Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

in Medieval and Early Modern Northern

and Central Europe

Edited by

Krista Kodres and Anu Mnd

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Northern and Central Europe,
Edited by Krista Kodres and Anu Mnd
This book first published 2013
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright 2013 by Krista Kodres, Anu Mnd and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
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ISBN (10): 1-4438-5133-7, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5133-6

Table of ConTenTs
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................vii
Introduction
Krista Kodres and Anu Mnd ........................................................................ 1
Part I
Images and Objects in Religious Rituals ................................................. 13
Late Medieval Images and the Variability of Rituals
Gerhard Jaritz ........................................................................................ 15
To Show That the Place Is Divine:
Consecration Crosses Revisited
Andrew Spicer ........................................................................................ 34
The Rosary and the Wounds of Christ: Devotional Images
in Relation to Late Medieval Liturgy and Piety
Stina Fallberg Sundmark........................................................................ 53
Image, Time and Ritual: The Motif of the Last Supper
in Lutheran Churches
Martin Wangsgaard Jrgensen............................................................... 68
Morian and Merian. Word and Image: A Painting Used
in Teaching the Catechism in the Keila Church (1669)
Aivar Pldvee ......................................................................................... 89
Part II
Visual Culture and the Performances of Power .................................... 103
The Gaze of Power, the Act of Obedience: Interpreting Byzantine
Wall Paintings in Trakai, Lithuania
Giedr Micknait ................................................................................ 105
Baptism and the Kings Coronation: Visual Rhetoric of the
Valdemar Dynasty on Some Scanian and Danish Baptismal Fonts
Kersti Markus ....................................................................................... 122

vi

Table of Contents

In Between the Secular and the Religious: Art, Ritual and

Science in the Funeral Chapel of Reinoud III of Brederode,
Lord of Vianen (14911556), and His Wife, Philipotte de la
Marck (d. 1537), in the Reformed Church of Vianen
Juliette Roding and Nico Hijman ......................................................... 143
Images of Hereditary Succession
Hugo Johannsen ................................................................................... 164
Magic of Presence: The Ceremony of Taking an Oath
of Allegiance in 1690 in Tallinn (Reval)
Krista Kodres ....................................................................................... 183
Between Act, Image, and Memory: Ritual Re-Enactments
in Eighteenth-Century Denmark
Birgitte Bggild Johannsen .................................................................. 204
Part III
Ritual and Self-Representation ............................................................... 225
The Self-Representation of the Late Medieval Cistercian Abbot:
The Case of Henry Kresse of Bukowo Morskie
Emilia Jamroziak .................................................................................. 227
Memoria and Sacral Art in Late Medieval Livonia:
The Gender Perspective
Anu Mnd ............................................................................................. 239
The Ritual Context of Chandeliers and Sconces
in Early Modern Lutheran Churches
Jrgen Beyer......................................................................................... 274
The Art of Rituals: How Samuel Pepys Used His Eyes and Ears
Ruth-E. Mohrmann ............................................................................... 289
Wining and Dining in Style: Architectural Innovations
as a Source for Ritual Change in German Renaissance Palaces
Stephan Hoppe ..................................................................................... 301
Contributors ............................................................................................... 324

aCknowledgemenTs

Throughout the process of preparing this collection of articles, we have

received support from many people and institutions, whom we would like to
acknowledge. Thanks are due in particular to the editorial assistant, Martin
Jnes, who contributed almost a year of his time to this project. We are also
grateful to Richard Adang, who kindly reviewed the language of the book,
and to Carol Koulikourdi who recommended it to Cambridge Scholars Publishing. The following institutions and research projects have contributed to
the funding of the book: Institute of History of Tallinn University, Institute of
Art History of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonian Cultural Endowment,
targeted inanced project no. SF0130019s08 Christianization, Colonization
and Cultural Exchange: The Historical Origins of the European Identity of
Estonia (13th17th Centuries), and the EuroCORECODE programmes project Symbols that Bind and Break Communities of the European Science
Foundation. Last, but not least, we would like to thank all the contributors for
their stimulating ideas.

To show ThaT The PlaCe Is dIvIne:

ConseCraTIon Crosses revIsITed
andrew sPICer
The medieval parish church stood out within the landscape as often the largest
and sometimes the only stone building in the community. It was deined as
a sacred space, but within it there were gradations of holiness that increased
from the churchyard to the church and then to the chancel, where at the altar
Christ became manifest in the consecrated elements at the celebration of the
parish Mass. The churchyard, church and altar became sacred sites through the
act of consecration, which appropriated them for religious uses and set them
apart from the secular realm. While the sanctity of the building was understood by the community, it nonetheless remained intangible to them and was
deined in terms of access and accepted forms of behaviour that were enforced
by the church and its courts. Furthermore the holiness of the building could
be imperilled through an act of desecration and the spilling of blood or other
bodily luids. In such instances, the celebration of the Mass was suspended
and the interment of the dead in the churchyard ceased until the building could
be reconciled.1 There was, however, one constant visual reminder of the rites
that had set the church apart from the world, the series of crosses which had
been anointed by the bishop during the rite of consecration.
The consecration might have taken place earlier than the living memory
of the congregation, but the crosses on the internal and external walls of the
church symbolised this rite and the designation of the church as a holy place.
This understanding of sacred space was rejected at the Reformation, which
also dismissed the ritual of consecration as superstitious and lucrative. When
a new Protestant rite emerged in the early seventeenth century, it did not include the asperging and anointing of church walls.2 Consecration crosses are,
therefore, a relic of the sanctity of medieval churches.
1

See Daniel E. Thiery, Polluting the Sacred: Violence, Faith and the Civilizing of
Parishioners in Late Medieval England (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 4154.
2
Walter Howard Frere, ed., Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the
Reformation, vol. 2, 15361558 (London: Longmans, Green, 1910), 104; Andrew
Spicer, God Will Have a House: Deining Sacred Space and Rites of Consecration
in Early Seventeenth-Century England, in Deining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Andrew Spicer and Sarah Hamilton (Aldershot:

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

35

Although there are some common features, the appearance and artistic form
of consecration crosses can vary from one church to another. Some crosses
are carved in stone, while others are incised into the stone or plaster; many
others, perhaps the majority of surviving crosses, are painted. The crosses can
differ in size; some can be particularly elaborate and decorative while others
are relatively simple. Consecration crosses, therefore, not only commemorate
the ritual sanctiication of the church, but are also a small but distinctive form
of religious art.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, short notices and
articles relating to the crosses found in particular churches or counties were
published in local antiquarian and archaeological journals.3 These reports were
generally limited to brief descriptions of the consecration crosses and their locations. However, two authors provided different perspectives on consecration
crosses. In a short article published in 1885, John Henry Middleton looked at
some thirty churches with consecration crosses and suggested a rough classiication of the different types of crosses.4 A number of surviving consecration
crosses were examined and considered in their ritual context in two articles
by Edward Samuel Dewick, a London clergyman and liturgical scholar.5 The
Ashgate, 2005), 20730; Vera Isaiasz, Early Modern Lutheran Churches: Redeining
the Boundaries of the Holy and the Profane, in Lutheran Churches in Early Modern
Europe, ed. Andrew Spicer (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 1737.
3
E.g., Extracts from the Proceedings of the Committee, Norfolk Archaeology 7
(1872): 352; Mural Paintings in Sussex Churches, Sussex Archaeological Collections
43 (1900): 22048; E. Marshall, Consecration Crosses in Churches, Oxfordshire
Archaeological Society Reports (1899): 2527; G. E. Pritchett, Early Consecration
Crosses in St. Leonards Church, Southminster, Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, n.s., 4 (1893): 28485; T. D. Atkinson, On Some Consecration Crosses
in East Anglian Churches, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 11 /
n.s., 5 (19036): 25562; Atkinson, Some Consecration Crosses, Proceedings of the
Cambridge Antiquarian Society 15 / n.s., 9 (191011): 14349; A. Whitford Anderson,
Throcking Church Consecration Crosses, Transactions of the East Hertfordshire
Archaeological Society 7 (1924): 11718; Francis C. Eeles, Consecration Crosses
on Somerset and Dorset Churches, Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and
Natural History Society 76 (1930): 2227.
4
John Henry Middleton, On Consecration Crosses, with Some English Examples,
Archaeologia 48 (1885): 45664.
5
Edward S. Dewick, Consecration Crosses and the Ritual Connected with Them,
Archaeological Journal 65 (1908): 134; Dewick, Notes on Consecration Crosses,
Transactions of the St. Pauls Ecclesiological Society 7 (191115): 17793. The latter
article was delivered as a paper in 1890 and revised for publication in 1915. Although
the content of the two articles overlap, some of the principles outlined in the irst published article are developed further in the second piece.

36

To Show That the Place Is Divine

notes, photographs and rubbings of consecration crosses on which Dewicks

articles were based, together with the papers of Francis Carolus Eeles on the
same subject, were deposited at the Society of Antiquaries in London during
the 1960s.6 Middletons and Dewicks articles formed the principal sources
for later studies of consecration crosses in medieval England.7
Recent research into sacred space has concentrated more on the delineation
or creation of sacred space, in particular considering the demarcation between
the sacred and the profane, the religious and the secular. Further studies
have considered the desecration and destruction of sacred space, particularly
through the iconoclastic assaults associated with the Reformation, as well
as the re-conceptualisation of the sanctity of religious buildings in the early
modern period.8 This research has not examined the symbolism of consecration
crosses; even within the broader ield of the material culture of medieval and
early modern religion, they have not been the focus of attention.9 Consecration
crosses have been considered briely by some architectural historians; they
are noted, for example, in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments
inventories as church ittings, but do not appear in Nikolaus Pevsners Buildings
of England series.10 Research has been undertaken by art historians as part of
the wider iconographic and schematic studies of medieval wall paintings.11
There has, therefore, not been any attempt to research consecration crosses per
6

Society of Antiquaries, London, SAL/MS/972, 973.

See, e.g., John Charles Cox, Churchwardens Accounts from the Fourteenth Century
to the Close of the Seventeenth Century (London: Methuen, 1913), appendix; Raymond
W. L. Muncey, A History of the Consecration of Churches and Churchyards (Cambridge:
Heffer & Sons, 1930), ch. 7.
8
Barbara A. Hanawalt and Michal Kobialka, eds., Medieval Practices of Space (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000); Will Coster and Andrew Spicer, eds.,
Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005);
Spicer and Hamilton, Deining the Holy; Lawrence Besserman, ed., Sacred and Secular
in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: New Essays (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2006).
9
See, e.g., Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England,
c. 1400c. 1580 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992); Robert Whiting, The
Reformation of the English Parish Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010).
10
See, e.g., Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of
the Historical Monuments in Essex, 4 vols. (London: HMSO, 191623), 1:xxx, 2:xxxiv,
4:xlii.
11
Ernest W. Tristram, English Medieval Wall Painting, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 194450); Tristram, English Wall Painting of the Fourteenth Century, ed.
Eileen Tristram (London: Routledge & Paul, 1955); Roger Rosewell, Medieval Wall
Paintings in English and Welsh Churches (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2008).
7

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

37

se, in spite of the renewed focus on sacred space. The intention of this essay
is therefore to reconsider the artistic form and signiicance of consecration
crosses, in relation to ecclesiastical rituals and traditions. It draws upon the
earlier research of Dewick and Middleton, but it is also based on extensive
ield work, revisiting and reassessing their examples but also identifying
other consecration crosses. Although consecration crosses are found on the
continent, this preliminary essay will focus solely on the surviving examples
and evidence from pre-Reformation England.

I
During the Middle Ages a complex ritual of consecration had developed, which
included a number of particular ceremonies that were intended to purify the
new church and sanctify it for religious use. The key elements included: the
puriication of the building through using hyssop branches to asperge both the
internal and external walls with holy water, the symbolic taking possession by
the bishop knocking three times on the door and entering the building, prayers
and litanies for the sanctiication of the church, the abecedarium, or writing of
the Greek and Latin alphabets, in ashes in two diagonal lines across the loor of
the building, the consecration of the altar and the burial of relics, the anointing
of the walls with chrism, and inally the celebration of the Mass. There were
a number of variants to this rite but, in the late thirteenth century, the service
compiled by the papal administrator and liturgist Guillaume Durand, the bishop
of Mende, from earlier sacramentals and pontiicals came to be recognised as
the authoritative form of consecration.12 A revised version was published in
1485 as the Liber Pontiicales and, ultimately, as the Pontiicale Romanum it
was enjoined on the whole Catholic Church by Pope Clement VIII in 1596,
providing a single form of ceremonies to be used by bishops.13
Dewicks close examination of the English pontiicals demonstrated that
there was one signiicant difference from the rites that were employed on the
continent. From the eleventh century onwards, the English pontiicals required
12
For an overview, see Didier Mhu, Historiae et imagines de la conscration de
lglise au Moyen ge, in Mises en scne et mmoires de la conscration de lglise
dans lOccident mdival, ed. Didier Mhu (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 1528; Michel
Andrieu, Le pontiical romain au Moyen-ge, vol. 1, Le pontiical romain du XIIe sicle
(Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1938), 1718.
13
Pierre de Puniet, The Roman Pontiical: A History and Commentary, trans. Mildred
B. Harcourt (London: Longmans, Green, 1932), 4451; Thaddeus S. Ziolkowski,
The Consecration and Blessing of Churches: A Historical Synopsis and Commentary
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1943), 2224.

38

To Show That the Place Is Divine

the bishop not only to anoint the internal walls with chrism in twelve places,
which was the usual continental practice, but also the external walls. This
divergence in liturgical practice was conirmed in a late fourteenth- or early
ifteenth-century pontiical of London, which recorded two forms for consecrating a church, one according to the Roman use and the other in the manner of
the English Church. By this date, the rites had evolved from the simple anointing of the walls to the painting of consecration crosses before this could take
place. English pontiicals stipulated that twelve equally-spaced crosses were
to be painted on the internal walls and a similar number on the external walls.
These crosses were to be anointed by the bishop with chrism and then censed.
The London pontiical stated that these crosses were to be painted red and each
was to have an iron branch for a candle. By the sixteenth century, the Roman
pontiical required the crosses to be painted at a height of ten palms, 7.5 feet
(2.3 m), off the ground. This meant that a ladder was required for the bishop
to reach the consecration cross and anoint it with holy oil; this was depicted in
a woodcut that accompanied a 1520 printed edition of the pontiical.14
Surviving consecration crosses indicate that liturgical practice broadly
conformed to the ordinances speciied in the pontiicals. Antiquarian accounts
and surviving examples provide some insight into the form and pattern of
external consecration crosses. There is evidence to suggest that these were
sometimes painted on the outside walls. In the late nineteenth century, a
Norfolk antiquarian noted that there were twelve patches of plaster on the
external walls of the Newton St. Faiths Church and apparently still traces
of colour on similarly plastered sections at Shotesham. Middleton remarked
that, at North Repps in the same county, there were patches of stucco on the
walls of roughly cut lint; there were twelve of them, each four foot (1.2 m)
square, onto which consecration crosses would have been painted.15 Such
simple external crosses were probably commonplace but, as at North Repps,
have subsequently been lost through church restoration and rebuilding. Discs
on which consecration crosses were painted remain at the east and west ends
of the Holbrook church in Suffolk, inside of which there were apparently three
internal crosses at the west end, but these are now covered by a noticeboard
and only two others are visible.16 The surviving examples of external conDewick, Consecration Crosses, 511; Walter Howard Frere, ed., Pontiical Services: Illustrated from Miniatures of the XVth and XVIth Centuries, 4 vols. (London:
Longmans, Green, 19018), 1:4950, 88, 4:3839.
15
Middleton, On Consecration Crosses, 458; Extracts from the Proceedings, 352;
Dewick, Consecration Crosses, 21n2.
16
H. Munro Cautley, Suffolk Churches and Their Treasures, 5th ed. (Woodbridge:
Boydell, 1982), 196, 297.

14

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

39

secration crosses tend to be either carved or incised examples. At Ufington in

Berkshire, eleven of the twelve external roundels with traces of consecration
crosses remain, with three at the east and west ends of the church and the rest
distributed along the north and south walls.17 There appears to have been a
similar arrangement of incised consecration crosses at Yetminster in Dorset,
where eleven are still evident.18
There appear to be fewer relatively complete series of internal consecration
crosses. At Throcking, Hertfordshire, twelve painted internal crosses were
discovered and recorded in the early twentieth century, although they were
subsequently concealed. The twelve crosses were unevenly distributed along
the north and south walls of the church; their height from the ground varied
between 3 feet 2 inches (97 cm) and 6 feet 9 inches (2.1 m).19 The lowest
consecration cross was located in the chancel and a similar distinction in
height can be seen elsewhere, such as with the surviving consecration crosses at Inglesham in Wiltshire. The arrangement and height of the surviving
consecration crosses in Henry VIIs chapel at Westminster Abbey accorded
more closely with the rubrics. Dewick identiied nine crosses, three crosses
of similar size on both the south and north aisle walls and three larger crosses
on the west wall; he also found possible traces of two other crosses at the east
end of the two aisles. The aisle crosses were all at a height of nearly eight feet,
as required by the Roman pontiical.20 Only the repainted west wall crosses
now remain; the much smaller aisle crosses, which would have been painted within the narrow spaces of intricate wall tracery, have been lost. Small
holes above modern wall lighting in three locations in both aisles appear to
be at the right height to be the remains of these smaller consecration crosses.
At the Exeter Cathedral, there is an example of an uninished consecration
cross cut into the wall of the south aisle with a completed cross above it. The
lower cross was abandoned, presumably because it was not at the requisite
height for a consecration cross.21 In many churches, the number of extant
consecration crosses are too few to get a clear sense of whether they were
equally distributed around the church interior or placed at the requisite height,
but from the examples that do survive it is clear that actual practice varied
markedly.
The symbolism of these crosses was discussed in Durands commentary
on his pontiical, the Rationale divinorum oficiorum. Composed in 1286,
17
18
19
20
21

Dewick, Consecration Crosses, 17.

Eeles, Consecration Crosses, 2627.
Whitford Anderson, Throcking Church Consecration Crosses, 117.
Dewick, Consecration Crosses, 1920.
Ibid., 1819.

40

To Show That the Place Is Divine

it became one of the most widely circulated medieval liturgical treatises.

According to Durand:
These crosses are painted, in the irst place, to terrify the demons, so that when
the demons that have been expelled from there see the sign of the cross, they
will be terriied and not presume to return there. In the second place, they are
signs of triumph, for the crosses are battle standards of Christ and the signs
of His triumph. It is right, therefore, that crosses be painted there to show that
this place is subjected to the dominion of Christ.
Third, so that they relect on the Passion of Christ, by which He Himself consecrated His Church, and that faith in the Passion will be implanted in their
memory.22

This discussion of the symbolism of consecration crosses was also incorporated into another popular medieval work, the largely hagiographical Golden
Legend, which asserted that there are painted the crosses for to show that
the place is divine, subject to God. Besides the crosses themselves, lights
were placed in front of them to represent the twelve Apostles, which by
their faith of god cruciied, they enlumined [illuminated] all the world.23 The
crosses were also important as a tangible reminder that the church had been
consecrated in the past. Discussing the circumstances in which reconsecration should take place, Durand argued that it was doubtful that a church had
been previously consecrated if there is no text or picture or sculpture treating
this event.24
The anniversary of the buildings dedication or consecration was an
important feast in the parishs liturgical year. Some of the English pontiicals
even called upon the bishops to remind the congregation at the time of consecration to mark the date so that the anniversary could be kept as a special feast,
which occasionally also came to be included in ecclesiastical calendars. In
some dioceses, it was ordered that the date of the feast of dedication should be
recorded in the church. The occasion was also associated with parish pardons,
indulgences which were granted by local bishops to those who attended these
anniversary services.25 The indulgences were publicly advertised, perhaps with
The Rationale Divinorum Oficiorum of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation
of the Prologue and Book One, trans. Timothy M. Thibodeau (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2007), 69.
23
Jacobus de Voragine, Here begynneth the legende in latyn legenda aurea that is to
saye in Englysshe the golden legende. , 2 pts. (Westmynster: Wynkyn de Worde,
[1498]), 2: fol. 37v.
24
Rationale Divinorum Oficiorum, 70.
25
Nicholas Orme, Indulgences in Medieval Cornwall, Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, n.s. ii, 1, pt. 2 (1992): 15051; Orme, English Church Dedications:

22

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

41

the date of consecration, through being painted on the church walls. At Mildenhall in Suffolk, for example, a papal rather than episcopal pardon appears
to have been carved into or painted on the wall of the church.26 According to
the Golden Legend, the dedication of the church is solemnly hallowed among
the other feasts of the church. And because that it is double church or temple,
that is to wit, material and spiritual.27 The liturgy for the occasion reminded
the faithful that this is the house of God; this is the gate of Heaven.28 John
Mirks collection of sermons included one for the feast of dedication which
called upon the congregation to come to church to worship God, having in
mind the causes why the church is hallowed: one for the church cleansing, and
for devout praying, and for the dead burying.29 Dewick argued that, while on
the continent candles were burnt before the consecration crosses at these feasts,
he could neither ind references in English liturgical works for the practice nor
evidence in churchwardens accounts for additional expenditures for the setting
up of lamps at dedication feasts, or that the cost of candles was greater than for
other major feast days. While acknowledging the celebration of the feast, he
concluded that I am disposed to think that in most cases the crosses received
no annual cult in England.30
Although further research needs to be undertaken, not least a close look
at a range of churchwardens accounts, Dewicks assertion is questionable
and has been challenged by Tristram.31 From an archaeological perspective,
beneath or sometimes in the centre of surviving consecration crosses, there are
holes which would have been used for a branch to hold a candle or for ixing a
sconce. These are particularly evident below the external crosses at Edington
in Wiltshire, and in the centre of some of the crosses at Barwick (Somerset)
and Yetminster. In some cases, such as Ottery St. Mary, iron stumps of these
With a Survey of Cornwall and Devon (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996), 8;
Robert N. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England: Passports to Paradise?
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 5045.
26
Nicholas Orme, Indulgences in the Diocese of Exeter, 11001536, Reports and
Transactions of the Devonshire Association 120 (1988): 21; Judith Middleton-Stewart,
ed., Records of the Churchwardens of Mildenhall: Collections (14461454) and
Accounts (15031553) (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2011), xxxiii, lxvii, 85.
27
De Voragine, Golden legende, 2: fol. 34v.
28
The Sarum Missal in English, trans. Frederick E. Warren, 2 vols. (London: A. R.
Mowbray, 1913), 1:414.
29
John Mirk, Mirks Festial: A Collection of Homilies, ed. Theodor Erbe, vol. 1 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trbner, 1905), 27778.
30
Dewick, Notes on Consecration Crosses, 180.
31
Tristram, English Medieval Wall Painting, 1:62.

42

To Show That the Place Is Divine

former lamp brackets still remain protruding beneath the crosses.32 While
candles would have been lit before these crosses as part of the rite of consecration, it seems unlikely that they would not have been lit on other occasions,
such as dedication festivals. In fact, at Hessett in Suffolk, one of the churchs
consecration crosses is stained by scorch marks, which suggests that these
lamps were used more than once.33 That they were used for dedication festivals
is also suggested by the protest made to the consistory court of Wells by the
churchwardens of Carhampton, Somerset, in ca. 1528. They complained that
there were no crosses on the doors of the church before which candles should
be lit on the feast of the dedication.34 This fragmentary evidence does imply
that the consecration crosses were part of the annual feasts of dedication, and
therefore an important reminder of the sanctity of the building.

II
One of the problems in examining consecration crosses is the loss of so many
examples as a consequence of the religious changes associated with the Reformation. The requirement to purge church interiors of religious imagery led
to the whitewashing of wall paintings and with them consecration crosses.
By the time William Dowsing came to visit and destroy any surviving religious imagery in East Anglian churches during the 1640s, most consecration
crosses had probably been painted over. Amidst his destruction of cruciixes
and external crosses, such as on the church gable, porch or tower, there are a
few references in his journal to what might have been remaining consecration
crosses. At Offton in Suffolk, Dowsing found some crosses on the outside of
the church, and chancel; and we gave order to deface them and at Darmsden
he found three crosses in the chancel, on the wall.35 Besides the ideological
destruction of the Reformation, further losses occurred in the nineteenth century
as a result of the restoration of medieval churches, during which plaster was
stripped from church interiors, and exterior walls were refaced with new stone.
It was this later destruction that in part led Dewick and others to record
the surviving examples, but their notes also reveal instances where the crosses
32

John Neale Dalton, ed., The Collegiate Church of Ottery St. Mary: Being the Ordinacio et Statuta Eecclesie Sancte Marie de Otery Exon. Diocesis, A.D. 1338, 1339
(Cambridge: University Press, 1917), 21; Dewick, Consecration Crosses, 23.
33
Rosewell, Medieval Wall Paintings, 152.
34
Aelred Watkin, ed., Dean Cosyn and Wells Cathedral Miscellanea ([Frome]: printed
for subscribers only [by Butler & Tanner], 1941 [i.e. 1943]), 158.
35
Trevor Cooper, ed., The Journal of William Dowsing: Iconoclasm in East Anglia
during the English Civil War (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001), 100, 237, 30910.

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

43

were subsequently lost due to the actions of restorers.36 Keyser noted some
seventy-nine crosses in his gazetteer of medieval wall paintings, while Dewick
identiied 170 parish churches where they remained.37 This seems likely to be
an underestimate, as Dewicks research appears to have been largely based
on published sources and examples sent to him by correspondents rather than
extensive ieldwork. Several examples included in this paper, such as Inglesham, are not on his lists.38 Furthermore, as another antiquarian noted, there
are few subjects as to which more blunders have been made in the past than
that of consecration crosses. Confusion has also arisen over incised crosses
inside doorways, which were not consecration crosses, as well as instances
where a cross was used merely as a form of decoration.39 This is particularly
true of the lint used to decorate and embellish some East Anglican churches.
At Blythborough, the two elaborate quatrefoil lint crosses beneath the east
window of the church were identiied by Middleton as consecration crosses;
in the centre is an undecorated weathered stone. The same quatrefoil design,
however, is repeated on the lower parts of aisle buttresses, where they seem
more likely to be decorative than an indication of past religious rites.40
The artistic form of consecration crosses varied markedly, but by the ifteenth century the English pontiicals had become more prescriptive, requiring
crosses to be painted red and to be enclosed by circles. Some crosses were
painted green or ochre, but these seem to have been amongst the earlier forms.41
The most common and simplest form of cross was incised into the plaster using
a compass to form a cross patte (where the arms at the centre of the cross are
narrow but wide at the end), within a circle or circular border, as can be seen at
Inglesham (ig. 1) and Kenton (Suffolk) (ig. 2). In his attempt to classify these
crosses, Middleton described this form as Type A. However, as his examples
illustrated, within this conventional form it was possible to vary the size and
shape of the cross, such as having curved or straight arms, or developing more
complicated geometric designs. A second artistic form of cross can also be
36

Middleton, On Consecration Crosses, 45758; Dewick, Consecration Crosses,

1. See also Mural Paintings in Sussex Churches, 22048.
37
Charles E. Keyser, A List of Buildings in Great Britain and Ireland Having Mural
and Other Painted Decorations. , 3d ed. (London: HMSO, 1883), 35253; Dewick,
Consecration Crosses, 21n1.
38
Society of Antiquaries, London, SAL/MS/972.
39
Dewick, Consecration Crosses, 2933; Cox, Churchwardens Accounts, 35051.
See also Pritchett, Early Consecration Crosses, 28485.
40
Middleton, On Consecration Crosses, 463, plate XXXVII ig. 23; Dewick, Notes
on Consecration Crosses, 188.
41
Tristram, English Wall Painting of the Fourteenth Century, 29; Mural paintings in
Sussex Churches, 231, 242.

44

To Show That the Place Is Divine

Fig. 1. Consecration cross at the

church of Inglesham, Wiltshire.
Photo by the author.

Fig. 2. Consecration cross at the

church of Kenton, Suffolk.
Photo by the author.

identiied. Again formed within a circle, this type of cross was simpler and the
arms were all the same thickness. The two surviving consecration crosses at
St. Marys Church, Ashby near Herringleet, Suffolk (ig. 3), for example, are
very thin, but each arm ends in a trefoil. A further variation can be found at
Ifley, Oxfordshire, where the painted straight arms of the cross extend beyond
the roundel. As these few examples illustrate, within the ritual requirements
of the pontiical, the appearance of consecration crosses could be subtly or
signiicantly different.
Besides the crosses themselves, the roundels could be further embellished
with decorative garlands. At Carleton Rode in Norfolk, this took the form of a
stylised chain or interwoven circles, but they could be much more elaborate.
At Westhall, Suffolk (ig. 4), there is a simple cross with crude trefoil termini,
which is surrounded by an ochre circle from which shoot off sprigs with leaves
and lowers in the same colour. Even more impressive loral garlands can be
seen surrounding a number of the extant consecration crosses at Bale, Norfolk (ig. 5). The elaborate swirls of these garlands mean that some of these
consecration crosses are four feet wide. The elaborate, decorative forms of
these crosses make them appear more important and prominent than the simple
roundels painted on the church walls.
These more elaborate forms would seem to challenge Dewicks argument
that consecration crosses were often neglected in England or covered by
medieval wall paintings. Although he did not change his opinion, he later
admitted that a payment of three pence made by the churchwardens of St.
Michaels Church, Bath for seven new crosses may have been to replace those

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

Fig. 3. Consecration cross at

St. Marys Church, Ashby near
Herringleet, Suffolk.
Photo: Evelyn Simak.

45

Fig. 4. Consecration cross at the church

of Westhall, Suffolk. Photo by the author.

Fig. 5. Consecration cross

at the church of Bale, Norfolk.
Photo by the author.
obliterated when the church was whitewashed.42 Further research needs to
be undertaken into the relationship between wall paintings and consecration
crosses. At Thornham Parva, Suffolk, the crosses appear beneath the depiction
of the martyrdom and miracles of St. Edmund, and at Inglesham the consecration cross at the east end appears against a background of painted drapery.
In other instances, the cross appears amidst or even superimposed on the wall
42

Dewick, Consecration Crosses, 14; Dewick, Notes on Consecration Crosses,

18081; Charles B. Pearson, ed., The Churchwardens Accounts of the Church and
Parish of St. Michael without the North Gate, Bath, 13491575, Proceedings of the
Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 2326 (187780): 82.

46

To Show That the Place Is Divine

Fig. 6. Consecration cross at

the church of Yetminster, Dorset.
Photo by the author.

Fig. 7. Consecration cross at

the church of Nether Compton,
Dorset. Photo by the author.

paintings rather than being covered over by new decorative schemes. This
would suggest that consecration crosses could be a part of the broader visual
programme of the church interior.
Furthermore, the signiicance of some crosses appears to have been
enhanced by painted inscriptions emphasising the sanctity of the church. The
popularity of such inscriptions increased during the fourteenth century.43 In
Norwich, two crosses which were recorded on the east wall of the chancel
of St. Saviours Church bore the words et porta celi [sic] and et aula
vocabitur dei ([This is] the gate of heaven; and it shall be called the court of
God), words which came from the ofices for the consecration of the church,
as well as for the anniversary of its dedication.44 Crosses in other churches in
the city similarly once bore religious inscriptions asserting the sanctity of the
building. At St. John de Sepulchre, one bore the legend Adorabo sanctum
tuum dominie (I will worship in thy holy temple, O Lord), while at St. Peter
Mancroft painted scrolls above the crosses stated Domum tuam domine decet
sanctitudo (Holiness becometh thy house, O Lord) and Beati qui habitant in
domo tua domine (Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord).45 Outside
the city, there are traces of black letter inscriptions associated with the crosses
at Worstead.46 Further aield in Devon, in the crosses lanking the west door
of the church of Ottery St. Mary, each has a dressed stone beneath the crosses
43
44
45
46

Tristram, English Wall Painting of the Fourteenth Century, 29.

Sarum Missal, 1:414; Extracts from the Proceedings, 352.
Extracts from the Proceedings, 352.
Rosewell, Medieval Wall Paintings, 15052.

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

Fig. 8. Consecration cross at

the church of Chedzoy, Somerset.
Photo by the author.

47

Fig. 9. Consecration cross at

the church of Moorlinch, Somerset.
Photo by the author.

of equal width, which may have also been intended to bear an inscription or
perhaps a record of the consecration.47
Besides the painted crosses, another artistic type were those carved in
stone or incised into the existing church wall. At Yetminster (ig. 6), there are
ten external crosses which are carved into the walls, in some instances across
several courses of masonry. An eleventh cross at the apex of the west door is
much smaller but stylistically similar to the other crosses, so it may well be an
eleventh consecration cross rather than a decorative detail. Stylistically, there
is a clear resemblance to the carved crosses at nearby Nether Compton (ig. 7).
There are a further ive churches in this area of West Dorset where there are
similarly carved external and internal consecration crosses.48
Eeles identiied a series of carved consecration crosses at several Somerset
churches, which are stylistically different from the Dorset crosses.49 At Chedzoy
(ig. 8), the medieval consecration crosses are carved in relief within a roundel;
the centres and ends of the arms are decorated with roses. Those at Moorlinch
(ig. 9) resemble painted crosses with slender arms ending in trefoils, but whether these are medieval is questionable. The external stonework of the chancel
appears to have been refaced, possibly at the same time as the restoration of
the interior, and the surviving consecration crosses might be of a similar date,
47

Dalton, Collegiate Church of Ottery St. Mary, 21.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, vol. 1, West (London: HMSO, 1952), xli, 28, 101, 124, 134,
168, 250, 271.
49
Eeles, Consecration Crosses, 25; Dewick, Notes on Consecration Crosses, plate 3.
48

48

To Show That the Place Is Divine

Fig. 10. Consecration cross

at the church of Cannington,
Somerset. Photo by the author.

Fig. 11. Consecration cross at

the church of Ottery St. Mary,
Devon. Photo by the author.

perhaps replacing medieval stones.50 The seventeen carved chunky crosses at

Cannington (ig. 10), with bold trefoils at the end of each arm but not within
a roundel or circle, are particularly puzzling. These are carved square stones
inserted into the red sandstone walls and, while some of them are placed where
one might expect to ind consecration crosses (such as three at the east end),
their number far exceeds the required twelve. Furthermore, some of these
carvings are relatively crisp and do not seem to have been subject to more
than ive centuries of weathering. They may have been inserted during the
nineteenth-century restoration of the church, perhaps replacing earlier crosses,
their number being increased to ornament the external walls.
Although the form of a carved cross in a roundel is the predominant type
of consecration cross, there are two examples where the design is much more
elaborate. At Ottery St. Mary (ig. 11), which was rebuilt by Bishop Grandisson
of Exeter in 1337, roundels are carved into square stone panels. The interior
of the roundel is carved as a quatrefoil in which there is a half-length igure
of an angel bearing a cross. Although some are badly eroded and others have
been restored, there are now thirteen such crosses on the exterior of the church
and a further six inside, although heavily restored in the nineteenth century
by William Butterield.51 At St. Georges Chapel, Windsor (ig. 12), there is a
similarly elaborate form, which incorporates a crown and the rose-en-soleil
50

A History of the County of Somerset, vol. 8, The Poldens and the Levels, ed. Robert
W. Dunning (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2004), 133.
51
Dalton, Collegiate Church of Ottery St. Mary, 2122; Dewick, Notes on Consecration Crosses, 186.

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

49

Fig. 12. Consecration cross at

St. Georges Chapel, Windsor,
Berkshire. Photo by the author.

badge of Edward IV. The cross, now eroded from this example, was originally
at the centre of the design, but it is overshadowed by royal iconography. There
are no holes or spikes below the crosses which could have held brackets for
candles and, as there are only eight extant, it is possible that the scheme may be
incomplete and that the chapel was not consecrated.52 Dewick has questioned
whether these were actually consecration crosses, perhaps merely intended
to be decorative.53 A later evaluation concluded that due to variations in their
height, and the lack of evidence of spikes, and also because their iconography
was very different from other consecration crosses, that these were in fact royal
badges or emblems.54 There is no doubt that the crosses at Ottery St. Mary
are consecration crosses, even though they are markedly different from the
norm. The diversity of English consecration crosses and also the distribution
of those at St. Georges make it more credible that they are consecration cros52

William H. St. John Hope, Windsor Castle: An Architectural History, 2 vols. (London:
Country Life, 1913), 2:408; Maurice F. Bond, The Cruciix Badges of St. Georges
Chapel, Annual Report of the Friends of St. Georges (1954): 89.
53
Dewick, Notes on Consecration Crosses, 187.
54
Bond, Cruciix Badges, 1112.

50

To Show That the Place Is Divine

Fig. 13. Consecration cross at

Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire.
Photo by the author.

Fig. 14. Consecration cross at

the priory church of Edington,
Wiltshire. Photo by the author.

ses rather than badges. This particular case relects the dificulties that arise
in identifying original designs for a consecration cross. Nonetheless, as the
examples of St. Georges Chapel and Ottery St. Mary demonstrate, it was not
necessary for the simple painted form of the cross to be used in what were
high status building projects.
From as early as the thirteenth century, there was a move away from incised
and painted crosses to a further elaborate form. These were inlaid brass crosses,
a technique which was also sometimes employed for the smaller marks of consecration on altars.55 At the Salisbury Cathedral (ig. 13), the remains of nine
external crosses can be seen, although the brass appears to have disappeared
by the seventeenth century. These take the form of a carved stone disc, each of
which has an indentation for a loriated brass cross; fragments of lead remain in
the holes of the dowels that would have held them in place. These discs must
have been inserted at the time of the construction, as the brass crosses could
only have been attached when the stones were in a horizontal position. This has
led to the conclusion that the crosses were in place for the consecration of the
cathedral on 28 April 1220.56 This form of consecration cross was repeated at
other churches in the diocese. At Ufington, there are eleven external crosses
dating from the mid-thirteenth century with similar circular discs and holes for
55

Tim Tatton-Brown, The Salisbury Cathedral Consecration Crosses, Transactions

of the Monumental Brass Society 16 (1998): 116.
56
W. J. Blair, The Consecration-Cross Indents of Salisbury Cathedral, Transactions of
the Monumental Brass Society 12 (1975): 1620; Tatton-Brown, Salisbury Cathedral
Consecration Crosses, 11316.

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices

51

attaching crosses. The priory church of Edington (ig. 14) was consecrated in
1361 by Robert Wyville, the bishop of Salisbury; the consecration crosses are a
variation of the Salisbury indents. Instead of a roundel, the indents indicate that
not only the cross but also the surrounding circle were of brass. The internal
crosses took a similar form, but before the nineteenth-century restoration of the
church it was noted that the four quarters formed by the cross being painted
blue and red alternately.57 Most of the internal crosses have been restored; the
brass insets serve as late nineteenth- and twentieth-century memorials, with
brackets holding lights beneath them. According to the Churches Conservation
Trust, the small twelfth-century church at Upper Eldon in Hampshire boasts
nine consecration crosses.58 These also bear markings that demonstrate that
there were originally metal crosses attached to them, and there are also traces
of paint. However, not all of the crosses appear to be in situ (one appears inside
a squint at the west end, for example) but, as the building was derelict by
the early eighteenth century and also served as a cowshed, some alterations
during restoration are perhaps not surprising.

III
New approaches towards understanding church interiors and devotional practices also offer the potential for a better understanding of how these crosses
were regarded by members of the congregation. Although they could be decorative in form, consecration crosses were reminders of the ritual that in the
past transferred the building into the churchs possession and sanctiied it as
a place of worship, through the bishops anointing the church walls with holy
oil. Recent research by archaeologists into the decoration and appearance of
medieval churches suggests ways in which we might be able to gain greater
insight into how these crosses were regarded by church-goers. In particular,
drawing upon medieval understandings of sight and vision, Kate Giles has
called for a reconsideration of the role of wall paintings in the devotional life
of the parish church. Medieval treatises considered seeing as being akin to
touching and that the object of attention radiated a light back to the viewer.
Furthermore, visual mnemonics was seen as an important aspect of the art
of memory in the late medieval period. Wall paintings were therefore more
than ecclesiastical decoration; their role in late medieval devotional practice
57

Tatton-Brown, Salisbury Cathedral Consecration Crosses, 116; J. E. Jackson,

Edingdon Monastery, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine
20 (1882): 295, 301.
58
John E. Vigar, Church of St. John the Baptist, Upper Eldon, Hampshire (London:
Churches Conservation Trust, 2006).

52

To Show That the Place Is Divine

needs to be reassessed in relation to the periods understanding of sight and

vision.59 This approach was taken further by Pamela Graves, who argued that
the concept of sensory environment should be particularly useful when it
comes to analysing in a more anthropological sense, the relationship between
the physical form and decoration of churches and the religious practices that
took place within them.60 Although often painted on church walls, consecration crosses were distinct from the visual imagery of wall paintings, but this
new approach might also provide a better understanding of their location and
how they were perceived.
This essay has provided an overview of the current state of research on
consecration crosses and a reappraisal of the work of some earlier studies, but
it has also revealed a number of new avenues for research. Even within the
narrow limits deined by the pontiical, there was clearly a range of different
artistic styles employed for consecration crosses. Further systematic recording
of them and their appearance would help to develop a fuller sense of their
artistic variation and the evidence with which to challenge some of the more
questionable identiications of consecration crosses. Although fraught with dificulties, this might also help in establishing a chronology for their developing
artistic style. Undoubtedly these crosses were an important element in the rite
of consecration, but their subsequent ritual signiicance in the devotional life
of the parish needs to be explored further. Evidence is needed to challenge
Dewicks assertion that crosses did not have a role in annual dedication services;
the close examination of churchwardens accounts might provide further insight
on this matter. In spite of these limitations, it is clear that consecration crosses
were an important artistic reminder of an earlier religious ritual. Furthermore,
they visually deined and demarcated the church as a sacred place. As a shaft
of sunlight caught the brass indents of the consecration cross, or perhaps a
candle lickered beneath another form, the churchs sanctity and the holiness
of the building literally shone out in the surrounding landscape.

59

Kate Giles, Seeing and Believing: Visuality and Space in Pre-Modern England,
World Archaeology 39 (2007): 10521.
60
C. Pamela Graves, Sensing and Believing: Exploring Worlds of Difference in
Pre-Modern England; A Contribution to the Debate Opened by Kate Giles, World
Archaeology 39 (2007): 524.