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A ringed cross painted or cut on a church wall, marking an anointing.
Also known as: Dedication cross, Cross in a circle on a church wall, Painted cross inside a church
Twelve of them, set round the inside of a church at shoulder height. Each marks a point the bishop anointed at the building's consecration, which makes them the one class of church mark with a documented date and a documented purpose.
The one class of mark on a medieval church with an unambiguous purpose and a datable occasion behind it, which makes it the natural point of comparison for the marks whose purpose is inferred.
Frequently accompanied by a bracket or spike for a candle, lit on the anniversary of the dedication, so an unexplained iron fitting beside a painted cross is usually part of the same arrangement.
Many were destroyed or limewashed over at the Reformation and have reappeared during later conservation, so a visible one is often a recent uncovering rather than a continuously visible feature.
obscured from the sixteenth century
An equal-armed cross, usually enclosed in a circle, painted in red or incised, about a hand's width across and set at roughly shoulder height.