Eleanor cross
The Eleanor crosses are twelve lavishly decorated stone monuments, of which three survive intact, found in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had the crosses erected between 1291 and 1294 in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile, marking the route of her body as it was taken to London.
Background
The procession
Upon her death in 1290 at Harby, near the city of Lincoln, her body was immediately carried to the Gilbertine priory of St Catherine's in the south of Lincoln where she was embalmed. Her viscera was sent for burial in the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral, where it still rests. Her body was then sent to London, taking 12 days to reach Westminster Abbey in London. The crosses were erected a few years later at the twelve places where her funeral procession stopped overnight.
At Westminster she was buried at the feet of her father in law King Henry III. Her heart travelled with the body and was buried in the abbey church at Blackfriars.
Reasons for construction
A similar event had taken place in France for the body of King Louis IX in 1271 (although his were as a manifesto for canonization, which they were not in Eleanor's case) and Edward had probably seen similar memorial crosses in France and elsewhere in Europe during his travels. They were at least in part intended as cenotaphs to provoke prayers for her soul from passers-by and pilgrims[1]
The 12 places
The only three crosses still standing are those at Waltham Cross, Northampton, and Geddington, though remnants of the lost ones can also be seen.
The only remaining piece of the St Catherine's cross left that survives is kept in Lincoln Castle.
No part of the Grantham Cross survives.
Other than a small marble fragment, a carved rose, preserved in the town's museum, no part of the Stamford Cross survives.
Still standing, it is said to be the best-preserved of the three survivors. It seems to be unique among the surviving crosses in having a triangular plan, and a taller and more slender profile (with a lower tier entirely covered with diapering, instead of an arch-and-gable motif with tracery which appears on both the others; and canopied statues surmounted by a slender hexagonal pinnacle).[2]
The Northampton cross is still standing and is located at the edge of Delapré Abbey, where the body rested overnight; the King stayed at nearby Northampton Castle. This cross was begun in 1291 by John of Battle; he worked with William of Ireland to carve the statues; William was paid £3 6s. 8d. per figure.
The cross is octagonal in shape and set upon some steps - the present ones are replacements. The cross is built in three tiers and originally had a crowning terminal - possibly a cross. It is not known when this became lost.[3]
The Cross is referred to in Daniel Defoe's a "Tour through the whole island of Great Britain", where he reports on the Great Fire of Northampton in 1675, "...a townsman being at Queen's Cross upon a hill on the south side of the town, about two miles off, saw the fire at one end of the town then newly begun, and that before he could get to the town it was burning at the remotest end, opposite where he first saw it."
Its bottom tier features open books. These probably included painted inscriptions of her biography and of prayers for her soul to be said by viewers, which are now lost.
This cross stood at the lower end of the town, towards the river Ouse on Watling Street (now the High Street), although its exact location is hotly debated. It is said to have been of a tall elegant design (perhaps similar to that at Geddington) but was destroyed during the Civil War by the Parliamentarians. The base survived that for some time, but any trace even that has now vanished. This commemorative plaque on the wall of 157 High Street is all that is now visible:
- Near this spot stood the Cross erected by King Edward the I to mark the place in Stony Stratford where the body of Queen Eleanor rested on its way from Harby in Nottinghamshire to Westminster Abbey in 1290[4]
The shopping precinct in High Street North, Dunstable, contains a modern statue of the queen.
Waltham (now Waltham Cross)
Still standing, although its original statues of Eleanor were removed in the 1980s to protect them from urban pollution. It was the result of cooperation between an architect and a sculptor – Roger of Crundale and Alexander of Abingdon respectively.[5]
Lost, although fragments are held by the Museum of London, and surviving drawings enable an accurate reconstruction to be established.
The Cheapside Cross was torn down in May 1643 under an ordinance from the parliamentary Committee for the Demolition of Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry, led by Sir Robert Harley. The cross was in fact the third incarnation of the monument which had been reconstructed and refurbished several times in the preceding three centuries, in which time it had enjoyed the protection of various monarchs and the Mayor and Corporation of London.
An important monument in its day, matters came to a head during the years running up to the English Civil War, when the cross was seen to encompass the doctrinal debates of the period. To puritanical reformers, it was identified with 'Dagon', the ancient god of the Philistines and was seen as the embodiment of Royal Catholic tradition. At least one riot was fought in its shadow as opponents of the cross descended upon it to pull it down and supporters rallied to stop them.
After Charles I had fled London to raise an army at the start of the Civil War, the destruction of the cross was almost the first order of business for Harley's commission. Though less well known than the Charing Cross, the downfall of the Cheapside Cross is one of the most interesting and arguably important examples of iconoclasm in English history.
Charing (now Charing Cross)
The cross at Charing Cross, in what was then the Royal Mews, was the most expensive, built out of marble and the result of cooperation between an architect and a sculptor – namely Master Alexander of Abingdon and the senior royal mason Richard of Crundale.
It is the subject of the romantic etymology of chere reine (dear queen), but was destroyed in 1647 and a statue of Charles I was erected on the site in 1675. The replica cross is a copy of the original and was erected at a later date but not in the same location as the original.
Surviving drawings of the original also enable an accurate virtual reconstruction.
Replicas and imitations
During the 19th and early 20th centuries several replica Eleanor Crosses were erected including those at Ilam, Staffordshire, Walkden, Lancashire, Sledmere, Yorkshire, and Queensbury.
- Ilam - built in 1840 by Jesse Watts Russell of Ilam Hall to commemorate his wife.[6]
References
- ^ Chronicle of St Alban's
- ^ English Heritage page on Geddington's Cross
- ^ The Buildings of England - Northamptonshire. N Pevsner (Second edition). ISBN 0-300-09632-1
- ^ Stony Stratford's Eleanor Cross
- ^ Waltham image
- ^ Ilam photograph