Two cents from an Orthodox lurker..
The universal custom in the West of the first millennium and beyond was
the present Eastern Orthodox custom of signing oneself right to left
(not left to right,) and with three fingers. A sketchy article on these
points, with rather sketchy references (esp. Stevens, The Cross in the
Life and Literature of the Anglo-Saxons (New York, 1904) is in the
online Catholic Enc. at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13785a.htm
There is an interesting sermon of Abbot Aelfric of Abingdon which he
gave around the year 1000 in which he states, "Though a man wave
wonderfully with his hand, yet it is not the sign of the Cross: With
three fingers thou shalt sign thyself" (Sermon for Sept. 14.)
We know that in England the change from right shoulder first and
probably also to indiscriminate use of the fingers was
underway sometime in the 14th century, though there were holdouts (a
15th c. MS. York Missal has the Priest cross himself with the paten
right to left). Pope Innocent III (d. 1216) has a commentary on the sign
of the cross making clear that the three fingers were used and that it
was, in his day, right to left still.
As to the laity signing others - this is normal in the Eastern Churches,
with the difference that the layperson signs the Cross on another
person's body while holding his/her fingers as is done when signing
oneself, and not holding the fingers in the fashion of a priest when
blessing someone.
And some anecdotal evidence from a liturgical historian, the Rev.
Father Michael Mansbridge-Wood of Saint Petroc Monastery on Tasmania,
Australia:
" SIGN OF THE CROSS: For what it's worth, I was brought up in a country
village Church of England. As a child, I was taught to make the sign of
the Cross from right to left - by a Priest who had been brought up in
the Celtic fringe counties in the last century. We always understood
this to be "our old way" of signing ourselves. I have mentioned before
my belief that there was a "thin stream" of theology and customs handed
down in Britain - this is just one of the many reasons for that belief."
Fr Ambrose
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