INTRODUCTION

In recent years, theories of landscape and place have encouraged greater understanding of how previous societies gave meaning to the visible traces of the past on the ground. It is no longer sufficient to categorise monuments, earthwork remains and entire landscapes within the chronological parameters set by modern preoccupations with periodisation. Proponents of this recent view emphasise the centrality of material evidence for understanding the workings of memory and formation of social identity. In the light of this perspective, one of the most striking yet often overlooked features of estate maps, dating from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, are the traces of an apparent pre-Reformation spiritual landscape. Maps can reveal the existence of holy wells and monuments, together with a network of minor place-names alluding to former pilgrimage routes, religious buildings and structures. The number of references to extant medieval wayside and boundary crosses on Norfolk estate maps is particularly notable and provides the subject of this chapter.

Religious monuments of medieval origin are typically employed by historians to illustrate the process of religious reform and the importance of iconoclasm in providing a tangible rupture with the past. Intended to dissolve spiritual meaning and significance by leaving plain, unadorned and irrelevant stones, such actions were deeply symbolic.