The Legendary History of the Cross / A Series of Sixty-four Woodcuts from a Dutch Book Published by Veldener, A.D. 1483

Transcriber's Notes: All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation inconsistencies retained.
A SERIES OF Sixty-four Woodcuts From a Dutch book published by Veldener, A.D. 1483 WITH AN INTRODUCTION Written and Illustrated By JOHN ASHTON PREFACE By S. BARING GOULD, m.a. London T. Fisher Unwin M.D.CCC.LXXXVII
UNWIN BROTHERS, Old Style Printers , THE GRESHAM PRESS, LUDGATE HILL, E.C.

THE origin of the mediæval romance of the Cross is hard to discover. It was very popular. It occurs in a good number of authors, and is depicted in a good many churches in stained glass.
I may perhaps be allowed here to repeat what I have said in my article on the Legend of the Cross, in “Myths of the Middle Ages:”—
“In the churches of the city of Troyes alone it appears in the windows of four: S. Martin-ès-Vignes, S. Pantaléon, S. Madeleine, and S. Nizier. It is frescoed along the walls of the choir of S. Croce at Florence, by the hand of Agnolo Gaddi. Pietro della Francesca also dedicated his pencil to the history of the Cross in a series of frescoes in the chapel of the Bacci, in the church of S. Francesco at Arezzo. It occurs as a predella painting among the specimens of early art at the Accademia delle Belle Arti at Venice, and is the subject of a picture by Beham, in the Munich Gallery. The Legend is told in full in the ‘Vita Christi,’ printed at Troyes in 1517; in the ‘Legenda Aurea’ of Jacques de Voragine; in a French MS. of the thirteenth century, in the British Museum. Gervase of Tilbury relates a portion of it in his ‘Otia Imperalia,’ quoting Peter Comestor; it appears in the ‘Speculum Historiale’ of Gottfried of Viterbo, in the ‘Chronicon Engelhusii,’ and elsewhere.”
In the very curious Creation window of S. Neot’s Church, Cornwall, Seth is represented putting three pips of the Tree of Life into the mouth and nostrils of dead Adam, as he buries him.
Of the popularity of the story of the Cross there can be no doubt, but its origin is involved in obscurity. It is generally possible to track most of the religious and popular folk tales and romances of the Middle Ages to their origin, which is frequently Oriental, but it is not easy to do so with the Legend of the Cross. It would rather seem that it was made up by some romancer out of all kinds of pre-existing material, with no other object than to write a religious novel for pious readers, to displace the sensuous novels which were much in vogue.