Terminology

Celtic

The Celts were a race of people who originated in central Europe, and over the course of the Bronze Age spread outwards across Europe, reaching the British Isles a few centuries before the Romans settled here. When the Romans came, the Celts were both integrated with the Romans (producing the cultural classification Romano-British) and also pushed back to the margins of the land. There were places where the Romans didn't rule, with Hadrian's Wall being one of the best-known borders of the Roman empire, for example. When the Roman administrative system broke down in the fifth century with the departure of the Roman legions, the Celtic culture reasserted itself, but in something of a new way, because Christianity had begun to permeate it. Celtic Christian Missionaries came to Britain from Ireland, with, for example St. Ninian establishing a presence in Scotland by the end of the fourth century. Later missions established Celtic foundations on  Iona and then Lindisfarne. However, with the mission of St. Augustine from Rome to Canterbury at the end of the sixth century, there began to be a conflict, because the Roman way of doing things was not the same as the Celtic way. Matters came to a head in the year 664, when a Synod at Whitby concluded that things should be done the Roman way. Eventually, perhaps, they were, but one can't help feeling that the Celtic party didn't wholeheartedly accept the disciplines imposed on them by their Roman masters. The word Celtic tends to be used by different people in different ways at different times. It might mean to do with what has just been described, or it might mean relating to the cultural style of the Celtic Christian people, which is, in fact, the way the word is usually used at this web site.

A carved stone from the pre-Roman period,
found in Northern Derbyshire
and on display at the
Buxton Museum and Art Gallery
(Nov 2002)

Pleached pattern 

When people build hedges by intertwining branches of trees and shrubs, the result is said to be a pleached hedge - one where the branches have been plaited together. (Pleach and plait share the same Latin root word, plectere). Consequently, this name is applied to patterns which resemble branches or leaves that have been intertwined.

The picture alongside shows the pleached pattern representing the foliage of the great tree Yggdrasil carved on the reverse of the grave monument of W S Calverley at St. Kentigern's Church, Aspatria, Cumbria. (Calverley had a great interest in the monuments of Cumbria, and his gravestone is modelled on the Viking cross of Dearham.)

Triquetra (plural Triquetrae)

A knot made up of three intersecting semicircular arcs. This is a common feature of carved crosses, and is held to symbolise the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Like the Trinity, the arcs in the triquetra are separate but inseparable, equivalent, interlocking, and forming a unity.

The picture alongside shows a triquetra carved on a cross at Leek in Staffordshire.