The fylfot or fylfot cross ( ) and its mirror image, the gammadion, are types of truncated swastika, associated with medieval Anglo-Saxon culture. It is a cross with perpendicular extensions, usually at 90° or close angles, radiating in the same direction. However at least in modern heraldry texts, such as Friar and Woodcock & Robinson (see ) the fylfot differs somewhat from the archetypal form of the swastika: always upright and typically with truncated limbs, as shown in the figure at right.
Etymology
The most commonly cited etymology for the word is that it comes from a belief, common among 19th-century antiquarians but based only on a dubious reading of the British Library's Lansdowne manuscript 874, that the word referred to the device a swastika shown in the main part of the image on of a stained-glass memorial window to Thomas Froxmere in the parish church of Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire. Subsequent analysis of the manuscript by lexicographer Henry Bradley explained that the word was an instruction to the painter to fill empty space at the foot. the Collins English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Online).
Walter William Skeat's 1882 A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language defined the fylfot as "a peculiarly formed cross" and derived it from Old English:
The second edition of Skeat's An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, completed in 1883, included an expanded etymology for fylfot which derived the word from .
History
The fylfot, together with its sister figures, the gammadion and the swastika, has been found in a great variety of contexts over the centuries. It has occurred in both secular and religious contexts in the British Isles, elsewhere in Europe, in Asia Minor and in Africa.
The gammadion is associated more with Byzantium, Rome and Graeco-Roman culture on the one hand, whereas the fylfot is associated more with Celtic and Anglo-Saxon culture on the other. Although the gammadion is very similar to the fylfot in appearance, it is thought to have originated from the conjunction of four capital 'Gammas' (, the third letter of the Greek alphabet) but that the similarity of the symbols is coincidental.
Both of these swastika-like crosses may have been indigenous to the British Isles before the Roman invasion. Certainly they were in evidence a thousand years earlier but these may have been largely imports. They were certainly substantially in evidence during the Romano-British period with widespread examples of the duplicated Greek fret motif appearing on mosaics. After the withdrawal of the Romans in the early 5th century there followed the Anglo-Saxon and Jutish migrations.
The fylfot is known to have been very popular amongst these incoming tribes from Northern Europe, as it is found on artefacts such as brooches, sword hilts and funerary urns. Although the findings at Sutton Hoo are most instructive about the style of lordly Anglo-Saxon burials, the fylfot or gammadion on the silver dish unearthed there clearly had an Eastern provenance.
The fylfot was widely adopted in the early Christian centuries. It is found extensively in the Roman catacombs. An example of its usage is to be found in the porch of the parish church of Great Canfield, Essex, England. As the parish guide states, the fylfot or gammadion can be traced back to the Roman catacombs where it appears in both Christian and pagan contexts. More recently it has been found on grave-slabs in Scotland and Ireland. A particularly interesting example was found in Barhobble, Wigtownshire in Scotland.
Gospel books also contain examples of this form of the Christian cross. The most notable examples are probably the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels. An example of this decoration occurs on the Ardagh Chalice.
From the early 14th century on, the fylfot was often used to adorn Eucharistic robes. During that period it appeared on the monumental brasses that preserved the memory of those priests thus attired. They are mostly to be found in East Anglia and the Home Counties.
thumb|Thomas Froxmere's sketch for a memorial window for himself and his wife in the parish church of [[Droitwich Spa around 1480, in British Library Lansdowne manuscript 874, folio 191 recto. The text describes the swastika as a "fylfot".]]
In the 15th century, Thomas Froxmere designed stained glass memorial window for himself and his wife Catherine Cornwallis in the parish church of Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire. The window no longer exists, but Froxmere's sketch of it is preserved in the Lansdowne manuscripts in the British Library. The design has figures of him and his wife with annotations. The wife is depicted above a breaking wheel, and the husband, wearing an heraldic tabard, kneels above an ermine swastika. According to Henry Bradley in 1897: