Rood of Grace

Part of a pilgrim badge of the Rood of Grace, Boxley Abbey. This fragment depicts most of the rood (the top and the right-hand terminal of the horizontal bar are missing), which is decorated with trefoil crockets as if it is flowering. The left-hand side of the horizontal bar has a quatrefoil terminal. There is an altar at the foot of the rood with part of a small figure next to it – this is probably the keeper of the rood. A rood is a large crucifix usually displayed in a church. Boxley Abbey in Kent was a popular stopping-off point for pilgrims on their way to St Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury. The rood at Boxley Abbey had a life-sized figure of Christ, which was famous for shedding tears. Sometimes the face would also move. In 1538, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the rood was taken down and a mechanical device was found inside the head, revealing that the miraculous moving face was in fact complex trickery.