Reliquaries of the True Cross: Intro to Research

Fragments of the True Cross, the cross on which Jesus was crucified, have appeared in large and richly decorated reliquaries in churches or in small, personal reliquaries across Western Europe and the Mediterranean for centuries. The complex legends and literary history of the True Cross are particularly important in discussing its relics and reliquaries. The singular history of its inventio or discovery unites the countless fragments dispersed across Europe.

According to legend, Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, discovered the True Cross while traveling to Jerusalem in the early 4th c. by her son’s orders to retrieve Christian relics. She worked with St. Macarius, then bishop of Jerusalem, and ordered excavations to find it. The Cross had supposedly been hidden by the Jews and a man named Judas pointed Helena to its hiding spot. Some traditions say that the Cross’s titulus or inscription was still fastened when it was found, but most stories say otherwise. To determine which of the three unearthed crosses was the True Cross, they were brought to a dying woman. Only upon touching the third cross, the True Cross, did she return to full health. Helena erected a basilica named St. Constantinus at the site of discovery. A portion of the True Cross remained in Jerusalem and the remainder was sent to Constantine.

In addition to the inventio of the Cross, the 4th c. legends of King Oswald and Constantine are considered to be closely associated. King Oswald of Northumbria in northern England planted a wooden cross in the ground prior to a battle at Heavenfield. He was victorious because he prayed and convinced his council to agree to be baptized following the battle. Likewise, Constantine saw a luminary vision of Cross in the sky before his victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 346. Because he also saw the words “In this, conquer,” he ordered that the Chi-Rho symbol be painted on all soldiers’ armor. Legends of the restitutio, the restoration, and the exaltatio, the exaltation or celebration, are also part of the elaborate and often convoluted history of the True Cross.

As a result of Helena’s discovery, further fragmentation and dispersal of the Cross stemmed from Constantinople. Early distribution of fragments by Byzantine emperors can be easily traced. Emperor Justin II sent a piece to Poitiers, France in 569 at the request of Saint Radegund, an avid relic collector. Byzantine emperors also sent True Cross relics in precious Byzantine reliquaries to Rome and southwest Gaul as gifts. With the crusades in 1099, several True Cross relics appeared in the West, most notably, the Stavelot triptych and the relic in the Church of Saint Sernin in Toulouse. Tracing the transmission paths of True Cross relics after 1204 becomes much more difficult due to the conquest of Constantinople in 1204. A large number of True Cross relics were thus transferred to the West including to the churches or monasteries in Trier, Mettlach, Cologne, and Florennes in Belgium.

Because of the True Cross’s locale in Constantinople, many reliquaries of the True Cross exhibit some Byzantine influence. Smaller Byzantine reliquaries were incorporated into larger Western style reliquaries or a reliquary was designed as a fusion of Byzantine and Western artistic styles. Various types of reliquaries of the True Cross exist including, but not limited to, cross-shaped reliquaries, personal pendant reliquaries, panel reliquaries often based off of the Stavelot triptych, double-arm reliquary crosses, chests, and reliquary crowns.

Terminology:
-Staurotheke- reliquary of the true cross; "cross containers" (Treasures of Heaven p.11-12)
-inventio- discovery or invention of
-restitutio- restoration
-Feast of the Cross or Exaltatio Sanctae Crucis- celebration of the cross itself; May 3rd
-titulus- inscription, mark of identification

Intro Bibliography: (some of these seem difficult to obtain)
Baert, Barbara. Trans. from Dutch by Lee Preedy. A heritage of holy wood: the legend of the true cross in text and image. (Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill): 2004.
-excellent bibliography, thorough intro, focuses on the “prehistory” of the cross; in Tisch

Borgehammar, S. How the Holy Cross was found: from event to medieval legend: with an appendix of texts, (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International): 1991.

Drijvers, J.W. Helena Augusta: the mother of Constantine the Great and the legend of her finding the true cross, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers): 1992.

Drijvers, Han J.W. and Jan Willem Drijvers. The Finding of the True Cross: the Judas Kyriakos legend in Syriac: Introduction, text and translation, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 565. Subsidia, 93, 1997.

Edwards, Jennifer C. “Their Cross to Bear: Controversy and the Relic of the True Cross in Poitiers.” Essays in Medieval Studies. Vol. 24, 2007, pp. 65-77.

Holbert, Kelly. “Relics and reliquaries of the True Cross.” Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles. 2005, p. 337-363.

Hyslop, F.E. Jr. “A Byzantine Reliquary of the True Cross from the Sancta Sanctorum”: Art Bulletin Vol 16, No. 4 (December 1934): 333-340.

Johnson, Richard. Review of The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England ed. By Catherine Karkov, Sarah Keefer and Karen Jolly. In Journal of English and Germanic Philology. Vol 108 No. 1. (January 2009): 98-102.

Polsander, Hans A. Helena: Empress and saint. (Chicago: Ares Publishers), 1995.

Polsander, Hans. Review of A heritage of holy wood: the legend of the true cross in text and image, by Barbara Baert and Byzanz, der Westen, und das “wahre” Kreuz by Holger Alexander Klein, The Catholic Historical Review Vol 93. No.2 (2007): 378-382. Link

Wood, Ian. “Constantinian Crosses in Northumbria” in The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Catherine Karkov, Sarah Keefer and Karen Jolly. (Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press, 2006), 3-13. Link

Treasures of Heaven p. 11-12, 81-82, 88-89, 51

Sources in other languages:
Frolow, Anatole in French
Klein, Holger Alexander in German

Online Resources:
Cabrol, Fernand. “The True Cross.” The Catholic Encycolopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved February 4, 2011 from New Advent

Marucchi, Orazio. “Archaeology of the Cross and Crucifix.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. Retrieved February 4, 2011 from New Advent

Images (from top to bottom):
Reliquary With the Man of Sorrows (Treasures of Heaven p. 205-6)
The Finding of the True Cross by Agnolo Gaddi, Florence, 1380
The Proving of the True Cross, Jean Colombe, Très Riches Heures
Pendant Reliquary Cross (Treasures of Heaven p.51)
Limburg Reliquary of the True Cross, 10th c.
Triptych from the Abbey of Stavelot, ca. 1156/58 (Treasures of Heaven p.168)
Panel-shaped Reliquary of the True Cross (Treasures of Heaven p.90-1)