Above south door

First recorded in present location in 1817 (Young 1817, 747)

St Michael

Remarkably complete, except for damage to inscription (b) above point at which gnomon was affixed. The strokes of the N at the end of the first line of inscription (a) have been cleaned out rather roughly at some date before 1971 (Okasha 1971, pl. 41).

The long rectangular stone is framed by a flat edge moulding. Towards the centre at the top this narrows, due to two arc-shaped excisions from its lower edge, then expands into a pendant semicircular dial. From the point where the gnomon was affixed, seven incised radial lines extend, each with a tiny crosslet at the tip. A broad, flat, median-incised moulding marks out the dial.

Inscriptions The sundial has two inscribed texts in capitals.

(a) The first text is in Old English and was cut in large capitals about 6.5 cm high. It is placed in the upper half of the area of the sunken panel to the left of the dial and occupies only about one fifth of the space available in the panel. The three lines run between clear incised horizontals set at about 8 cm apart. The text reads:

  +[L]O ÐAN
  [M]E ǷRO
  HTEA

+ LOÐAN ME ǷROHTEA or + LOÐAN ME ǷROHTE A

(Translation): 'Loðan made me' or 'Loðan made me a[nd?]'.

Wrohtea would be an odd verbal ending. Okasha and Page suggest that the text may be incomplete and might have been intended to continue A[ND—] (Page 1964, 83; Okasha 1971, 73). Ruling was, however, incised only for the three lines of the text that were executed, although the ruling of the last line continues beyond the final A as far as the base of the dial. The spacing of the rest of the inscription is not sufficiently regular for it to be possible to say whether the slight gap before the final A is significant.

The main text opens with a cross and consists of well formed and broad Roman capitals. A has a bar over the top which projects to the left but not to the right. M has vertical outer limbs. R is open. Capital eth takes the usual form of Roman D with a cross-bar to the vertical stroke and wynn the form of Roman P. Otherwise the forms are Classical.

(b) The second text, also in capitals, seems to have been in Latin. It was set along the narrow horizontal strip immediately above the dial. The letters are small (approximately 2–2.5 cm high) and weathered. It reads:

  + ORLO[G]I[V—IATORVM]

Like the preceding text, this one opens with a cross. The marks on the stone following the final V are confusing. There is a clear vertical stroke followed by what looks like an uncial M with a curving central stroke projecting down below the sides of the letter. The context leads one to expect M. The drawing published by Haigh (Haigh 1879, fig. facing 135) provides a plausible interpretation. (The drawing seems to be based on a 'cast', probably a paper cast or 'squeeze' taken by J. T. Fowler (Frank 1888, 114–15), and appears to be reasonably accurate.) The vertical is there shown as part of a short cross-stroke on the diagonal of the dial Similar to those on the Kirkdale dial (Ill. 570), and is not therefore part of a letter. It is followed by an uncial M in the drawing. The drawing regularizes the shape of the probable M on the stone, but otherwise seems to be reliable. The surviving letters are Roman capitals with the exception of the Vs and the probable form of the final M. The Vs and the M are probably to be seen as idiosyncratic versions of the uncial letters. The Vs are rounded and the curving left strokes meet the stem on the right some way up from the bottom. Similarly, the central element of the M seems to curve and to project well below the side strokes.

The text probably read: + ORLOGIV[M V]IATORVM (rather than Okasha's VIATORIS (Okasha 1979, 73)). It can be translated: 'The travellers' clock'. Orlogium is a form of the Latin horologium.

==J.H.

This is the same form of sundial as Kirkdale 10, though the relief of the cutting of the dial distinguishes the Great Edstone one.

Inscriptions Text (a) records the name of someone concerned with the making of the sundial, perhaps the craftsman, with the same 'speaking object' formula as at Kirkdale 10. The panel was probably originally intended to carry information about the patronage or dedication of the church. The name Loðan is Scandinavian in origin (Page 1971, 177).

Text (b) seems, like text c on the dial at Kirkdale 10, to draw attention to the function of the sundial. The Latin of the text, in spite of the unclassical spelling of horologium, which perhaps reflects contemporary pronunciation, contrasts with the vernacular maker formula. The sundial at Orpington, Kent, may also have carried a form of the word horologium (OR[—]VM) in addition to Old English texts (Okasha 1971, 105). The 'travellers' clock' formula at Great Edstone has a close analogue in a diagram in a manuscript in Basel (Universitätsbibliothek F III 15 a, fol. 23v)(Allen 1889, 201–2; Green 1928, 510; Okasha 1971, 73). The diagram shows a semicircular dial divided into twelve segments, one for each month, and containing figures corresponding to the length in feet of a standing man's shadow at each hour of the day. The words 'orologium viatorum' are inscribed along the diagonal across the top of the semicircle of the dial in the manuscript. The two words are set either side of a point marking the centre of the semicircle from which springs a cross standing in the position of the gnomon of a dial. The manuscript in Basel is in Anglo-Saxon minuscule of around 800 and has been attributed to an Anglo-Saxon centre on the continent, probably Fulda (Lowe 1956, no. 842). The setting of the same formula in the same position across the top of a semicircle on both the Great Edstone sundial and on the manuscript diagram argues strongly that they derive from the same Insular tradition. It is less clear whether the formula and design originated in true sundials or in manuscript diagrams illustrating the system for telling the time from the length of a man's shadow. The same or a similar formula was apparently used on a dial-like diagram in at least one other manuscript, Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale 422 (Okasha 1971, 73).

The proportions, the control, and the comparatively Classical appearance of inscription (a), belong more with the inscription at Deerhurst in Gloucestershire than with Kirkdale. The lettering of Great Edstone may be evidence that 'modern' influences in epigraphy and, perhaps, manuscripts, did sometimes reach Yorkshire from southern England in the eleventh century (Okasha 1971, 63–4; Temple 1976, ills. 92–3, 140, 182, 216–22). The use of uncial forms amongst capitals, as in inscription (b), is not uncommon in late pre-Conquest inscriptions and manuscript display script.

==John Higgitt.

Probably eleventh century

Young 1817, 747–8, fig.; Way and du Noyer 1868, 210; Rowe 1874, 209, fig.; Hübner 1876, no. 181, 66, fig.; Tudor 1876, 9, fig.; Haigh 1879, 146–9, fig.; Taylor 1881, 147; Stephens 1884a, 386; Allen and Browne 1885, 353; Frank 1888, 151; Allen 1889, 201–2; Stephens 1894, 14; Gatty 1900, 55–6, fig.; Collingwood 1907, 329, fig. on 324; Leclercq 1910, cols. 1543–4, fig.; Collingwood 1912a, 122, 124; Gaye and Galpin 1912, 127–32, fig.; Morewood et al. 1914, 477; Collingwood 1915, 288, 290; Home 1915, 80–1, fig.; Green 1926, 15–16; Green 1928, 510, fig.; Morris 1931, 151; Elgee and Elgee 1933, 246; Page 1964, 83; Zinner 1964, 4, 74; Taylor and Taylor 1966, 21–2; Okasha 1969, 27, fig.; Page 1969, 31; Okasha 1971, 73, no. 41, pl. 41; Lang 1989, 5