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CALVARY

Volume 5 · 122 words · 1810 Edition

a term used in Catholic countries for a kind of chapel of devotion raised on a hillock near a city, in memory of the place where Jesus Christ was crucified near the city of Jerusalem. The word comes from the Latin calvarium; and that from calvus, bald, in regard the top of that hillock was bare and destitute of verdure; which is also signified by the Hebrew word golgotha. Such is the Calvary of St Valerian near Paris; which is accompanied with several little chapels, in each of which is represented in sculpture one of the mysteries of the Passion.

in Heraldry, a cross so called, because it resembles the cross on which our Saviour suffered. It is always set upon fleurs.