[CROSS- 1.]
I. One who bears, wears or carries a cross.
1. An attendant who carries a cross in a procession or religious ceremony; he who bears an archbishop’s cross before him.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 58. Thomas Becket … through the instigation of certain about him, but chiefely of his crosse-bearer.
1644. Evelyn, Diary, 23 Nov. The Crosse-bearer on horseback, with two Priests at each hand on foote.
1726. Ayliffe, Parergon, 94. He has … the Bishop of Rochester (Time was) for his Cross-bearer.
1840. Hood, Up the Rhine, 186. Besides a cross-bearer and flag-bearer, there were … a score of regular attendants all carrying lighted tapers.
2. One who wears a cross in sign of a vow; spec. applied to certain officers of the Inquisition pledged to prosecute heretics.
1731. Chandler, trans. Limborch’s Hist. Inquis., I. 191. There is another sort of them, called Cross-Bearers, instituted by Dominick, to whom he gave such Constitutions … as obliges them vigorously to prosecute Hereticks.
3. fig. One who ‘takes up his cross’ and follows Christ.
1540. Coverdale, Fruitf. Less., i. Wks. (Parker Soc.), I. 294. Make us true cross-bearers and followers of thee.
4. (See quot.)
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Cross-bearer, the transverse bars supporting the grate-bars of a furnace.
