The Repton Stone

Abstract

In August 1979 a large sculptured stone was discovered, broken and upside down in a pit immediately outside the eastern window of the Anglo-Saxon crypt of the church of St Wystan at Repton in Derbyshire (pl. V). The scenes depicted on the two surviving faces of the stone are without direct parallel in Anglo-Saxon sculpture and have so far eluded definitive interpretation. The purpose of the present article is to place on record a detailed description of the stone, and some preliminary thoughts on its date and possible significance, in the hope that wider discussion may lead to a more satisfactory understanding of what must be, on any judgement, one of the more important surviving examples of pre-Conquest sculpture.

The Viking Great Army in England: new dates from the Repton charnel

“…Repton was a significant royal and ecclesiastical centre in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. It was the location of a double monastery for men and women ruled by an abbess, established in the third quarter of the seventh century (Biddle & Kjølbye-Biddle 1985). According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Viking Great Army took up winter quarters in Repton in AD 873, driving the Mercian king Burghred into exile in Paris (Swanton 2000).…”

Guthlac at Medeshamstede?

“…75 Recent scholarship, surely correctly, rejects the identification of Guthlac with the remarkable sculpted mounted warrior figure discovered in excavations there. 76 Furthermore, modern studies agree that there was probably no religious community established at Crowland itself following Guthlac's death that could plausibly be termed cenobitic. Certainly, evidence is lacking for a developed 'double house' of the type that was once envisaged.…”

Repton and the Vikings

“…The excavations of 1974-88 were originally undertaken to elucidate the structural sequence of the Anglo-Saxon church, the study of which had been brought to the point by Dr H.M. Taylor where further advance could only be made by detailed above-ground survey combined with below-ground investigation (Taylor 1971). A joint project was therefore begun under the direction of Dr Taylor and the writers (Taylor 1977;1979;1983;1987;Biddle 1986; Biddle & Kjalbye- Biddle 1985;Biddle et al 1986a;1986b). There was initially no thought that the work would necessarily encounter remains of the Viking presence in 873-4.…”