‘The Architecturally Shaped Shrines and other Reliquaries of the Early Celtic Church in Scotland and Ireland, in PSAS, XLIV, 1909–10; and PSAS, LXVIII, 1933–4, pp. 433–8. Mr Stevenson, however, would put the reliquary 100 years earlier than the bowls.

38 MS. CCCC 286. F. Wormald The Miniatures in the Gospels of St. Augustine, pls. 11 and VII, O.U.P., 1954.

39 Lowe, CLA II, No. 126.

40 Brøgger’s view (Ancient Emigrants, pp. 64–5). Cf. T. D. Kendrick’s A History of the Vikings, p. 4: ‘The almost empty Orkneys and Shetlands were seized by immigrant Norsemen.’

41 Brøgger quotes here a speech by Dicuil (c. 825) concerning Shetland and Orkney ‘other isles there are wherein lived for a space of a hundred years hermits voyaging there from our Scotia (Ireland) but now they are empty of anchorites by reason of Norse robbers.’

42 J. R. C. Hamilton, Excavations at Jarlshof, Shetland, p. 106.

43 Central to this question are the Papil and Bressay stones and the claim of Goudie, quoted by Brøgger (p. 56), to have established the existence of three Ninianic and one Columban churches in Shetland. The present excavations may have established the genuineness of at least one of these.