Formerly crouched. [f. ME. CROUCH sb.1 cross, crouchen, CROUCH v.2 to sign with the cross, to cross. The original long ū has been shortened before the consonant group: cf. Dutch, formerly Douch.]
Having or bearing a cross. Crutched or Crouched (also Crossed) Friars (Fratres cruciferi or Sanctæ Crucis): a minor order of friars so called from their bearing or wearing a cross.
According to Hospinianus (de Orig. Monach. V. xv. (1609), 163) they were bound to a rule in 1169; but they first appeared in England in 1244, their rule having been ‘confirmed’ by Pope Innocent IV. in 1243. They then bore a cross upon the top of their staves, but subsequently wore a cross of scarlet cloth on the breast of their habit, which Pope Pius II. in 1460 appointed to be blue. They were suppressed in 1656. See Newcourt, Repertorium (1708), I. 328.
[a. 1259. Matt. Paris, Chron. anno 1244. Fratres dicti cruciferi, dicti sic, quia cruces in baculis efferebant.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VII. 297. In the Towre warde. An howse of crossed freres.
1530. Palsgr., 211/1. Crossed frere, frere de Saincte-Croix.]
1570–6. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1862), 299. This suppressed house of crouched Friars at Motindene.
1628. L. Owen, Unmask. Monks, 23. Of the Cruciferi, or Crucigeri, or the Cruched Friers.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 191/1. Cruciferians … of the vulgar called Cruched Friers … came into England in the year 1244.
1807. Sir R. Colt Hoare, Tour in Ireland, 270. A Priory … erected in the thirteenth century for Crossbearers, or Crouched Friars.
b. The quarters of this order; hence, the part of a town where their convent formerly existed.
1556. Chron. Gr. Friars (Camden), 39. Hys boddy buryd at the Crost Freeres in the qwere.
1666. Pepys, Diary, 6 June. Going through Crouched Friars.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, II. 645. The window-glass manufacture was first begun in England in 1557, in Crutched Friars, London.
