Northumbria played an important role in the formation of Insular art, a unique style combining Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Pictish, Byzantine and other elements, producing works such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, St Cuthbert Gospel, the Ruthwell Cross and Bewcastle Cross, and later the Book of Kells, which was probably created at Iona.

Anglo-Saxon crosses were typically more slender, and often nearly square in section, though when, as with the Ruthwell Cross and Bewcastle Cross, they were geographically close to areas of the Celtic Church, they seem to have been larger, perhaps to meet local expectations, and the two 9th century Mercian Sandbach Crosses are the largest up to that period from anywhere.

* The Anglo-Saxon Irton Cross, Cumbria showing affinity to the style of Bewcastle

Continuous vine scrolls in a great variety of designs of the same general type as the central motif, with few leaves and round fruits, were very common in slightly later religious Anglo-Saxon art, and are often combined with interlace in the same work, especially on Anglo-Saxon crosses, for example the Bewcastle Cross and the Easby Cross now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Bewcastle Cross is an Anglo-Saxon cross which is still in its original position within the churchyard of St Cuthbert's church at Bewcastle, in the English county of Cumbria.

The devastating Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793 marked the beginning of a century of Viking invasions that severely checked all Anglo-Saxon culture, and heralded the end of Northumbria's position as a centre of influence, although in the years immediately following confident works like the Easby Cross were still being produced.

* The Anglo-Saxon Ruthwell Cross from Scotland, 8th century, with relatively large figures.

In 1818, Dr. Duncan restored the Ruthwell Cross, one of the finest Anglo-Saxon crosses in the United Kingdom, now in Ruthwell church, which had been broken up in the Scottish Reformation.

It was an 18 foot, free standing, Anglo-Saxon Cross, perhaps intended as a " conversion tool ".

Other stone crosses are found in the former Northumbria and Scotland, and further south in England, where they merge with the similar Anglo-Saxon cross making tradition, in the Ruthwell Cross for example.

* Anglo-Saxon Cross, from c. 870, located in St. Werburghs churchyard.

Two Anglo-Saxon vine scrollwork | scrolls on the Lowther Cross

There is evidence of Anglo-Saxon settlement within the Low Bradfield area with the discovery in 1870 of an Anglo-Saxon cross in a field near the site of the former Cross Inn not far from the village centre.

Upon hearing Douglas's report, David II led the Scottish army to high ground at Neville's Cross ( site of an old Anglo-Saxon stone cross ), where he prepared his army for battle.

The Anglo-Saxon cross is not to be confused with the market cross near the church, the current version of which was erected in 1902 and is known as " St Armstrong's Cross " as it was paid for by Lady Armstrong, widow of Lord Armstrong of Cragside.

* Ivory: Nimrud ivories from much of the Near East, Late Antique Consular diptychs, the Byzantine Harbaville Triptych and Veroli Casket, the Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket, Cloisters Cross.

Image: Whalley Saxon Cross 1. jpg | Anglo-Saxon cross in the churchyard of St Mary and All Saints parish church

Image: Whalley Saxon Cross 2. jpg | Second Anglo-Saxon cross in the churchyard

Image: Whalley Saxon Cross 3. jpg | Third Anglo-Saxon cross in the churchyard

Scots, as spoken in the lowlands and along the east coast of Scotland, developed independently from Modern English and is based on the Northern dialects of Anglo-Saxon, particularly Northumbrian, which also serve as the basis of Northern English dialects such as those of Yorkshire and Newcastle upon Tyne.

Ethelwin, the Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Durham, tried to flee Northumbria at the time of the raid, with Northumbrian treasures.

* Mechthild Gretsch, " Cuthbert: from Northumbrian Saint to Saint of All England ," in Idem, Aelfric and the Cult of Saints in Late Anglo-Saxon England ( Cambridge, CUP, 2006 ) ( Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 34 ),

Northumbrian Old English had been established in what is now southeastern Scotland as far as the River Forth by the seventh century, as the region was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria.

Ecgfrith appears to have been the earliest Northumbrian king, and perhaps the earliest of the Anglo-Saxon rulers, to have issued the silver penny, which became the mainstay of English coinage for centuries afterwards.

R. L. Poole ( Studies in Chronology and History, 1934 ) put forward the theory that Bede began his year in September, and consequently November 655 would actually fall in 654 ; Frank Stenton also dated events accordingly in his Anglo-Saxon England ( 1943 ).< sup > 1 </ sup > Others have accepted Bede's given dates as meaning what they appear to mean, considering Bede's year to have begun on 25 December or 1 January ( see S. Wood, 1983: " Bede's Northumbrian dates again "

It also includes the legendary origins of the Picts, Scots, St. Germanus and Vortigern, and documents events associated with the Anglo-Saxon invasion of the 7th century as contributed by a Northumbrian document.

* Adalbert of Egmond, aka Adelbert of Egmond, ( d first half of the 8th century ), Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon missionary.

* That it arose in Anglo-Saxon England as an O and an I written in the same place, to represent a long close / ø / sound resulting from i-mutation of / o /: compare Bede's Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon period spelling Coinualch for standard Cēnwealh ( a man's name ) ( in a text in Latin ).

The historian Dáibhí Ó Cróinín has proposed that the idea of the tanáise ríg in Early Medieval Ireland was adopted from the Anglo-Saxon, specifically Northumbrian, concept of the ætheling.

In Anglo-Saxon times, Gainford was the centre of an estate, part of the Northumbrian Congregation of Cuthbert of Lindisfarne.

* The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian, and Old Mercian Versions ( 1871 )

The earldom, located in East Lothian, and known interchangeably by the names Dunbar and March ( so-called Northumbrian or Scottish March ), was one of the successor fiefs of Northumbria, an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom and later Earldom.

The evangelist portrait and Incipit to Matthew from the Stockholm Codex Aureus, one of the " Tiberius group ", show the Northumbrian Insular and classicising continental styles that combined and competed in early Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.

However the dates assigned to most of the early crosses surviving in good condition, whether at Ruthwell and Bewcastle, the Western Ossery group in Ireland, Iona or the Kildalton Cross on Islay, have all shown a tendency to converge on the period around or slightly before 800, despite the differences between the Northumbrian and Celtic types.

Some have inscriptions recording the donor who commissioned them, like Muiredach's High Cross and the Bewcastle Cross.

< center > A sundial showing the four Tide ( time ) | Tides and five Canonical hours, based on the example on the Bewcastle Cross .< center >

The vine motif here differs from the common continuous scroll type in that the stems cross over each other twice on each side, but crossing stems are also seen on the upper north face of the Bewcastle Cross and a cross in the church at Hexham.

The Bewcastle Cross, the Ruthwell Cross and the Hexham Cross are probably to be dated to one or two generations after Aldfrith's time.

The Bewcastle Cross (: File: The 7th C Bewcastle Cross ( 2 )-geograph. org. uk-1833421. jpg | alternate view )

Some featured large figurative sculpture of considerable quality, as on the Ruthwell Cross and Bewcastle Cross ( both probably around 800 ).

" Whatever the subject it is, it is clearly the same as the very similar relief that is the largest panel on the nearby Bewcastle Cross which, subject to dating, was probably created by the same artists.

The " Visionary Cross project ", led by Catherine Karkov, Daniel Paul O ’ Donnell, and Roberto Rosselli Del Turco, studies crosses such as the Ruthwell Cross, the Bewcastle Cross, and the Brussels Cross, and in 2012 performed 3D-scans at Ruthwell.