Fig. 1 8. cpwetoriwa' -Whale's Bone Tablet for Writing, Blvthburgh (|) ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS to the British Museum in 1902. The site formerly belonged to the priory of Black Canons, a cell to the abbey of St. Osyth, Essex, founded in the reign of Henry I,"but the writing-tablet here illustrated (fig. 18) is certainly of earlier date. The two leaves (one now missing) were evidently fastened to- gether by a cord or thong passed through both pairs of holes, and the sunk panel or panels filled with wax, which was written upon by means of a style, a pointed instru- ment of pen form made of bone or metal. The leaf itself is made of whale's bone, and though rubbed and broken still bears an interlaced design that suffices to fix its date and origin. The use of such tabellae among the Romans is well known, but the material employed was generally wood, and only a few examples are preserved in this country, though styli are common ; and the special interest of the Blythburgh tablet is that it was evidently made and used at a time when parchment was in common use, and such a primitive method of correspondence or note-taking might be supposed extinct. The system did, however, survive into the Middle Ages, but this is the only Anglo- Saxon specimen known ; the resemblance of its ornamentation to that of the Book of Kells suggests an Irish origin, and throws light on its approximate date. Though hardly two authorities agree precisely as to the date of that famous Irish MS., most would assign this kind of interlacing to the 8th or 9th century ; and though St. Felix, who converted East Anglia, himself came from Burgundy, it is quite probable, that during the supremacy of Northum- bria, monks and missionaries introduced literary utensils from the north of England, where the Irish (or Scotic) influence was strong. St. Columba not only introduced the monastic rule into Scotland, but founded monasteries in Burgundy, the home of St. Felix himself ; and the occupation of Lindisfarne in 635 by Aidan, who made it his see, was the signal for a great missionary movement in England. After the battle of the Winwaed in 655 East Anglia passed under the influence of the Northumbrian king Oswiu, and the relics of Irish monasticism might be expected in Suffolk after that date ; but in spite of a large number of monuments displaying the interlaced patterns, it has not yet been found possible to assign exact dates to much work of this description. The bottom panel of the south face of the Bewcastle Cross has, however, a close resemblance to that on the tablet, and there are good reasons for assign- ing that well-known monument to the 7th century,"^ which is indeed indicated by the inscription on it, and the interlacing motives are now generally held "" Proc. Soc. Aiitlq. xif, 40. "" F.C.H. Cumb. i, 255-6.
