Did Medieval English Catholics make the sign of the Cross?

July 25, 2017 11:49 PM

I can't seem to find an answer on my own, so I'm hoping Metafilter’s resident experts on history and religion can shed some light on the subject.

I'm asking because I'm in the chorus of a production of Camelot, and tonight we rehearsed the scene where Sir Lionel is miraculously brought back from the dead by Lancelot's prayers and laying on of hands.

After the general gasps of awe and making faces of disbelief, the director has left us basically free to work out the business of our own reactions. Since I'm kind of alone in my little corner of the stage and can't whisper to my neighbors as others are doing, I've been making the sign of the Cross and praying.

Another actor said tonight that she doesn't think English Catholics crossed themselves during the Middle Ages; that it was a Continental thing. The director hasn't said anything, but right now he's way too busy frying bigger fish to worry about it.

Yes, Arthurian lore is fantasy, and I'm pretty sure we're not trying to pin down a specific date. But it would be nice to know that some SCA nerd in the front row isn't going to complain about being taken out of the moment by an obvious anachronism.

posted by The Underpants Monster to Religion & Philosophy (5 answers total)

The sign of the cross started in something like 100BC, and is such a basic action that I can't imagine that English Catholics temporarily abandoned it. If you're interested you could look into whether it might have been done from right to left at that time - I think it would be left to right already but have never thought about it really (for example)
posted by the agents of KAOS at 12:47 AM on July 26, 2017

They definitely did. More generally, you may be interested in The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy, a book all about pre-reformation religious practice in England.
posted by rustcellar at 1:59 AM on July 26, 2017

According to Catholic Digest:

By the end of the Middle Ages, however, Western Catholics were making the Sign of the Cross using the hand in place of the fingers and touching the left shoulder first. Among the sources documenting this method and the rationale is a 15th-century devotion used by the nuns of the Brigittine Monastery of Sion in Isleworth, England, which stated that one should begin with the head and move downward, then to the left side, and then to the right. The devotion supported this form, saying that Jesus came down from the Father (forehead), was born as man (breast), suffered on the Cross (left shoulder), and ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father (right shoulder). This method became the standard in the Western Church. It is not clear why the changes took place or why they did not also take root in the Eastern Church, which continues using three fingers to make the Sign of the Cross and from right to left.

posted by xyzzy at 2:30 AM on July 26, 2017

The courtesy book known as The Young Children's Book, c. 1500, instructs children to make the sign of the cross on waking and eating:

Arise betimes from your bed, cross your breast and your forehead, wash your hands and face, comb your hair, and ask the grace of God to speed you in all your works; then go to Mass and ask mercy for all your trespasses. [..] When ye have done, break your fast with good meat and drink, but before eating cross your mouth, your diet will be the better for it.

The thirteenth-century poem The Lay Folks Mass Book instructs laypeople to make the sign of the cross when the gospel is read in church:

And at the begynnynge tent thu take,
A large cros on the thu make,
Seyenge thus in this manere
As thu maist se writen here.
In the name of the fadir, the sone, and the holigost,
On sothfast god of myghtes most,
Welcome, lorde, thi words to me,
As, ihesu, lowynge be to the.

As you're doing Camelot, you might also be interested in the passage from Malory's Morte d'Arthur where Sir Percivale is delivered from sexual temptation by making the sign of the cross:

And then Sir Percivale came near to her, to proffer her love, and by adventure and grace he saw his sword lie on the ground all naked, in whose pommel was a red cross, and the sign of the crucifix therein, and bethought him on his knighthood, and his promise made toforehand unto the good man. Then he made the sign of the cross in his forehead, and therewith the pavilion turned up so down, and then it changed unto a smoke and a black cloud, and then he was adread, and cried aloud.

In short: medieval English Catholics would certainly have made the sign of the cross, but they may have reserved it for specific contexts of prayer and devotion, and as a protective gesture against evil. It's not so clear that they used it as a general good-luck gesture (though they may have done). So feel free to use it on stage, but don't overdo it.
posted by verstegan at 7:59 AM on July 26, 2017

Thanks, everybody! Pax vobiscum!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:29 PM on July 26, 2017