Eleanor cross
The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve tall and lavishly decorated stone monuments erected in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had them built between 1291 and about 1295 in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile. The King and Queen had been married for 36 years and she stayed by the King's side through his many travels. While on a royal progress, she died in Harby, Nottinghamshire, in November 1290. The crosses, erected in her memory, marked the nightly resting-places along the route taken when her body was transported to Westminster Abbey near the City of London.
Whilst it is commonly accepted that there were crosses atop the monuments, this has never been proven. Theories of this date back to Victorian England, where people embellished stories of the past to make them sound more interesting. A more likely reason for the monuments being called "crosses" was due to their placement, as they were usually placed on crossroads.
The crosses stood at Lincoln, Grantham and Stamford, all in Lincolnshire; Geddington and Hardingstone in Northamptonshire; Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire; Woburn and Dunstable in Bedfordshire; St Albans and Waltham in Hertfordshire; Cheapside in London; and Charing in Westminster.
Three of the medieval monuments – those at Geddington, Hardingstone and Waltham Cross – survive more or less intact; but the other nine, other than a few fragments, are lost. Some were destroyed during the Reformation and Civil War, due to their Catholic associations. The largest and most ornate of the twelve was at Charing Cross. Several memorials and elaborated reproductions of the crosses have been erected, including the Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross at Charing Cross Station, northeastalong the Strand roadwayof the original site of the Charing Cross.
Edward I's use of architecture is known for containing an element of propaganda. In her lifetime, Eleanor had been unpopular with the public, particularly for her acquisitiveness regarding land holdings, which had been associated with the abuse of Jewish loans, attracting strong criticism from the church. The series of Crosses played a role in rehabilitating Eleanor's image as an idealised Queen and woman, as well as projecting royal and spiritual power. The Lincoln tomb of a child falsely claimed to be martyred by Jews is widely assumed to form part of the series, positioning Eleanor and Edward as defenders against the recently expelled Jews. The series has architectural parallels, most notably the 1271 montjoies marking the funeral route of King Louis IX of France, which were designed as part of an attempt to promote his canonisation as a saint.
Background
Procession and burials
Eleanor of Castile died on 28 November 1290 at Harby, Nottinghamshire. Edward and Eleanor loved each other and much like his father, Edward was very devoted to his wife and remained faithful to her throughout their married lives. He was deeply affected by her death and displayed his grief by erecting twelve so-called Eleanor crosses, one at each place where her funeral cortège stopped for the night.Following her death the body of Queen Eleanor was carried to Lincoln, about away, where she was embalmed – probably either at the Gilbertine priory of St Katherine in the south of the city, or at the priory of the Dominicans. Her viscera, with the exception of her heart, were buried in the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral on 3 December. Eleanor's other remains were carried to London, a journey of about, that lasted 12 days. Her body was buried in Westminster Abbey, at the feet of her father-in-law King Henry III on 17 December; while her heart was buried in the church of the London Dominicans' priory at Blackfriars on 19 December, along with those of her young son Alphonso, Earl of Chester, who had died in 1284, and of John de Vesci, who had died in 1289.
Purpose and parallels
Eleanor's crosses appear to have been intended in part as expressions of royal power; and in part as cenotaphs to encourage prayers for her soul from travellers. On the pedestal of each was inscribed the phrase Orate pro anima. Eleanor's reputation had been tarnished by her trafficking in Jewish loans and land acquisition in her own lifetime. Favourable mentions in contemporary chronicles do not emerge until the succession of her son. The Crosses have been an important element in forming her reputation as an idealised Queen, focusing attention on her relationship with Edward.It was not unknown for memorial crosses to be constructed in the middle ages, although they were normally isolated instances and relatively simple in design. A cross in the Strand, just outside the City of London, was said to have been erected by William II in memory of his mother, Queen Matilda. Henry III erected one at Merton, Surrey, for his cousin the Earl of Surrey. Another was erected at Reading for Edward I's sister Beatrice. Yet another, almost contemporary with the Eleanor crosses, was erected near Windsor for Edward's mother, Eleanor of Provence.
The closest precedent for the Eleanor crosses, and almost certainly their model, was the series of nine crosses known as montjoies erected along the funeral route of King Louis IX of France in 1271. These were elaborate structures incorporating sculptural representations of the King, and were erected in part to promote his canonisation. Eleanor's crosses never aspired to this last purpose, but in design were even larger and more ornate than the montjoies, being of at least three rather than two tiers.
Eleanor has subsequently been an unclear and contested figure in English history. Since her death, she has been portrayed in both positive and negative lights, with romantic and aggressive portrayals, focusing on her relationship with Edward or her rôle as a Spanish, foreign monarch.
Commemoration
Tomb monuments
Both the burial of Eleanor's body at Westminster and her visceral burial at Lincoln were subsequently marked by ornate effigial monuments, both with similar life-sized gilt bronze effigies cast by the goldsmith William Torell. Her heart burial at the Blackfriars was marked by another elaborate monument, but probably not with a life-sized effigy. The Blackfriars monument was lost following the priory's dissolution in 1538. The Lincoln monument was destroyed in the 17th century, but was replaced in 1891 with a reconstruction, not on the site of the original. The Westminster Abbey monument survives.Form and content of the crosses
The twelve crosses were erected to mark the places where Eleanor's funeral procession had stopped overnight. They take three part form, with the royal arms in the lower part, and statues of Eleanor above. In these, her crowned head is bowed, and she holds a sceptre. Her posture draws on Marian imagery to suggest grace and submission, and the imagery echoes that of her tombs. According to historian Paul Binski, their "elaborate display" conveys power as part of an authoritarian project; her statues' gaze should be interpreted as active, gazing out from a protected height onto her territory. They had a function that was both spiritual and temporal, binding localities with the source of power on earth, at Westminster.Construction of the crosses
Their construction is documented in the executors' account rolls, which survive from 1291 to March 1294, but not thereafter. By the end of that period, the crosses at Lincoln, Hardingstone, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St Albans and Waltham were complete or nearly so, and those at Cheapside and Charing in progress; but those at Grantham, Stamford and Geddington apparently not yet begun. It is assumed that these last three were erected in 1294 or 1295, and that they were certainly finished before the financial crisis of 1297 which brought a halt to royal building works. A number of artists worked on the crosses, as the account rolls show, with a distinction generally drawn between the main structures, made locally under the direction of master masons appointed by the King, and the statues of Eleanor, made of Caen stone, and other sculptural details, brought from London. Master masons included Richard of Crundale, Roger of Crundale, Michael of Canterbury, Richard of Stow, John of Battle and Nicholas Dymenge. Sculptors included Alexander of Abingdon and William of Ireland, both of whom had worked at Westminster Abbey, who were paid £3 6s. 8d. apiece for the statues; and Ralph of Chichester.Shrine of Little St Hugh
The tomb of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln was rebuilt around the same time, probably by the same craftsmen and designers as the Eleanor crosses. It featured the royal arms, and decoration commemorating Eleanor. David Stocker believes that the shrine "displays such close acquaintance with the Eleanor crosses that it has to be considered alongside them."The cult of Little St Hugh venerated a false ritual murder allegation against the Jewish community of Lincoln, and was revived after the Expulsion of the Jews in 1290. Eleanor had been widely disliked for large-scale purchase of Jewish bonds, with the aim of requisitioning the lands and properties of those indebted. It has been suggested that the proximity of the shrine's design to the Eleanor crosses was deliberate, in order to position Edward and Eleanor as protectors of Christians against supposed Jewish criminality. According to historian Joe Hillaby, the crosses and tomb amounted to a "propaganda coup".
Destruction, restoration and the Gothic revival
The crosses suffered greatly during the Reformation and the English Civil Wars, as they represented a Catholic worldview, of public iconography.Interest in English Gothic styles of architecture grew around the start of the Industrial Revolution. This coincided with a revival of interest in Eleanor as an idealised Queen. The design and form of the Eleanor crosses was used to create new memorials, including commemorations of highly Protestant themes, while a number of the original Crosses including Charing Cross were recreated.