^^^^-sp. sewn, a small typo
                                                               but significant
   Funny you should ask, again. (I tried this post earlier and had some nasty
codes zip in from somewhere and lock my keyboard. So if this is a repost,
sorry.) The earliest Cross of Jerusalem I have seen, from the Latin East
itself, is on a coin of Amaury, Pretender to the throne of Cyprus, of c. 1304.
This postdates the Latin Kingdom by 13 years. Rudt de Collenberg, in his
article on Jerusalem heraldry in the Actes du IIe Colloque International de
l'Heraldique, opines that the common emblem for the Kingdom in its own time was
arg. a cross gu.
   Of course, there are earlier Jerusalem Crosses in France. The two earliest
published are in the Dean Tract, c.1300 "l'escu d'argent croiselee d'or a une
croise potente d'or", and in the Wijnbergen Armorial, c. 1280 which shows a
shield arg. crusilly plain and a cross potent or.
   However, and this is brand new news, there is in the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, a gemellion with the arms of Jerusalem
which probably dates earlier. A gemellion is a shallow bowl, made in pairs
hence the name, used for the washing of the celebrant's hands during the Mass.
Quantities of them were made in Limoges in enamelled and gilt copper. The one
in the Met's collection, which I am working on for publication, shows in the
central roundel in the bottom of the bowl, arg. crusilly and a cross potent or.
   The Met's dossier calls the piece 3rd quarter of the 13th cent. This puts it
from 5 - 25 years earlier than the Wijnbergen Armorial. Through the summer I
will attempt to place it more securely within the corpus of Limoges enamels of
the 13th century. This should culminate in an article somewhere, but you read it
here first, as they say.
  Vale.
Elliot Nesterman                                   ESN4616@NYUACF
Institute of Fine Arts                             esn4...@acfcluster.nyu.edu
New York University                                standard disclaimers apply
       ***baccalaureus humilis solum sed melior me facere experior***