of sorrow, in a violet veil. It seems to have come also to signify, to a certain extent, the parish in its corporate existence and authority; thus no parochial processional cross might be carried into a monastic church, and in collegiate churches at funerals the cross of the church only might be used. It would seem, in short, that no parish might carry its cross beyond its own limits.

To us English, the spectacle of the cross borne in solemn procession is calculated to recall with special vividness the memory of the establishment of the faith among our forefathers. How the British Church had been driven into Cornwall and Wales, and how S. Augustine, after landing in Thanet to bring the Gospel to the English, advanced with his forty companion monks to meet King Ethelbert, chanting a litany, and proceeded by a silver cross and a crucifix painted on a panel,—these things all men know.

A processional cross, in a more restricted sense, is that borne before an Archbishop, as a mark of dignity and jurisdiction.

At what date these crosses first came into use is unknown; originally, the bishops of a few only of the most important sees employed them, and they had not yet come to denote specially the archiepiscopal rank. Leo IV., Pope from 847 to 855, had a cross borne before him by a sub-deacon, as he rode through the streets of Rome, an action said to have been “according to the custom of his predecessors.” The Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, granted to all patriarchs the privilege of having a cross carried before them, if neither papal legate nor cardinal were present. The same honour was conferred on Archbishops by Gregory IX. in the thirteenth century, and as a mark of special favour some few western bishops even have been allowed to assume it, as in the case of the Bishops of Lucca and of Pavia, who are authorized by a grant issued by Alexander II. in 1070.

In England this emblem of jurisdiction has on more than one occasion proved a ground of dispute between the archbishops. S. Anselm who ruled at Canterbury from 1093 to 1114, refused to allow the Archbishop of Dublin to use his cross in England. Canterbury and York long maintained a struggle for precedence in the English Church and the point on which it turned was often the right of the one to carry his cross in the province of the other. The quarrel became very bitter towards the end of the thirteenth century, so that we find William de Wickwaine in 1280, the year after his accession to the See of York, complaining to the Pope of violence shewn him while travelling in the southern province. “Adam de Hales,” he writes, “an officer of my Lord of Canterbury, rushed like a madman upon my attendants, and scandalously broke my cross in pieces: but thanks be to God, I soon caused another to be raised and carried. Moreover, most holy father, when I am journeying through the province of Canterbury on business relating to my own see, my Lord of Canterbury forbids food or lodging to be supplied to myself or my attendants on pain of excommunication, exactly as if we were heretics, and places the whole district where I make any sojourn under an ecclesiastical interdict.” The contemporary “my lord of Canterbury,” was John Peckham. Twenty years later the feud was still rife, and we have Robert Winchelsey, the immediate successor of Peckham, writing to the Bishop of Lincoln, bidding him see that the northern primate did not have his cross carried before him in passing through that diocese: he also forbids the laity to kneel to him or to ask his blessing on pain of the Church’s censure, and orders that no bell be rung and no service said in any place where he may be. In 1325, William de Melton, Archbishop of York, was appointed treasurer by the King, upon which Walter Raynold, who twelve years before had succeeded Winchelsey, again took up the cause of the dignity of his province, and excommunicated Melton for having had his cross carried in the city of London, in spite of which Melton publicly said Mass in Westminster Abbey. In 1354, a compromise was at last arrived at, by which the Archbishop of York might have his cross borne before him throughout the entire province of Canterbury on condition that within two months from so doing he sent to the shrine of S. Thomas à Becket, a gold figure of the value of forty pounds, of an archbishop with his cross, to be brought by the hands of his chancellor, a doctor of laws, or a knight. On the other hand the Archbishop of Canterbury was to enjoy the same privilege in the province of York unconditionally. The two prelates by whom this arrangement was made, were Simon Islip of the southern province, and John de Thoresby of the northern. The above acknowledgement, or fine, was paid about a century later (in 1452), by Archbishop Booth of York.

The first metropolitan in the English colonies to assume the cross was the Bishop of Cape Town. A magnificent cross of silver gilt studded with jewels was presented to the See of Canterbury on the enthronement of the present occupant of the Chair of S. Augustine, Dr. Benson. It is modelled on the type of those used by the English Archbishops as early as the time of Chichely (1414), and is adorned with statuettes of a dozen saints.

An archiepiscopal cross, if terminating in a crucifix, is carried with the figure facing the prelate, not as in the case of a processional cross; but one of those anciently used at Canterbury had two crucifixes, one in front and one behind.

The double-crossed staff, suggesting the cross with its superscription, which is heraldically assigned to patriarchs, never came actually into use in the west, although it has been employed in Greece. The triple cross of the Pope is a modern invention, without ritual authority.

From the distinctive sign of an Archbishop’s authority to the Pectoral Cross worn by him in common with other bishops, is a natural transition. It early became customary for a prelate to wear about his neck a reliquary which often contained a fragment of the true Cross, and, as being intended for a religious purpose, was frequently cruciform. From this usage it has been supposed sprang the practice of bishops wearing a cross suspended on the breast, hence called a pectoral cross.

We have instances of its common use long before it began to be reckoned as one of the regular ornaments of a bishop or a mitred abbot. S. Gregory of Tours is said to have worn such a cross, as also did Pope Leo III. in 811, and S. Alphege of Canterbury in 1012; the pectoral cross worn by S. Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne in 685, is still preserved at Durham, and its design, a curious type of Greek cross, forms the principal charge in the arms of that University. Innocent III. (1198-1216) is the first to mention this as one of the recognised episcopal insignia, and by the fourteenth century special prayers were prescribed to be said on putting it on, with the rest of the episcopal habit. It was about this time also that it became usual for priests, when in their full vestments, to wear the stole crosswise on the breast. In each case the cross-bearing required of a disciple of Christ is symbolized, but in the case of the bishop the breast-plate of the high priest is also alluded to.

In this connection it may be worth while to make passing mention of a strange society of early monks referred to by Cassian, who, with more zeal than knowledge, interpreted the exhortation of our Lord literally, and wore constantly about their necks heavy wooden crosses.

The full and solemn ritual for the consecration of a church, as still used throughout the major part of Christendom, involves a frequent use of the sacred sign. By a law of Justinian, the building of a church might not be undertaken until the bishop of the diocese had