A high cross or standing cross (Irish: cros ard / ardchros, Scottish Gaelic: crois àrd / àrd-chrois, Welsh: croes uchel / croes eglwysig) is a free-standing Christian cross made of stone and often richly decorated. There was a unique Early Medieval tradition in Ireland and Britain of raising large sculpted stone crosses, usually outdoors. These probably developed from earlier traditions using wood, perhaps with metalwork attachments, and earlier pagan Celtic memorial stones; the Pictish stones of Scotland may also have influenced the form. The earliest surviving examples seem to come from the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, which had been converted to Christianity by Irish missionaries; it remains unclear whether the form first developed in Ireland or Britain.
The crosses often, though not always, feature a stone ring around the intersection, forming a Celtic cross; this seems clearly an innovation of Celtic Christianity, perhaps at Iona. The term "high cross" is mainly used in Ireland and Scotland, but the tradition across the whole of the British Isles, is essentially a single phenomenon, though there are certainly strong regional variations. Some crosses were erected just outside churches and monasteries; others at sites that may have marked boundaries or crossroads, or preceded churches. Whether they were used as "preaching crosses" at early dates is unclear, and many crosses have been moved to their present locations.
Read more about High Cross: Ireland and Britain, Scandinavia, Notable Crosses, Modern Period, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words high and/or cross:
“But look, the morn in russet mantle clad
Walks oer the dew of yon high eastward hill.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the westsun there half an hour
highI see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning
home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.”
—Walt Whitman (18191892)