St. Columba's Crosier

9th and early 12th centuries

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We are grateful to Griffin Murray a PhD student in archaeology at University College Cork for this description of the Durrow crosier. His text here documents the most recent research on this object.

This is a portion of St. Columba's Crosier, which is from Durrow, Co Offaly. Its hereditary keepers were the MacGeoghegans and it remained in their possession until the nineteenth century. This crosier is dated art historically to the ninth century and was substantially redecorated, probably, during the early twelfth century. This crosier is not complete, as the ferrule, or foot, and most of the crook, or head, no longer survive. Furthermore, the lowermost knop on the shaft is missing. What remains of the crosier is in two sections, one of which is illustrated here. It consists of a section of the wooden core, which is encased by the top knop of the crosier, a collar in false openwork, and the beginning of the crook. The other section which is not shown here, consists of most of the shaft, along with two knops. St. Columba's Crosier is notable in that it is of relatively large proportions.

Durrow Crozier Fragment

This crosier is dated art historically to the ninth century and was substantially redecorated, probably, during the early twelfth century. This crosier is not complete, as the ferrule, or foot, and most of the crook, or head, no longer survive.What remains of the crosier is in two sections, one of which is illustrated here. It consists of a section of the wooden core, which is encased by the top knop of the crosier, a collar in false openwork, and the beginning of the crook.

belongs to a class of crosier known as the Irish type. These were crafted in Ireland from the eight or ninth century up until the end of the twelfth century. The origins of the Irish-crosier, like its continental counterpart, lie in the shepherd's crook. Both abbots and bishops carried them as insignia of their office and they signify the pastoral care of the congregation. However, Irish-crosiers demonstrate a divergence from the main tradition of crosiers in the Western Church. The significant difference is the distinctive shape of the head, which curves in a crook shape with the addition of a short pendant drop at its extremity. This is in contrast to the volute or simple walking stick shape of contemporary English and Continental examples. The traditional belief that Irish-crosiers enshrine the staff of a saint has not been confirmed by archaeological studies. While this is the case, in many examples religious relics were contained in the drop. While predominantly an Irish tradition, there is archaeological and historical evidence to demonstrate that this form of crosier was adopted in Scotland and also in Wales.

This portion of St. Columba's Crosier consists of both ninth and twelfth century elements. The copper-alloy knop has cast decoration and was originally gilt. The knop is completely covered in ornament, which is divided into three areas or bands and is made up of an abstract knotted pattern. The central band of ornamented is interrupted by four empty rectangular settings that were probably originally filled with glass or enamel. A section on one side of the knop has been filed down to accommodate the twelfth century animal head. Another area was filed down on the opposite side of the knop in order to receive a now missing mount. From comparison with other crosiers this mount was probably in the form of an animal or human head. This knop represents the earliest phase of the crosier and its decoration suggests a ninth century date.

The animal head fixed to the knop is the terminal of the now missing crest, which would have surmounted the head of the crosier. This cast bronze animal head is decorated with stylised, intertwining, tendril-like hair and moustache. Its eyes were probably originally set with tiny glass studs and its snout and ears are also depicted. In addition, the area between the eyes and the ears is decorated with a herringbone pattern and the whole piece was originally gilt. This animal head is comparable with other similar examples on twelfth century Irish-crosiers. It is particularly close to that on the Lismore Crosier, which is dated to before AD 1113 on the basis of its inscription.

The remnant of the crook, which survives above the knop, is divided into rectangular openwork recesses. These were probably originally meant to receive separately made panels of ornament. However, not enough of the crook survives to allow us to speculate on its overall design. Underneath the remaining section of the crook sheet copper tubing can be seen. This tubing encases the wooden core and extends underneath the knop and collar. The exposed section of the wooden core above the knop is tapered and smoothly finished. It appears that the wooden core did not originally extended into the crook but finished here at its base.

The collar below the knop, which is in false openwork, was cast as one piece and was also originally gilt. It is decorated in the Scandinavian influenced Hiberno-Urnes style, which dates mainly to the early twelfth century. The decoration on the collar is made up of four snake-like animals that form interlocking figure-of-eights. The heads of the four animals project out from the bottom of the collar, although only two of them now survive in damaged state. The thin tails and lappets of the animals, which intertwine with their thicker bodies, bring added complexity to the design. Although of different design, there is also a collar below the top knop of the twelfth century Clonmacnoise Crosier, which is of similar proportions. However, the collar on St. Columba's Crosier is most closely comparable with the central openwork collar on St. Lachtín's arm-shaped reliquary from Donoughmore, Co Cork which has been dated on the basis of its inscription to between the years AD 1118 and AD 1121.

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