ABSTRACT
A Crusade, to those who took part in it, had a double significance. It was at once a " Pilgrim's Progress" and a " Holy War": in either case, a novum salutis genus.ll The pilgrimage was to the Holy Places: and the war for their recovery. In the fourth century, Constantine, t 337, built great churches on the sacred sites of the Gospels: in particular, the Church of the Resurrection at the Holy Sepulchre ;12 and, 326, his mother, the Empress Helena, made a pilgrimage13 to the Holy Land where she presided over the construction of Constantine's buildings (and erected others herself) on the Mount of Olives and at Bethlehem.14 Her example spread far and wide; and in 333 a pilgrim went from Bordeaux who has left us an I tinerary/5 marking all the stages ( mansiones ) from Bordeaux, via Constantinople, to Jerusalem. About 350, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, on 14th September, is known to have been kept at Jerusalem ;16 and its " invention" was, at this date, ascribed to the days of Constantine. l1 This was early in the episcopate of
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St. Cyril, 350-t86. Towards its close, the sacred sites were visited by St. Etheria, a relative of the Emperor Theodosius 1., 379-t95, who travelled from his own country Gallaecia, and has left us, in her Peregrinatio,18 a valuable account of all she saw, in particular of the Veneration of the Cross and the other rites of the church of Jerusalem. A year before Cyril died, Jerome, 385, settled at Bethlehem, whither he was soon followed by Paula and Eustochium, with other ladies of the Roman aristocracy. He used his influence in the West to encourage the habies of going on pilgrimage; and in the sixth century the works of Theodosius20 (530), and of Antoninus21 the martyr (570), testify to its popularity.
