CROSS, NOW IN YORK MUSEUM]
Writing in 1872, Mr J. T. Blight described the early twelfth-century
cross (now in the cemetery of Lanherne House Nunnery, Mawgan-in-Pyder,
Cornwall) (Fig. 38) as having been "removed several years since
from the Chapel Close of the Barton of Roseworthy, in the parish of
Gwinear." The crucifix, sculptured in low relief, is of the rudest
and most primitive character, while the cross itself belongs to the
class known as "four-holed." It is of Pentewan stone. Interlaced work
forms the greater part of the ornament, and on the lower portion of
the shaft, on either face, is an ancient inscription. The shaft has an
unmistakable entasis.
The head of another four-holed cross, the holes having the shape of
rough trefoils, is to be seen in the churchyard of St Columb Major,
Cornwall. Both faces of the cross are similarly sculptured with the
Triquetra (Fig. 37). The height is 3 ft. 1½ in. by 2 ft. 9 in.
wide, over all, the material granite.
At Cheadle, Cheshire, in 1875, there were dug up, in a brickfield
opposite to the Convalescent Hospital, the fragments of an early
cross, probably of the tenth century, of Anglo-Saxon type (Fig. 35).
In each limb of the cross, as well as at the intersection, is a convex
boss. The material of the cross is a coarse grit stone. The dimensions
are 1 ft. 4 in. wide at the greatest width, by 2 ft. 8 in. in height.
It is now preserved at the Museum at York.
In the parish churchyard of Whalley, Lancashire, stands a cross (Fig.
34), which was, no doubt, originally a monolith, but has been broken
across, and appears to have had its fractured edges trimmed and
squared. At any rate, part of the stem, perhaps as much as 2 ft. of
the height, where the cross-head rests upon it, is obviously missing.
The arms also are missing, but the cross was originally of much the
same outline as that of the cross at Irton and that from Cheadle.
The ornament of the Whalley cross, however, is of much more refined
execution. The date of it may be about 1000.
In the churchyard of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, opposite to the
south porch, stands an ancient shaft, 14 ft. high, traditionally known
as the Danes' cross (Fig. 2). It rises from a round stone, 7 ft. in
diameter, and its form is that of a cylinder, 2 ft. 6 in. in diameter,
tapering toward the neck. Almost the entire surface of the shaft is
covered with sculptured ornament of about the year 1150 to 1175. There
is, or was, a somewhat similar example in the churchyard of Leek, in
the same county.
Another twelfth-century cross is that inscribed in memory of Ralph's
son, William, at Fletton, in Huntingdonshire (Figs. 40, 41).
This cross is a monolith, though the continuity of the design is
interrupted by a heavy fillet, forming a horizontal band round the
middle of the shaft.
[Illustration: 36. WHITFORD, FLINTSHIRE
EAST SIDE OF CROSS, NAMED MAEN Y CHWYFAN]
[Illustration: 37. ST COLUMB MAJOR, CORNWALL
HEAD OF A CROSS IN THE CHURCHYARD]
[Illustration: 38. MAWGAN-IN-PYDER, CORNWALL
LANHERNE HOUSE NUNNERY, CROSS FROM ROSEWORTHY, GWINEAR]
[Illustration: 39. BAKEWELL, DERBYSHIRE
CROSS IN CHURCHYARD]
[Illustration: 40, 41. FLETTON, HUNTINGDONSHIRE
FRONT AND BACK OF CROSS]
[Illustration: 42. HEXHAM, NORTHUMBERLAND
CROSS AT ST GILES' HOSPITAL]
[Illustration: 43. WOOLER, HEDGELEY MOOR, NORTHUMBERLAND
PERCY'S CROSS]
[Illustration: 44. BLANCHLAND, NORTHUMBERLAND
CROSS IN THE ABBEY CHURCHYARD]
The remains of the cross in the grounds of the Spital at Hexham
(Fig. 42) offer an instance of vine scrollwork, derived from debased
late-classic ornament. Another side of the shaft is sculptured in low
relief with a primitive representation of the Crucifixion between two
figures, which, however, bear but slight resemblance to the Mary and
John of post-Conquest tradition.
On the plain of Hedgeley Moor, near Wooler, in the north part of
Northumberland, stands a monolith, commonly known as Percy's Cross
(Fig. 43), because it is alleged to mark the spot where, on 24th April
1464, Sir Ralph Percy fell in a desperate attempt, on the part of
Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI., to recover the throne for her
demented husband. So rude and primitive is this monument that it is
hard to believe that it could have been executed in the technically
skilled period of the fifteenth century. It displays conspicuously,
however, the badges of the house of Percy--the luces, or pike, the
mascles, and the crescents, sculptured on its eight sides. The
pillar stands on a plain, rugged socket. This cross became the
rallying point, where the men of the north, opposed to the religious
innovations of Henry VIII., gathered under the banner of the Five
Wounds, badge of the ill-starred Pilgrimage of Grace, in 1536-7.
Percy's Cross, on Hedgeley Moor, must not be confounded with the Percy
Cross at Otterburn, erected to commemorate the battle of Chevy Chase,
fought on 19th August 1388. The latter cross is a simple monolith,
which has a decided entasis, and is mounted on a pile of masonry,
resembling but roughly a flight of circular steps.
The cross in the churchyard of Blanchland Abbey, Northumberland (Fig.
44), is an interesting example of Gothic design applied to a monolith.
From the style of its head this cross can scarcely date back any
earlier than the late-thirteenth, or early-fourteenth century.
III. THE SHAFT-ON-STEPS TYPE
The average form of standing cross, and such to which the vast
majority of them, not in churchyards only, but also on village
greens and squares, or by the wayside, belongs, is that of the
shaft-on-steps type. 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. It rarely happens that any two examples are found quite
alike in all respects. For though the simplest of motifs be adopted,
yet a minute change of detail, such as a hollow chamfer instead of
a plain, flat bevel, or the setting of an angle pedestal diagonally
instead of squarely with the side it adjoins, or some such other
slight divergence, if insignificant in itself, will not fail to
produce, by consistent repetition, a widely different result in the
aggregate. The parts which lend themselves more appropriately than the
rest to ornamental treatment are the socket, the knop, and most of
all, the head. The steps, whether circular, rectangular, hexagonal,
or octagonal on plan, are not made the subject for ornament, except
rarely, and then it is confined to a moulded overhanging drip, or
a moulded set-off in the angle between the tread and the riser, as
for example, at Bishop's Lydeard (Fig. 20), Charlton Mackerel (Fig.
19), and North Petherton, in Somersetshire (Fig. 77), and Raunds, in
Northamptonshire (Fig. 45). Raunds cross has two steps, and the riser
of the upper one is enriched with late-Gothic quatrefoil panelling.
Such treatment, however, is altogether exceptional; and even in this
case can scarcely be authentic, seeing that the quatrefoils are not
properly spaced, as they must have been spaced, had they been designed
for the position they now occupy.
[Illustration: 45. RAUNDS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
CHURCHYARD CROSS]
On the other hand, the stone block or socket, into which the shaft
is mortised (and furthermore, as a rule, secured with lead), was
regarded as a thoroughly appropriate place for ornament. It is most
usually square on plan, and its upper bed made octagonal by means of
steps or broaches, in the shaping of which a very great variety is
manifested. The commonest form of step is diamond-pointed, but there
are others which take the shape of a sort of round hump. Examples of
plain diamond steps occur in the sockets of Thatcham (Fig. 61) and
Water Perry (Fig. 4) crosses. The socket at Stanway, Gloucestershire
(Fig. 60), with its severely geometrical triangles and lozenges, is
of most unusual form. It measures 1 ft. 10 in. high, exclusive of the
fractured stump of the shaft. Convex angle-stops occur at Carlton
(Fig. 63), Cumnor (Fig. 59), Stringston (Fig. 5), and Wicken (Fig.
62). The socket of the last-named cross is 2 ft. 6 in. square by 1
ft. 8 in. high. Its octagonal shaft is 11½ in. square at the foot,
with pointed stops reaching up to a height of 9 in. Some of the round
stops, at the corners of sockets, have a diagonal ridge extending
to the outer angle, as at Carlton (Fig. 63), Stevington (Fig. 17),
and Stringston (Fig. 5). The knop of the last-named, it may be
mentioned, consisted of four demi-angels, holding shields, but their
heads have been broken off, and themselves made almost unrecognisable
through defacement. To resume, the sockets of the crosses at Elmswell
in Suffolk, at Bradford Abbas and Stalbridge (Fig. 58), both in
Dorsetshire, and of at least a dozen crosses in Somersetshire,
including Doulting (Figs. 74, 75, and 76), Evercreech, Minehead, North
Petherton (Fig. 77), West Pennard, and Wraxall, have angle-pedestals
on every alternate cant of the octagon. These pedestals may have been
designed for statuettes of the four Evangelists. Whatever the subject
of the figures, the effect of the whole group, with the tall shaft in
the middle, must have been very handsome. At Dundry (Fig. 78) and Wick
St Laurence, both in Somersetshire, instead of detached or engaged
pedestals, there are, at the angles of the square socket, clasping
buttresses with mouldings. The plan of Dundry, Wraxall, and Yatton
is made extra elaborate and complex by means of a plinth, forming an
eight-pointed figure, inserted between the socket and the topmost step
of the calvary.
At Headington (Figs. 69 and 70), Ombersley (Figs. 66, 67, and 68),
Raglan (Fig. 71), and Wicken (Fig. 62), the sockets are handsomely
panelled with late-Gothic tracery ornament, principally quatrefoils.
The sockets of Doulting (Figs. 74, 75, and 76) and West Pennard
crosses, in Somersetshire, have emblems of the Passion carved on
the sides; that at Charlton Mackerel (Fig. 19) has the Evangelistic
symbols in the same position. More rarely, as at Bishop's Lydeard
(Fig. 20) and Long Sutton, both also in Somersetshire, and at
Rampisham and Stalbridge (Fig. 58), both in Dorsetshire, and
Yarnton, Oxfordshire (Figs. 51 and 52), the panels of the socket
contain sculptured figure-subjects. An octagonal socket at Westcote,
Gloucestershire, has a standing figure under a trefoiled niche on
each side. This is an early example, since its date is the thirteenth
century. At Didmarton, in the same county, is a fourteenth-century
socket, octagonal on plan, having a half-length figure sculptured on
every alternate side.
The churchyard cross at Dorchester, Oxfordshire (Fig. 65), had lost
its original head by the time that Buckler made his sketch in 1813.
According to him, the lower step was 6 in. high, and the next one
above it 10 in. high. The socket was 1 ft. 7 in. square on plan, by
1 ft. 6 in. high; the shaft being a monolith 8 ft. 6½ in. high
from socket to head. As to the socket, the transition from square to
octagon, by means of stops, is very effective. The cross has since
suffered drastic "restoration." The treatment of the stops on the
socket may be compared with that at Keyingham, Yorkshire (Fig. 64),
and Headington, Oxfordshire (Fig. 69).
The Whitefriars' cross (Figs. 72 and 73), so-called, about a mile from
Hereford, is believed to have been built, shortly after the great
plague at Hereford in the fourteenth century, by Lewis Charlton,
Bishop from 1361 to 1369. On the summit of a lofty flight of seven
steps rises a high pedestal, hexagonal on plan, each side of which has
a sunk panel, sculptured with a shield charged with a lion rampant.
The cornice is embattled, and the whole was crowned with a moulded
socket. Such was the state of the monument in 1806, the shaft and
cross-head having completely disappeared, thereby reducing the total
height to some 15 ft. A new shaft and cross, disproportionately large,
were "restored" by the year 1875. The peculiar feature of this cross
is the lofty pedestal, which scarcely has any parallel, with the
exception of the crosses of Helpston, in Northamptonshire, and of
Aylburton and Clearwell, both in Gloucestershire.
As to the shaft, whether it be cylindrical, clustered, square, or
octagonal, it usually tapers, but is very seldom ornamented, beyond
having a stop near the foot of each alternate cant in an octagonal
stem. A few crosses may now be described, illustrating different
treatments of the shaft.
The cross in the churchyard at Rocester, Staffordshire (Figs. 47 and
48), has three steps, each 6 in. high. The socket is 2 ft. 4 in. high,
and the tapering stem, which is 1 ft. square over all at the bottom,
is 11 ft. 9 in. high, exclusive of the capital. The stem, in the
form of four keel-moulded shafts, with a vertical strip of dog-tooth
ornament between them, must be of early date, possibly as early as
1230.
The socket of the Great Grimsby churchyard cross (Fig. 49) may be
earlier still, although the stem or shaft itself might be somewhat
later, perhaps about the middle of the thirteenth century. On plan
the stem consists of four engaged shafts, each with a keel-mould on
its outermost projection. The step is 3 ft. 8 in. square by 9 in.
high. Next is a socket, 2 ft. 7 in. square on plan, consisting of two
stages, the lower having a trefoiled arcade on each of its four sides,
the upper one octagonal, with mouldings. The shaft is 6 ft. 2 in.
high, including the capital. The total height is 10 ft. 3 in.
The village cross at Harringworth, Northamptonshire, has, not unlike
the last example, a shaft composed of a cluster of eight engaged
columns. It is apparently of late thirteenth-century date.
Two Oxfordshire examples, both of about the same date, 1290, viz., the
churchyard cross at Yarnton (Figs. 51 and 52) and the market cross at
Eynsham (Fig. 50), are adorned with sculpture, notably with canopied
figures in low relief surrounding the foot of the shaft. Both shafts
are much weather-worn, and that of Yarnton has lost its upper half,
but the design of the two crosses appears to have been very similar.
Yarnton cross stands upon two circular steps, the lower one of which
has a diameter of about 6 ft. 9 in. or 7 ft. The socket has a circular
plinth cut out of the same block of stone, and is on plan a quatrefoil
of four circles, with the corners of a smaller square occupying the
inner angles. The moulded capping is also cut in the same block. On
each of the four semicircular faces is a niche incised with a figure
in armour, kneeling, except on the eastern face, which exhibits a
figure reclining somewhat in the familiar "Dying Gaul" attitude. The
figure on the south face has a shield on the left arm. The bottom of
the shaft is square on plan, with beaded angles, while the other part
is on plan a circle, surrounded by four smaller engaged circles, or
segments of circles. The figures round the shaft are four saints, now
too much worn to be identified, under steep gables, with crockets. The
cross at Eynsham differs from that at Yarnton more in the socket than
in any other part. The Eynsham socket is a square block, with a figure
sculptured at each angle, and gabled panels between. The upper part of
the shaft is complete, and shows what must have been the form of the
portion now wanting from Yarnton cross.
Another instance of an ornamented shaft is that of Mitchel Troy
(Fig. 57). There the stem, a monolith of reddish sandstone, about 1
ft. by 8 in. on plan at the foot, tapers to about half the above
dimensions at the point where it is broken off, at a height of about
11 ft. The angles are chamfered, and the chamfers are ornamented
with ball-flowers alternating with shields, sixteen ball-flowers
on each chamfer. The date of this cross is the fourteenth century.
Two Northamptonshire crosses, those of Higham Ferrers (_c._ 1320)
and Irthlingborough (_c._ 1280) respectively (Figs. 55 and 56),
are ornamented with sculptured decorations throughout the whole
height of the shaft. At Ashton-under-Hill, Gloucestershire, the
face of the shaft of the cross, about a third of the distance up
from the bottom, is ornamented with a scutcheon. A certain number
of Somersetshire crosses has a figure under a niche on one side of
the shaft. In cases where, as at Burton St David, Broadway, Holford,
Montacute, and Wiveliscombe, the niche and figure are sunk into the
body of the monolith itself, there can scarcely be any objection
to the device. But where, on the contrary, the statue, set on a
bracket, stands prominently forward beyond the face of the shaft, the
effect is anything but happy. For then the shaft looks so weighted
down in one direction as almost to overbalance. The crosses at
Bishop's Lydeard (Fig. 20) and Crowcombe (Fig. 118) are particularly
exaggerated instances in point; others only less marked being the
crosses at Drayton (Fig. 54), Fitzhead, Heathfield, Hinton St George,
and Horsington (Fig. 53). But this peculiarity is not confined
to Somersetshire. Thus, at Stalbridge, Dorsetshire (Fig. 58), a
conspicuous statue and niche occur on one side of the shaft, while at
Bradford Abbas, in the same county, the churchyard cross, though much
decayed, affords unmistakable traces of having had a statue sculptured
on each of the four sides of the shaft. A similar arrangement is to be
found in Langley Abbey cross, Norfolk.
[Illustration: 46. ROTHERSTHORP, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
HEAD OF CROSS]
The knop, though richly sculptured, is rarely the pronounced and
distinctive feature that it is at Maughold (Figs. 86, 87), St
Donat's (Figs. 108, 109), and Sherburn-in-Elmet (Fig. 113), or in
the so-called Ravenspurne cross, a monument now standing at Hedon,
Yorkshire (Fig. 79). The chamfers of its shaft have traces of figures
about midway, and the head is large and imposing, but too ill-defined
for the subject to be identified. It has, however, been described
as having "curious sculptured emblems of our Lord and the Blessed
Virgin Mary." The cross is said to have been erected to commemorate
the landing of Henry IV. in 1399 at Ravenspur, near Spurn Head, in
the East Riding. Edward IV. also landed there in 1471. Ravenspur was
a well-known seaport in former times, but its site is now completely
submerged. The cross stood on the seashore at Kilnsea until 1818, when
it was removed further inland, for safety from the encroaching sea. It
was eventually set up in the town of Hedon.
Usually the knop is reduced to a mere bead, or at any rate is nothing
more prominent than the expanding cove beneath the actual head, as at
Ampney Crucis, Derwen, and in the two crosses at Cricklade. A factor
of immense importance in preserving the organic coherence between
shaft and head (wherever the latter takes the form of a cross) is
that the lines of the shaft below the knop and of the lower limb of
the cross above the knop, should be absolutely continuous, as though
passing through, but not interrupted by, the knop. This requisite is
satisfactorily exemplified by two very fine Lincolnshire specimens,
viz., the well proportioned cross at Somersby (Fig. 81), and one, now
at Keyingham, Yorkshire (Fig. 80), known, from the name of him who
set it up there, as the Owst cross, since the exact place from which
it originally came in Lincolnshire has not been recorded. In both
these instances, the handsome knop, moulded and embattled, is but a
surrounding band or ring, which occasions no sort of break in the
composition, nor interferes at all with the even trend of its upward
lines. At Somersby the motif of the crenellated knop is admirably
followed up in the battlements of the gabled roof over the head of the
crucifix. The shaft is octagonal, and the cross stands altogether 15
ft. high.
The crown and glory of the cross is the head, and it was upon this
that the choicest art of the sculptor was lavished; and it is
instructive to trace the development from the rudimentary crudities of
the thirteenth to the perfect maturity of the late-fifteenth century.
In pulling down an old barn in the village of Rothersthorp,
Northamptonshire, in 1869, there was found the head of a cross
(Fig. 46), which was placed in the parish church in about 1890. The
stone is 2 ft. 9 in. high by 1 ft. 3 in. wide. The crucifix, which
is surrounded by a ring, springs from a mass of thirteenth-century
foliage, the capital beneath being surrounded with a belt of foliage
of similar kind.
At Halesowen, Worcestershire (Fig. 82), in or about 1915, there was
found, built into the walls of a cottage, the sculptured head of
a cross, which may date as far back as 1300 to 1320. It is of red
sandstone, and much weatherworn, besides the deliberate defacement
which it has undergone. On plan it is an oblong square, 10 in. by
6 in., the extreme height being 1 ft. 7½ in. On one side is a
crucifixion without attendant figures; and, on the opposite side,
the Blessed Virgin enthroned, holding her Divine Son on one arm
and an apple in the other hand. The ends of the cross-head contain
unidentified figures, one a female saint, conjectured to be St Agatha,
the other an ecclesiastic, vested in amice and chasuble, and holding
his crosier in his left hand. That which he wears on his head is
broken, but it looks more like a tiara than a mitre. This cross-head
is a peculiarly interesting example, not only because of its early
date, but also because its existence is hardly known.
The cross-head found among the ruins of Croxden Abbey, Staffordshire
(Fig. 88), and sketched by Buckler in the first half of the nineteenth
century, is of a somewhat unusual type for its purpose, with handsome
crocketing. The Christ has the feet crossed and fastened with a single
nail in the newer fashion, 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 cross is of rich floriation,
overlaid upon which is a perfectly plain narrow cross, bearing the
image of the Crucified, Whose feet are crossed, as at Croxden; while,
on the contrary, the arms and hands are dragged upward in the fashion
that prevailed at a much later period. This cross-head belongs to
about the middle of the fourteenth century. The shaft and steps still
stand in the churchyard, to the south of the chancel. The shaft is
fractured at a height of 8 ft. 9 in. from the socket; the total
height, including socket and steps, is 13 ft. 8 in.
At Bleadon, Somersetshire, "a few years ago," wrote C. Pooley in 1877,
during the restoration of the church, in removing the plaster, there
was found embedded in a recess in the east wall of the porch, the
sculptured stone head of a cross of the time of Edward III. (Fig. 89).
The side exposed, the reverse, portrays the Blessed Virgin and Child
between two donors, a man and woman, kneeling. The remarkable feature
of this cross-head is the gilding and polychrome decoration, of which
considerable traces had survived. The crucifix, on the obverse, being
turned inward to the wall, is hidden from view; but, since this
particular cross belongs to the same group as those, for example, of
Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Stringston, and Wedmore, in the same county, in
which the upper part of the figure-sculpture is pierced through from
front to back, the arms and upper limb of the cross remain clearly
visible from the reverse side.