Crosshead

“ At first sight the cross looks much like a variety of monolith, but the cross-head is in fact worked in a separate block of stone. The shortness of the arms, as compared with the height of the upper limb, is striking. Another feature is a small niche or hollow sunk in the face of the cross at the point of intersection. For the rest, the socket does not differ at all from many examples occurring in the shaft-on-steps group. ”

“ In the 14th-century rolls the word “potent” is sometimes used for these crosses fitchy, the long foot suggesting a potent or staff. From this source modern English armorists derive many of their “crosses potent,” whose four arms have the T heads of old-fashioned walking staves.
Howard bore “Silver a bend between six crosslets fitchy gules.”
Scott of Congerhurst in Kent bore “Silver a crosslet fitchy sable.”
The Saltire is the cross in the form of that on which St Andrew suffered, whence it is borne on the banner of Scotland, and by the Andrew family of Northamptonshire. ”

“ The cross-head at Mitton, Yorkshire (Figs. 194, 195) , is peculiar inasmuch as the crucifixion is sculptured on both faces, but in totally different fashions. That on the west face has the arms stretched horizontally, within a sexfoil [162] frame, and might well be of the thirteenth century. Whereas the sculpture on the east face, though much more weatherworn, is of a style that could not have been designed before the late-fourteenth, or perhaps even the fifteenth century. The arms of the Christ in this instance are drawn upwards in an unusually oblique direction. ”

“ The fully developed cross of this sort consists of steps or calvary, socket, shaft or stem, capital or knop, and head. The latter, it should be remarked, is that part of the cross which, no doubt on account of the sacred or legendary significance of the figures sculptured upon it, is now most commonly absent. The remaining elements consisting of such simple units, it is truly wonderful how great variety of treatment is to be observed in crosses of the kind. The resources of their design may almost be said to be unlimited. ”

“ Cross Patonce, the cross fleurie expanded. Fig. 63. Cross Botonnée. Fig. 64.
Cross-crosslet has each of its limbs crossed. Fig. 65. When the central part of the four limbs of a cross is cut out, it is said to be voided, as at Fig. 66; if only at the less point, where the limbs are conjoined, quaterly-pierced. Fig. 67.
A cross voided to the extremities of the shield is voided throughout. ”

“ Crosses in general are drawn with limbs of equal length except where the shape of a shield suggests the lengthening of the lower limb in order to satisfactorily place the object in its field, but the intention is that the limbs are to be considered equal and not like those of the passion cross. The width of crosses may be considerably varied, for difference consists not in the proportions of parts to each other but in essential variations of form. The floriated, or otherwise varied, cross may therefore be made of any proportion that the arrangement of the shield may suggest ”

“ It generally falls a victim to one or other of the maladies of which it has relieved our ailing humanity. The causes which have given the crossbill its remarkable colour and the peculiar shape of its bill have escaped many naturalists, but they are familiar to children in Germany. The truth is that when Jesus Christ hung on the cross a flight of crossbills fluttered round him and tugged with their bills at the nails in his hands and feet to draw them out, till their feathers, which were grey before, were all bedabbled with blood, and their beaks, which had been straight, were twisted awry. ”

“ The large number of old Crosses strewn thickly over the wild moorlands or by the solitary wayside, in churchyard or village street, were set up as reminders to the passing foot, of the way to eternal life, and contemporary with them Holy Wells covered the bright springs in the valleys, and appealed with their simple imagery to those who came thither to draw, not to forget to thirst also for the living water that refreshes the soul ”

“ Perhaps they march all through the night, carrying their equipment and their heavy packs on their backs, and as the dawn comes, they notice at every cross-road a great cross, and nailed to the cross the figure of the Crucified—white, blood-streaked, the thorn-crowned head bent in the agony of suffering, the face livid with pain and misery. And many a lad under his weight looks up. ”

“ But there is another vision of crosses that rises before our eyes. Little crosses, white crosses, wooden crosses, that march in serried ranks across the trench-scarred face of Europe from the North Sea to the Black Sea—a veritable forest of crosses, low-lying, [Pg 66] yet they throw a longer and a darker shadow than cypress, hemlock or than pine, for beneath them lie the great hearts of the Empire, of Belgium, France, Italy, Serbia, and Roumania; they call to us, they wait for us. ”

“ The Christ has the feet crossed and fastened with a single nail in the newer fashion, [48] though the arms are, in the ancient mode, perfectly horizontal. The work dates probably from the closing years of the fourteenth century.
How widely individual treatment might vary within a comparatively short space of time is illustrated by the fragments of the cross-head, found built into the east gable of North Hinksey church, in Berkshire, near Oxford (Figs. 83, 84, and 85) . ”

“ The skull and crossbone series, so common in the south, have no place in North Britain; while the symbol of the cross, so frequent in Ireland, is very rarely to be found in any shape whatever within the boundaries of a Scottish burial-place. I present four specimen types from the old chapel-yard at Inverness. ”

“ Since this charge became common in Tudor armory it is perhaps better that the original mill-rind should be called for distinction a mill-rind cross.
Willoughby bore “Gules a mill-rind cross silver.”
The crosslet, cross botonny or cross crosletted, is a cross whose limbs, of even breadth, end as trefoils or treble buds. It is rarely found in medieval examples in the shape—that of a cross with limbs ending in squarely cut plain crosses—which it took during the 16th-century decadence. As the sole charge of a shield it is very rare ”

“ These may have been nothing more than an advertisement, but from the care with which the cross was elaborated, and the neatness with which it was made to resemble a natural piece of wood, I am inclined to believe that the man felt some pleasure in his work for its own sake, and that he was not utterly submerged. The cross in such dens as these, or, worse than dens, in such sewers! If it be anything, it is a symbol of victory, of power to triumph over resistance, and even death. ”

“ Hence it appears that crozier does not refer to a cross but to a crook.
In such ancient authorities as I have had the opportunity of referring to at the moment, as brasses, incised slabs, &c., bishops and archbishops are alike represented with the crooked staff; a cross is of more rare occurrence, and at the moment only two instances occur to me, one in the fine brass of Frederic, son of Casimir, king of Poland, and a cardinal, which is in the cathedral of Cracow, and in which he is represented holding a crozier, while crosses are figured on the sides under the cardinal's hat. ”

“ CROSFIELD looked across the camp fire at his friend Norton with the light of battle gleaming in his eyes. They were away up there on the veldt, not a hundred miles from Kimberley, and the fruits of three years' unremitting toil lay in the hollow of Crosfield's hand. To the untutored eye they represented no more than half a dozen round stones like big marbles, but an expert would have had no difficulty in recognising the fact that those pebbles were diamonds of the purest quality—six bits of glorified glass that represented a king's ransom. ”

“ Their forms and sizes are varied: some are immensely high and solid, covered by queer shingle roofs; often their design is intricate, several crosses, growing one out of another, forming a curious pattern, the whole painted in the crudest colours that sun and rain soon tone down to pleasant harmony.
Protected by their greater companions, many little crosses crowd alongside: round crosses and square crosses, crosses that are slim and upright, crosses that seem humbly to bend towards the ground.... ”

“ That crooked cross is in fact a cross turning into a wheel. Before we dismiss even these symbols as if they were arbitrary symbols, we must remember how intense was the imaginative instinct that produced them or selected them both in the East and the West. The cross has become something more than a historical memory; it does convey, almost as by a mathematical diagram, the truth about the real point at issue; the idea of a conflict stretching outwards into eternity. It is true, and even tautological, to say that the cross is the crux of the whole matter. ”

“ Fig. 209.—Symbols of the cross.
The author, with considerable naiveté, has evidently determined that the form of the cross was significant of a high state of religious culture, and that its being succeeded by effigies, which he calls idols, showed a lapse into idolatry. The fact is simply that, next to one straight line, the combination of two straight lines forming a cross is the easiest figure to draw, and its use before art could attain to the drawing of animal forms, or their representation in plastic material, is merely an evidence of crudeness or imperfection in designing. ”

“ These Dartmoor Crosses are interesting as ancient landmarks and boundaries, and as indications of the almost instinctive way in which our forefathers employed the Cross for every purpose of more than usual importance; they are moreover not devoid of a certain picturesque effect from the harmony of their rugged forms with their moorland surroundings. They are not, however, in the ordinary sense of the word, beautiful. They are mostly plain Latin crosses, occasionally mounted on one or two steps, with no attempt at carving or decoration. ”

“ We see the wound upon each foot, with wavy marks to imitate the flowing blood, but no trace of a nail. Nails, however, transfix the hands. The arms are separate from the trunk, but the suppedaneum on which the feet are resting is of a single piece with the body of the figure.
The surface of the cross, especially about the borders, contains elaborate decoration, including animals and foliage. ”

“ Every man wore the sign of the Cross upon his shoulder, cut in red cloth, and many adventurers assumed that sacred emblem in the belief that it would afford a perpetual absolution for any crime they might commit. But while preparing for the departure of the various expeditions, the Crusaders—even those of the most reckless character—abstained for a while from violence, and kept the Truce of God. ”

“ Capuchin-cross, a cross having each arm terminated by a ball; Celtic cross, a type of cross found in Ireland and in the north and west of Scotland, varying from a cross incised on a flat slate to an elaborate cruciform monument—some crosses of this type show Scandinavian workmanship, and hence are often called Runic crosses; Greek cross, an upright cross with limbs of equal length—the well-known Cross of St George (red on a white ground) ; Latin cross (crux immissa) , an upright cross having the lower limb longer than the others ”

“ In a rocky field three miles from the city is another great natural curiosity known as Cross Rock, which has been singularly cleft, by some unknown agency, into the form of a perfect cross, to which a few superstitious people formerly attributed remarkable healing virtues, but which no one any longer regards. ”

“ The Great Cross, the largest of the two more perfect crosses, measures 27 feet in height, and is composed of three stones. A portion of the base is buried in the soil. The shaft at its junction with the base is 2 feet in breadth, and 1 foot 3 inches in thickness. It is divided upon the western side by fillets into seven compartments, each of which contains two or more figures executed with bold effect, but much worn by the rain and wind of nearly nine centuries. ”

“ A black cross has yellow hairs growing inside the ears and a patch of yellow near each fore leg, whereas a silver has none. Unscrupulous trappers very often try to get over these giving-away marks by plucking the hairs out of the ears and by greasing and smoking the side patches. ”

“ Imagine him issuing from those walls on his white charger,—his fiery eye somewhat dimmed by years, and his hair blanched; but nobler from the impress of time itself,—the clang of arms; the tramp of steeds; banners on high; music pealing from hill to hill; the red cross and the nodding plume; the sun, as now glancing on yonder trees; and thence reflected from the burnished arms of the Crusaders. ”

“ We assuredly see the sign of a cross naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with arms outstretched. ”

“ No doubt the bones that one often finds scattered here and there, refused by the ground, will crumble away and will return little by little to the dust from which they came; these little nameless crosses, made out of two sticks of different lengths fastened together, will vanish ”

“ The cross comes between the figures, so that the string that is attached to the waist of one figure is fastened to the knee of the other, and any motion forward is balanced by one backward, and a most realistic encounter can be fought out almost automatically. ”