Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of the Rood Tradition

Éamonn Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of the Rood Tradition (London and Toronto: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2005). xlviii + 427 pp. ISBN 0-7123-4875-1. £50.00.

Éamonn Ó Carragáin has devoted decades to the close study of the Ruthwell Cross, the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood, and their liturgical background in the development of the rites of the Roman Church of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. This book draws together the fruits of this research, together with a short discussion of the Brussels Cross. The book begins with a description of the Ruthwell Cross as it appears today, including a thorough account of the Cross in the early modern period. After this, the book is devoted mostly to discussion of the reconstructed Cross and its iconography in the context of...