Volume IV | Preface to the original printed volume Next Back to catalogue index
by David M. Wilson, Chairman, Committee for the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, 1994

The fourth volume of the British Academy's Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture ventures for the first time into the south of England. The material catalogued differs greatly from the previous volumes, including as it does sculptural — mainly architectural — fragments from one of the main ecclesiastical centres of Wessex, Winchester. These include pieces excavated by Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle from the site of the Old and New Minsters, and the Corpus Committee is particularly grateful to them for allowing these important objects to be included in the Corpus and for writing them up so promptly. The controversial fragments from Reculver, now in the crypt of Canterbury cathedral, are here re-published and re-examined despite great technical difficulties, and the surviving sculptures from one of the major early centres of English Christianity, St Augustine's, Canterbury, have now received proper treatment.

The Corpus Committee is grateful to Dominic Tweddle for his hard work in producing the volume despite the distractions of a busy life with the York Archaeological Trust. It could not have been brought to fruition, however, without the hard work of Eric Cambridge, who has seen the whole volume into the press. In thanking him in the warmest possible terms we would also thank Rosemary Cramp, the founder of the project, and many others who have helped in the production of this volume; in particular we are grateful to Henry Loyn for generously contributing at short notice a chapter on the historical background of the region. The generosity of the University of Durham in continuing to give support to the Corpus project is once again gratefully acknowledged, as is the financial and administrative support of the British Academy in difficult times.

DAVID M. WILSON
Chairman, Committee for the Corpus
of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, 1994

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