Misplaced Pages

#33966

121-480: Rood is an archaic word for pole , from Old English rōd 'pole', specifically ' cross ', from Proto-Germanic  * rodo , cognate to Old Saxon rōda , Old High German ruoda 'rod'. Rood was originally the only Old English word for the instrument of Jesus Christ 's death . The words crúc and in the North cros (from either Old Irish or Old Norse ) appeared by late Old English; crucifix

242-613: A definite article ("the"), a demonstrative adjective ("that"), and demonstrative pronoun . Other demonstratives are þēs ("this"), and ġeon ("that over there"). These words inflect for case, gender, and number. Adjectives have both strong and weak sets of endings, weak ones being used when a definite or possessive determiner is also present. Verbs conjugate for three persons : first, second, and third; two numbers: singular, plural; two tenses : present, and past; three moods : indicative , subjunctive , and imperative ; and are strong (exhibiting ablaut) or weak (exhibiting

363-482: A "brilliant, visible glamour which is exuded by gods, heroes, sometimes by kings, and also by temples of great holiness and by gods' symbols and emblems." Persian mythology , and later Zoroastrian philosophy, speaks of the similar concept of Khvarenah (later farrah ), a divine, radiant power that sanctified a king and his reign. It was most often depicted as a phoenix -like bird, the Simurgh . Homer describes

484-406: A 2nd-century AD Roman floor mosaic preserved at Bardo , Tunisia, a haloed Poseidon appears in his chariot drawn by hippocamps . Significantly, the triton and nereid who accompany the sea-god are not haloed. In a late 2nd century AD floor mosaic from Thysdrus, El Djem , ( illustration ) Apollo Helios is identified by his effulgent halo. Another haloed Apollo in mosaic, from Hadrumentum ,

605-398: A back vowel ( /ɑ/ , /o/ , /u/ ) at the time of palatalization, as illustrated by the contrast between fisċ /fiʃ/ ('fish') and its plural fiscas /ˈfis.kɑs/ . But due to changes over time, a knowledge of the history of the word in question is needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty (for details, see palatalization ). In word-final position, the pronunciation of sċ

726-406: A dental suffix). Verbs have two infinitive forms: bare and bound; and two participles : present and past. The subjunctive has past and present forms. Finite verbs agree with subjects in person and number. The future tense , passive voice , and other aspects are formed with compounds. Adpositions are mostly before but are often after their object. If the object of an adposition is marked in

847-517: A following ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩ . Modern editions of Old English manuscripts generally introduce some additional conventions. The modern forms of Latin letters are used, including ⟨g⟩ instead of insular G , ⟨s⟩ instead of insular S and long S , and others which may differ considerably from the insular script, notably ⟨e⟩ , ⟨f⟩ and ⟨r⟩ . Macrons are used to indicate long vowels, where usually no distinction

968-467: A friction that led to the erosion of the complicated inflectional word endings. Simeon Potter notes: No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflexional endings of English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south. It was, after all, a salutary influence. The gain was greater than the loss. There was a gain in directness, in clarity, and in strength. The strength of

1089-558: A halo for the head, and another circular one for the body, the two often intersecting somewhere around the head or neck. Thin lines of gold often radiate outwards or inwards from the rim of the halo, and sometimes a whole halo is made up of these. In India the head halo is called Prabhamandala or Siras-cakra , while the full body halo is Prabhavali . Elaborate haloes and especially aureoles also appear in Hindu sculpture, where they tend to develop into architectural frames in which

1210-691: A halo in the form of a circular glow, or flames in Asian art , around the head or around the whole body—this last form is often called a mandorla . Halos may be shown as almost any colour or combination of colours, but are most often depicted as golden, yellow or white (when representing light) or as red (when representing flames). The earliest artistic depictions of halos were probably in Ancient Egyptian art . Sumerian religious literature frequently speaks of melam ( melammu in Akkadian ),

1331-582: A halo, it being a matter of debate whether his Logos was innate from conception (the Orthodox view), or acquired at Baptism (the Adoptionist view). At this period he is also shown as a child or youth in Baptisms , though this may be a hieratic rather than an age-related representation. A cruciform halo , that is to say a halo with a cross within, or extending beyond, the circle is used to represent

SECTION 10

#1732772983034

1452-563: A halo. Plain round haloes are typically used to signify saints , the Virgin Mary, Old Testament prophets, angels, symbols of the Four Evangelists , and some other figures. Byzantine emperors and empresses were often shown with them in compositions including saints or Christ, however the haloes were outlined only. This was copied by Ottonian and later Russian rulers. Old Testament figures become less likely to have haloes in

1573-644: A majority with no halo effect at all. The disk halo was rarely used for figures from classical mythology in the Renaissance, although they are sometimes seen, especially in the classical radiant form, in Mannerist and Baroque art. By the 19th century haloes had become unusual in Western mainstream art, although retained in iconic and popular images, and sometimes as a medievalising effect. When John Millais gives his otherwise realist St Stephen (1895)

1694-408: A more-than-natural light around the heads of heroes in battle. Depictions of Perseus in the act of slaying Medusa , with lines radiating from his head, appear on a white-ground toiletry box and on a slightly later red-figured vase in the style of Polygnotos , c.  450–30 BC . On painted wares from south Italy , radiant lines or simple haloes appear on a range of mythic figures: Lyssa,

1815-530: A period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion . While indicating that the establishment of dates is an arbitrary process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections, a synthetic language . Perhaps around 85% of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are

1936-468: A personification of madness; a sphinx ; a sea demon; and Thetis , the sea-nymph who was mother to Achilles . The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the sun-god Helios and had his usual radiate crown (copied for the Statue of Liberty ). Hellenistic rulers are often shown wearing radiate crowns that seem clearly to imitate this effect. In India, the use of halo might date back to the second half of

2057-536: A ring halo, it seems rather surprising. In popular graphic culture, a simple ring has become the predominant representation of a halo since at least the late 19th century, as seen for example in the logo for the Simon Templar ("The Saint") series of novels and other adaptations. The distinction between the alternative terms used in English for various types of halo is rather unclear. The oldest term in English

2178-532: A source of light; among other things this was because "in the controversies in the 4th century over the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, the relation of the ray to the source was the most cogent example of emanation and of distinct forms with a common substance" – key concepts in the theological thought of the time. A more Catholic interpretation is that the halo represents the light of divine grace suffusing

2299-737: A thin line of flames rise up from the edges of a circular halo in Buddhist examples. In Tibetan paintings the flames are often shown as blown by a wind, usually from left to right. This type is also very rarely found, and on a smaller scale, in medieval Christian art. Halos are found in Islamic art from various places and periods, especially in Persian miniatures and Moghul and Ottoman art influenced by them. Flaming halos derived from Buddhist art surround angels, and similar ones are often seen around Muhammad and other sacred human figures. From

2420-633: A throne as Christ in Majesty . The halo was incorporated into Early Christian art sometime in the 4th century with the earliest iconic images of Christ, initially the only figure shown with one (together with his symbol, the Lamb of God ). Initially the halo was regarded by many as a representation of the Logos of Christ, his divine nature, and therefore in very early (before 500) depictions of Christ before his Baptism by John he tends not to be shown with

2541-523: A verb. Halo comes originally from the Greek for "threshing-floor" – a circular, slightly sloping area kept very clean, around which slaves or oxen walked to thresh the grain. In Greek, this came to mean a divine, bright disk. Nimbus means "a cloud" in Latin , and is found as "a divine cloud" in 1616, whereas as "a bright or golden disk surrounding the head" it does not appear until 1727. The plural nimbi

SECTION 20

#1732772983034

2662-590: Is "glory", the only one available in the Middle Ages , but now largely obsolete. It came from the French gloire which has much the same range of meanings as "glory". "Gloriole" does not appear in this sense until 1844, being a modern invention, as a diminutive, in French also. "Halo" is first found in English in this sense in 1646 (nearly a century after the optical or astronomical sense). Both "halos" and "haloes" may be used as plural forms, and halo may be used as

2783-421: Is a crown of light rays, circle or disk of light that surrounds a person in works of art . The halo occurs in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and has at various periods also been used in images of rulers and heroes. In the religious art of Ancient Greece , Ancient Rome , Christianity , Hinduism , and Buddhism (among other religions), sacred persons may be depicted with

2904-552: Is also sparse early Northumbrian evidence of a sixth case: the locative . The evidence comes from Northumbrian Runic texts (e.g., ᚩᚾ ᚱᚩᛞᛁ on rodi "on the Cross"). Adjectives agree with nouns in case, gender, and number, and can be either strong or weak. Pronouns and sometimes participles agree in case, gender, and number. First-person and second- person personal pronouns occasionally distinguish dual-number forms. The definite article sē and its inflections serve as

3025-422: Is as follows. The sounds enclosed in parentheses in the chart above are not considered to be phonemes : The above system is largely similar to that of Modern English , except that [ç, x, ɣ, l̥, n̥, r̥] (and [ʍ] for most speakers ) have generally been lost, while the voiced affricate and fricatives (now also including /ʒ/ ) have become independent phonemes, as has /ŋ/ . The open back rounded vowel [ɒ]

3146-553: Is correct but "rare"; "nimbuses" is not in the OED but sometimes used. Nimb is an obsolete form of the noun, but not a verb, except that the obsolete "nimbated", like the commoner "nimbate", means "furnished with a nimbus". It is sometimes preferred by art-historians, as sounding more technical than halo. Aureole , from the Latin for "golden", has been used in English as a term for a gold crown, especially that traditionally considered

3267-621: Is evidenced by the continued variation between their successors in Middle and Modern English. In fact, what would become the standard forms of Middle English and of Modern English are descended from Mercian rather than West Saxon, while Scots developed from the Northumbrian dialect. It was once claimed that, owing to its position at the heart of the Kingdom of Wessex, the relics of Anglo-Saxon accent, idiom and vocabulary were best preserved in

3388-881: Is first recorded in English in the Ancrene Wisse of about 1225. More precisely, the Rood or Holyrood was the True Cross , the specific wooden cross used in Christ's crucifixion. The word remains in use in some names, such as Holyrood Palace and the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood . The phrase "by the rood" was used in swearing , e.g. "No, by the rood, not so" in Shakespeare 's Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 4). The alternative term triumphal cross ( Latin : crux triumphalis , German : Triumphkreuz ), which

3509-668: Is followed by Middle English (1150 to 1500), Early Modern English (1500 to 1650) and finally Modern English (after 1650), and in Scotland Early Scots (before 1450), Middle Scots ( c.  1450 to 1700) and Modern Scots (after 1700). Just as Modern English is not monolithic, Old English varied according to place. Despite the diversity of language of the Germanic-speaking migrants who established Old English in England and southeastern Scotland, it

3630-481: Is highly stylized and falls in vertical folds. In the transition to the Gothic style, the triumphant Christ becomes a suffering Christ, the pitiful Man of Sorrows. Instead of the ruler's crown, he wears the crown of thorns , his feet are placed one above the other and are pierced with a single nail. His facial expression and posture express his pain. The wounds of the body are often dramatically portrayed. The loincloth

3751-422: Is hung across the rood screen during the "May Garland Service". An engraving from 1822/1823 (Dunkin) shows the dressed rood cross as a more open, foliage-covered framework, similar to certain types of corn dolly , with a smaller attendant figure of similar appearance. Folklorists have commented on the garland crosses' resemblance to human figures, and noted that they replaced statues of St Mary and Saint James

Rood - Misplaced Pages Continue

3872-554: Is in the museum at Sousse . The conventions of this representation, head tilted, lips slightly parted, large-eyed, curling hair cut in locks grazing the neck, were developed in the 3rd century BC to depict Alexander the Great (Bieber 1964; Yalouris 1980). Sometime after this mosaic was executed, the Emperor began to be depicted with a halo, which was not abandoned when they became Christian; initially Christ only had one when shown on

3993-460: Is more usual in Europe, signifies the triumph that the resurrected Jesus Christ ( Christus triumphans ) won over death. In church architecture the rood, or rood cross, is a life-sized crucifix displayed on the central axis of a church, normally at the chancel arch. The earliest roods hung from the top of the chancel arch (rood arch), or rested on a plain "rood beam" across it, usually at

4114-783: Is much freer. The oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system , but from about the 8th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet . Englisċ , from which the word English is derived, means 'pertaining to the Angles '. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in many parts of Britain in the 5th century. By the 9th century, all speakers of Old English, including those who claimed Saxon or Jutish ancestry, could be referred to as Englisċ . This name probably either derives from Proto-Germanic *anguz , which referred to narrowness, constriction or anxiety, perhaps referring to shallow waters near

4235-451: Is no longer so clearly stylized. The attendant figures Mary and John show signs of grief. A triumphal cross may be surrounded by a group of people. These people may include Mary and John, the "beloved disciple" (based on John's Gospel – John 19:25–27 , Matthew 27:25f , Mark 15;40f and Luke 23:49 ), but also apostles, angels and the benefactor. Rood screens developed in the 13th century as wooden or stone screens , usually separating

4356-552: Is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles , Saxons and Jutes . As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain : Common Brittonic , a Celtic language ; and Latin , brought to Britain by

4477-419: Is of Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino , later Pope, from a manuscript of 1056–86; Pope Gregory the Great had himself depicted with one, according to the 9th-century writer of his vita , John, deacon of Rome . A figure who may represent Moses in the 3rd century Dura Europos Synagogue has one, where no round halos are found. Osbert Lancaster notes the presence of sqare haloes in donor portraits in

4598-512: Is often unclear but a number of northern European churches preserve the original setting in full – they are known as a Triumphkreuz in German, from the "triumphal arch" (or "chancel arch") of Early Christian architecture. As in later examples the Virgin and Saint John often flank the cross, and cherubim and other figures are sometimes seen. A gilt rood in the 10th-century Mainz Cathedral

4719-864: Is possible to reconstruct proto-Old English as a fairly unitary language. For the most part, the differences between the attested regional dialects of Old English developed within England and southeastern Scotland, rather than on the Mainland of Europe. Although from the tenth century Old English writing from all regions tended to conform to a written standard based on Late West Saxon, in speech Old English continued to exhibit much local and regional variation, which remained in Middle English and to some extent Modern English dialects . The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian , Northumbrian , Kentish , and West Saxon . Mercian and Northumbrian are together referred to as Anglian . In terms of geography

4840-434: Is replaced by ⟨þ⟩ ). In contrast with Modern English orthography , Old English spelling was reasonably regular , with a mostly predictable correspondence between letters and phonemes . There were not usually any silent letters —in the word cniht , for example, both the ⟨c⟩ and ⟨h⟩ were pronounced ( /knixt ~ kniçt/ ) unlike the ⟨k⟩ and ⟨gh⟩ in

4961-583: Is the Pulpitum , as seen in Exeter Cathedral , which is near the main altar of the church. The rood provided a focus for worship, most especially in Holy Week when worship was highly elaborate. During Lent the rood was veiled; on Palm Sunday it was revealed before the procession of palms, and the congregation knelt before it. The whole Passion story would then be read from the rood loft, at

Rood - Misplaced Pages Continue

5082-476: Is used more widely. Otherwise, there could be said to be an excess of words that could refer to either a head-disk or a full-body halo, and no word that clearly denotes a full-body halo that is not vesica piscis shaped. "Halo" by itself, according to recent dictionaries, means only a circle around the head, although Rhie and Thurman use the word also for circular full-body aureoles. The early Church Fathers expended much rhetorical energy on conceptions of God as

5203-601: The Latin alphabet was introduced and adapted for the writing of Old English , replacing the earlier runic system. Nonetheless, the largest transfer of Latin-based (mainly Old French ) words into English occurred after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and thus in the Middle English rather than the Old English period. Another source of loanwords was Old Norse , which came into contact with Old English via

5324-721: The Lutheran countries such as Germany and Scandinavia, where they were often left undisturbed in country churches. Rood screens are the Western equivalent of the Byzantine templon beam, which developed into the Eastern Orthodox iconostasis . Some rood screens incorporate a rood loft, a narrow gallery or just flat walkway which could be used to clean or decorate the rood or cover it up in Lent , or in larger examples used by singers or musicians. An alternative type of screen

5445-491: The Roman conquest . Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms : Kentish , Mercian , Northumbrian , and West Saxon . It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian, and Scots from Northumbrian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England

5566-998: The Romanesque period or earlier, with the Gero Cross in Cologne Cathedral (AD 965–970) and the Volto Santo of Lucca the best known. The prototype may have been one known to have been set up in Charlemagne 's Palatine Chapel in Aachen , apparently in gold foil worked over a wooden core in the manner of the Golden Madonna of Essen , though figureless jeweled gold crosses are recorded in similar positions in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in

5687-786: The Woman of the Apocalypse . Square haloes were sometimes used for the living in donor portraits of about 500–1100 in Italy. Most surviving ones are of Popes and others in mosaics in Rome, including the Episcopa Theodora head of the mother of the Pope of the day. They seem merely an indication of a contemporary figure, as opposed to the saints usually accompanying them, with no real implication of future canonization. A late example

5808-725: The chancel or choir from the nave , upon which the rood now stood. The screen may be elaborately carved and was often richly painted and gilded . Rood screens were found in Christian churches in most parts of Europe by the end of the Middle Ages, though in Catholic countries the great majority were gradually removed after the Council of Trent , and most were removed or drastically cut down in areas controlled by Calvinists and Anglicans . The best medieval examples are now mostly in

5929-603: The dialect of Somerset . For details of the sound differences between the dialects, see Phonological history of Old English § Dialects . The language of the Anglo-Saxon settlers appears not to have been significantly affected by the native British Celtic languages which it largely displaced . The number of Celtic loanwords introduced into the language is very small, although dialect and toponymic terms are more often retained in western language contact zones (Cumbria, Devon, Welsh Marches and Borders and so on) than in

6050-674: The dogmas of the Trinity, the oneness of God and the two natures of Christ . In mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore (432–40) the juvenile Christ has a four-armed cross either on top of his head in the radius of the nimbus, or placed above the radius, but this is unusual. In the same mosaics the accompanying angels have haloes (as, in a continuation of the Imperial tradition, does King Herod ), but not Mary and Joseph . Occasionally other figures have crossed haloes, such as

6171-554: The kingdom of Northumbria . Other parts of the island continued to use Celtic languages ( Gaelic – and perhaps some Pictish – in most of Scotland, Medieval Cornish all over Cornwall and in adjacent parts of Devon , Cumbric perhaps to the 12th century in parts of Cumbria , and Welsh in Wales and possibly also on the English side of the Anglo-Welsh border ); except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements, where Old Norse

SECTION 50

#1732772983034

6292-516: The 5th century. Many figures in precious metal are recorded in Anglo-Saxon monastic records, though none now survive. Notables sometimes gave their crowns ( Cnut the Great at Winchester Cathedral ), necklaces ( Lady Godiva to the Virgin accompanying the rood at Evesham Abbey ), or swords ( Tovi the Proud , Waltham Abbey ) to decorate them. The original location and support for the surviving figures

6413-655: The 7th-century church of St Demetrios in Thessalonika . Personifications of the Virtues are sometimes given hexagonal haloes. Scalloped haloes, sometimes just appearing as made of radiating bars, are found in the manuscripts of the Carolingian " Ada School ", such as the Ada Gospels . The whole-body image of radiance is sometimes called the ' aureole ' or glory ; it is shown radiating from all round

6534-422: The 8th century, the runic system came to be supplanted by a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries. This was replaced by Insular script , a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline ) replaced the insular. The Latin alphabet of

6655-406: The Baptist haloes, as sufficiently recognisable without them, but a saint in the background, not usually present in this scene, has a ring halo to denote his status. In the High Renaissance , even most Italian painters dispensed with haloes altogether, but in the Church's reaction to the Protestant Reformation , that culminated in the decrees on images of the Council of Trent of 1563, their use

6776-406: The English language; some of them, such as Pope Gregory I 's treatise Pastoral Care , appear to have been translated by Alfred himself. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, but Alfred chiefly inspired the growth of prose. A later literary standard, dating from the late 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester , and

6897-649: The Great which had stood on the rood screen until they were destroyed during the Reformation. Until the 1850s, the larger garland cross was carried in a May Day procession, accompanied by morris dancers , to the former Benedictine Studley priory (as the statue of St Mary had been, until the Reformation). Meanwhile, the women of the village used to carry the smaller garland cross through Charlton, though it seems that this ceased some time between 1823 and 1840, when an illustration in J.H. Parker's A Glossary of Terms Used in Grecian, Roman, Italian, and Gothic Architecture shows only one garland cross, centrally positioned on

7018-497: The Great . From that time on, the West Saxon dialect (then in the form now known as Early West Saxon) became standardised as the language of government, and as the basis for the many works of literature and religious materials produced or translated from Latin in that period. The later literary standard known as Late West Saxon (see History , above), although centred in the same region of the country, appears not to have been directly descended from Alfred's Early West Saxon. For example,

7139-405: The Kushan Bimaran casket in the British Museum is dated 60 AD (at least between 30BC and 200 AD). The rulers of the Kushan Empire were perhaps the earliest to give themselves haloes on their coins, and the nimbus in art may have originated in Central Asia and spread both east and west. In Chinese and Japanese Buddhist art , the halo has also been used since the earliest periods in depicting

7260-410: The Northumbrian dialect retained /i(ː)o̯/ , which had merged with /e(ː)o̯/ in West Saxon. For more on dialectal differences, see Phonological history of Old English (dialects) . Some of the principal sound changes occurring in the pre-history and history of Old English were the following: For more details of these processes, see the main article, linked above. For sound changes before and after

7381-607: The Northumbrian region lay north of the Humber River; the Mercian lay north of the Thames and south of the Humber River; West Saxon lay south and southwest of the Thames; and the smallest, Kentish region lay southeast of the Thames, a small corner of England. The Kentish region, settled by the Jutes from Jutland, has the scantest literary remains. The term West Saxon actually is represented by two different dialects: Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon. Hogg has suggested that these two dialects would be more appropriately named Alfredian Saxon and Æthelwoldian Saxon, respectively, so that

SECTION 60

#1732772983034

7502-412: The Old English period is also often attributed to Norse influence. The influence of Old Norse certainly helped move English from a synthetic language along the continuum to a more analytic word order , and Old Norse most likely made a greater impact on the English language than any other language. The eagerness of Vikings in the Danelaw to communicate with their Anglo-Saxon neighbours produced

7623-478: The Old English period, see Phonological history of English . Nouns decline for five cases : nominative , accusative , genitive , dative , instrumental ; three genders : masculine, feminine, neuter; and two numbers : singular, and plural; and are strong or weak. The instrumental is vestigial and only used with the masculine and neuter singular and often replaced by the dative . Only pronouns and strong adjectives retain separate instrumental forms. There

7744-411: The Scandinavian rulers and settlers in the Danelaw from the late 9th   century, and during the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the early 11th   century. Many place names in eastern and northern England are of Scandinavian origin. Norse borrowings are relatively rare in Old English literature, being mostly terms relating to government and administration. The literary standard, however,

7865-553: The Viking influence on Old English appears from the fact that the indispensable elements of the language – pronouns , modals , comparatives , pronominal adverbs (like hence and together ), conjunctions and prepositions – show the most marked Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in the extensive word borrowings because, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The effect of Old Norse on Old English

7986-451: The West as the Middle Ages go on. Beatified figures, not yet canonised as saints, are sometimes shown in medieval Italian art with linear rays radiating out from the head, but no circular edge of the nimbus defined; later this became a less obtrusive form of halo that could be used for all figures. Mary has, especially from the Baroque period onwards, a special form of halo in a circle of twelve stars , derived from her identification as

8107-452: The basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. Old English is a West Germanic language , and developed out of Ingvaeonic (also known as North Sea Germanic) dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England . This included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland , which for several centuries belonged to

8228-495: The beginnings of the compound tenses of Modern English . Old English verbs include strong verbs , which form the past tense by altering the root vowel, and weak verbs , which use a suffix such as -de . As in Modern English, and peculiar to the Germanic languages, the verbs formed two great classes: weak (regular), and strong (irregular). Like today, Old English had fewer strong verbs, and many of these have over time decayed into weak forms. Then, as now, dental suffixes indicated

8349-417: The body, most often of Christ or Mary, occasionally of saints (especially those reported to have been seen surrounded by one). Such an aureola is often a mandorla ("almond-shaped" vesica piscis ), especially around Christ in Majesty , who may well have a halo as well. In depictions of the Transfiguration of Jesus a more complicated shape is often seen, especially in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, as in

8470-433: The borrowing of individual Latin words based on which patterns of sound change they have undergone. Some Latin words had already been borrowed into the Germanic languages before the ancestral Angles and Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. More entered the language when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became influential. It was also through Irish Christian missionaries that

8591-488: The case, as the word "nimbus" is mostly found describing whole-body haloes, and seems to have also influenced "gloriole" in the same direction. The only English term that unequivocally means a full-body halo, and cannot be used for a circular disk around the head is " mandorla ", first occurring in 1883. However, this term, which is the Italian word for " almond ", is usually reserved for the vesica piscis shape, at least in describing Christian art. In discussing Asian art, it

8712-499: The cluster ending in the palatal affricate is sometimes written ⟨nċġ⟩ (or ⟨nġċ⟩ ) by modern editors. Between vowels in the middle of a word, the pronunciation can be either a palatalized geminate /ʃː/ , as in fisċere /ˈfiʃ.ʃe.re/ ('fisherman') and wȳsċan , /ˈwyːʃ.ʃɑn 'to wish'), or an unpalatalized consonant sequence /sk/ , as in āscian /ˈɑːs.ki.ɑn/ ('to ask'). The pronunciation /sk/ occurs when ⟨sc⟩ had been followed by

8833-461: The coast, or else it may derive from a related word *angô which could refer to curve or hook shapes including fishing hooks. Concerning the second option, it has been hypothesised that the Angles acquired their name either because they lived on a curved promontory of land shaped like a fishhook , or else because they were fishermen (anglers). Old English was not static, and its usage covered

8954-485: The dative case, an adposition may conceivably be located anywhere in the sentence. Remnants of the Old English case system in Modern English are in the forms of a few pronouns (such as I/me/mine , she/her , who/whom/whose ) and in the possessive ending -'s , which derives from the masculine and neuter genitive ending -es . The modern English plural ending -(e)s derives from the Old English -as , but

9075-696: The early 17th century, plainer round haloes appear in portraits of Mughal Emperors and subsequently Rajput and Sikh rulers; despite the more local precedents art historians believe the Mughals took the motif from European religious art, though it expresses a Persian idea of the God-given charisma of kingship that is far older. The Ottomans avoided using halos for the sultans , despite their title as Caliph , and they are only seen on Chinese emperors if they are posing as Buddhist religious figures, as some felt entitled to do. The halo represents an aura or

9196-431: The east. However, various suggestions have been made concerning possible influence that Celtic may have had on developments in English syntax in the post–Old English period, such as the regular progressive construction and analytic word order , as well as the eventual development of the periphrastic auxiliary verb do . These ideas have generally not received widespread support from linguists, particularly as many of

9317-452: The effect of light radiating out from the subject's head. In the early centuries of its use, the Christian halo may be in most colours (though black is reserved for Judas , Satan and other evil figures) or multicoloured; later gold becomes standard, and if the entire background is not gold leaf, the halo itself usually will be. With increasing realism in painting, the halo came to be a problem for artists. So long as they continued to use

9438-415: The end of the 14th century. In the early 15th century Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin largely abandoned their use, although some other Early Netherlandish artists continued to use them. In Italy at around the same time, Pisanello used them if they did not clash with one of the enormous hats he liked to paint. Generally they lasted longer in Italy, although often reduced to a thin gold band depicting

9559-542: The famous 15th century icon in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow . Where gold is used as a background in miniatures , mosaics and panel paintings, the halo is often formed by inscribing lines in the gold leaf , and may be decorated in patterns ( diapering ) within the outer radius, and thus becomes much less prominent. The gold leaf inside the halo may also be burnished in a circular manner, so as to produce

9680-529: The finest in Oxfordshire ). The cross is redecorated twice a year, on 1 May and 19 September (the patronal festival , calculated according to the Julian Calendar ), when children from the local primary school, carrying small crosses decorated with flowers, bring a long, flower-decorated, rope-like garland. The cross is dressed or redecorated with locally obtained box foliage. The rope-like garland

9801-403: The first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman (a type of French ) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what

9922-413: The flames may be very formalized, as in the regular little flames on the ring aureole surrounding many Chola bronzes and other classic Hindu sculptures of divinities, or very prominent, as with the more realistic flames, and sometimes smoke, shown rising to a peak behind many Tibetan Buddhist depictions of the "wrathful aspect" of divinities, and also in Persian miniatures of the classic period. Sometimes

10043-613: The foot of the crucifix , by three ministers. Few original medieval rood crosses have survived in churches of the United Kingdom. Most were deliberately destroyed as acts of iconoclasm during the English Reformation and the English Civil War , when many rood screens were also removed. Today, in many British churches, the "rood stair" that gave access to the gallery is often the only remaining sign of

10164-645: The former diphthong /iy/ tended to become monophthongised to /i/ in EWS, but to /y/ in LWS. Due to the centralisation of power and the destruction wrought by Viking invasions, there is relatively little written record of the non-West Saxon dialects after Alfred's unification. Some Mercian texts continued to be written, however, and the influence of Mercian is apparent in some of the translations produced under Alfred's programme, many of which were produced by Mercian scholars. Other dialects certainly continued to be spoken, as

10285-468: The former rood screen and rood loft. In the 19th century, under the influence of the Oxford Movement , roods and screens were again added to many Anglican churches. A unique rood exists at St Mary's parish church, Charlton-on-Otmoor , near Oxford , England, where a large wooden cross, solidly covered in greenery stands on the early 16th-century rood screen (said by Sherwood and Pevsner to be

10406-531: The futhorc. A few letter pairs were used as digraphs , representing a single sound. Also used was the Tironian note ⟨⁊⟩ (a character similar to the digit 7) for the conjunction and . A common scribal abbreviation was a thorn with a stroke ⟨ꝥ⟩ , which was used for the pronoun þæt ( that ). Macrons over vowels were originally used not to mark long vowels (as in modern editions), but to indicate stress, or as abbreviations for

10527-596: The glow of sanctity which was conventionally drawn encircling the head. It first appeared in the culture of Hellenistic Greece and Rome , possibly related to the Zoroastrian hvarena – "glory" or "divine lustre" – which marked the Persian kings, and may have been imported with Mithraism . Though Roman paintings have largely disappeared, save some fresco decorations, the haloed figure remains fresh in Roman mosaics. In

10648-490: The head, always depicted as though seen full-on, to a flat golden disk or ring that appeared in perspective, floating above the heads of the saints, or vertically behind, sometimes transparent. This can be seen first in Giotto , who still gives Christ the cruciform halo which began to be phased out by his successors. In northern Europe the radiant halo, made up of rays like a sunburst , came into fashion in French painting around

10769-475: The image of Amitabha Buddha and others. Tibetan Buddhism uses haloes and aureoles of many types, drawing from both Indian and Chinese traditions, extensively in statues and Thangka paintings of Buddhist saints such as Milarepa and Padmasambhava and deities. Different coloured haloes have specific meanings: orange for monks, green for the Buddha and other more elevated beings, and commonly figures have both

10890-657: The inscriptions on the Franks Casket ) date to the early 8th century. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 8th century. With the unification of several of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (outside the Danelaw ) by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect (Early West Saxon). Alfred advocated education in English alongside Latin, and had many works translated into

11011-449: The latter applied only to "strong" masculine nouns in the nominative and accusative cases; different plural endings were used in other instances. Old English nouns had grammatical gender , while modern English has only natural gender. Pronoun usage could reflect either natural or grammatical gender when those conflicted, as in the case of ƿīf , a neuter noun referring to a female person. In Old English's verbal compound constructions are

11132-545: The level of the capitals of the columns. This original arrangement is still found in many churches in Germany and Scandinavia, although many other surviving crosses now hang on walls. If the choir is separated from the church interior by a rood screen , the rood cross is placed on, or more rarely in front of, the screen. Under the rood is usually the altar of the Holy Cross. Numerous near life-size crucifixes survive from

11253-456: The modern knight ( /naɪt/ ). The following table lists the Old English letters and digraphs together with the phonemes they represent, using the same notation as in the Phonology section above. After /n/ , /j/ was realized as [dʒ] and /ɣ/ was realized as [ɡ] . The spellings ⟨ncg⟩ , ⟨ngc⟩ and even ⟨ncgg⟩ were occasionally used instead of

11374-505: The naive reader would not assume that they are chronologically related. Each of these four dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the islands. Of these, Northumbria south of the Tyne , and most of Mercia , were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia that was successfully defended, and all of Kent , were then integrated into Wessex under Alfred

11495-417: The old compositional formulae which had been worked out to accommodate haloes, the problems were manageable, but as Western artists sought more flexibility in composition, this ceased to be the case. In free-standing medieval sculpture , the halo was already shown as a flat disk above or behind the head. When perspective came to be considered essential, painters also changed the halo from an aura surrounding

11616-474: The original idea can be hard to recognise. Theravada Buddhism and Jainism did not use the halo for many centuries, but later adopted it, though less thoroughly than other religious groups. In Asian art, the nimbus is often imagined as consisting not just of light, but of flames. This type seems to first appear in Chinese bronzes of which the earliest surviving examples date from before 450. The depiction of

11737-524: The outer edge of the nimbus, usual for example in Giovanni Bellini . Christ began to be shown with a plain halo. Fra Angelico , himself a monk , was a conservative as far as haloes are concerned, and some of his paintings demonstrate the problems well, as in several of his more crowded compositions, where they are shown as solid gold disks on the same plane as the picture surface, it becomes difficult to prevent them obstructing other figures. At

11858-512: The past tense of the weak verbs, as in work and worked . Old English syntax is similar to that of modern English . Some differences are consequences of the greater level of nominal and verbal inflection, allowing freer word order . Old English was first written in runes , using the futhorc —a rune set derived from the Germanic 24-character elder futhark , extended by five more runes used to represent Anglo-Saxon vowel sounds and sometimes by several more additional characters. From around

11979-578: The persons of the Holy Trinity , especially Jesus , and especially in medieval art. In Byzantine and Orthodox images, inside each of the bars of the cross in Christ's halo is one of the Greek letters Ο Ω Ν, making up ὁ ὢν —"ho ōn", literally, "the Existing One"—indicating the divinity of Jesus . At least in later Orthodox images, each bar of this cross is composed of three lines, symbolising

12100-411: The reward of martyrs , since the Middle Ages (OED 1220). However, the first use recorded as a term for a halo is in 1848, very shortly after which matters were greatly complicated by the publication in 1851 of the English translation of Adolphe Napoléon Didron 's important Christian Iconography: Or, The History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages . This, by what the OED calls a "strange blunder", derived

12221-484: The richest and most significant bodies of literature preserved among the early Germanic peoples. In his supplementary article to the 1935 posthumous edition of Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader , Dr. James Hulbert writes: Halo (religious iconography) A halo (from Ancient Greek ἅλως , hálōs ,  'threshing floor, disk'), also called a nimbus , aureole , glory or gloriole ( Latin : gloriola , lit.   'little glory'),

12342-510: The rood screen. Old English Old English ( Englisċ or Ænglisc , pronounced [ˈeŋɡliʃ] ), or Anglo-Saxon , was the earliest recorded form of the English language , spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages . It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and

12463-533: The same time they were useful in crowded narrative scenes for distinguishing the main, identifiable, figures from the mass of a crowd. Giotto 's Lamentation of Christ from the Scrovegni Chapel has eight figures with haloes and ten without, to whom the viewer knows they are not meant to attach a specific identity. In the same way, a Baptism of Christ by Perugino in Vienna gives neither Christ nor John

12584-509: The second millennium BC. Two figures appliqued on a pottery vase fragment from Daimabad 's Malwa phase (1600–1400 BC) have been interpreted as a holy figure resembling the later Hindu god Shiva and an attendant, both with halos surrounding their heads, Aureola have been widely used in Indian art, particularly in Buddhist iconography where it has appeared since at least the 1st century AD;

12705-624: The seven doves representing the Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in the 11th century Codex Vyssegradensis Tree of Jesse (where Jesse and Isaiah also have plain haloes, as do the Ancestors of Christ in other miniatures). Later, triangular haloes are sometimes given to God the Father to represent the Trinity . When he is represented by a hand emerging from a cloud , this may be given

12826-619: The soul, which is perfectly united and in harmony with the physical body. In the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church , an icon is a "window into heaven" through which Christ and the Saints in heaven can be seen and communicated with. The gold ground of the icon indicates that what is depicted is in heaven. The halo is a symbol of the Uncreated Light (Greek: Ἄκτιστον Φῶς) or grace of God shining forth through

12947-409: The theorized Brittonicisms do not become widespread until the late Middle English and Early Modern English periods, in addition to the fact that similar forms exist in other modern Germanic languages. Old English contained a certain number of loanwords from Latin , which was the scholarly and diplomatic lingua franca of Western Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for

13068-564: The time still lacked the letters ⟨j⟩ and ⟨w⟩ , and there was no ⟨v⟩ as distinct from ⟨u⟩ ; moreover native Old English spellings did not use ⟨k⟩ , ⟨q⟩ or ⟨z⟩ . The remaining 20 Latin letters were supplemented by four more: ⟨ æ ⟩ ( æsc , modern ash ) and ⟨ð⟩ ( ðæt , now called eth or edh), which were modified Latin letters, and thorn ⟨þ⟩ and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ , which are borrowings from

13189-404: The usual ⟨ng⟩ . The addition of ⟨c⟩ to ⟨g⟩ in spellings such as ⟨cynincg⟩ and ⟨cyningc⟩ for ⟨cyning⟩ may have been a means of showing that the word was pronounced with a stop rather than a fricative; spellings with just ⟨nc⟩ such as ⟨cyninc⟩ are also found. To disambiguate,

13310-508: The word from the Latin aura as a diminutive, and also defined it as meaning a halo or glory covering the whole body, whilst saying that "nimbus" referred only to a halo around the head. This, according to the OED, reversed the historical usage of both words, but whilst Didron's diktat was "not accepted in France", the OED noted it had already been picked up by several English dictionaries, and influenced usage in English, which still seems to be

13431-478: The word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw, these endings must have led to much confusion, tending gradually to become obscured and finally lost. This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar". The inventory of Early West Saxon surface phones

13552-443: Was an allophone of short /ɑ/ which occurred in stressed syllables before nasal consonants (/m/ and /n/). It was variously spelled either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩. The Anglian dialects also had the mid front rounded vowel /ø(ː)/ , spelled ⟨œ⟩, which had emerged from i-umlaut of /o(ː)/ . In West Saxon and Kentish, it had already merged with /e(ː)/ before the first written prose. Other dialects had different systems of diphthongs. For example,

13673-439: Was based on the West Saxon dialect , away from the main area of Scandinavian influence; the impact of Norse may have been greater in the eastern and northern dialects. Certainly in Middle English texts, which are more often based on eastern dialects, a strong Norse influence becomes apparent. Modern English contains many, often everyday, words that were borrowed from Old Norse, and the grammatical simplification that occurred after

13794-481: Was either /ʃ/ or possibly /ʃː/ when the preceding vowel was short. Doubled consonants are geminated ; the geminate fricatives ⟨ff⟩ , ⟨ss⟩ and ⟨ðð⟩ / ⟨þþ⟩ / ⟨ðþ⟩ / ⟨þð⟩ are always voiceless [ff] , [ss] , [θθ] . The corpus of Old English literature is small but still significant, with some 400 surviving manuscripts. The pagan and Christian streams mingle in Old English, one of

13915-616: Was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham ("the Grammarian"). This form of the language is known as the " Winchester standard", or more commonly as Late West Saxon. It is considered to represent the "classical" form of Old English. It retained its position of prestige until the time of the Norman Conquest, after which English ceased for a time to be of importance as a literary language. The history of Old English can be subdivided into: The Old English period

14036-562: Was made between long and short vowels in the originals. (In some older editions an acute accent mark was used for consistency with Old Norse conventions.) Additionally, modern editions often distinguish between velar and palatal ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ by placing dots above the palatals: ⟨ċ⟩ , ⟨ġ⟩ . The letter wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ is usually replaced with ⟨w⟩ , but ⟨æ⟩ , ⟨ð⟩ and ⟨þ⟩ are normally retained (except when ⟨ð⟩

14157-452: Was mandated by clerical writers on religious art such as Molanus and Saint Carlo Borromeo . Figures were placed where natural light sources would highlight their heads, or instead more discreet quasi-naturalistic flickering or glowing light was shown around the head of Christ and other figures (perhaps pioneered by Titian in his late period). Rembrandt 's etchings , for example, show a variety of solutions of all of these types, as well as

14278-408: Was only placed on a beam on special feast days . In the Romanesque era the crucified Christ was presented as ruler and judge. Instead of a crown of thorns he wears a crown or a halo ; on his feet he wears "shoes" as a sign of the ruler. He is victorious over death. His feet are parallel to each other on the wooden support ("four-nail type") and not one on top of the other. The perizoma (loincloth)

14399-411: Was spoken and Danish law applied. Old English literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century. The oldest surviving work of Old English literature is Cædmon's Hymn , which was composed between 658 and 680 but not written down until the early 8th century. There is a limited corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the oldest coherent runic texts (notably

14520-603: Was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic languages , and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon . Like other old Germanic languages, it is very different from Modern English and Modern Scots, and largely incomprehensible for Modern English or Modern Scots speakers without study. Within Old English grammar nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and word order

14641-425: Was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins, and with some words in common, speakers roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of

#33966