The multivocality of the Cross of the Scriptures: claiming victory, kingship, and territory in early medieval Ireland

Nees, LawrenceAt the early medieval monastery of Clonmacnoise in Ireland, there is a high cross known as the “Cross of the Scriptures” that exhibits a remarkable aesthetic quality, a complex iconographic program, and inscriptions pointing to its patronage by the High-King Flann Sinna (c.847-916) and Abbot Colmán mac Ailella (d.926). This high cross serves as the pivot of my dissertation to explore the various messages of power and authority expressed by the sculptural type within the social and political context of early medieval Ireland. Whereas previous literature emphasized the devotional and didactic functions of this monument, this project unpacks the political motivations, legal aspects, and social customs imbedded in its creation and use. I employed an interdisciplinary approach that integrated scholarship from the fields of art history, archaeology, history, law, and critical geography to conclude that the high cross type could simultaneously function as a witness to historical events and compacts, marker of boundary and territorial control, and expression of identity and legitimacy for the rulers that erected them. More broadly, it revealed that site-specificity played a larger role in their intended function and appearance than previously thought. This dissertation investigates the interaction of the monument’s inscription, form, and selected imagery with the contemporary historical events associated with Flann Sinna’s reign and its situation in its political, cultural, and geographic landscape. It also examined the universally Christian and characteristically Irish motifs of kingship present on the high cross in order to demonstrate how the patronage network wove Flann Sinna’s claims into the sculpture’s form and iconography to bolster his quest for legitimacy and convey his divinely-sanctioned rule. Finally, it considered the interaction of the monument’s design and location with its sacred landscape and built environment to demonstrate Flann Sinna’s use of the ancestral past to reinforce his territorial claims and special relationship to Clonmacnoise. Overall, this approach broadens the potential performance of the type and joins the reaction against the commonly-accepted notion that the art of this period, and the Middle Ages in general, was primarily devotional and devoid of multivocal meanings, multifunctional purposes, and complex patronage networks.University of Delaware, Department of Art HistoryPh.D