Reused as reredos at east end of south aisle

Drawn and recorded by Goldie in 1846 in south face of tower, outside; taken into church in 1924

All Saints

Complete but extremely worn; some damage to base and lower left corner

The decorative carving is confined to one long face. On the top and back of the slab are two slots, set in from the edge of the stone, but not by equal amounts.

A (long): The carved face has a flat, plain moulding, quite broad, running along the top and sides. Along the base, between narrower flat mouldings, is a run of inhabited plant-scroll. Alternate circular scrolls are occupied chiefly by pecking birds (though a quadruped appears below panel iii); the intervening, uninhabited volutes contain a single pendant leaf-flower with a rounded berry bunch. In the interstices of the volutes are hook leaves, and perhaps worn drop leaves. The nodes are plain and bulbous.

Above this strip is an eight-fold arcade with triple leaf motif in the spandrels of the slender, semicircular arches. The pillars have no bases; the trapezoidal capitals are extremely worn. Each arch contains a single figure.

(i) A standing angel faces right with inclined, nimbed head. The arms are folded on the chest, the left holding a wand which extends diagonally beyond the outer pillar of the arcade. It has a worn fleur-de-lys terminal. The drapery of the long robe lies in plain, clinging, vertical folds. The feet point to the right. A large wing occupies the top left of the panel, another receding at the other side behind the remains of the slender wand. The halo has radial incisions.

(ii) A damaged figure, facing left in half-profile, sits on a folding X-shaped stool with a circular-sectioned cushion. The head has a shallow hair-line or head-dress and a large halo with some signs of radial ribbing. At shoulder height there is a concave background to the figure. At the left, in front of the shin, is a chalice-shaped object from which a vertical stem protrudes. The feet rest upon a cylindrical bolster.

(iii) A standing figure with inclined, nimbed head faces right. The figure's right arm is raised from the elbow, whilst the other passes across the waist. The drapery folds are very worn but vertical, one of them falling rigidly as a fan behind the legs. The feet point to the right.

(iv) A standing, nimbed figure adopts an upright posture. It is very worn, but there is a loose neck-line to the robe. The arms are bent at the elbows and the feet point to the left.

(v) An extremely damaged standing figure, perhaps nimbed, has feet pointing to the right.

(vi) A worn standing figure in half-profile faces to the right. The head is lightly hooded. The fore arms are either raised together before the head or, more likely, holding a swaddled child whose body is crossed diagonally by bands.

(vii) A figure is seated on a tipped, X-shaped stool, the lower half of the body facing right, the upper full face with its right hand raised to the chest. Faint traces of ribbed folds survive on the clinging drapery. Over the damaged head, which is nimbed, is the end of the arm and extended hand of the angel in the adjacent niche.

(viii) A standing angel, its head lost, faces left, its right arm extended behind the pillar to the seated figure in (vii). The other hand is held at the waist.

This slab is one of the most complex and ambitious of Anglian monuments in Ryedale. It is regrettable that its former insertion in an external face of the tower has resulted in severe weathering. In identifying its figural scenes, one is hindered by the poor condition of the stone and a necessary caution has to be adopted.

The function of the slab is equally difficult to determine. The arcade and the position of the birds in the scroll suggest that it originally stood upright and slots in the back and top of the stone for metal clamps point to a composite structure formed of separate elements. It is most likely one face of a box shrine, similar to the sarcophagi of the east Midlands (Clapham 1927, pl. XLI, figs. 2–3; Cramp 1977, 213, fig. 576).

Stylistically the Hovingham panel has close connections with those Midlands carvings (Kendrick 1938, 194–5; Cramp 1977, 210; Cramp 1978, 9). The standing, delicately draped figures within the arcade are reminiscent of the fragment from Castor, Northamptonshire (Ill. 914) and the solid shrine tomb, 'Hedda's Tomb', in Peterborough cathedral (Clapham 1927, pl. XLI; Cramp 1977, 214, fig. 57c). Particular details of the arcading also correspond, such as the symmetrically disposed pairs of leaves in the spandrels, a feature also found on the round shaft at Masham, North Riding (Collingwood 1907, figs. on 364–5; Collingwood 1927, 43–4, fig. 55). Indeed the figures of the Masham shaft, especially the paired Apostles of the topmost register, match those at Hovingham well; both are slender with clinging drapery distinguished by hanging folds. The robes of the Masham Apostles are, however, shorter than the Hovingham garments. The half-profile heads and gently inclined postures of the slab's figures reflect the east Midlands usage, also apparent in the narrative panels at Masham. There is an ease and delicacy which contrasts with the hieratic groupings of Easby (Longhurst 1931, pl. XXVIII). Cramp has proposed that a kind of national style flourished in the second and third quarters of the ninth century (Cramp 1978, 9) with local idiosyncracies. In Yorkshire it is manifested in a miniaturist style, perhaps already appearing in York Minster 1.

The closest local parallel for the Hovingham slab is undoubtedly the Masham shaft. Even the rolled, rather tubular arcades are identical, with their ill-defined, tapering bases. The selection of narrative scenes within the arcades is a characteristic of the middle registers of the Masham column, though the mannerism of creating movement within the static arcade does occur elsewhere. On Norham 4, Northumberland a hand passes behind the pillar, as in the Hovingham arcade, and on the shaft, now at Aldborough, West Riding (Cramp 1984, I, 210, II, pl. 203, 1162; Collingwood 1927, 25, fig. 32).

The Hovingham carving is so accomplished that Brøndsted commented upon the purity of the plant-scroll's style, which accurately reflects Middle Eastern origins (Brøndsted 1924, 37). The frieze from Breedon, Leicestershire, however, seems a closer analogue (Cramp 1977, 198, fig. 51a), with its inhabited spiraliform scrolls. The Hovingham birds are more naturalistic than the attenuated forms at Breedon and there is a restraint in permitting only alternate scrolls to be inhabited, a device which adds lightness. This is found in some Carolingian ivories, like one in the Museo Profano of the Vatican (Kitzinger 1936, 70–1, pl. VI (A)), though in a more florid form akin to Easby's. The classicism of the Hovingham slab is evidently a response to Carolingian taste, like other Yorkshire monuments of the age of Alcuin and its aftermath.

The iconography of Hovingham 5 is Marian. Arches i–ii comprise an Annunciation scene: Gabriel, holding a rod and inclining his nimbed head, his wing protruding over the frame to convey depth, approaches Our Lady in the next arch. She sits on a Classical folding stool with a 'Byzantine cushion'. She has a halo and before her stands a small vase with the worn stem of a lily rising from it. Under arches iii and iv, two nimbed figures face each other, to judge from the position of the feet: the Virgin and St Elizabeth in the Visitation.

Arch v contains the most damaged figure but, if the pattern of the preceding frames is continued, the arches probably work in pairs; hence, v and vi may belong together. The figure in arch vi moves to the right and apparently carries a swaddled child. The head-dress, like the Virgin's in the second frame, denotes a woman. The third pair, then, may represent either the Circumcision of St John the Baptist (Luke 1, 57–80) or the Presentation at the Temple (Luke 2, 22–38). The final pair of arches, vii and viii, are certainly united, since the angel's arm and wing pass behind the pillar towards a seated figure. The attitude of the seated figure suggests a hand raised to its cheek, the convention for depicting Joseph. Here, though, resembling the iconography of the Nativity scene, Joseph is touched by the angel in his dream. [2]

In the absence of the Nativity from the sequence, it is probable that the choice of scenes was determined not so much by the Gospel narrative as by some liturgical form. Each of the events as described in St Luke's or St Matthew's gospel is followed by a canticle or enunciation: 'Behold the hand-maid of the Lord', the Magnificat, or the Nunc Dimittis.

The eight panels are contained by the two angels at each end, facing inwards to provide a sense of symmetry.

Late eighth to early ninth century

Whellan 1859, 862; Murray 1867, 229; Frank 1888, 82–3; Collingwood 1907, 337, fig. on 334; Collingwood 1912a, 124; Brøndsted 1924, 37, fig. 129; Edwards 1924, 40–1, pl. facing 71; Collingwood 1927, 42–3, 72, fig. 54; Chapman 1930, 63, 74; Brown 1937, 188–90, 273, pl. LVI; Kendrick 1938, 194–5, pl. 87; Cramp 1977, 210

1. The following are general references to the Hovingham stones: McDonnell 1963, 56; Lang 1989, 1.
2. This interpretation of the four final frames was suggested by the late Dr P. Dalton