3-043-749 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Market Cross, Salisbury, 1872. '...the Market Cross, or Poultry Cross, as it was called, from the sale of poultry beneath it, is a very curious structure. It is one of three such crosses that formerly existed in the town. But this one is said to have been built as a penance, at the bidding of the Bishop of Salisbury, by Sir John de Montacute, nephew to the Earl of Salisbury in the time of Richard II. This gentleman, who was a friend of Wickliffe and a patron of the Lollards, had been guilty of sacrilegious contempt towards the Host, when obliged to carry it home, for which offence he was sentenced not only to build the cross in the Market-place, but to kneel there on Fridays, barefoot and bareheaded, to ask pardon of his sin. Another account, however, states that it was not John de Montacute, but one Lawrence of St. Martin's, who built the cross as a penance. It is an elaborate structure, of the hexagon shape, with six arches, and an empty niche for a statue over each; from the centre of the summit rises a sculptured pillar, supported by flying buttresses. An inscription it once bore has been effaced'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.