The surviving piece of Rolleston 1 was lying loose on top of Rolleston 2 in 2007, but this is only part of the documented stone fragment (see below). The chequered history of this item since its discovery in or about 1895, along with the three stones of Rolleston 2, is complex and traceable only in outline. Important details come by courtesy of Professor Elisabeth Okasha from correspondence in her research files with Eric Freckingham of Rolleston in May 1968. Freckingham came to live in the parish in 1916 and he co-authored a history of the church and village, published in 1931 (Longhurst and Freckingham 1931).

In 1916, by Freckingham's report, Rolleston 1 'was built into the N. wall above the three large free standing blocks of stone'. This is borne out by Hill's brief notice (Hill 1916a, 202), and the precise arrangement is illustrated by a photograph, perhaps taken shortly after their discovery, and published, along with a brief notice, by Cornelius Brown in 1904, which shows the stones of Rolleston 2 piled up in front of and below the inscribed fragment as if it were the crosshead to their shaft (Brown 1904–7, i, 23). A second early photograph, credited to William Stevenson of Hull (for whom, see Chapter I; he was responsible — via J. Romilly Allen — for the primary report of the discovery of these stones and their earliest description and assessment ([Allen] 1897)), shows Rolleston 1 mounted intact on the plastered wall of the south face of the west respond of the north arcade, rather than the north wall of the north aisle, and the three stones of Rolleston 2 piled neatly in the angle as if forming a cross-shaft. This is the photograph reproduced in 1913 (Baylay 1913, plate opp. 53; copy in the Local Studies collection of Nottingham Central Library; see Ill. 68). Presumably the inscribed stone was held in this location with cement. Freckingham supposed that it had been placed in the wall shortly after its discovery c. 1895, which is indeed how Stevenson encountered it in 1897: '3"" or 4"" thick and cemented on the wall of the church' ([Allen] 1897). His gripe with those he denigrated as 'unacquainted with the value of the find ... <who> dealt with the matter in blind ignorance' was not to do with the inscribed stone, but rather with their arrangement of the other three, and failure to recognize — as he mistakenly asserted — that one of the three was a base and should be set cross-wise rather than in line with the shaft (BL, Add. MS 37552, ff. 195–8, sketched reconstruction f. 200). It is a supposition that Baylay confirms, at the same time doubting — contra Stevenson — whether the cross-head belongs to the same monument as the other three stones (Baylay 1913, 54).

The inscription was inspected by Gerard Baldwin Brown at an early date, and was apparently recorded by him built in at that location in an undated photograph held at the Courtauld Institute in London under his copyright (Ills. 71–2). His reading was published posthumously in 1937 (Brown 1937, 215), but, as his field notebooks in Edinburgh University Library reveal, he was touring in the East Midlands and collecting materials forty years earlier (Everson and Stocker 1999, 170; 2000; 2000–1). Even that is not certainly the correct identification of this image. The Courtauld's Baldwin Brown photograph is notable for showing no sign of rising damp or deterioration of the inscription in its location in the wall. It is quite legible and the transcription published in 1897 matches it closely (Ill. 70). It seems alternatively possible that this photograph is actually one of Stevenson's early images of the discoveries at Rolleston and directly the basis of the drawing and transcription published in 1897. That account in The Reliquary says explicitly that Stevenson submitted photographs and 'particulars', from which the published note, and the drawings that illustrate it, were generated ([Allen] 1897). Two consequences follow. The note, uncharacteristically, was not credited to an author. It is presumably therefore Romilly Allen's work (he was general editor of the new series of The Reliquary) and by the same token the drawings, which were much reproduced subsequently, are best regarded as Allen's rather than Stevenson's as is usually presumed. Secondly, Baldwin Brown might easily have acquired the Courtauld picture from a source such as Romilly Allen's papers. As well as a determined fieldworker he was a keen collector of images. In their present form these papers rather surprisingly contain no photographs of the Rolleston stones, but many drawings of variable quality, including some contained within Stevenson's original letter to Anderson (BL, Add. MS 37552, ff. 194–214). A detailed study might reveal whether it was these, rather than photographs, that were actually the basis of the published images.

By 1931, according to Freckingham's report in correspondence with Professor Okasha, damp was creeping up the wall and having 'a detrimental effect' on the stone mounted there. His co-authored parish history deemed the inscription 'no longer visible' (Longhurst and Freckingham 1931, 21). Subsequently, 'about 1940 perhaps' in his recollection, the stone was removed from the wall and placed on the top of the shaft; by this time, 'only a very small section' of the text was still legible' and 'this crumbled away when the stone was removed'. Other evidence corroborates this process and timetable. Mee reported that the stone with its inscription was still 'built into the wall' in the late 1930s (1938, 244). But a photograph in the Nottingham Central Library collection, probably taken in 1927, shows both serious rising damp and areas of plaster lifting in the lower wall in which the stone is set and — above and behind its view of Rolleston 2 — the lower part of Rolleston 1 exhibiting the effects of rising damp in the lifting of its surface layer (Ref S95.4, accession no. 27309; see Ill. 69).

It seems then that a combination of neglect through a prolonged period of deterioration caused by rising damp, and the impact of removal from the wall, reduced the stone from the sizeable item first found, including an inscription, to the small fragment surviving today, lacking that inscription. Whether the case of deterioration was as desperate as portrayed, or the care in removal was as great as it might have been, cannot now be assessed. The result was that the stone was thereby, or gradually thereafter, reduced to its topmost carved panel, with its animal ornament, which was presumably least or last affected by the damp; and the very stone of the inscription panel was trimmed off and lost (Ill. 75). Did this occur as early as Freckingham's memory suggested? The inscription was reported by Pevsner (1951, 152), which might imply that it had not yet been broken up by the time of his site visits in Nottinghamshire in the late summer of 1948 (Harries 2011, 410–14). The same report is transferred to the 1979 edition of the Buildings of England volume, but this may not have been checked and certainly cannot be taken as evidence — in the face of clear facts — that the monument was still intact in 1979 (Pevsner and Williamson 1979, 299) or even in 1951. In fact, the published report in 1931 that 'this stone has decayed and the inscription is no longer visible' — even moderated by Freckingham's later memories — seems unequivocal and decisive that Pevsner cannot have seen the inscription (Longhurst and Freckingham 1931, 21). Talbot Rice's reference to the inscribed stone (Rice 1952, 137) alludes to an Anglian beast on the back (sic), an error which may suggest that it did not survive for him to see it at first hand. Perhaps both he and Pevsner relied on Allen's much reproduced drawings from the time of the stone's discovery, so that attention was not drawn in either the academic or wider world to the serious loss that had occurred.

When Okasha first visited the church at Rolleston on 6 August 1964, the entire inscribed stone had disappeared and she was told it had completely crumbled away (pers. comm.). Her correspondence with Eric Freckingham followed and informed the description and assessment of this inscription in her 1971 Handlist, for which a first-hand examination was not possible (Okasha 1971, 149). When we first visited for Corpus purposes in 1987, the stone had been reduced to the surviving fragment. A note in the church says that this was found 'about 20 years ago <i.e. during the 1980s> ... on a window sill behind the organ and redisplayed'. Its survival seems as serendipitous as the inscription's loss is shocking.

Considering the subsequent scrimmage of interest in the stones from Rolleston, it is ironic that the earliest and clearest notice of their discovery comes from outside the county. In August 1895 the Rev. E. H. Goddard wrote to Romilly Allen from Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, 'A friend of mine tells me at Rolleston near Newark during restorations now in progress the stones of a complete doorway, Norman of the 12th century, have been discovered built into foundations. On the backs of three of the jamb stones are distinct Saxon work. Two of them have crosses marked thus [FIG HERE] with decoration on each side of them. Have you heard of this find? I am trying to get photos of these stones. If I get them I will send them to you' (BL, Add. MS 37552, f. 214). Local notices confirm the date and general circumstances: 'These fragments were discovered during the restoration of the church about 1895' ((—) 1897–8, lxxiii; Longhurst and Freckingham 1931, 21). By comparison, Stapleton's report that they came to light only 'in recent years' in 1903, or 'about 1897' in 1912 (1903, 88; 1912, 30) is uncertain and seems actually to reference W. Stevenson's first involvement that year. For in 1897 Stevenson adopted the stones, in circumstances he explained at self-important length to Romilly Allen, and wrote first to the Museum of the Dean and Chapter in Durham, to Joseph Anderson in Edinburgh and then — Anderson's letter having been forwarded to Allen — to him (BL, Add. MS 37552, ff. 195–200). Thanks to Allen's decisive energy, the stones' first publication was almost immediate (ibid.; [Allen] 1897).

Refurbishment of Holy Trinity was complex in the later years of the nineteenth century. The fabric of the tower, a long-standing problem, saw a fundamental restoration in 1889–90, including deep new foundations and replacement of all the stonework forming the outer casing of its walls; its fitting-out was completed in 1892 (Baylay 1913, 52; Longhurst and Freckingham 1931, 19–20). The chancel was separately repaired earlier, to designs of Ewan Christian (Baylay 1913, 53), but the chancel arch was raised only in 1895, when a third substantial phase of work focused on the south aisle (ibid., 51, 53–4). Of these, Goddard's letter implies that this third phase was the most likely source of both Rolleston 1 and 2; but the thorough-going work on the tower perhaps cannot be excluded.

Holy Trinity

The surviving original worked surface of face A is deeply weathered; while the surface condition of the parts of face A that have been lost (principally that bearing the inscription) cannot now be assessed. Prior to the stone's recent damage, faces B and D appear to have been re-cut for reuse. Face F has certainly been re-cut for reuse as building material. Overall then the cross fragment recovered from the fabric during the restorations of 1895 had clearly been re-cut and recycled for reuse as building material, prior to its discovery.

When complete, Rolleston 1 clearly represented the upper part of a standing cross-shaft with the adjoining terminal of the lower arm of the cross-head (Fig. 21). Today we are left merely with the larger part of the cross-head terminal, the shaft along with its inscription having been lost. Fortunately we have the drawing made by Stevenson/Allen and republished by Stapleton ([Allen] 1897; Stapleton 1903; ibid. 1911) which permits us to give a description of the whole fragment before its more recent mutilation. It seems likely that the cross-head was of Corpus type A11, or A12 (Cramp 1991, xvi, fig. 2), though it is no longer possible to check.

A (broad): The shaft part of face A was contained within prominent roll-mouldings on the angles ('returned on the edge' as Stevenson noted (BL, Add. MS 37552, ff. 195–8), and probably on all four angles, but we have evidence for only two). The roll-mouldings carried a prominent cable decoration. Within the known height of the shaft, this face was undecorated except for a panel, approximately 20 cm (7.9 in) square, at its uppermost extent, where the shaft abutted the terminal of the cross-arm above. This panel was defined by another bold cable moulding, here carved only on the face. The surface of the panel was evidently recessed slightly and into its surface was carved a simple inscription (Stapleton 1903, 90).

Inscription [2] The inscription from Rolleston 1 is comprehensively lost, destroyed in the circumstances described in 'Present Location' above. We have Romilly Allen's drawing of it, based on Stevenson's photographs and published in the The Reliquary ([Allen] 1897) and frequently re-published (Ill. 70). There is a photograph specifically of the text panel, undated but under the copyright of G. Baldwin Brown, in the Courtauld Institute, as referred to above (Ills. 71–2). The stone was still in the wall and not apparently affected by the damp, which (as recounted above) led to the loss of the inscription's surface and the stone's removal from the wall in about 1940. The photograph may therefore be earlier, perhaps considerably earlier, than 1930. It may even be Stevenson's (above) and Baldwin Brown's opinion of the inscription was published only much later (Brown 1937, 215). Talbot Rice's view, like other reported 'readings' of the inscription, is clearly not a first-hand or epigraphically careful reading, but derivative from Stevenson or Baldwin Brown (Rice 1952, 137).

Stevenson thought the inscription's date to be 1050 to 1150 on the basis of its lettering. Baldwin Brown discusses it only as an example of a signature of a 'master craftsman' — he seems to presume that it is pre-Conquest. Talbot Rice repeats Stevenson's assessment and reason. Elisabeth Okasha listed it among the inscriptions excluded from her Handlist, in the category of those that probably date after 1100 (Okasha 1971, 149). In recent correspondence she confirms that she then felt it 'too dubiously pre- Conquest for inclusion'.

The surviving photograph shows the inscription to have read:

This is clearly to be divided and expanded Radulfus me fe(cit), 'Radulfus made me'.
The final E is confidently represented in Romilly Allen's early drawing: though faint, it can probably just be made out on the surviving photograph. The script mixes capital and minuscule forms, with minuscule D and M (the latter elongated to full height). The two Es would seem to have been different types, pace the drawing, which shows them both as curved minuscule forms. This shape is the one that is suggested on the photograph for the last character, but the first instance is clearly a straight-sided capital. Letters are seriffed and unevenly sized. The privileging of the nameform RADVLF may well be an intentional aspect of the layout, though to modern eyes the second line appears compressed and badly planned and, of course, falls short, if the whole of FECIT had been intended. The cable moulding around the panel shows that the inscription is complete as it stands.

Above the inscribed panel the squarish sculpted terminal of the lower arm of the cross-head survived and it is a fragment of this sculpture that can still be seen in the church today (Ills. 73–5). This rectangular panel, probably originally also about 20 cm (7.9 in) square, was outlined with another bold cable moulding surrounding a fillet of square section; its lower edge defined the boundary between the shaft and the cross-head. Within the squarish panel of the cross-arm terminal is carved, in quite deep relief and in a very accomplished style, a figure of a winged quadruped, probably a lion. The animal's tail curls between its back legs and then behind its body where its tip is confronted by the backwards-turned head and jaws of the animal. The long muzzle is open and the head is domed with a large ovoid eye. The head sits above two kite-shaped wings emerging at the shoulders above a pair of forelegs, one of which has been broken away. Along the shoulder line is the remains of some surface treatment which might have represented a lion's mane (see below). Between the animal's two pairs of legs is a square un-carved projection with a flat surface that might originally have borne a painted inscription of some sort, or, alternatively, it might be intended to represent a book.

B and D (narrow) and C (broad): These faces are now completely broken away (in recent times), but it appears from Stevenson's drawing that faces B and D had already been re-cut during its reuse as walling material.

E (top): This survives to a limited extent today, and confirms the impression given by Stevenson's drawing that this face was re-cut when the stone was reused.

F (bottom): This, in contrast, appears broken in Stevenson's drawing and its equivalent today is a ragged modern break.

The sad remains of the Rolleston shaft represent a monument of considerable interest and distinctiveness. Its stone type points to its source being the Ancaster group of quarries. It is the only known Anglo-Saxon monument in the county carrying an inscription, which is discussed separately below. It is also the only known Nottinghamshire example of an elaborately sculpted cross-head of Anglo-Saxon date.

Inscription The masculine personal name Radulf, latinised Radulfus, is frequently encountered in medieval English records: it represents the parent form of Raulf, Raoul, and doubtless remained a conventional latinisation for them well after the loss of consonants in vernacular pronunciation. This name was popular in north-west France, where it is usually ascribed to Continental Germanic Radulf, though Old Norse Ráðúlfr may also have contributed in Normandy. From north-west France it was exported to late Anglo-Saxon England. Von Feilitzen lists tens of instances from Domesday Book (1937, 245); as he notes, almost all of them can be confidently identified with one or other of the men known to history as Ralph the Timid and Ralph the Staller, who were of Norman and Breton ancestry respectively (Williams 2004a; 2004b). The name therefore belongs to the class of 'Norman' personal names (actually names drawn from a range of languages and cultural influences: various dialects of Continental Germanic, French, Breton, biblical, etc.) which became widespread in England after 1066 and, indeed, exerted an influence which almost obliterated the native name-stock in the following centuries.

It does not follow, however, that Radulfus of Rolleston was, or was descended from, a post-1066 immigrant. The examples given by von Feilitzen emphasise this point: the material in his 1937 book represents the names of land-holders in England on the eve of the Norman Conquest, not in its wake, and both Ralph the Staller and Ralph the Timid are known to have been active in England well before 1066. The former may indeed have been born in Norfolk. They are prominent representatives of the Anglo-Norman contacts fostered by the house of Wessex in the eleventh century, which led to an admixture of many Norman name-bearers in the mid-eleventh century. Moreover, some names had been in the country for considerably longer: tenth-century moneyers, in particular, seem from their Continental Germanic names often to have been drawn from abroad (Smart 1986; generally Forssner 1916).

There are other possibilities. Though Continental Germanic Radulf is demonstrably popular and likely to account for the majority of instances in England, the equivalent Old English Rǣdwulf and Old Norse Ráðúlfr are attested. Since there are no incontrovertible instances of these found in eleventh-century England they are less likely sources for the Rolleston inscription than Continental Germanic Radulf, but in theory either might have been latinised in the same way (though the Old English form in Nottinghamshire would probably have been Rēdwulf). Possible Scandinavian influence may be of particular interest here in light of the 'Grimston-hybrid' place-name Rolleston, which indicates a Norse-named lord, owner or chief tenant at some formative point in the settlement's history between the later ninth and eleventh centuries. The personal name recorded in the place-name, Hróaldr < Hróðvaldr, would not likely be latinised as Radulfus, and a direct connection with the place-name can be ruled out. Another Norse name Hróðúlfr might perhaps appear as Radulfus under the influence of the common Norman form: there is evidence for confusion in the other direction, Rodulf/Roulf used for Radulf/Raulf (von Feilitzen 1937, 294 n.4; Insley 1994, 211). And despite the previous statement to the effect that Old Norse Ráðúlfr is not certainly found in eleventh-century England, it would generally be indistinguishable in our sources from Radulf. Authorities waver between the two possibilities for a tenth-century York moneyer Rathulf/Radulf (von Feilitzen 1937, 345 n.5; Smart 1986, 179).

Thus, although the balance of probabilities does favour a 'Norman' origin for the name, and Radulfus may well have been in Rolleston in the century after the Norman Conquest, contexts which place him there by the middle of the eleventh century, as suggested below, cannot be ruled out.

As a whole the inscription represents a familiar formula, 'X made me' and/or 'X owns me', which appears in one form or another in some twenty Anglo-Saxon inscriptions, sometimes in Latin, more often in Old English (e.g. Okasha 1971, nos. 13, 17, 19, 27, 37, etc.). The majority are found on portable objects — rings, knives, scabbards and the like — but there are several stones, including two with forms of the Old English verb wyrcan 'to make', at Alnmouth (Okasha 1971, no. 2; Cramp 1984, 161) and Great Edstone (Okasha 1971, no. 41; Lang 1991, 133–5), and one with the Latin facere as at Rolleston, at Canterbury, St Augustine's (Okasha 1983, no. 161; Tweddle et al. 1995, 128–30). Such inscriptions are often assumed to be the craftsmen's signatures, though this is assumption, and interpretation of Radulfus as patron (see below) may be possible (see John Higgitt's discussion in Tweddle et al. 1995, 113). It should, however, be noted that — at least where space allowed — a distinction could be drawn for the patron, as in the Alfred Jewel, Alfred mec heht gewyrcan 'Alfred commanded me to be made' (Okasha 1971, no. 4); for a probable similar instance on stone see Lincoln, St Mary-le-Wigford (Okasha 1971, no. 73; Everson and Stocker 1999, 214–15).

For comparable abbreviations of the verb, a swordguard from Exeter seems to have read me fe[cit] as here (Okasha 1971, no. 37), while the Alnmouth stone cited above similarly curtails Old English worhte as wo.

The me fecit / me worhte type spans the ninth to eleventh century in Anglo-Saxon England, but the type, in Latin, was widespread in Europe, and long-lived (Ploss 1958), and can hardly be used to date the inscription. A twelfth-century vernacular example from England is the font at Bridekirk, Cumberland, which records a text in Middle English language and Scandinavian runes, including the sequence rikarþ he me iwrokte 'Rikard he made me' (Page, R. 1999, 208).

Shafts were being produced in considerable numbers by the Ancaster quarries (Everson and Stocker 1999, 33–5; above, p. 50–1), but they are not such a homogenous group as the mid-Kesteven cover monuments coming from the same quarries. The great majority of them, however, are distinguished by having angles defined by fillets of square section and not by cable moulding, even though cables of the sort seen at Rolleston are a staple decoration of the cover group. This feature is found, however, on two other examples from the Ancaster quarries, namely the well-preserved shaft at Harmston, Lincolnshire (Everson and Stocker 1999, 176–8, ills. 195–8) and at Colston Bassett (p. 101). The fine shaft (Harmston 1) occurs alongside a cross-head (Harmston 2) also made at the Ancaster quarries, which might, as we suggested, be part of the same original monument (ibid., 177–8, ills. 201–2). An important parallel with Rolleston 1 is that, unusually, the arms of the Harmston cross-head are also outlined with cable moulding. There is a somewhat cruder shaft of generally similar type but from the Barnack quarries at North Witham, which also has cable-moulded angles, but in that case we know nothing of the form taken by its cross-head (ibid., 239–40). We considered the Harmston cross to be an exceptional monument in Lincolnshire, both because of its quality and perplexing iconography, and also because it had an exceptional form of cross-head with a drilled central hole rather than a boss. This might originally have had a purpose as a reliquary holder. The Rolleston cross, from the same quarry source, has some of the same features: an unusual cross-head shape and exceptional sculptural quality. The two monuments may have had a similar, non-funerary, function.

Whereas the shape of the Harmston cross-head finds few parallels, this is less true of the cross-head form reconstructable from the remains recorded by Stevenson at Rolleston (see Fig. 21). Its iconography seems clear, too. Despite the fact that Hill thought that the Rolleston sculpture represented a bird and a stag in combat (1916a, 202) and Rice an Anglian beast (1952, 137), it is clearly either the lion of St Mark or the bull of St Luke, and the faint traces of what might have originally been a shaggy mane, along with the lack of horns, probably favours the former. This iconography associates Rolleston 1 with a large group of cross-heads in various media that have the symbols of the evangelists decorating their four terminals. One of the earliest known Insular examples is the metalwork mould from Hartlepool, co. Durham, which is usually dated to the late seventh or early eighth century (Cramp and Daniels 1987, 430–1, fig. 7b), and the iconographic tradition continued into the Anglo-Scandinavian period, and later. There is, for example, quite a large group of eleventh-century examples in ivory and in metalwork (Backhouse et al. 1984, 121–2, no. 124; 122–3, no. 125; 124–5, no. 127; 90–2, no. 75; 117–18, no. 118), and the iconography continued in the twelfth century. In stone sculpture, there are early examples such as Hart 7, co. Durham (Cramp 1984, 95, pl. 82.417), and a cross at Otley (no. 7), Yorkshire WR, of the eighth century also has this iconography (Coatsworth 2008, 223–4, ill. 600). The well-known group of sculpted cross-heads from the Chapter House at Durham Cathedral take the form probably seen in the Rolleston cross-head (Fig. 21), and they share with Rolleston a similar, deeply incised, sculptural technique (Coatsworth 1978; Cramp 1984, 68–72). Although the Durham cross-heads all have sculpted terminals only one (Durham 5: Cramp 1984, 68–9, pls. 43.205, 44.206) appears to represent evangelist symbols as at Rolleston; but such symbols can be seen on the related grave-cover decorated in high relief with a cross of this same type, which also comes from the Durham Chapter House (Durham 12: Cramp 1984, 74, pl. 51.241). These Durham cross-heads are also thought to be eleventh-century in date and probably belong to its first half (Coatsworth 1978; Cramp 1984, 68–72). Unfortunately the posture of the Rolleston quadruped, looking backwards with its tail curling between its legs and over its back, is not particularly diagnostic, as this posture is commonplace at most periods. The Lundø crucifix, for example, offers a close eleventh-century comparison (Backhouse et al. 1984, 204–6, no. 269).

None of these eleventh-century cross-heads incorporating evangelist symbols has a ring, and so this iconographic tradition appears to stand to one side of the main tradition of Hiberno-Norse-inspired sculpture in the north of England. Out of the enormous number of highly sculpted cross-head terminals on Irish high crosses, many of which do have rings, very few seem to deploy the evangelist symbols. The North Cross, Duleek, and the Cross of SS. Patrick and Columba, Kells (both Co. Meath) seem to be exceptional in that respect (Harbison 1992, i, 76–8, 110–11, 301–2). Nevertheless, there is a continuing tradition of cross-heads without rings in northern and western Britain and in Ireland, extending well into the eleventh century, and the Rolleston cross is best seen as a distant outlier of that tradition (Kelly, D. 1993).

Comparanda both in stone sculpture and in other media, then, point to an eleventh-century date for Rolleston 1's combination of this cross-head form and iconography. That iconography evidently had a late vogue, and the style of the sculpture would also be comfortably placed in that century. Rolleston 1's stone type, its cable moulding and its other generic similarities with the Harmston shaft both support an eleventh-century date and associate it with other products of the prolific Ancaster quarries. This assessment sits at odds with Elisabeth Okasha's longstanding evaluation of the inscription as not pre-Conquest, but likely rather to date from after 1100 (Okasha 1971, 149). It is sometimes said, by way of further proof that Rolleston 1 is not a pre-Conquest monument, that 'Radulf' is not an Anglo-Saxon name. As already discussed, however, the name certainly occurs in Domesday Book and is not out of place in early eleventh century England. It may be this sort of historico-linguistic consideration that caused Stevenson first to offer the opinion that the inscription dated 'not very much before the Norman Conquest, say a.d. 1050 to 1150' on the basis of its lettering (Stevenson 1897) and then in 1902 to propose, as reported by Stapleton, that the inscription was a later addition to the cross-shaft on the basis of the observation (not put forward by anyone else) that 'the panel bearing the inscription is dished or hollowed, as if an older figure or inscription had been rubbed or ground out' (Stapleton 1903, 90). These uncertainties, aggravated by the absence of much of the original carved stone for fresh, first-hand examination, may in turn lie behind the opinion embedded in the county Historic Environment Record that 'There are no diagnostic features to suggest this piece is Anglo-Saxon and therefore it may well be post-Conquest' (Nottinghamshire HER, monument number L8444, 'pers. comm. P. Sidebottom, 1994'). That is at best a simplistic view of a complex monument, which the foregoing account challenges.

Baldwin Brown cites the Rolleston 1 inscription explicitly as his leading example of a pre-Conquest master-craftsman setting his name to his work, and cites Kirk Heaton (Yorkshire WR) as another instance of this, and Okasha too presumes this to be the significance of the 'me fecit' formula, with occurrences also at a number of places (Brown 1937, 215; Okasha 1971, 8). We question this assumption for Rolleston 1. The inscription here occupies such a prominent central panel on a major cross-shaft, occupying a space outlined with its own mouldings, that we judge it more likely to refer to a donor and substantial local figure. In doing so, we have to acknowledge (with W. H. Stevenson, whose thoughts went that way, too) that no Radulf/Ralph appears as lord in Rolleston or its neighbourhood with holdings either in the reigns of Edward the Confessor or William the Conqueror.

Eleventh century, probably mid century

[Allen] 1897, 181–2, fig. 1; Stapleton 1903, 87–90 and plate; Brown, C. 1904–7, i, 23 and plate; Stapleton 1911, 140 and plate; Cox 1912a, 7, 172; Stapleton 1912, 30 and plate; Baylay 1913, 54, plate opp. 53; Hill 1916a, 202, fig. 4 and pl. I; Collingwood 1927, 138, fig. 153; Guilford 1927, 161; Longhurst and Freckingham 1931, 10, 21–2, plate opp. 26; Brown, G. B. 1937, 215; Mee 1938, 244; Pevsner 1951, 152; Rice 1952, 137; Jope 1964, 108; Okasha 1971, 149; Pevsner and Williamson 1979, 299; Thorold 1984, 147; Kaye 1987, 28; Sidebottom 1994, 149, 157, 266, no. 4 and plate; Longhurst and Freckingham 2007, 26

[1] The following is an unpublished manuscript reference to Rolleston 1: BL, Add. MS 37552, ff. 194–214, illustrations (Romilly Allen collection). The following are unpublished photographs: Nottingham Central Library, Local Studies, 'Pictorial Survey' Collection, ref. S95.3 and S95.4.

[2] The sections on the inscription are by David N. Parsons (University of Wales).