Yorkshire Museum, York

'Found buried close to the South wall of what had been the Nave of the church of St Dionis, Walmgate, and purchased by the York Philosophical Society, 1848' (Wellbeloved 1852, 28)

St Denys

One corner broken away; chipped and fairly worn

The perimeter moulding round the eaves of this coped monument is of single cable, slightly deeper on the vertical plinths. The axial ridge is very worn, shallowly convex in section. On either side of it is a long panel within a plain rectangular moulding.

On the extreme outer edge of the right-hand panel, the carving is worn and indistinct. What might be a foliate fan at the bottom can be interpreted as a standing human figure. Next is a standing quadruped, perhaps a horse, judging from the legs which are threaded by a strand issuing from the head. Immediately adjacent are two long-necked quadrupeds, one upside-down above the other, interlocked and bound by rings. Each has an erect tail. The hind leg of each is bitten by the jaws of the other. The next group consists of three interlocked profile beasts, their elongated necks knotted in the centre, with no heads visible. The paws each have three toes. The tails are bobbed. Finally, at the top a pair of seated, naturalistic bears confront each other, with interlocking limbs, fangs, and small, pricked, rounded ears.

At the top of the left-hand panel (opposite the bears) a radial fan serves as a filler. It edges a profile fettered animal in S-formation; the rump and hind legs are squashed into the filler. The jaws gape and the elliptical eye is incised. The leg joints are scrolled. The fetters are median-incised strands. Traces of double outline survive on the chest. The hind foot is wedge-shaped with three toes. A mass of interlace separates the animal from a profile bird which is also fettered. The wing springs upwards from a scrolled joint. The fan tail droops and the legs stem from a rounded breast. The beak is small. The incised eye is circular. Some traces of double outline remain on the lower edge. Median-incised fetters tightly bind the neck, torso and wing, one of them being an extended pigtail. The surrounding interlace is dense, and at the top of the panel it contains a free ring. The next creature is another bird, addorsed with the first. It adopts a similar posture, though the tail is shorter and wedge shaped. It is similarly fettered. The stone is then damaged.

Coped recumbent monuments such as this probably originated as reused Roman sarcophagus lids, which abound in York. The size and profile both match the Roman models.

The ornament of each panel differs in organization and style, suggesting that two hands may have been involved. The right-hand panel's animals are interlocked but not fettered, and the bears and what may be a horse are of naturalistic proportions. Those in the left-hand panel, on the other hand, are baroque by comparison, and the very dense interlace which fetters them fills all the available space. The origins of the ornament may well be different also: the birds derive from Anglian Mercian forms (Lang 1978b, 147) but the interlocking profile beasts have Scandinavian echoes. There is some local eclecticism: the threesome of interlocked animals seems to be a rough copy of the conceit on the shaft, Minster 2 (Ill. 12). The radial fan-like fillers are unique to this stone. In some ways, the exaggeration of the fettering and interlocking make this piece almost a parody of York's Anglo-Scandinavian taste. The haphazard grouping of the animals runs counter to the geometrical principles of the beast and bird-chains of the York Metropolitan School. The bird form is comparable to York Minster 2 (Ill. 11) and St Mary Castlegate 1 (Ill. 294), but more flamboyant.

Tenth century

Wellbeloved 1852, 28, no. 5; Boutell 1854, 12–14, fig. on 14; Wellbeloved 1854, 32–3, no. 5; Wellbeloved 1858, 38–9, no. 5; Wellbeloved 1861, 40, no. 5; Wellbeloved 1869, 42, no. 5; Wellbeloved 1875, 47, no. 5; Wellbeloved 1881, 67, no. 6; Wellbeloved 1891, 75, no. 6; Collingwood 1909, 162, 169, fig. on 165; Brøndsted 1924, 206–7, 229, fig. 155; Collingwood 1927, 17–18, fig. 25; Kendrick 1949, 94, pl. LXIII; Waterman 1959, 67; Cramp 1967, 20; Pattison 1973, 216, pl. XLIX, c, fig. 1, g–h, j, fig. 2, m; Lang 1978b, 147–9, pl. 8.7; Cramp 1984, I, 73