Crosses of Burnsall

At Burnsall Church in Wharfedale is a large collection of medieval crosses. Some are Danish, others Saxon and Anglian. That so many would be found in the area would suggest that there has been a Christian place of worship on the site for over 1200 years. The quantity would suggest that they were grave markers rather than preaching crosses, for which we generally find only one in any given locale. To this day, many gravestones are cross-shaped, even in relatively modern nonconformist cemeteries like our own, which boasts two.

The cross is, of course, a symbol of death. Those two crossed beams were the preferred method of painful execution employed by imperial Rome, and the one used to kill the Saviour of the world. Yet to we who believe, the cross is also a symbol of life and hope; for bearing the Father’s wrath, hell-deserving sinners can look forward to eternal life, and not what their many sins warrant. I suspect that very few early medieval folk truly understood the gospel, so poor was their literacy and so ignorant and dark their so-called church. Yet any who lived and died in the shadow of Christ’s cross need not fear the grave, nor that which waits beyond it.