[Matthew Kelty]

[E. Storesund]

[Luka Borscak]

Is that cross inlayed or how is it made? If inlayed, what metal is it?

[Daniel Wallace]

i've been loosely looking through this post - so i might hit on something that was already mentioned. but i'll through my thoughts into the mix too.

the christian cross may not have been displayed on swords for a variety of reasons, one i could state is a modern day notion that could touch the the subject. to put on cross on something other than what is holy is 'taboo' (by the roman church). it's as if you put a cross on something and your attempting to make it a holy object and unfortunately only the church can deem what is a holy object. i had a pastor once explain this to me and i know that it sound a little negative and it's hard for me to explain i just remember him expressing that objects other than holy object should not be adorned with the cross - this also led into another discussion of personal wearing of the cross that i'm not going to get into unless asked. it's possibly relevant but may cause some arguments.

if we're going to be looking for a cross, historically it wasn't popular until the first crusade (at least from what my crusade research is pointing at). before then the fish symbol or PX the lamb there are many more christian symbols that labeled a person as 'christian.' Pope Urban used the cross (what we would see as the equal pointed knight's cross) as a symbol and propaganda to unite the crusaders and mark that they were part of the pilgrimage. the first crusade was made up of so may different ethnic groups - and the cross was the only symbol used to unite these people. they couldn't use language some of these people can't even be understood - they spoke a dying dialect at times. for another prince to have his standard followed during the crusade would have lead to more infighting within the groups "we're fighting for Bohemond" instead of "we're fighting for God under Bohemond."

[Matthew Kelty]