‘On Stone Croffes. Mi 507 
battles with the Danés and Norwégiahs ; but I 
am inclined to believe that all the figured pillars 
and obelifks, which have been fuppofed monu- 
ments of fimilar events, were croffes, either 
erected on confpicuous places to excite devotion, 
or raifed over the burying places of noble fa- 
milies, or defigned to commemorate military 
tranfactions, of a much later period. 
The crufades, and the fcience of heraldry, 
gave birth to multitudes in unnumbered forms, 
which no one but a ftudent in arms can poffibly 
have a knowledge of. Indeed an acquaintance 
with heraldry is, if of no other ufe in thefe 
days, abfolutely neceflary as an auxiliary to the 
ftudy of Britifh antiquities; and without it an 
enquirer is liable to unavoidable difficulties, if 
not to very great miftakes, fo clofe a conneétion 
fubfifts between many parts of heraldry and 
antiquity. After the barrow and the tumulus of 
the Pagans, ftone croffes were introduced by the 
_Chriftians. Many of them are at this day ina 
ftate of great decay, and others entirely gone, 
their exiftence being only afcertained by the 
name of the {pot on which they once ftood. 
Befides the injury which their ornaments and 
imagery have undergone from the mouldering 
hand of time, and wanton ignorance, they have 
fuffered much from the blind zeal of reformers; 
who having no tafte themfelves, and being re- 
, Rorrie2 gardlefs 
