Responding to the demand for ornate jewellery combined with a fervour for religious tokens the functions of cross pendant and reliquary were combined by the increasingly innovative jewellers of the early to mid-16th century. These crosses, in varying degrees of opulence, were popular throughout the courts of Europe and continued to be so, almost unchanged in design, well into the 17th century. Those encrusted with diamonds were a recurring royal gift to favoured courtiers and relations. For example jewelled crosses were among the many items recorded as bought in 1549 from German and Italian merchants by Philip II of Spain while in Brussels.

The Passion of Christ:
The Christian theological term used for the events and suffering, physical, spiritual and mental, of Jesus in the hours before and during his trial and execution by crucifixion. In this case it is represented by a selection of the most common iconographic symbols: The chalice: used by Jesus at The Last Supper and which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch his blood at the crucifixion; The Flagellum: used in the whipping of Christ before the crucifixion; The Holy Lance: with which a Roman soldier inflicted the final of the Five Wounds in Jesus's side; crossed with The Holy Sponge: set on a reed with which gall and vinegar were offered to Jesus; The sword used by Peter to cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant during Jesus's arrest and finally The Cockerel: that crowed after Peter's third denial of Jesus.