ABSTRACT
The rationale for Avitus' fixation on the material authenticity of his prize emerges in his letter of thanks to bishop Elias of Jerusalem, who seems to have been obliging regarding the request: by his gift of the wood, Avitus wrote, Elias had judged Avitus to be "not unworthy to share in the company of the earthly Jerusalem", indicating that his investment in the relic hinged at least partly on its ability to function as a topographical index of the Holy City. In the case of the seventh-century court of Queen Theodelinda in Lombard Italy, there appears, again, to have been an interest in the cross as a topographic marker of pilgrimage. The cases of Avitus, Radegund, and Theodelinda represent only a few of the possible ways in which the geographic significance of the True Cross might have been harnessed in late antique Europe.
