Family Lessons 162: Crosse Your Arms

‘Quarterly gules and in the first and fourth quarters a cross potent argent’. This is the description of the Crosse family's coat of arms, who lived in Wigan, Liverpool and Lathom in the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, from whom I descend. Heraldry enjoys its own peculiar and arcane language, for which translation is called:

‘Gules’ means red.

'Argent’ means silver.

A ‘cross potent’ is “a cross with T-shaped end on each arm, historically associated with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Christian symbolism. Unlike a traditional Latin cross, the cross potent has equal-length arms with perpendicular bars at the ends, giving it a distinctive geometric appearance.”

Whether the Crosse family had responded to the Pope’s call for crusade in the 1090s or in subsequent years, I cannot say. Yet they were granted these arms with the distinctive cross, which might indicate this, along with their peculiar name. Alternatively, they might have been designated after some monumental, boundary marker in the Lathom area, ‘cross’ referring to a place name rather than a great-grandfather’s adventures fighting saracens.

I much prefer the idea of a crusading ancestor than one who merely farmed a field, naturally. I suspect that some military services were rendered that warranted the granting of a formal coat of arms, which is something generally unavailable to the one who merely grows crops and rears sheep. The family was certainly around at the time of the crusades and their right to a peculiar design of shield might support this. These men 'took the cross' and were called Crosse thereafter.

In these days of revived paganism, infidelity and godlessness, may we each ‘take the cross’, not to fight abroad, but to stand up for King Jesus in our own land, homes and lives.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
ye soldiers of the cross;
lift high His royal banner,
it must not suffer loss.
From vict'ry unto vict'ry
His army shall He lead,
till ev'ry foe is vanquished,
and Christ is Lord indeed.

-George Duffield, 1858

A D