The Crosses and Churches
A word with regard to the innumerable crosses and churches.
At an early date in the history of Christianity, saints from the neighbouring countries of Brittany, Ireland and Wales appear to have poured into Cornwall. Some floated over on their altar-stones—a poetical way of saying they brought the said stones with them—others on a miraculous leaf, i.e., a coracle, while yet others appear to have walked! On arrival they found a large number of upright slabs and boulders, relics of an earlier creed and vanished race. With the sensible early-Christian habit of turning everything to account they soon invented a history and found a use for the stones.
On a lonely moorland these big menhirs made excellent way-marks; by some—possibly blocks that tradition accounted holy—the saints built their oratories, others they carved into rude crosses, and others they used as a centre about which to gather the countrypeople for service. As the local preaching-place, these last stones, like the oratories themselves, thus became the forerunners of the parish churches.
One reason for the multiplicity of these crosses—and unless those at any place should be exceptional, they will not be mentioned—may be found in the will of a certain Dr. Mertherderwa who, dying in 1447, directed that "new stone crosses are to be put up of the usual kind in those parts of Cornwall from Kayar Beslasek to Camborne Church, where dead bodies are rested on their way to burial, that prayers may be made and the bearers take some rest."
There are six different kinds of crosses. Upright slabs with a Latin cross front and back; Round-headed crosses; Holed crosses, of which only twenty-seven instances are known; Latin crosses, Gothic crosses and ornamented crosses.