The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter XII

HERE is a hamlet called Creswick in Ecclesfield, and there was a Johannes de Croswick in Sheffield in 1379. This is the Old Norse Krysi-vík, a local name in Iceland, equivalent to Kryci-vík, Holy-rood-wick, the meaning here being Holy-rood-hamlet, and not Holy-rood-creek as in Iceland. It would thus appear that in the local name Creswick we have evidence of cross-worship.

Banner Cross is another striking name in Hallamshire which may have arisen from an Old Norse word bœna-kross, meaning cross of prayers. This compound does not actually occur in Cleasby and Vigfusson. But the Dictionary gives bœna-hald, prayer meeting, and bœna-hús, a prayer-house or chapel, and from what we know of cross -worship it is fair to guess that Banner Cross may have the meaning here suggested. Du Cange however mentions cruces bannales, meaning perambulations made within the ban and district of parishes and churches. Compare also the German ban-stein, a boundary stone.

At such crosses as this the gospel was read in Rogation Week, when the hounds were beaten, these crosses themselves "being deck'd like idols." It appears, also, that such parochial assemblies were themselves called "crosses." The following extract from Plot's Staffordshire, 1677, may throw light on the subject. "I cannot but note an odd custom at Stanlake, where the parson in the procession about Holy Thursday reads a gospel at a barrel's head in the cellar of the Chequer Inn, where some say there was formerly a hermitage; others that there was anciently a cross, at which they read a gospel in former times, over which now the house and particularly the cellar being built they are forced to perform it in manner as above." The base of an old stone cross at Banner Cross was standing in Hunter's time. The gospel appears to have been sometimes read near trees. There is a field or place in Bolsover, Derbyshire, called Gospel Thornes, and Gospel Oak is occasionally found, as for instance near London.

A stone cross of great antiquity and interesting shape has lately been found by the road side in Low Bradfield at a place called The Cross. "It was dug out of a field near a public-house called the Cross Inn," and is now placed in Bradfield church. The five circles or globes carved in low relief upon the cross seem to be emblems of sun-worship illustrating the transition from heathenism to Christianity. The sign of the cross was itself a sun-sign amongst the heathen Northmen, and ring-crosses may be seen carved upon the lids of many ancient stone coffins side by side with the simple cross, as for instance at Hope and Ashover in Derbyshire. As will be seen in the drawing, the Bradfield cross is of rude and irregular workmanship, and according to Mr. Gatty "is made of rough moor stone." This old emblem of religion, once standing where the roads met, is interesting not only as being the only example of its kind which has been preserved in this district, but as a relic of the cross-worship which must at one time have prevailed here as well as amongst other northern peoples. In the Icelandic Sagas one meets with sentences as "to go to worship at church or cross," or "he comes neither to cross nor church," just as one hears people nowadays say "he goes neither to church nor chapel." As the Doomsday Book mentions neither priest nor church in Hallamshire—except at Treeton —it is probable that Christianity was of late introduction into that large district, and that, possibly, Christian worship at the cross preceded worship in churches. If that were so one could understand how missionaries of the Roman faith, too poor at first to build churches, would ereft the cross by the side of the highway. Parson Cross in Ecclesfield may originally have been a holy rood at which the Christian missionary called his small band of converts together.

On the Penistone road about half way between Bradfield church and Broomhead Hall there was a cross called "Handsome Cross." The late Mr. Eastwood mentions this cross, but says that he was "unable to find it at all." Its position, however, is marked on the six-inch Ordnance Map, and the Rev. A. B. Browne, Rector of Bradfield, tells me that the place is usually spoken of as "Hanson Cross," there being on the spot a plain upright shaft which serves the purpose of a milestone, containing the date 1753 and the distances from Bradfield, Sheffield, and Penistone. Eastwood says that Wilson of Broomhead Hall, the antiquary, describes "Hansom Cross" as existing on Bradfield Moor, though dilapidated, in his time. Since Wilson's time the land on this moor has been in a great measure enclosed, the newness of the enclosures being apparent in the regularity of the fences. In a manuscript account Wilson relates that an old woman remembered that the cross "had a head and armes H R C; the one side is plain, the other not quite so plain." Its position is interesting, for it stood on a moorland road, far away from the village below.