Illustrated Dictionary of British Churches - Consecration Cross Definition

• Aisle
• Altar
• Ambulatory
• Angel Roof
• Apophyge
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• Arcade
• Arch
• Archivolt
• Base
• Battlement
• Bay
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• Bell Tower
• Bellcote
• Bench End
• Board Bell Turret
• Body
• Boss
• Box pew
• Bracket
• Broach Spire
• Buttress
• Canopy
• Capital
• Cartouche
• Chancel
• Chancel Arch
• Chancel Screen
• Chantry
• Chapel
• Chapter House
• Choir
• Clerestory
• Cloister
• Communion Rail
• Compound Column
• Consecration Cross
• Corbel Head
• Crossing
• Crypt
• Early English
• Easter Sepulchre
• Effigy
• Fan Vaulting
• Font
• Font cover
• Funerary Helm
• Gallery
• Gargoyle
• Gothic
• Green Man
• Grotesque
• Hatchment
• Herringbone
• Hogback Tomb
• Holy Water Stoup
• Hunky Punk
• Jesse Window
• Kempe Window
• Lady Chapel
• Lancet
• Lectern
• Lierne
• Lych Gate
• Misericord
• Monumental Brass
• Mullion
• Nave
• Ogee
• Organ
• Parclose Screen
• Parish Chest
• Pendant
• Perpendicular Gothic
• Pew
• Pinnacle
• Piscina
• Poor Box
• Poppy Head
• Porch
• Priest's Door
• Pulpit
• Purbeck Marble
• Quire
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• Rood
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• Sanctuary Knocker
• Saxon Period
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• Tracery
• Transept
• Triforium
• Tympanum
• Undercroft
• Vaulting
• Victorian Gothic
• Wall Monument
• Wall Painting
• Wheel Window

A geometric cross shape, usually enclosed within a circle, painted on interior and/or exterior walls of medieval churches and sometimes on the altar itself. These stylised crosses were annointed with oil as part of the ceremony officially consecating the church. Many medieval consecrstion crosses survive, for example at Ashby St Ledger, Northamptonshire, and Thornham Parva, Suffolk, to name only two of many. There might be a dozen crosses painted around the interior of a church, and as many again on the exterior.

Related: Altar