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.
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Famous quotes containing the words high and/or cross:
“As I walked on the glacis I heard the sound of a bagpipe from the soldiers dwellings in the rock, and was further soothed and affected by the sight of a soldiers cat walking up a cleated plank in a high loophole designed for mus-catry, as serene as Wisdom herself, and with a gracefully waving motion of her tail, as if her ways were ways of pleasantness and all her paths were peace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Never expect any recognition herethe system prohibits it. The cross is not affixed to the genius, no, the genius is affixed to the cross.”
—Franz Grillparzer (17911872)