Worked in Stone: Completing the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture

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The stone sculptures which survive in our churches, churchyards or by the wayside in England, are a powerful and eloquent legacy. They are often the earliest evidence for Anglo-Saxon settlement at a site, and usually the first evidence for the acceptance by the people of Christianity. They throw light on the contacts between peoples and places, help to identify the influential centres in a region, and reflect the aspirations of their patrons, as well as the skills of their carvers. Sculptures thus represent a locally accessible historic resource that lies within the immediate reach of thousands of urban and rural communities, yet many remain unaware of their presence or significance. In this final phase of the project, by bringing together a formidable team of archaeological, art historical and historical experts, we can pose major questions relevant to the regions under study and the Corpus as a whole. WiST will bring to completion the long-running study of every fragment of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture in England. Since 1976, the project has brought to press 13 volumes, providing detailed, consistent coverage of 3500+ individual sculptures from 32 English counties, with information on location, discovery, stone type, condition, monument attributes and date. Combining established Corpus expertise with knowledge and skills from four separate institutions (Canterbury, Durham, Leicester, York), we will complete the remaining volumes and with them, c. 800 additional entries for the sculptures of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Rutland (XIV); Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire (XV), Norfolk, Suffolk (XVI).Using this as a basis, we will investigate the entire production process within and across regions, from quarrying, to transport and display. More research is needed on production, chronology, on the intended visual and aesthetic impacts of iconographic and decorative schemas and whether regional or patronal tastes influenced certain styles and forms of monument. Choices were made to deploy monuments and to decorate buildings; by considering the likely original settings of sculptures, we can better understand the intentions of sculptor and patron and the ways sculptural media operated for varied audiences. Finally regional variations in form/decoration demonstrate that sculpture was used to signal different affiliations and allegiances. We will explore these questions in the Corpus volumes and, via a workshop series involving academic, early career and non-academic stakeholders, develop a collaborative volume - Worked in Stone - a first in-depth interrogation of the national data set. An international conference and edited volume will also open up discussion to Europe, the USA and beyond, stimulating cross-regional comparison and trans-national debate and setting a future agenda.Raising awareness of this resource with new beneficiaries is a vital part of our work. To this end, using expert computing support, we will release our full catalogue and make our data freely available worldwide, detailing some 4000+ sculptures and 9000+ associated images, as well as new state of the art 3-D models. To date c. 3700 online users a year access our data, with c. 67% of users coming from the UK and 16% from the USA and Japan. By developing our online presence and resources, we will broaden and deepen this user base. We will enable searches across the entire corpus, allowing all users to map and investigate individual sculptures; promote our free resources worldwide with social media; and provide short online guides to ease public access. We will also share our data with UK regional heritage agencies, ensuring anyone anywhere in England can access information on sculpture/s in their locality. Together with the Archaeology Data Service, we will secure our digital resources for the future, ensuring they remain widely accessible to academic, non-academic and commercial users in the long-term.