The world(s) of the cross

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To fully understand the meaning of early medieval crosses, like the one at Bradbourne (Derbyshire), we have to appreciate their liturgical, apotropaic and liminal roles. With the Reformation, changes in attitudes to the power of images resulted in the destruction of such ‘monuments of superstition’. The fragments of the Bradbourne cross were ‘rediscovered’ in the late eighteenth century and, through the eyes of the antiquarian Hayman Rooke, metaphorically converted into a Roman altar. The cross‐shaft was re‐erected in the late nineteenth century, and was used by Bishop Browne as a ‘text’ to perpetuate a ‘Reformationist’ view of English history in which Roman Catholicism played no part. Bishop Browne, Hayman Rooke, the iconoclasts and the medieval parishioners of Bradbourne contextually constructed their own monument.