Weathercock

Christianity

Pope Gregory I (in office 590 to 604) regarded the cockerel as "the most suitable emblem of Christianity", being the emblem of Saint Peter (a reference to Luke 22:34 in which Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him three times before the rooster crows). Pope Leo IV (in office 847 to 855) had a weathercock placed on the Old St. Peter's Basilica or old Constantinian basilica. As a result of this, rooster representations gradually came into use as a weather vanes on church steeples, and in the ninth century Pope Nicholas I (in office 858 to 867) ordered the figure to be placed on every church steeple. The Bayeux Tapestry, likely commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux in the 1070s, depicts a man installing a weathercock on Westminster Abbey.