Brussels Cross

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The Brussels Cross on display

The Brussels Cross or Drahmal Cross is an

St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral, Brussels, that bears engraved images and an inscription in Old English
.

Description

Badly damaged and with its once jewelled front missing, the Brussels Cross takes the form of a large piece of cross-shaped wood covered with a silver plate bearing medallions engraved with the

Anglo-Saxon inscription is contained on a silver strip which runs around the edges of the cross. It is written not in runes
, but in Roman letters, in a curious mixture of Latin-style majuscules and minuscules. The letters 'NE' of ricne, 'NG' of cyning and 'ME' of bestemed are written as ligatures. Although it has not proved possible to identify with any certainty the persons named in the inscription, the text is in late West-Saxon which would ascribe it to the late tenth century or perhaps later.

Provenance

The Brussels Cross and its two-line inscription in Anglo-Saxon verse were first brought to public attention in modern times by H. Logeman in 1891. Traditionally reputed to contain the largest extant fragments of the True Cross, it has been preserved at the Cathedral of SS. Michel and Gudule since the middle of the seventeenth century. The cross is 46.5 by 28 cm. (18.3 by 11 inches) in size. The front was once covered by a jewelled gold plate, probably taken away by French soldiers under

Lothair Cross is a comparable work that is still intact. The name of the craftsman, Drahmal, is probably Norse and from the northern England, but nothing more can be deduced about him. Judging from the language of the inscription as well as from the epigraphy and the style of the images, the cross most likely dates from the beginning of the 11th century. The images are in a "stolid" version of the early "Winchester style".[1]

The Three Brothers

The Brussels Cross was created in England, but the three brothers, Ælfric, Æthelmær and Æthelwold, cited in the prose part of the inscription, have never been positively identified. The language is a fairly regular late West-Saxon, with one

Anglian
form, bestemed, and a few irregular spellings, such as byfigynde (with 'y' for 'e' in the ending) in the verse, wyrican and beroþor (both with an intrusive vowel) in the prose. The form bestemed (for West-Saxon bestiemed, bestymed) does not necessarily indicate a northern origin for the inscription; it is usually explained as a traditional spelling taken over from older poetic vocabulary.

Some scholars have identified Ælfric, Æthelmær and Æthelwold with Africus, Agelmarus and Agelwardus of Worcester around the year 1007. Others have suggested that the Æthelmær is the well-known patron of

Flemish
soldiers were in England.

Notes

  1. ^ Wilson 1984, p. 190

References

  • Logeman, H. L'inscription anglo-saxonne du reliquaire de la vraie croix au trésor de l'église des S.S.-Michel-et-Gudule à Bruxelles. Bruxelles: Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, 1891 (Mémoires couronnés et autres Mémoires : Collection in-8°, t.45, fasc.8).
  • d'Ardenne, S. 'The Old English Inscription on the Brussels Cross'. In English Studies XXI (1939): 145-64, 271-2.
  • Kelly, R. & Quinn, C. Stone, Skin and Silver. Litho Press / Sheed & Ward, 1999.
  • Ó Carragáin, Éamonn. Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the 'Dream of the Rood' Tradition. London: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2005.
  • van Ypersele de Strihou, A. Le Trésor de la Cathédrale des Saints Michel et Gudule à Bruxelles, 2000.
  • ISBN 978-0879519766
    .

External links

The poetic text of the Brussels Cross is fully edited and annotated, with digital images of its engraved inscriptions, in the Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project: https://oepoetryfacsimile.org/

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