* The Battle of Neville’s Cross took place on October 17th, 1346. See The Battle of Neville’s Cross. The Rites mention that it took place in Redhills, about three quarters of a mile west of the City of Durham. Immediately after the battle, leading English general Ralph Neville raised a commemorative cross, and streets around it bear the name Neville’s Cross to this day, though only the pedestal remains.

* The Scots carried two crosses into battle, both captured by the English and both given to Durham Abbey as trophies of war. The larger of the two was carried by two or three men. The smaller, only a palm’s length, was known as ‘the black cross’ and was a treasured heirloom, used by both St Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and her son King David I on their deathbeds. David II would have carried this himself upon his breast.

* Those who find the legend that follows a little too fantastic might prefer the speculation that the Black Rood was a reliquary for a piece of the true Cross of Christ, given (as Simeon of Durham relates) by Pope Marinus I to King Alfred (r. 871-886). Alfred was a direct ancestor of Margaret of Scotland (known before her marriage to Malcolm III Canmore, King of Scots, as Margaret of Wessex) and of their son David I of Scotland. Margaret was a daughter of Edward the Exile, who was a son of King Edmund Ironside of England (r. 1016) — Edward had been driven out of England when Cnut the Great seized the crown from his father. The royal family returned to England to claim their inheritance just too late to prevent the Norman Conquest: see Edward the Exile. It is by no means unlikely that one of England’s crown jewels should have been handed down to Margaret.

* The David in the battle was David II (1324-1371), but the legend of the fair hart which follows has usually been told of David I (1124-1153).

* On September 14th. Rood is the Anglo-Saxon word for a cross. It was widely held that Christ’s cross had been discovered in Jerusalem early in the 330s, and the feast was established to commemorate the event. After the Arab conquest of Jerusalem in the seventh century, the Cross was rescued, broken up, and distributed among the major centres of Christendom as the best way of ensuring that at least some of it survived the turbulence of history. See St Helen Finds the True Cross.

* When the author says no one knew what the cross was made of, he is referring to the relic, not the casket which held it, which he tells us further on was made of silver, tarnished black as if with sooty smoke.