H. T. Ellacombe.
Clyst St. George.
Cross and Pile (Vol. vi., pp. 386. 513.).—The pile is invariably on the obverse or head side of a coin; and pile or poll both mean the head, from whence the "poll tax" and "poll groat"—a tax paid by the head, or a personal tax, of which we have an historical example of its collector in the case of Wat Tyler.
Ruding, in Annals of the Coinage, vol. ii. p. 119., 8vo., edit. 1819, states that Ed. I. A.D. 1304, in the delivering out the stamps for the coinage, orders that three piles and six crosses shall be given. It is well known to all numismatists that all, or most early coins, both Saxon and English, had a head on the obverse and a cross on the reverse—the latter being placed on the coins as symbolical of Christianity.
Pile also means the hair, or any filament: as the "pile of velvet, the nap of woollen cloth," &c. And Jamieson, in his Scotch Dictionary, says:
"Pile. The soft hair which first appears on the chins of young men."
Coles, Ashe, Webster, and others give the same meaning.
The superstitious effect of the cross as a charm or amulet is well known; from whence the saying:
"I have never a cross in my purse to keep the Devil away."
Again: