The term Cross of Bernward (German: Bernwardskreuz) principally refers to two Ottonian crosses in the cathedral museum in Hildesheim:
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are also strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
Hildesheim[ˈhɪldəsˌhaɪ̯m](
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The Great Cross of Bernward is a 48 cm high processional Latin cross. [1] The arms of the cross end in protruding rectangles. It was cast in gold and decorated richly with gemstones, pearls and crystals.
The Cross is named after Bernward, Bishop of Hildesheim (993–1022). Legend has it that he received relics of the True Cross from Otto III as a gift and therefore had an expensive reliquary made in the cathedral workshop. At most however this reliquary can only be a predecessor or early form of the current Cross of Bernward, which in its current form probably dates to 1130/40. [2] In iconography the cross is one of Bernward's holy attributes. The Cross served as an ostensorium for pieces of the True Cross, which are the most precious of all the relics venerated at Hildesheim; they are displayed in the shape of a cross underneath the large rock crystal at the centre of the cross. It was originally placed on the cross altar at the eastern end of the nave of St. Michael. Behind it stood the Bernward Column, in front of a bronze-studded column whose base of Greek marble is now in St. Magdalen's. [3]
Since the fourteenth century, the cross is known to have been the official symbol of the cloister of St. Michael. [4] After the abolition of the cloister it was transferred to St. Magdalen's and then to the Cathedral treasury in the twentieth century.
Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79, making it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly reddish yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper and palladium. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium.
A gemstone is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks and occasionally organic materials that are not minerals are also used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some soft minerals are used in jewelry because of their luster or other physical properties that have aesthetic value. Rarity is another characteristic that lends value to a gemstone.
A pearl is a hard glistening object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as a conulariid. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The finest quality natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries. Because of this, pearl has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable.
Smaller, but of no less significance (especially in the history of medieval plastic arts) is the Little or Silver Cross of Bernward, which was probably made in a Bernwardian workshop. It is "in formal and technical terms, the culmination of all earlier cast crucifixes." [5] Inscriptions on its reverse leave no doubt that the crucifix - stylistically related to the Berwardian Ringelheim Cross and the Gero Cross in Cologne - served as a reliquary.
The Gero Cross or Gero Crucifix, of around 965–970, is the oldest large sculpture of the crucified Christ north of the Alps, and has always been displayed in Cologne Cathedral in Germany. It was commissioned by Gero, Archbishop of Cologne, who died in 976, thus providing a terminus ante quem for the work. It is carved in oak, and painted and partially gilded – both have been renewed. The halo and cross-pieces are original, but the Baroque surround was added in 1683. The figure is 187 cm high, and the span of its arms is 165 cm.
Cologne is the largest city of Germany's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and its 1 million+ (2016) inhabitants make it the fourth most populous city in Germany after Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. The largest city on the Rhine, it is also the most populous city both of the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, which is Germany's largest and one of Europe's major metropolitan areas, and of the Rhineland. Centred on the left bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about 45 kilometres (28 mi) southeast of North Rhine-Westphalia's capital of Düsseldorf and 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of Bonn. It is the largest city in the Central Franconian and Ripuarian dialect areas.
