Paul GrahamVerified account

If you spend a lot of time in churches you often come across examples of these - a 'consecration cross' - but few people today seem to understand their meaning. So a short thread. 1/10pic.twitter.com/f4Vkaxm2sI

In the medieval period, when a church was first built it had to be consecrated - essentially sanctifying and purifying the building for religious use. 2/10pic.twitter.com/gisokvYnVq

This was undertaken usually by the local bishop, who would anoint the building with holy oil (chrism). 12 times outside & 12 times inside (English rite) - as being done here at Cluny by Pope Urban II in 1095. 3/10pic.twitter.com/hvwNkGltHP

The place where the chrism was applied was then marked with a cross - or possibly the cross was marked first. It's not totally clear. 4/10pic.twitter.com/j7cvxHgnqr

According to Durand’s 1286 commentary on his pontifical, the Rationale divinorum officiorum, the crosses were there to "terrify the demons, so that when (they) have been expelled from there ... they will be terrified and not presume to return there" 5/10pic.twitter.com/u2VZvb1sUj

The crosses vary in form, but by the C15th it was stated that they should be 'painted red and enclosed by a circle'. As a result, most surviving consecration crosses are compass drawn, equal armed, crosses. 6/10pic.twitter.com/B7ZLWU9vFg