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Who made a mark is the first question, and it changes what it can mean.
Also known as: Marks carved in a church wall, Church graffiti, Scratches on old stonework
A medieval church carries marks left by the masons who built it, by the clergy who consecrated it, and by everyone who has passed through since. The first group is documentary and the third is not, and separating them is the difference between reading evidence and reading a guess.
Builders' marks are documentary. A mason's mark identifies a workshop or an individual, a setting-out line records how a shape was laid out, and both can be dated to the fabric they are cut into.
Marks made by users are the opposite. Nobody who scratched one wrote down why, and every reading is inferred from where the marks cluster and what else is beside them, which supports some conclusions strongly and others not at all.
The popular literature is confident where the evidence is not. Position and repetition are the evidence; intent is inference.
Position often carries more than form. A mark beside a door, a window or a hearth is doing something different from the same mark in the middle of a wall, and systematic surveys established the pattern before anyone could argue about the meaning.
Shallow lines scratched or chiselled into dressed stone: crosses, interlocking circles, angular monograms and compass-drawn arcs, usually only a few centimetres across.
The mason's mark is one of the builders' marks.