Scandinavian-Britain

THE KINGDOM OF YORK 143abbeys were yet founded in the north ;but the workof rebuilding churches, which had begun in thesouthern part of the Danelaw, must have made progress.It was not until 970 that Ely was restored asa monastery. The Danes were at first destroyers,though Wilfrith's Ripon survived their attacks untilEadred destroyedit ; they were no architects ormasons, and their earlier monuments in imitation ofthe beautiful Anglian crosses were mere slabs pickedfrom the surface of rocky land and chipped over witha pattern ;their churches were thatched or tiledfabrics of wood or wattle-and-daub, such as the hogbacktombs represent. But after the middle of thecentury their monuments seem to have become moreskilfully quarried and carved, thoughstill with theAnglo-Danish style of ornament, unlike the art ofsouthern England at the time and it is ; possible thatsome of the "Saxon" churches of the north wererestored, and others built, under the influence of therevival of arts in the reign of Eadgar.When he succeeded his brother on the throne of allEngland (959) the Danelaw, in a sense, gave a kingto the Saxons, and with him Anglo-Danes won placesin church and state. We have seen that Odo couldrise to an archbishopric ;now his nephew Oswaldbecame bishop of Worcester, and, after Oskytel(Asketil), archbishop of York. Thord Gunnarsson,who led the English expedition into Cumbrian andViking Westmorland in 966, and was afterwards jarlof Deira, was already, in 961, "prsepositus domus" ofthe king ;and many Scandinavian names appear in