Clonmacnoise Crozier

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Clonmacnoise Crozier
Bastone pastorale di clonmacnoise, XI secolo 01.jpg
The crozier's crook and upper knop
MaterialWood, copper alloy, silver, niello, glass and enamel
SizeHeight: 97 cm (38 in)
Width (max): 13.5 cm (5.3 in)
CreatedLate 11th century
Refurbished in the 14th or 15th centuries
DiscoveredLate 18th or early 19th century
Clonmacnoise, County Offaly, Ireland
Present locationNational Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin
IdentificationR2988

The Clonmacnoise Crozier is a late 11th-century Insular crozier discovered before 1821 in the grounds of Clonmacnoise monastery in County Offaly, Ireland. Its origins and medieval provenance are unknown, but croziers have acted as ceremonial staffs for bishops and high-status abbots since the early 5th century. The Clonmacnoise Crozier has two main parts: a long shaft, and a curved crook. The style of the crozier reflects elements of Viking art, especially the snake-like animals in figure-of-eight patterns running on the sides of the body of the crook, and the ribbon of dog-like animals in openwork that form the crest at its top. It is largely intact and is one of the best preserved surviving pieces of Insular metalwork.

The crozier may have been associated with Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise (d. 549), and was perhaps commissioned by Tigernach Ua Braín (abbot of Clonmacnoise, d. 1088), but little is known of its origin or rediscovery. It was built in two phases with the original 11th-century structure repaired and added to in the sometime around the early 15th century. The staff is made from a wooden core wrapped in copper-alloy (bronze) tubes, fixed in place by binding strips, and three barrel-shaped knops (protruding decorative metal fittings). The hook was concurrently but separately constructed before it was placed on top of the staff. The crozier's decorative attachments include the crest and terminal (or "drop") on the crook, and the knops and ferrule on the staff. These additional components are made from silver, niello, glass and enamel. The hook is further embellished with round blue glass studs and white and red millefiori (glassware) insets.

It was in the possession of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, antiquarian and collector Henry Charles Sirr until his collection was acquired by the Royal Irish Academy on his death in 1844. It was transferred to the Kildare Street branch of the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) on its founding in 1890. The archeologist and art historian Griffin Murray has described the crozier as "one of finest examples of early medieval metalwork from Ireland".[1]

Function[]

Like all Insular croziers produced between c. 800 and 1200, the Clonmacnoise crozier is in the shape of an open shepherd's crook, a symbol of Jesus as the Good Shepherd leading his flock.[2] Psalm 23 mentions a "rod" and a "staff", and from the 3rd century onwards Christian art often shows the shepherd holding a staff, including the 4th-century "Sarcophagus of the Three Shepherds" in the Vatican Museums in Rome, and the 6th-century Throne of Maximian at the Archiepiscopal Museum, Ravenna. The distinctive shape of Irish croziers evokes the function of shepherds' crooks in restraining wayward sheep, and, according to the art historian Rachel Moss is similar to the crook-headed sticks used by cherubs to grasp vine-branches in Bacchic iconography.[3]

Croziers became recognised as symbols of status for bishops and abbots when Pope Celestine I linked them to the episcopal office in a 431 letter to bishops in Gaul. By tradition the first Irish example (lost since 1538)[4] was the "Bachal Isu" (Staff of Jesus) given by God to Saint Patrick.[3][5][6] According to the archaeologist A. T. Lucas, the croziers thus acted as "the principal vehicle of [the saint's] power, a kind of spiritual electrode through which he conveyed the holy energy by which he wrought the innumerable miracles attributed to him".[7]

In a 2004 survey, the Clonmacnoise Crozier was one of an estimated twenty (or fewer) largely intact Insular croziers[3] in addition to some sixty fragments.[8][9]

Origin and dating[]

The Irish antiquarian George Petrie (d. 1866) was the first to write about the crozier's discovery, and based on his sources placed the find-spot as in the "Temple Ciarán", the now ruined oratory holding the tomb of Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise (d. c. 549) at his monastery in Clonmacnoise, County Offaly. Petrie recorded that it was found alongside a hoard including a chalice, a wine vessel and an arm-shrine, all now lost,[n 1] which would have been deposited at the burial site centuries after the saint had died;[11] Ciarán is recorded as having appeared centuries after his death "to smite a would-be raider with his crozier".[12]

While there is no surviving archaeological or documentary evidence to back Petrie's account of the discovery,[13][14] the crozier's style and production techniques closely resemble two other contemporary fragmentary croziers sometimes associated with Clonmacnoise; the so-called -head and a crozier-knop in the British Museum.[15] The antiquarian William Frazer wrote in 1891 that the Clonmacnoise Crozier was probably revered as holding a relic of Saint Ciarán.[n 2][13]

Temple Ciarán in Clonmacnoise monastery, the most likely find-spot for the crozier

Clonmacnoise monastery was founded in 544 by Saint Ciarán[17] in the territory of Uí Maine where an ancient major east–west land route and early medieval political division (the Slighe Mhor) met at the River Shannon. This strategic location helped it become a thriving centre of religion, learning, craftsmanship and trade by the 9th century and many of the high kings of Tara (Ard Rí) and of Connacht were buried here.[18] Clonmacnoise was largely abandoned by the end of the 13th century. Today the site includes nine ruined churches, a castle, two round towers and a large number of carved stone crosses.[19]

The crozier's late 11th-century dating is based in part on its stylistic resemblance to the Bell Shrine of St. Cuileáin and the early 12th-century Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm,[20] in addition to the Romanesque elements sometimes found on Insular art of the period.[21] Lucas places it slightly later at c. 1125.[22]

Some historians suggest that it was produced in Dublin,[23][24] based on the so-called "Dublin school" Hiberno-Ringerike patterns on the crook. In addition, it has zoomorphic designs similar those on the Dublin-manufactured Prosperous Crozier,[25] on the shrine of the Cathach of Saint Columba, which also contains stylistic resemblances to Dublin metalwork, in particular with those found during excavations at High Street, Dublin, during 1962 and 1963.[12][26] However, none of these links are definitive nor widely accepted.[17] A significant metal workshop is known to have been in operation at Clonmacnoise in the 11th century, and the crozier contains a number of design elements and motifs unique to contemporary objects found on or near the monastery's grounds. These include the confronted lions with intertwined legs on the upper knop that are also present on a high cross in Temple Ciarán.[25][27]

Description[]

The crozier is 97 cm (38 in) long (about the length of a walking stick) and the crook 13.5 cm (5.3 in) wide.[28] It was probably once 20 cm longer and had four knops, as with most other intact examples; the losses seem to result from its having been broken apart to make it easier to fold and thus hide from Viking and later Norman invaders.[29]

The staff is formed from a wooden core overlaid by metal tubes, and comprises two main sections: the long shaft and the crook.[30] The crook ends in a vertical section called the drop, with a drop-plate on the outward-facing side. The bronze casing on the shaft is attached by binding strips connected to each other by three knops, while a protective bronze ferrule comprises the tip of the shaft's base.[31] The shaft and crook cores are made from separate pieces of timber but date from the same period.[32] The crook is fitted with an inner binding strip, crest and drop-plate, each of which was independently made and, having no structural function, are purely decorative.[30][31][33]

It was built in two phases: the early 11th-century structure was added to and refurbished in the 14th century, with the later additions including the bishop and dragon in the drop-plate, and some of the ornamentation on the upper knop.[34] Many of the patterns and decorations are influenced by the late 10th-century Ringerike and 11th-century Urnes styles of Viking art, both of which are characterised by band-shaped animals (often snakes, dogs and birds), acanthus-leaf foliage, crosses and spirals. Moss describes the crozier as among the finest of the Irish Ringerike-influenced objects, along with the Shrine of Miosach and the Cathach (both 11th-century cumdachs).[35][36]

Although it has suffered some losses, damage and detrimental repair-work, it is in excellent condition overall. The original drop-plate was replaced in the late medieval period.[37][38] The wood at the end of the crest is decayed, likely due to one of the rivets being exposed, which in turn led to further damage to the crest itself.[39]

Crook[]

The row of dog-like gripping beasts that form the crest

The crook is 13.5 cm (5.3 in) high, 15.5 cm (6.1 in) wide and has a maximum circumference of 3.7 cm (1.5 in).[37] It is made from a single piece of wood onto which are attached the plates for the crest, drop and a strip to hold the inner binding.[33][40] Its sides are decorated with four or five silver cast rows of tightly bound zoomorphic snake-like animals with figure-of-eight– and ribbon-shaped bodies.[41] Designed in the Ringerike style,[42] they are held in place by thin threads lined with strips of niello that appear as decorative flaps that, according to Murray, "spring from their heads and bodies forming knotted vegetal-like designs around them"[37] before terminating in spiral patterns.[34]

The crest is attached to the top of the crook by rivets and nails. Most of it has been lost except a row of five dog-like animals that extend from above the joining with the staff to just before the top of the crook. The front one is missing his head. The animals are positioned end-to-end and are in the Oseberg Style of Viking art,[29] with, in the words of the art historian and archaeologist Máire de Paor, "each grasping with its jaws the buttocks of the preceding animal".[34] Those on the top part of the row are damaged and have missing parts.[12]

Drop[]

Drop with animal and human figures
14th- or 15th-century addition to the drop showing a bishop impaling a dragon with the base of his staff.

The original drop was presumably as highly decorated as the knops,[37] but is lost and was replaced sometime during the 14th and 15th centuries. The current plate, like the original, forms a hollow box-like extension that was fixed to the end of the crook. It is made of copper alloy and consists of a cast figurative plaque attached to a plain metal strip.[37] At its top is a carved enamel plaque showing a looming, grotesque human or animal head.[38] Set into the cavity below is a figure added in the 14th or 15th century, who appears to be a bishop or cleric wearing a mitre (a type of bishop's headgear). He has one hand raised in blessing while the other holds a long crozier staff impaling an animal, probably a dragon, at his feet. De Paor describes the cleric as a generic late-period Insular figure with "pierced eyes, small ears, a large nose, and [a] heavy mustache and beard".[34]

The positioning of the human figures is likely influenced by the late 9th-century Prosperous Crozier.[43] The only other surviving example of such a figure is in the drop of the River Laune Crozier; presumably other croziers once held similar figures but the components were damaged or removed.[28] It seems likely that the cleric is intended to represent the commemorative saint, thus "making the body of the founder saint visible and active",[44] and conferring the saint's authority to the crozier's current bearer.[45] The copper plate below the drop contains carved enamel double-spiral designs rendered in blue, green and yellows.[37]

As the most visible portion of the crozier, the drops were the obvious focus point for figure art, an element that is, apart from zoomorphism, otherwise almost entirely absent in Insular metalwork. This led to theories in the 19th century that the drops acted as containers for smaller relics of saints, while the metal casing held the saint's original wooden staffs. However, these claims have been in doubt since the mid-20th century, and there is as yet no evidence to support the theories.[46] An exception is the Lismore Crozier, where two small relics and a linen cloth were found inside the crook during a 1966 refurbishment.[47]

Shaft[]

Upper knop decorated with triangular plaques, blue glass studs and interlace

The shaft is formed from a wooden core plated with two bronze tubes and narrows after the lowest knop.[48][49] The tubing was originally sealed by two binding strips on the front which were probably of leather but are now lost, although a portion of a leather membrane between the wood and metal still exists.[21][29] The shaft contains three large and ornately decorated barrel-shaped and individually cast knops.[21] They are positioned equally distant on the staff, separated by lengths of bare tubing. Each contains openwork patterns and chased or repoussé (i.e. relief hammered from the back) copper-alloy plates, a feature only otherwise found on the Prosperous Crozier.[43]

The largest and uppermost knop is 7.5 cm (3.0 in) high and has a diameter of 4.8 cm (1.9 in).[29] It is centred by a horizontal band of interlace patterns and champlevé enamelling containing geometric and foliage patterns.[48] It is lined with inserted triangular and rectangular plaques (some of which are missing) between which are blue glass studs.[48] The plaques are in copper and decorated with interlace and have borders lined with strips of twisted copper and silver wire. It contains a 4.2 cm (1.7 in) crest which has been trimmed to hold the base of the crook.[29][3] The crest below the upper knop is made of copper alloy and contains two pairs of large cat-like animals facing or confronting each other.[50] The animals are rendered in relief and decorated with niello and inlaid silver. They have lion-like manes, upright ears, long necks and taloned tails. Their intertwined legs begin from spirals which develop or knot into triquetra arcs before merging with the corresponding animal on the opposite side.[48] Although usually identified as lions, the figures bear a number of resemblances to griffins in an 8th-century Insular knop from Setnes in Norway.[51]

The central knop is 8.8 cm (3.5 in) in height and less decorated than the other two, but has bands of open Ringerike-style interlace made of inlaid silver that form series of knotted patterns.[48] The lower knop measures 6.8 cm (2.7 in) in height, and like the upper knop is biconical (i.e. of two parts) and contains copper plaques separated by glass studs.[48]

After the lower knop the shaft tapers (narrows) into the spiked ferrule (a protective metal-cast foot, here of copper alloy) that forms the crozier's basal point.[48] The original ferrule remains is intact and contains a free ring and spike.[29] Unlike the other two Insular examples with surviving ferrules (Lismore and River Laune, both of which have more elaborate and complex endings) it is not cast into the lower knop, but is a separate piece.[21]

Modern provenance[]

The crozier on display with the Lismore (left) and River Laune (right) croziers

The location and year of the crozier's rediscovery is uncertain. Writing in 1821 in his Notes on the history of Clonmacnoise, Petrie said that it had been found "some 30 years ago...[in] the tomb of St. Ciaran", placing its finding c. 1790.[52] He continued that other objects discovered in the tomb included a chalice and wine vessel which "fell into ignorant hands, and were probably deemed unworthy of preservation", presumably meaning that their precious metal was melted and sold for its intrinsic value. The "St Ciaran's tomb" referred to by Petrie is most likely Clonmacnoise's Temple Ciarán, a shrine-chapel on the site.[1][13]

The crozier was for a period in the collection of the diplomat, Lord Mayor of Dublin and collector Henry Charles Sirr (1764–1841), although the circumstances of his purchase are unknown.[53] In 1970, the archaeologist Françoise Henry speculated that Sirr "might have obtained it directly or indirectly from the family of its hereditary keepers",[54] but there is no documentary evidence for this.[55]

A 1826 a lithograph of the crook was an illustration in Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of Ireland by the architect and draughtsman Robert O'Callaghan Newenham, where it was described as having been "dug up 100 years ago".[53] However, Marry regards the claim that it was buried as doubtful as it is in generally good condition.[55]

The crozier is described as an "ancient" and ornamental crozier, which once belonged to the Abbots of Clonmacnoise, in an 1841 catalogue for an exhibition of Sirr's collection at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, held shortly after his death.[55] It was acquired at that exhibition by the Royal Irish Academy,[56] and transferred to the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin, on its founding in 1890. Today it is on permanent display in the Treasury Room, next to the Lismore and River Laune Croziers, where it is catalogued as R 2988.[57] An early 20th-century replica is in the Met Cloisters in New York.[58] Widely considered the most lavish and ornate of the surviving early medieval croziers, it appeared in 2011 in The Irish Times and Royal Irish Academy's list of "A History of Ireland in 100 Objects".[12]

Gallery[]

  • Detail of cat-eared (probably intended as lions) confronted animals on the panel below the upper knop

  • Ringerike designs on the middle knop

  • Lower knop and ferrule with loose ring and tapering spike

Notes[]

  1. ^ Arm-shrines are reliquaries made of wood and metal shaped as an outstretched forearm and open or clenched hand or fist; they were popular across Europe the Early Medieval period, though few examples survive.[10]
  2. ^ Like all Irish Early Medieval relic containers, the crozier, including the inner wooden tube, dates from centuries after the saint's death.[16]

References[]

Citations[]

  1. ^ a b Murray (2021), p. 1
  2. ^ Murray, Griffin. "Colmcille 1500 Lecture Series: St Columba's crozier: power and devotion in medieval Ireland". National Museum of Ireland, 10 December 2021. 4:50–6:07. Retrieved 29 December 2021
  3. ^ a b c d Moss (2014), p. 310
  4. ^ Ronan (1943), pp. 121–129
  5. ^ Murray (2004), p. 27
  6. ^ Lucas (1986), p. 9
  7. ^ Lucas (1986), p. 29
  8. ^ Murray (2004), p. 24
  9. ^ Murray (2007), p. 82
  10. ^ Moss (2014), p. 291
  11. ^ Frazer (1891), pp. 206–214
  12. ^ a b c d O'Toole, Fintan. "A history of Ireland in 100 objects Clonmacnoise crozier, 11th century". The Irish Times, 10 December 2011. Retrieved 23 November 2021
  13. ^ a b c Frazer (1891), p. 210
  14. ^ Murray (2021), p. 10
  15. ^ Murray (2021), p. 18
  16. ^ Murray (2021), p. 23
  17. ^ a b Moss (2014), p. 314
  18. ^ Moss (2014), p. 126
  19. ^ Moss (2014), pp. 126–127
  20. ^ Lucas (1974), p. 140
  21. ^ a b c d Murray (2007), p. 88
  22. ^ Lucas (1974), p. 119
  23. ^ O'Meadhra (2015), p. 393
  24. ^ Graham-Campbell (2013), p. 154
  25. ^ a b Murray (2021), p. 19
  26. ^ Ó Floinn (2001), p. 93
  27. ^ Manning (1998), p. 66
  28. ^ a b Murray (2007), p. 83
  29. ^ a b c d e f Murray (2021), p. 6
  30. ^ a b Youngs (1989), p. 214
  31. ^ a b Murray (2007), p. 79
  32. ^ Henry (1959–63), p. 9
  33. ^ a b Murray (2007), p. 90
  34. ^ a b c d De Paor (1977), p. 185
  35. ^ Moss (2014), 44
  36. ^ Laing (2006), p. 186
  37. ^ a b c d e f Murray (2021), p. 3
  38. ^ a b Ó Floinn (1983), p. 166
  39. ^ Henry (1959–63), p. 10
  40. ^ Wallace (2002), p. 220
  41. ^ Ellis, Caitlin. "Vikings didn't just murder monks and pillage monasteries – they helped spread Christianity too". The Conversation, 23 December 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2021
  42. ^ Bourke (1985), p. 151
  43. ^ a b Thickpenny et al (2020), p. 55
  44. ^ Lucas (1986), p. 12
  45. ^ Hahn (2016), p. 73
  46. ^ Murray (2004), pp. 24, 26
  47. ^ Murray (2007), pp. 85–86
  48. ^ a b c d e f g De Paor (1977), p. 186
  49. ^ Lucas (1974), p. 118
  50. ^ Murray (2021), p. 21
  51. ^ Murray (2015), pp. 115–116
  52. ^ Henry (1959–63), p. 6
  53. ^ a b Murray (2021), pp. 11, 18
  54. ^ Henry (1970), p. 101
  55. ^ a b c Murray (2021), p. 12
  56. ^ Lucas (1986), p. 22
  57. ^ "Dáil Éireann debate: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1977". Houses of the Oireachtas, 18 October 1977. Retrieved 19 September 2021
  58. ^ "Crozier of Clonmacnoise, early 20th century, Irish". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 23 November 2021

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