Somerset County Museum, Taunton

Discovered in 1995 under the floor of an eighteenth-century barn, belonging to Mr John Gosling, on Brinsea Road, Congresbury, during repairs to the foundations. One fragment formed part of the threshold (see Ill. 205). Identified by Mr Vince Russell, County Archaeologist, and Dr Warwick Rodwell, to whom I am indebted for drawing it to my attention. Since other fragments in the bedding included gravestones with Congresbury names and the nearest church was the important foundation at Congresbury (St Andrew, ST 435638), it is assumed that they came from this church (pers. comm. Mr V. Russell and Mr J. Bromhead 1995).

Although broken into fragments the original surfaces of the stones are smooth and unweathered and the drapery folds sharp and crisp.

Fragment (a). Block with the upper part of two figures

A: Tonsured figure. The upper part of the stone is smoothly dressed and narrower than the arch below. On the left the face is broken away, but on the right it finishes in quite a sharp angle which is not at the intersection of the arcade and which is without any arris moulding. The arch below is supported on a rectangular pilaster and is broad, chamfered, and slightly divorced from the capital which projects into faces A and B. It seems to be of a composite type with a slightly bulbous centre with a flat slab at the top and at the base. On the left the remains of the impost/capital are more sketchy but of the same type. The arch frames a figure of which the head and part of the shoulders survive. The head is framed in a plain dished halo and is slightly turned towards his left and the Christ figure in the next panel (face B). The head is tonsured with only a frame of hair which is indicated by coarse ribbing. The eyes are almond-shaped and prominently outlined, and the one visible ear is set high at eye level. The nose and mouth have been partly obliterated but the mouth appears to be down-turned and the long chin unshaven. What looks like the outline of a moustache and beard could be a rendering of the sort of stubble shadow one can find in manuscript depictions (see Discussion Congresbury 1, p. 151).

B: Christ figure. The arch on this face is slightly higher than on A and the staff-cross held in the left hand of the figure below crosses it and is displayed against the plain background above. The figure below, which survives almost to waist level, is slightly turned to the right, and his right hand is held up in blessing with the thumb and two first fingers extended. The halo is deeply dished and is marked by three rays defined by double incised lines which form a cruciferous background. His hair is long, parted in the middle and falling behind his ear onto his shoulder. The eyes are oval and outlined like the other figure, and the nose is damaged, but the mouth is slightly down-turned. The outlined jaw-line could indicate a beard. He wears a simple tunic and draped overmantle which falls in folds over his arm. The arm and hand are muscular and well shaped.

On both figures the surfaces are very smoothly finished as if for painting.

C: Reused, with rectangular socket

D: Plain

E (top): Round dowel hole, diam. 8 cm (3 in), depth 20 cm (8 in)

F (bottom): Broken away

Fragment (b). In two joining pieces

A: Only one intact carved face survives, showing nearly the full width of a standing figure from the waist to below the knees. The figure has one knee slightly flexed. The right arm appears to be held across the body and upraised from the elbow, with the folds from the overmantle hanging in a sleeve-like way. The figure's left hand appears to be tucked into the folds of its garment or possibly holding something. The drapery folds of the garment swirl round the knee and join the crumpled folds over the left leg. There is a straight pleat between the legs. The figure is complete to full width at the base of the upper stone, but on the lower the left leg and some of the drapery folds which surround it are cut away. The broken feature bottom left on this face could be a kickedup hem of drapery.

B: The broken area to the figure's left is quite narrow on the upper stone, although all carving is lost on the lower. Between the standing figure and an area of carved Vshaped folds on the upper stone something which might have been a column has been chipped away. These folds are at about the waist level of face A.

C: Broken off

D: Broken off but part of a smoothly dressed original face survives.

Fragment (c). Small block

A: Redressed with two intersecting sockets.

B: Redressed as a threshold stone and with a secondary socket.

C: Broken off

D: This face is carved with folds which replicate the knee folds of the more complete figure on fragment b, face A, and since these seem to join crumpled folds above, it is possible that this is the remains of another figure turned in the opposite direction. Certainly this seems to be the finished left side of the figure because the carving seems to finish cleanly against a smooth surface, with another vertical feature chipped away — which could be another column.

A recent comprehensive study by Oakes and Costen (2003) has made a good case for the importance of Congresbury in the Anglo-Saxon period, and in support of the near certainty that the stones would have come from that site (now St Andrew's church). The first recorded mention of the site is as a monastery which King Alfred gave to Asser in the later ninth century, but at some stage in the tenth century the estate passed back into royal hands and was given by King Cnut to the royal clerk Dudoc before he became bishop of Wells in 1033. Oakes and Costen suggest that it was to this period that the sculptures belong (2003, 286–7, 297). Their further suggestion that these stones formed part of the shrine of St Cyngar is discussed below. Certainly the exceptional refinement of the carving and the nature and style of the monument imply the highest patronage, and public display.

The pair of figures on (a) are standing in architectural frames — a feature which distinguishes angels and saints in wall plaques such as Breedon (Wilson 1984, ills. 88 and 92), and is widely used in manuscripts. There seem to have been two figures also on (b), and if the suggestion is accepted that there are ghosts of similar architectural frames on that stone and on (c) it is possible that there were originally at least six standing figures, and the example of the apostles on the Hedda Stone springs to mind (ibid., ill. 93), although the style of architectural frame and dress of the figures are clearly different. Oakes and Costen compare the arcaded figures with the ghosts on the Wells font arcade (see Ills. 329–34, and Rodwell and West 2001, fig. 129), but the inspiration for the details of the arched frames could well have been from manuscripts. The way in which the arch tapers in towards the capitals in a non-architectural manner is a feature found on many canon table arches in manuscripts of the early eleventh century (see Temple 1976, ills. 228–9 and 233). For the form of the capitals see BL Cotton Titus D.XXVI, fol. 19v (ibid., ill. 243) or BL Stowe 944, fol. 7 (ibid., ill. 248), but also as early as Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 183, fol. 1v (ibid., ill. 29).

It is unfortunate that the gestures of the figures other than that of Christ are missing because this might have identified them. Certainly, on (a) the tonsured figure to Christ's right is most reasonably identified with St Peter, given the popularity of his cult in the Anglo-Saxon church (Higgitt 1989; and see p. 189), and as Oakes and Costen have perceptively noted, 'Peter as the rock upon which the church was built and Christ as the cornerstone were two common epithets attached to these figures that would have been aptly recalled by their being placed in this particular position' (2003, 303). Despite the fact that the figure on (b) is facing in the same direction as that of St Peter, it is too wide to be the lower half of his body. This figure on (b) has one hand tucked into the folds of his drapery and another arm across his chest, which might have been giving a blessing or holding a book in the manner of the Hedda Stone apostles; but without the head, and other attributes which could have been held in the hands, the identity of this figure can only be a guess. Christ stands higher than St Peter, but the figure on (b) is on a larger scale than the other two, and as Oakes and Costen say, '... it is hard to imagine which personage might be represented larger than Christ' (ibid., 303). They consider that this figure has none of the divine attributes, but it is clear from the fold that his right hand could have been raised in the manner of the Sherborne Pontifical image of God the Holy Ghost (ibid., fig. 12), so that one cannot rule out other aspects of the divine Trinity being represented on this piece. Oakes and Costen produce a tentative attribution of this figure to St Cyngar, the eponymous saint of Congresbury, who appears in the lists of saints' resting places (Rollason 1978, 67–8, 92) and whose cult could have been fostered by the bishopric at Wells in default of saints of their own, although they concede that the larger format 'remains problematic' (Oakes and Costen 2003, 291, 304).

This attribution and indeed the suggestion that these pieces made up the shrine of Cyngar is persuasive but unprovable. There are other explanations for the fragmentary figure on (b) as I have mentioned above, and the form of the shrine is difficult to reconstruct from the fragments remaining. The only indication of structure which is unambiguously original is the deep round socket on the top of fragment (a) which was clearly formed to take some weight, but some of the other rectangular sockets seem to be later and of uncertain purpose. There are references in Anglo-Saxon literature to a variety of monumental forms (see introduction pp. 37–8), and the composition of these fragments remains enigmatic. It is possible that these figures supported a platform on which a shrine or reliquary rested, or indeed that they supported the stone of an altar — see the portable altar of Arnulf, c. 870 (Backes and Dolling 1969, 131).

The drapery folds on all of the figures find good parallels in tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, especially in the way in which the overmantle is draped around the knee of the figure in stone (b), and falls in sharp V-shaped folds. The cutting is precise and sculptural, and obviously in the medium of stone the frilly crumpled folds of hemlines are more difficult to achieve than in pen and ink, nevertheless the Sherborne Pontifical drawings which are used by Oakes and Costen as parallels (2003, figs. 10–12) do provide a comparable example from a manuscript which is known to have been in the region not later than the early eleventh century (Temple 1976, 60–1, no. 35). The details of the head type on (a) are however very different, and are different also from the more sketchy rendering of features on the Bristol Christ (Ill. 198). The late antique tradition of the type of face with large outlined eyes and sunken bearded cheeks is indubitable (see the face of St Andrew on the eighth century fresco from Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome (Backes and Dolling 1969, fig. on 59)), and is revived in some Ottonian art in the solemn gaunt features of figures in metalwork or ivory of the first quarter of the eleventh century (see ibid., 170, 173, 191). I have elsewhere suggested (Cramp forthcoming a) that there is some parallel in England with the walrus ivory figure of the Baptist from the British Museum (Wilson 1984, 190, ill. 266), but several depictions in the early eleventh century may be adduced as close in spirit to these carvings: for the rather severe expression and down-turned mouth of the figure of Christ in Majesty, see the Trinity Gospels, fol. 16v (Temple 1976, no. 65, ill. 212); and for the facial characteristics, see an oval panel of walrus ivory showing Christ in Majesty (Backhouse et al. 1984, 121, fig. 123). Oakes and Costen (2003, 303) compare 'the large eyes with their emphatically rimmed outlines' with Winterbourne Steepleton 1, and the scale with Beverstone, Gloucestershire (Rice 1952, 96), Bristol 1, and the Bradford 4 angels (Oakes and Costen 2003, 301). Certainly the Winterbourne Steepleton carving has similar features derived from the late antique tradition, but overall the face and the draperies differ (Ills. 149–52).

Much more could be said if we had the figures full length to the hem lines. The sculptor or sculptors have obviously simplified the folds in comparison with manuscript depictions, but the figures are carved with confidence and monumentality which is in sharp contrast with, for example, the drapery on the Bristol Christ (Ill. 198). These fragments, which in scale compare with this last and the Bradford angels (Ills. 404–6), only serve to emphasise how much we have lost in late West Saxon monumental art.

Early eleventh century

Oakes 2000, 72; Oakes and Costen 2003; Cramp forthcoming a

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