Patriarchal

Cross Patriarchal

§28. Cross patriarchal(fr. cr. of patriarcale) is a cross which has two horizontal bars instead of one. It is said that the ancient Patriarchs of Jerusalem bore this kind of cross, and that afterwards it was borne by the Patriarch of Constantinople, while the cross adopted by the Pope of Rome had three horizontal bars; but the historical evidence as to this adoption is very obscure. The name does not appear, so far as has been observed, in any of the rolls of arms in the thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth centuries.

Sometimes the arms in the first-cited example are represented with the extremity of the lower limb and the extremities of the chief horizontal limbs touching the edge of the shield, but the usual representation is as in the illustration, with all the limbs couped. It is often blazoned as a cross Lorraine, and in some cases it is termed as Archiepiscopal cross, though it may generally in that case be taken to mean instead of the Ordinary a charge drawn like a crosier(q.v.), and surmounted by a cross instead of crook.

Sable, a cross patriarchal argent--arms ascribed to Ralph de TURBINE, Bp. of Rochester, 1108; Archbp. of Cant., 1114-22.

Argent, a cross patriarchal on a grice of three steps gules--Cluniac Priory, BROMHOLM, Norfolk.

Or, on a cross sable, a cross patriarchal of the field--VESEY, Visc. de Vesci.

A cross patriarchal gules fimbriated or--Badge of the KNIGHTS TEMPLARS.

Argent, on a bend gules, over all a cross patriarchal sable--RORKE, Ireland.

Gules, a buck trippant argent, in chief two bees volant or, on a chief nebuly of the third a Lorraine cross as the field between two eagles displayed sable--GOODHART, Kent.

An example is given by Palliot of a cross Patriarchal, viz. that of the bishopric of HERCHFELD, with the lower end terminating something like a cross patonce, to which he applies the term enhendée.