[Transcriber's Notes: All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation inconsistencies retained with the exception of those few listed at the end of this text. The following notations were used in the text: = for bold _ for italics + for an Old English font ^ for superscripted letters or numbers {} for sequential superscripted letters or numbers] +The Legendary History of the Cross.+ [Illustration: This Copy is _No._..............] [Illustration] _The Legendary Hiſtory of the Croſs_ A SERIES OF Sixty-four Woodcuts _From a Dutch book publiſhed by_ VELDENER, A.D. 1483 WITH _AN INTRODUCTION_ Written and Illuſtrated By JOHN ASHTON _PREFACE_ By S. BARING GOULD, M.A. [Illustration] +London+ T. FISHER UNWIN M.D.CCC.LXXXVII UNWIN BROTHERS, _Old Style Printers_, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. [Illustration] _PREFACE._ THE origin of the mediæval romance of the Croſs is hard to diſcover. It was very popular. It occurs in a good number of authors, and is depicted in a good many churches in ſtained glaſs. I may perhaps be allowed here to repeat what I have ſaid in my article on the Legend of the Croſs, in “Myths of the Middle Ages:”— “In the churches of the city of Troyes alone it appears in the windows of four: S. Martin-ès-Vignes, S. Pantaléon, S. Madeleine, and S. Nizier. It is freſcoed along the walls of the choir of S. Croce at Florence, by the hand of Agnolo Gaddi. Pietro della Franceſca alſo dedicated his pencil to the hiſtory of the Croſs in a ſeries of freſcoes in the chapel of the Bacci, in the church of S. Franceſco at Arezzo. It occurs as a predella painting among the ſpecimens of early art at the Accademia delle Belle Arti at Venice, and is the ſubject of a picture by Beham, in the Munich Gallery. The Legend is told in full in the ‘Vita Chriſti,’ printed at Troyes in 1517; in the ‘Legenda Aurea’ of Jacques de Voragine; in a French MS. of the thirteenth century, in the Britiſh Muſeum. Gervaſe of Tilbury relates a portion of it in his ‘Otia Imperalia,’ quoting Peter Comeſtor; it appears in the ‘Speculum Hiſtoriale’ of Gottfried of Viterbo, in the ‘Chronicon Engelhuſii,’ and elſewhere.” In the very curious Creation window of S. Neot’s Church, Cornwall, Seth is repreſented putting three pips of the Tree of Life into the mouth and noſtrils of dead Adam, as he buries him.