The Corpus: Leeds 4

Volume 8: Western Yorkshire

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Current Display: Leeds 4, West Riding of Yorkshire

Overview

Object type: Fragment of cross-shaft [1]

Measurements: H. 34 cm (13.3 in); W. 21.2 > 20.6 cm (8.4 > 8.1 in); D. max. 14.5 cm (5.7 in)

Stone type: Sandstone, pale buff-brown, coarse to very coarse, occasional granule-grade quartz grains, pervasive silica cement, cross-bedded. Carboniferous (Millstone Grit Group) [G.L.]

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 509-11

Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 204

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Present Location

As Leeds 2. Accession number LEEDM.D.1973.338.1

Evidence for Discovery

See Leeds 1. First mentioned by Haigh (1856–7, 522).

Church Dedication

St Peter

Present Condition

Very worn and weathered as well as very incomplete. Carving survives only on two adjacent faces.

Description

A fragmentary edge survives between the two remaining faces, suggesting this was part of a shaft. The edge has a cabled moulding, now very worn.

A: This shows part of the body of a robed figure holding a book in his right hand, his robe expressed in stylised parallel folds, vertical above the book, curving below.

B: There are elements of a lattice-like background, perhaps part of a scroll, although it could be the spandrel area of a spiral scroll. In the middle next to the left-hand edge is the head of a beast with domed head, snout, ear and lolling tongue, facing left.

C and D: Missing

Discussion

The figure on face A suggests a stylised version of the busts of saints holding books, as on Otley 1 (Ill. 564), though not as stylised as on Leeds 1 from this site (see above). The inhabited scroll, whatever its type, also links to this tradition, but its angularity suggests a somewhat later date. Collingwood (1915b, 285–8) put this together with Leeds 5, as parts of the same cross.

Date

Ninth century

References

Haigh 1856–7, 522, no. 7; Collingwood 1912, 130; Collingwood 1915a, 210–11, figs. e–f on 210; Collingwood 1915b, 281, 284, 285–8, figs. a–b on 286 (Leeds I), pls. (I) 5, (II) 5A; Collingwood 1927, 109; McGuire and Clarke 1987, 23–4, no. 1, figs. 20, 21, 24, 37; Brears 1989, 63, 65, fig. 2

Endnotes

[1] The following are general references to the Leeds stones: Pettigrew 1864, 308–9, 310–11; Bogg 1904, 75–6; MacMichael 1906, 363; Morris 1911, 46; Collingwood 1915a, 209–10, 292; Collingwood 1915b, 267–9, 271–2, 338; Collingwood 1927, 109; Faull 1981, 218; McGuire and Clark 1987, 5–9, 31–2, 42–5; Ryder 1993, 165.