THE SHALL-CROSS. 205 



over the Britons at Chester, had extended his kingdom to the 

 Dee, and was slain at the battle on the Idle, in Nottinghamshire, 

 in 617. Thus the district comprising the whole of the crosses 

 in question came under the Northumbrian sway, and remained 

 so, with temporary exceptions, until the year 685, when Ecgfrith 

 of Northumbria was defeated and slain at the battle of 

 Nechtansmere, and the Northumbrians lost a considerable 

 portion of their territories. During this period, namely, in 627, 

 Christianity was introduced into Northumbria by Paulinus, and 

 we know that in 632 he extended his mission throughout the 

 boundaries of the then province, and, as Beda tells us, 

 " preached the Word on the south side of the Humber," journey- 

 ing as far as the Trent, in which, in the presence of King 

 Edwin, who accompanied him, he baptized a multitude of the 

 people near a town called Tiovulfingchester, which is usually 

 accepted as Southwell. Thence he journeyed into Cumberland, 

 preaching as he went; so his mission would embrace the very 

 ground now sprinkled with this type of cross, namely, along the 

 banks of the Trent and the Dove, passing Stapleford and Wilne 

 into Staffordshire, by Chebsey, Stoke, Leek, and Ham, and 

 thence northward through the western borders of Derbyshire 

 and Cheshire, past Bakewell, Shallcross, and Ludworth on the 

 right, and Clulow, Macclesfield, Upton, Pym Chair, Bow Stones, 

 and Cheadle on the left, on his way towards Cumberland. 

 Thus he would pass within a few miles of every one of these 

 monuments. 



At this time the whole of the country south of the Trent was 

 under the rule of Penda, of whom Beda writes : " Penda, with 

 all the nation of the Mercians, was an idolater, and a stranger 

 to the name of Christ," and in the following year King Edwin 

 was slain by him at the battle of Heathfield. Therefore, if 

 Paulinus introduced the custom of erecting crosses to com- 

 memorate the stages of this great religious movement, and this 

 was the particular design of cross set up in Mercia on that 

 occasion, we can well understand that the custom would not 

 be tolerated across the Trent, and the design then popularized 



