fylfot
(ˈfɪlfɒt)
[The sole authority on which this word has been accepted by modern antiquaries as the name of the mark in question is the passage from the Lansdowne MS. quoted below. The context in which the word there occurs seems to favour the supposition that it is simply fill-foot, meaning a pattern or device for ‘filling the foot’ of a painted window. There is nothing to show whether the word denoted specifically this device as distinguished from others used for the same purpose, and it is even possible that it may have been a mere nonce-word.]
A name for the figure called also a cross cramponnee (see cramponnee), and identical with the swastika of India, the gammadion of Byzantine ecclesiastical ornament; it has been extensively used as a decoration (often, apparently, as a mystical symbol) in almost all known parts of the world from prehistoric times to the present day. Also fylfot cross.
| a 1500 Instruct. Memorial Wind. in MS. Lansdowne 874 lf. 190 Let me stand in the medyll pane..a rolle abo[ve my hede] in the hyest..[pane] vpward, the fylfot in the nedermast pane vnder ther I knele. [The words defaced or torn off are supplied conjecturally. In the sketch, below the effigy of the writer, is a ‘fylfot’ composed of broad fillets, with tricking app. intended for ‘ermine’.] 1842 J. G. Waller Brasses, Priest & Franklin, This device is denominated ‘the fylfot’ on the authority of some ancient directions for the execution of two figures in painted glass..preserved in Lansdowne MS. 874. 1852 J. R. Planché Pursuiv. Arms 135 The Fylfot is a mystic figure, called in the Greek Church, Gammadion. It is very early seen in Heraldry. 1861 Haines Mon. Brasses p. cix, The Fylfot, a kind of cross potent rebated, or cross cramponeé. 1868 Baring-Gould Curious Myths Ser. ii. iii. 89 Bells were often marked with the ‘fylfot’, or cross of Thorr. 1887 Athenæum 20 Aug. 249/2 It comprises a fylfot cross set with studs. |