Occitan Cross
In heraldry, it is named "Cross of Toulouse". It is blazoned as key-cross (the arms in the shape of a keybit), voided (one can see the field through its branches) and pommelled with twelve pieces (each point is topped with a "small apple" called "pommette").
Its color is gold (yellow) on a field of gules (red).
As for the symbolism, it leaves the choice ...
The total of the twelve pommettes could symbolize the twelve apostles, whose number references the twelve tribes of Israel, the hours of day and night, the months of the year, the signs of the zodiac, the directions of the winds that drive the ships, the Celestial Jerusalem whose twelve gates protect the Paschal Lamb…
Moreover, in the Middle Ages, when people were largely illiterate, symbols were used (for example: the dog and the thigh wound are the attributes of Saint Roch). Thus, the pommettes, mounted on a crown, were the privilege of the Counts (9 pommettes for the Viscounts and skewed bars for the barons).
The same goes for the four arms of the Cross. They would represent the four gospels or the four seasons, the four directions or the four elements of the zodiac…
Of obscure origins...
This pommelled cross has obscure origins dating back to before the Christian era. Indeed, it is engraved in the Valley of Wonders, in the Maritime Alps, near Mount Bego. A form of the cross featuring twelve points, vaguely reminiscent of the current one, can be found among a people living in southern Gaul, three centuries before Jesus Christ, the Volques, who separated around the 2nd century; the Arecomiques Volques settling in the region of Nîmes, later giving rise to the "colonia nemausensis", and the Tectosages Volques in the region stretching from Narbonne to Toulouse.
It could also be a synthesis between the Cross of St. Maurice (trefoiled) and the Byzantine cross, possibly with a Visigoth influence. It appears from the 10th century in Provence (Count of Forcalquier, Count of Marseille, Guilhem I the Liberator), but its most probable origin seems to be the reliquary cross offered by the Emperor of Constantinople, Alexis Comnenus to Count of Toulouse RAIMON IV in 1104, celebrating the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders. It appears on the coat of arms of the main lineages of Occitanie.
What is certain is that for over 1000 years, it has united a people and is engraved in the heart of all Occitans!
