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Object type: Part of cross-shaft
Measurements:
H. 206 cm (81 in) (max.); W. 86 > 58 cm (34 > 23.5 in); D. 40 cm (15.8 in)
Socket: L. 29 cm (11.5 in), W. 15 cm (6 in), D. 21 cm (8.3 in)
Stone type: Coarse-grained, abundantly megacrystic, micaceous granite. White feldspars up to 2 x 0.6 cm form about 50% of the rock; white mica up to 2 mm forms less than 1%, with the remainder of the rock formed of roughly equidimensional clear quartz up to about 8 mm across. Bodmin Moor Granite
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 56-9; Pl. 29
Corpus volume reference: Vol 11 p. 138-9
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Part of the rectangular cross-shaft of an unfinished composite monument. The shaft has been broken in two from top to bottom, with the back entirely removed. The only part unaffected by this damage is the slightly bulging, uncut lower part of the stone, which would originally have been buried in the ground. The only surviving decoration is a single panel of interlace on the front of the stone, within a broad, flat edge-moulding.
A (broad): At the top is a panel of well constructed eight-strand plaitwork, modified near the top to create a ring-knot-like effect. It is executed in well-modelled relief-carved single strands. Below this is a single, uncarved panel defined by incised lines.
B and D (narrow): Dressed, but never carved
C (broad): Lost
Like St Cleer 2, the cross-shaft is a member of the Panelled Interlace group of crosses (Chapter IX, p. 85). Although the two monuments do not share individual patterns, they are comparable in the layout of the decoration in panels and in exclusive use of geometric patterns. However, the plain eight-strand plait can be compared with that on St Neot 1, face C (Ill. 154), another member of the same group, and also with the decoration on a related monument at Copplestone in Devon (Cramp 2006, 82–3, ills. 10–14). Another fine example is on Llantwit Major 4 in south Wales, a cross with which members of the Cornish Panelled Interlace group have been compared (Redknap and Lewis 2007, 382–9). St Cleer 3 is dated by analogy with other members of the Panelled Interlace group.
Relationship of St Cleer 2 and St Cleer 3 (O.J.P.)
St Cleer stones 2 and 3 stand near to the crossing-point of two ancient moorland routeways, one skirting the south side of Bodmin Moor, a major east–west route through Cornwall, the other the main north–south road from Liskeard to Camelford across the centre of Bodmin Moor. Although this area was still moorland in 1600, the land is now enclosed and the road is hedged. The traditional name of the site (SX 236688) is 'The Other Half Stone', which survived to appear on the First Edition of the Ordnance Survey One-Inch map (1809: the other half or Donierts Stone), but has now been replaced by 'King Doniert's Stone' (OS Six-Inch 1886 onwards). The earlier name was recorded by Richard Carew (1602, sig. 128v), as The other halfe stone, with a tentative but correct explanation:
I haltingly ayme, it may proceede from one of these respects; either, because it is the halfe of a monument, whose other parte resteth elsewhere: or, for that it meaneth, after the Dutch phrase, and their owne measure, a stone and halfe. For, in Dutch [i.e. German, O.J.P.], Ander halb, (Another halfe) importeth, One and a half, as Sesqui alter doth in Latine (Carew 1602, sig. 129r).
At about the same date (c. 1605) John Norden also recorded the name, but failed to understand it, saying of St Cleer parish:
a parish situate nere the craggie Moores, wherin standeth a monument of verie greate antiquitie, called The other haulfe stone, which standeth in this forme: [diagram, entitled 'The tother half Stone'] The name importeth another parte; and it may be the other parte is it which lyeth in a high way nere Foye, nere of the same proportion, contayninge yet a showe of certayne Saxon letters, so wetherbeaten and worne out, as they are not to be discerned (Norden 1728, 85).
If Norden knew Carew's account he ignored the correct explanation. His description of the 'other part' presumably refers to the sixth-century inscribed stone near Fowey (Okasha 1993, no. 10, known as the 'Tristan Stone'), which of course has nothing to do with the monuments in St Cleer parish.
Carew's second explanation was confirmed by Morton Nance by reference to both German anderhalb, following Carew, and also Dutch anderhalf, both meaning 'one and a half' (Nance 1936, replacing an unconvincing earlier explanation of his). It is further, and more definitively, confirmed by the fact that the phrase other half meaning 'one and a half' is well attested in English itself, though seemingly only in the medieval period. The usage is amply attested in both Old and Middle English, but no examples are cited later than the mid-fifteenth century (Bosworth and Toller 1882–98, 518b, s.v. healf; Kurath et al. 1952–2007, O-327a, s.v. other adj., 1(e); OED, s.v. other adj. 3c). The usage was apparently obsolete already by 1600, as shown not only by Norden's different explanation, but also by Carew's uncertainty over his correct one. Its meaning was again misunderstood by Croft Andrew, in reporting the excavation of October 1932 in which the vault under the stone was examined, for he incorrectly referred to 'King Doniert's Stone and the Other Half Stone' (Andrew 1932, 1935).
The name 'The Other Half Stone' thus alludes to both stones, and it confirms that the two stones have stood together at that spot since at least the fifteenth century, since that appears to be the latest date at which the name would have been given with that meaning. Accepting that the name means 'the stone and a half', it is worth asking which of the two stones, St Cleer 2 and 3, was considered to be the whole one, and which the half. Both are fragmentary, but in different ways. St Cleer 3, the uninscribed stone, is much the taller fragment of the two, but it has lost its ornament except on one face, having been split vertically, whereas St Cleer 2, the Doniert Stone, retains its ornament on all four sides of its lesser height. In either case the damage (or some of it) could, in any case, have been done since the name was given (although both stones were already in their present state by c. 1600); but on the whole it seems likely that St Cleer 3, despite being thinner, was considered the 'whole' stone, because of its greater height. If so, that would mean that St Cleer 2, Doniert's stone, was actually the 'half' implied in the name of the pair.
Like St Cleer 2, the cross-shaft is a member of the Panelled Interlace group of crosses (Chapter IX, p. 85). Although the two monuments do not share individual patterns, they are comparable in the layout of the decoration in panels and in exclusive use of geometric patterns. However, the plain eight-strand plait can be compared with that on St Neot 1, face C (Ill. 154), another member of the same group, and also with the decoration on a related monument at Copplestone in Devon (Cramp 2006, 82–3, ills. 10–14). Another fine example is on Llantwit Major 4 in south Wales, a cross with which members of the Cornish Panelled Interlace group have been compared (Redknap and Lewis 2007, 382–9). St Cleer 3 is dated by analogy with other members of the Panelled Interlace group.
Relationship of St Cleer 2 and St Cleer 3 (O.J.P.)
St Cleer stones 2 and 3 stand near to the crossing-point of two ancient moorland routeways, one skirting the south side of Bodmin Moor, a major east–west route through Cornwall, the other the main north–south road from Liskeard to Camelford across the centre of Bodmin Moor. Although this area was still moorland in 1600, the land is now enclosed and the road is hedged. The traditional name of the site (SX 236688) is 'The Other Half Stone', which survived to appear on the First Edition of the Ordnance Survey One-Inch map (1809: the other half or Donierts Stone), but has now been replaced by 'King Doniert's Stone' (OS Six-Inch 1886 onwards). The earlier name was recorded by Richard Carew (1602, sig. 128v), as The other halfe stone, with a tentative but correct explanation:
I haltingly ayme, it may proceede from one of these respects; either, because it is the halfe of a monument, whose other parte resteth elsewhere: or, for that it meaneth, after the Dutch phrase, and their owne measure, a stone and halfe. For, in Dutch [i.e. German, O.J.P.], Ander halb, (Another halfe) importeth, One and a half, as Sesqui alter doth in Latine (Carew 1602, sig. 129r).
At about the same date (c. 1605) John Norden also recorded the name, but failed to understand it, saying of St Cleer parish:
a parish situate nere the craggie Moores, wherin standeth a monument of verie greate antiquitie, called The other haulfe stone, which standeth in this forme: [diagram, entitled 'The tother half Stone'] The name importeth another parte; and it may be the other parte is it which lyeth in a high way nere Foye, nere of the same proportion, contayninge yet a showe of certayne Saxon letters, so wetherbeaten and worne out, as they are not to be discerned (Norden 1728, 85).
If Norden knew Carew's account he ignored the correct explanation. His description of the 'other part' presumably refers to the sixth-century inscribed stone near Fowey (Okasha 1993, no. 10, known as the 'Tristan Stone'), which of course has nothing to do with the monuments in St Cleer parish.
Carew's second explanation was confirmed by Morton Nance by reference to both German anderhalb, following Carew, and also Dutch anderhalf, both meaning 'one and a half' (Nance 1936, replacing an unconvincing earlier explanation of his). It is further, and more definitively, confirmed by the fact that the phrase other half meaning 'one and a half' is well attested in English itself, though seemingly only in the medieval period. The usage is amply attested in both Old and Middle English, but no examples are cited later than the mid-fifteenth century (Bosworth and Toller 1882–98, 518b, s.v. healf; Kurath et al. 1952–2007, O-327a, s.v. other adj., 1(e); OED, s.v. other adj. 3c). The usage was apparently obsolete already by 1600, as shown not only by Norden's different explanation, but also by Carew's uncertainty over his correct one. Its meaning was again misunderstood by Croft Andrew, in reporting the excavation of October 1932 in which the vault under the stone was examined, for he incorrectly referred to 'King Doniert's Stone and the Other Half Stone' (Andrew 1932, 1935).
The name 'The Other Half Stone' thus alludes to both stones, and it confirms that the two stones have stood together at that spot since at least the fifteenth century, since that appears to be the latest date at which the name would have been given with that meaning. Accepting that the name means 'the stone and a half', it is worth asking which of the two stones, St Cleer 2 and 3, was considered to be the whole one, and which the half. Both are fragmentary, but in different ways. St Cleer 3, the uninscribed stone, is much the taller fragment of the two, but it has lost its ornament except on one face, having been split vertically, whereas St Cleer 2, the Doniert Stone, retains its ornament on all four sides of its lesser height. In either case the damage (or some of it) could, in any case, have been done since the name was given (although both stones were already in their present state by c. 1600); but on the whole it seems likely that St Cleer 3, despite being thinner, was considered the 'whole' stone, because of its greater height. If so, that would mean that St Cleer 2, Doniert's stone, was actually the 'half' implied in the name of the pair.
