St. Cuthbert's Pectoral Cross, and the Wilton and Ixworth Crosses

When St. Cuthbert's tomb was opened in 1827, the jewelled pectoral cross (pl. LXXV) was found ‘deeply buried among the remains of the robes which were nearest to the breast of the saint’. It had thus escaped disturbance in 1538 at the time of the savage ransacking of the tomb during the Dissolution, and it can be inferred from the circumstances in which the saint's stole and maniple were found that the Commissioners had ceased their plundering before the body had been fully stripped of its wrappings.