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THE monastery of St. Peter's, Monkwearmouth, founded 674, and St. Paul's, Jarrow, 681-2, is described by Bede, the most famous member of the community, as one monastery in two places. Bede also records that for the building of Monkwearmouth its founder, Benedict Biscop, imported workmen from Gaul to construct a stone church and monastic buildings 'in the Roman manner' and glaziers to glaze the windows of the church, porticus, and refectories. The building of the second foundation at Jarrow was by members of the Monkwearmouth community and no mention is made of foreign artisans. 1 Both parts of the monastery were destroyed in the Scandinavian raids on Northumbria c. 867, and were never refounded as monasteries in the pre-Conquest period. During the last ten years excavations on both sites have yielded evidence for the large scale and elaborate construction of the public buildings, as well as producing a quantity of plain and coloured window-glass sealed in the destruction levels of the buildings.During the 1969 excavations of the monastic site at Monkwearmouth, a complete quarry of window-glass was discovered (pi. wve). This quarry was lying in tht construction trench of the north wall of the Norman south range, at a point where, this wall cut through a Saxon building. A few other fragments of coloured SaxoK glass were found in this area, but this piece is remarkable not only for its intaci condition, but also because it is the first fragment of decorated window-glass from Monkwearmouth and Jarrow.The quarry, which is grozed on all three sides, is an obtuse-angled triangle (though possibly meant to be a right angle) and measures 82 mm. by 52 mm. by 60 mm. It varies in thickness from 2 mm. at the base to 3 mm. at the point of the triangle. The metal, which is bubbly and completely clear and unweathered, is light amber in colour with darker amber veining, a colour combination which, in transmitted light, gives the appearance of alabaster. I have noted elsewhere 2 this alabaster effect on glass fragments from these sites, where the metal is colourless glass with red veins and streaks, or colourless glass with bluish-green streaks. This new fragment is, however, further embellished by combed opaque white trails which have been marvered into the surface of the glass. Three rows of such trails survive,

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Excavation within the Gothic nave of Lichfield Cathedral in 2003 revealed three phases of masonry building ante-dating the Norman period. These are likely to relate to the church of St Peter, which Bede described in 731 as housing the timber shrine to St Chad, fifth bishop of Mercia (d 672). A rectangular, timber-lined pit found on the central axis of the building might represent a crypt or burial chamber beneath the shrine. Buried in a small pit alongside this were three fragments of a bas-relief panel of Ancaster limestone, carved with the figure of an angel. They comprise half of the left-hand end of a hollow, box-like structure that had a low-coped lid. This is interpreted as a shrine chest associated with the cult of St Chad. The sculpture, which was broken and buried in, or before, the tenth century, is in remarkably fresh condition, allowing for an in-depth analysis of its original painted embellishment and for an assessment of the monument in terms of its iconography and stylistic affinities, and thus the possible conditions of its production. It is argued that the surviving portion of the panel represents the archangel Gabriel, and that it is one half of an Annunciation scene.