As the churchyard or village cross was the centre of the life of the smaller community, so also the market cross became the centre of the municipal life of towns and boroughs. Thus, it was the custom, at the close of the civic year, for the mayor and electors, being summoned by the blowing of a horn, to assemble at the churchyard cross at Folkestone, and at the market cross (now but a gaunt obelisk) at Ripon, for the election of a mayor for the ensuing year of office.
At Chester, "the High Cross (Fig. [24]) was the scene of all great civic functions. Here, again and again, royalty was received.... Here proclamations were read out with due formality, and here the (famous) mystery plays were represented." Among the official uses to which market crosses were put was that of a recognised place for public proclamations. Thus, it was at the market cross at Darlington, in 1312, that the Bishop's order, prohibiting a tournament, which had been announced to take place, was read. This particular market cross, by the way, no longer exists, but its site is perpetuated by a plain cylindrical column, surmounted by a ball, erected at the cost of Dame Dorothy Browne in 1727.
At Wells it was a time-honoured custom that public proclamations should always be read and published first at the High Cross. It was from the cross at Lyme, Dorset, where he landed on 11th June 1685, that the declaration of the rebel Duke of Monmouth was read; and it was from the crosses of Taunton on 20th June, and Bridgwater, a day or two later, that, emboldened by his reception in the west, he caused himself to be proclaimed King of England—only to meet with crushing humiliation and defeat from the forces of King James II. at Sedgemoor on 6th July 1685.
The strangest and ghastliest of all uses to which a village cross could be put is that of a gallows; but, unless tradition lies, the notorious Judge Jeffreys actually hanged a man on the cross at Wedmore, Somerset. This identical cross, with its tall shaft and sculptured head, still stands, though removed from its original site beside the shambles to the garden of the house in which Judge Jeffreys himself is believed to have lodged, presumably during the Bloody Assize in the autumn of 1685, following the collapse of Monmouth's rebellion.
At Louth, Lincolnshire, a market cross was erected by the parish in 1521-22. That this structure was in the form of a roofed shelter, with a lofty shaft rising from the midst, is evident from the circumstances of the rebellion in 1536. The malcontents, it is recorded, had seized a number of the official books, and were about to burn them unread, when they came face to face with a certain priest, named William Morland. Upon his remonstrating with them, they dragged him under the High Cross and compelled him to examine the said books before consigning them to the flames. Meanwhile, others of the crowd brought the registrar, "and caused him, by a ladder, to climb up to the altitude, or highest part, of the cross," who, in abject terror for his life, sought to appease the mob by consenting to the destruction of the books in his charge. A portion of this cross, being, perhaps, so much of it as was adjudged to be superstitious, was taken down in 1573. Three stones were purchased for mending the cross in 1632, and further repairs, including tiling, were carried out in 1639. The "cross pales," presumably the railings or posts about the cross, were removed in October 1753; but a proposal for enclosing the structure, "to keep it clean and decent," was carried by the parish in November 1769. Another cross was situated at a spot in Louth, known as Julian Bower. This cross, according to the churchwardens' accounts, was renewed in stone in 1544.
At Peterborough the old market cross, long since swept away, was a covered cross, as is evident from the town accounts, which note, in 1649, a sum of money "received under the market cross by several fellows for the use of the poor"; and, again, a further sum in 1652 "from the standers under the cross."
In parts of Wales it was formerly the custom for labourers offering themselves for hire to congregate at the village cross, bargains made at such a spot being regarded as of more binding nature than those made elsewhere. It was indeed considered peculiarly dishonourable and impious to break a contract made at the cross. The village cross of Rhuddlan, in Flintshire, was so much frequented for hiring purposes, that the amount of the wages prevailing there became the standard for the time being for the whole district. There was also this distinction, viz., that labourers, hired at Rhuddlan, were hired for a week, during which term the rate agreed upon could not be altered; as distinguished from the crosses of other places where the custom was for the labourer to be hired by the day only—the scale of his pay being liable to fluctuate accordingly from day to day.
In addition to the several kinds of crosses above enumerated, some writers name "weeping crosses." What is meant by a weeping cross is not clear, nor has anyone pretended to assign to such edifices, if indeed they ever existed except in popular fallacy, any characteristic features by which they may be recognised as distinct from other crosses. For all practical purposes, then, the weeping cross is not. Or again, it might well have been in any given case that a cross was provided in order that a preacher might deliver his sermon from its steps. But unless such a cross was constructed with the architectural features of a pulpit cross (like those, for instance, at Iron Acton (Fig. [144]) or the Blackfriars' Cross at Hereford (Fig. [143])) then surely it must only be reckoned with the normal type of churchyard or village cross, from which it differs in no particular whatever. In a word, the one standard by which the various crosses in the following pages are grouped and classified is not their respective use and purpose, real or imaginary, but their structural shape.