Cross Roads
The crosses paths are monumental crosses that have developed since the Middle Ages and are intended to Christianize a place. Shapes, sizes and various materials (wood, granite, now cast, wrought iron or cement), they adorn both the villages and hamlets as rural roads and symbolize the act of faith of the community. They multiply from 1095 , when asylum is extended to cross paths then have a dual role as guide and protection.
Summary |
The cross roads is a religious symbol of the Catholic widespread sixteenth century to today. They are due to the willingness of communities or the public private families.
The first grace the villages and hamlets and symbolize the act of faith of the community. They are often found at intersections, they guide and protect the traveler from the unknown and dangerous encounters. They are sometimes a place of pilgrimage like the cross of twigs for example: each year a procession was held very important to the cross where we blessed the box. They are ornamented with a few lines of prayer.
All the crosses are not due to the desire of communities, many of them were erected following a private initiative, often by a wealthy family who wanted both to affirm his faith and protect his family. We can distinguish this type of cross is there because of previous engraved the name of the sponsor family. Sometimes there was even a coat.
The wooden cross, they reverently replaced when they fell, about every twenty years, were followed by stone monuments, works of stonemasons in the area. These artisans were able, thanks to the generosity of an owner easier, better life for these vulnerable witnesses to the piety of the countryside.
When the cross is erected, it is blessed, and usually the object of a cult: there was usually a procession, but crosses remote towns or in isolated hamlets, the demonstrations were much more humble: the shepherds from the field was hung at the cross a twig broom, or deposited a bouquet of flowers, unless it is the work of a passerby.
The shepherds are gone, but some crosses are still flowering and some villages are very attached to their cross and still maintain.
Types
These elements include:
- The Cross junction , located at the crossroads guide the traveler.
Some are used as breaks during processions or derogations where the head priest, provided in addition to a processional cross , stopping to bless the fields and meadows. Thus the cross branches saw an annual procession very important to her where we blessed the box. They are ornamented with a few lines of prayer.
A number of them are also cross the path of the dead: the home of the deceased to the church, the funeral procession stopped at all the crosses to recite some prayers and allowed a break to holders of beer.
From the eighteenth century especially, the missions are increasing in the parishes. Again we can largely procession to celebrate the closing of the Mission, it erects a cross of mission in a large crowd of competition.
- The "cross memorial" are witnesses. Thus the site of a brutal death, or rather a fluke, is the subject of an erection of the cross.
There are also the "cross of plague", which recall and conjure an epidemic, or "cross of pilgrimage, which usually does not mark a step on a journey, but remind the pilgrim of the donor.
- the "cross boundaries" are terminal. Input and output of the villages are normally provided with a cross, but all limits, religious (eg sauvets Middle Age) and profane, and could be materialized.
Photo Gallery
 Cross on a country road in Ctes-d'Armor |  Cross Memorial City ( Alsace ) |  Cross Road in the region of Charlevoix (Quebec) |  Simple metal cross over Saint-Paulet ( Aude ) |
 Cross adorned with a sacred heart- to -the-Box Rape ( Hrault ) |  Cross Salten in South Tyrol |  Cross the road to St Jacques de Compostela in Spain |  The cross of Thianges to Coust (18) dated from 1472 |
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