Chapter II: The Beginnings of the Via Crucis

In the useful essay upon the Stations of the Cross which has been published by Dr von Keppler, Bishop of Rottenburg, as an introduction to the “Kreuzweg” of the Beuron Art School,[22] he states that before the eleventh century, although we find some indications of a _Via Sacra_, a certain determined route along which pilgrims were conducted in visiting the holy places of Jerusalem, there was as yet no _Via Crucis_, no trace of any recognition of the path by which our SAVIOUR bore His own Cross to Calvary. Bishop von Keppler considers that the earliest suggestion of such special recognition is to be met with in the French pilgrimage book of 1187, “La Citez de Hierusalem.” Even here, though there is mention of a _Porte Dolereuse_ or sorrowful gate, by which our LORD went forth to die, the reference to the road to Calvary is slight and indirect. There is no allusion as yet to particular sites along the road, indulgenced stopping-places which the faithful are taught to regard with veneration and to greet with prayer. This was to come later on, but it was remote in the twelfth century. There is equally little trace of a _Via Crucis_ in the narratives of a number of other pilgrims belonging to this period. They are so ready to give information when they possess it, that it seems barely credible that when Fetellus (1130), John of Würtzburg (1170), Theodore of Würtzburg (1172), John Phocas (1185), Wilbrand von Oldenburg (1212), and others, are all silent, the _Via Crucis_ can really have been honoured by the pilgrims of that age. It is, perhaps, in the account of Philippus Brusserius Savonensis (1285-1291), that we first meet with anything like a series of halting places marking the incidents of the journey to Calvary. Riccoldo (1294) speaks of the “via per quam ascendit CHRISTUS bajulans sibi crucem,” the road by which CHRIST ascended carrying His cross. In Marino Sanuto (_c._ 1310), in Pipino (1320), and Ludolf of Suchem (1350), the impression becomes stronger, but even here the _Via Crucis_ has no special prominence. We find indeed that mention is made of the places where Simon of Cyrene was forced to help our SAVIOUR, where the women of Jerusalem wept, where Mary swooned at meeting her Son, none of which are heard of in earlier centuries; but these things are not associated together as having a particular interest of their own. They are, and remained for centuries later, merely items in a long series of holy places to be visited in turn. The tour occupied the whole day, and the Way of the Cross was only a fraction of it. Even as late as the seventeenth century so irrelevant an element as the house where Dives of the parable is said to have lived was retained amongst the other sites or stations which were venerated on the road to Calvary.

By the end of the fourteenth century, largely owing no doubt to the restrictions of the Turkish rule, a definite and almost invariable programme had established itself with regard to the entertainment of each band of pilgrims that visited the Holy City. For at least a whole night they were locked into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and were left free to wander about its precincts, to visit its holy places, to hear or say Mass, and to perform other devotions, always, be it understood, under the guidance of some of the Franciscans of Mount Sion. Then they returned to their hospice, and at midnight, or at any rate two hours before dawn, they were brought back to the open space before the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with a great flare of torches; and starting from that point, along with their Franciscan guides, they made the tour of the holy places within the city and outside the walls, crossing to Mount Olivet and returning to Sion before the evening had drawn in. It will be noticed from this arrangement that the pilgrims inverted the order of the stations of the Way of the Cross, passing not towards but away from Calvary, a fact which alone must make it sufficiently clear that the idea of _accompanying_ our SAVIOUR in spirit on His last sad journey was as yet entirely wanting. On the other hand, as the scenes of the carrying of the Cross, in their reverse order, were the first to be visited in the long pilgrimage, the stations in question must often have been seen only by torchlight or in the grey of the morning. This latter fact may account perhaps for a certain amount of confusion about the sites in the narratives of travellers. In any case we cannot doubt that such an arrangement of time which left hardly any interval for sleep must have been intensely fatiguing. It was no doubt adopted by the Franciscans of Mount Sion, who in all these matters had autocratic powers, in order to avoid friction with the Turks in the frequented parts of the city, and in order to get the pilgrims away from Jerusalem again with all possible despatch. However, it was not very long before a more devotional reason was forthcoming for this practice, and in the narrative of Felix Fabri (1480) we find an elaborate account of the long and wearisome pilgrimage to all the holy places of Jerusalem, made each day by our Blessed Lady while she remained on earth, the manner, duration and extent of her journey being, strange to say, the exact counterpart of that which was compulsorily followed by the pilgrims of the fifteenth century. As this, according to popular tradition, would have been the earliest example of the Way of the Cross, it seems worth while to say a few words on the subject.

The first traces of the legend of our Lady’s pilgrimages in Jerusalem are of early date. Thus a Syriac recension of the apocryphal departure of my Lady Mary from the world, which is assigned on high authority to the fifth century, records:

“In the year 345 (of the Seleucian era, i.e., A.D. 34), in the month of the latter Teshrin, my Lady Mary came forth from her house and went to the tomb of the MESSIAH, because day by day she used to go and weep there. But the Jews as soon as the MESSIAH was dead closed the tomb and heaped up large stones against its door, and set watchmen over the tomb and Golgotha, and gave them orders that if any one should go to pray by the grave or on Golgotha he should straightway die.... And the watchmen came in and said to the priests, ‘Mary comes in the evening and in the morning, and prays there.’ And there was a commotion in Jerusalem concerning my Lady Mary; and the priests went to the judge and said to him, ‘My Lord, send and order Mary not to go and pray at the grave and Golgotha.’”[23]

In a Latin adaptation of what is substantially the same story, printed by Tischendorf, a larger scope is given to our Lady’s devotional pilgrimage. This account states that:

“When the apostles had separated in order to preach the gospel and had travelled to different parts of the world, the blessed Virgin our Mother is said to have remained in Jerusalem in a house which was situated close to Mount Sion. Thence as long as she lived she used to visit every spot which her Son’s presence had sanctified, the place of His baptism, of His fast, of His passion, resurrection and ascension.”[24]

The legend gradually developed, and in the thirteenth century we begin to hear of a definite spot near the Church of the Ascension where our Lady used to rest, and where the archangel Gabriel appeared to her before her death, bringing her the branch of a palm tree. The scene of this angelic apparition was not always very clearly defined and was sometimes distinguished from our Lady’s resting place, but the very ancient story of the coming of the angel with the palm branch, to be borne before her bier—“a token,” says Fabri, “of her complete victory over death and over the enemy of the human race”—invariably attached itself in later times to her supposed pilgrimage to the holy places. But Fabri’s account of our Lady’s pilgrimage, conveying as it does a truthful impression of the devotional spirit of the age at which the exercise of the Stations took its rise, deserves to be cited at some length. I quote from the translation of this extremely interesting book published a few years since by the Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society.[25]

“Our Blessed Lady was careful every day to visit the holiest places in Jerusalem and the neighbourhood. In the early morning, as dawn drew nigh, after having received holy Communion from St John on the LORD’S Mount of Sion, she went forth with her maidens and entered that great chamber which had been made ready for the Last Supper, where she meditated upon the immense boon there conferred upon the human race, looked into the deepest mysteries, and kissed the place where her Son had sat. From thence she would go to the house of Annas the high priest, and after praying there entered the hall of Caiaphas, and mused, not without sorrow, upon the sufferings undergone by her Son in that building. Thence she went down from the Mount Sion out of the city and came to the rock of the Cross, which she embraced and sweetly kissed, pitying that dearest One who was crucified thereon, and rejoicing nevertheless in His precious devotion to those whom He redeemed. From thence entering into the garden of the LORD’S tomb she would go to the place where the Body of her Son and LORD was anointed and preserved in spices, where she kneeled and kissed the stone, and swiftly rising from thence, made her way to the LORD’S tomb, whose cave she entered, and embracing His sepulchre, was filled on that spot with unspeakable joy. Leaving these places she went down the hill of Calvary towards the city gate; and on her way, not unmindful of her Son, how He was led out of the city along that path, burdened with the heavy Cross, and in the places where she had seen her Son either fall beneath the load of the Cross or be assailed by some special outrage, she would kneel down and pray. Thus she would enter the city by the Judicial Gate (‘per portam judiciariam’), go up to Pilate’s judgement hall, and kiss the places where He was scourged and crowned with thanksgiving. Coming out from thence she would go to the house of Herod and kiss her Son’s footprints there. From thence she would go up to the temple of the LORD, and after praying there, would leave the temple on the other side, and come to the Golden Gate, where she reflected upon her Son’s entrance on Palm Sunday.”[26]

It will be noticed how closely this corresponds with the course prescribed for the fifteenth-century pilgrims by their Franciscan guides. They have to make their way first from Sion to the Holy Sepulchre, and then after saluting the sites which are there they too begin their pilgrimage “down the hill of Calvary towards the city gate.” Our Blessed Lady, while mindful of her Son and of the sufferings of His last cruel journey, is represented by Fabri as travelling in the contrary direction to that which He followed. So too, almost invariably, did the pilgrims, as it would be easy to show from any one of the scores of such narratives which have been published in our own and earlier times. Fabri’s own account of his experience is too elaborate to follow in every detail, but we may quote it in part. He, being a Dominican, seems to have been entertained as a guest amongst the good Franciscans of Mount Sion, while his secular companions, “the pilgrim lords,” as he calls them, were lodged at the hospice provided for that purpose.

“When the sun,” he says, “had set, the pilgrims went down to their hospital to rest, but many of them remained with us on Mount Sion, and kept vigils in the holy places. At midnight we rose together with the brethren for the office of Matins and Lauds, after which we began to say private Masses, each in whatever place he chose, until it grew light. When the fifteenth day of July began to dawn, before sunrise we who were on Mount Sion went down to the hospital and roused up our brethren, the pilgrim lords, for a pilgrimage. When they were ready we came out of the hospital with some of the brethren of Mount Sion[27] and Calinus Elaphallo, the Saracen, with his stick, who afforded us safe conduct and kept the boys from throwing stones at us. First of all we went to the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and there prostrating ourselves at the place where CHRIST fell beneath the Cross, as described above, we received plenary indulgences.”[28]

It may be instructive to quote the fuller description here referred to. The courtyard of the Holy Sepulchre Church, corresponding to the site of the last of the falls in our modern system of Stations, was the first halting place in the reverse pilgrimage undertaken by Fabri. The detailed account given by the Dominican pilgrim bears the following heading:

“_The Courtyard in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre hath in
it these places following._

“After we had seen that we came down by the same steps which we had gone up into the courtyard of the church, and near the door we were shown a stone in the pavement upon which were imprinted the marks of two human feet, just as if a man had stood upon a lump of soft wax, and pressed his feet into it; and it is evident that these traces of footsteps are not made in the stone by art, but by a miracle, though nothing is known for certain about this. However, they say that these are the footsteps of the LORD JESUS, who stood there at the foot of the rock of Calvary awaiting His crucifixion. Before this stone we bowed ourselves to the ground and kissed the sacred footprints. From thence we went in procession to a place close to the way out of the courtyard, where our LORD, as He carried His heavy cross, is said to have fallen beneath it through anguish and horror when He beheld the rock of Calvary before Him.... This holy place is marked with a stone, whereon many crosses have been cut by pilgrims. We therefore kissed this place and gained a plenary indulgence.”[29]

Next in order as Fabri made the descent from Calvary towards Pilate’s house came:

“_The Gate, outside which our_ LORD JESUS _was led to be crucified_.

“After this we came out of the courtyard into a street which leads from Mount Sion to Mount Calvary and from thence leads down into the city through all its length. When we had gone down someway into the town, down that street up which the LORD JESUS ascended to Mount Calvary carrying His cross, we came to an ancient gate, broken on the right-hand side, whereof no more remained than one side, reaching from the ground to the curve which supported the arch, all the rest being gone.... This gate ... was called the Old Gate because it stood there in the time of the Jebusites. Afterwards it was called the Gate of Judgement (_Porta Judiciaria_) because judgement was given therein after the manner of the ancients, and those who had been judged and sentenced therein were sent out of it to be executed. Both of these names, which are one and the same, to wit, the Old Gate and the Gate of Judgement, are mentioned in the third chapter of the Book of Nehemiah.

“Out of this gate the LORD was led to be crucified, carrying His cross, wherefore it is said of this gate in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter xiii: ‘JESUS that He might sanctify the people with His own Blood suffered without the gate.’ Let us human pilgrims then go out to Him without the gate bearing His reproach. Who, I pray you, could behold this gate save with devout compassion? From hence Abel went forth to the field of Afrem to be slain. Through this came Isaac carrying the wood that he might be sacrificed upon the mountain. Here was seen the cluster of grapes borne upon the staff. At this gate we repeated the prayer appointed in the processional, and knelt and gained indulgences.”

Fabri’s account of Veronica and the subsequent halting places is rather lengthy. It will be well to substitute for it a shorter notice found in “Le Voyage de la Saincte Cyté Hierusalem,” the narrative of a pilgrim of the same date (1480).

“And first, in going from the holy Sepulchre to Mount Olivet, we passed before the house of Veronica, who, seeing our SAVIOUR being led to His Crucifixion, lent Him a fine white cloth to cleanse His face, which was all disfigured by wounds and the filth thrown at Him by the false tyrants. And in putting the said cloth against His face His own likeness remained impressed upon it. The said Veronica is now at Rome, most preciously and jealously preserved.

“At the right-hand side, at the end of the street where is the house of the said Veronica, is the house of the wicked rich man, who would not give alms to the poor, of whom it is said that he is buried in hell. And in the said house there is an arch and gallery which goes across the street. In that street, on the left hand, there is a cross-way called the Trivium, and there the Jews compelled a good man named Simon the Cyrenian, whom they met there, to carry our LORD’S cross, because our LORD could carry it no longer.

“Also, a stone’s throw beyond the said cross-road, there is the place where our Lady fell to the ground, and her heart failed her, when she saw our LORD among so great a multitude of Jews, and that He was being led out to die, and there a chapel was erected. From hence one passes under an arch on which are two beautifully hewn stones, as large as the base of a cask of wine. And our SAVIOUR was seated on one of these stones when He was condemned to death by Pilate, and Pilate was on the other stone.”[30]

The writer has apparently overlooked the incident of the women of Jerusalem. It is inserted by Fabri between the place where our LORD’S face was wiped by Veronica and the cross-way where Simon of Cyrene, according to the then prevalent tradition, was compelled to lend his aid. But it must be carefully understood that these sites, with which we are now familiar, formed but a very small part of the whole pilgrimage. Our Blessed Lady was believed to have passed right through the city across the brook Cedron to the Mount of Olives, visiting every scene and every holy place, and Fabri describes how—

“After having visited Gethsemani, she again sought the high ground, and climbed upwards, slender and fragile as a wreath of smoke, being already worn away by her various penances, and burned within by the flame of pious love; thus in cheerful guise she would with unspeakable longing seek the top of the holy hill of Olivet, from whence she had descended, and would return to the place of the LORD’S Ascension, whither she would go as though herself about to ascend straightway and meet her Son. When she was there, she would caress the aforesaid footprints with many kisses, lifting at one time her eyes, at another her hands to heaven, and on that spot she would feel much joy at the thought that there the greatest honour possible was bestowed upon her Son and upon herself, when that flesh which had been born of her was taken up from hence and exalted above all the heavens. Leaving this place, she would make her way home, and walk down the Mount, by the place where the apostles had put together the creed which she herself had taught them, where she would stand still for a little space and pray for those who professed the faith. Passing on from thence to the place where the LORD had taught them to say ‘Our Father,’ she would stop and say that prayer, and as she went on would give thanks at the place where the eight beatitudes were preached. From thence she would come down to the place where CHRIST sat with His disciples and told them the terrible story of the Last Judgement, where she offered a prayer that He might be merciful in His second advent; and went on till she came to the dwelling where already, at the outset of this pilgrimage of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, I have said was her place of rest and recovery of breath. Now at the time when the Blessed Virgin Mary was alive there stood there a dwelling, inhabited by good peasants, who, observing the unfailing passing by of the Virgin, invited her to sit and refresh herself in the shade; and she frequently would come out of the road, sit down and rest her frail maiden limbs.”

From this rough resting-place Brother Fabri describes her as rising:

“So having resumed her strength, which she had not lost, but which had been in abeyance at the aforesaid place, she came down the foot of the mount into the valley, where after visiting the sepulchres of some of the prophets, she came to the sepulchre of her own most chaste husband, Joseph, who was buried there in a cleft of a rock, before which sepulchre she would stand and remember him with tender emotion. From thence, crossing the bridge over the brook, she would go up again to Mount Sion, and when there would go to the place where she herself and the disciples received the HOLY GHOST on the day of Pentecost, where again she would be filled with fresh joy.”[31]

It was in like manner that the pilgrims of the fifteenth century, after their short course through the city, spent the greater part of the day on the Mount of Olives and the places outside Jerusalem. For nearly two hundred years (i.e., from about 1350 to 1530), in what we may call the officially conducted pilgrimages, this route was invariably followed. It was only by degrees that a select few among the sites so visited, partly in consequence of the more liberal indulgences attached or believed to be attached to them, seem to have acquired a special prominence.

Fabri’s account of our Lady’s pilgrimage will seem to many very fanciful, and the most ardent defender of local traditions will probably admit that no great reliance can be placed upon the details of this description of our fifteenth-century traveller. None the less, the good Dominican’s narrative, in its frankness, simplicity and voluminousness, holds a unique position among such records. It is very valuable for the insight which it affords into the devotional spirit of the pilgrims of that age, and before passing on to other topics I am tempted to make some further quotations illustrating the conditions under which pilgrimages were then made, and the patient endurance with which humiliations of all kinds were met. We hear so much of the decay of faith and piety in the closing decades of the period preceding the Reformation that one is glad to call attention to the evidence of earnestness involved in the cheerful endurance of so many hardships. No man can have held his religion lightly who was willing to encounter the very real perils entailed by a journey to Jerusalem, and that without any prospect of tangible gain. However, we are not for the moment concerned with the graver dangers from ship-wreck, pirates or pestilence, but rather with those minor humiliations and discomforts which must, we might be tempted to think, have been so great a hindrance to devotion.

A word has already been said above of the locking-up of the pilgrims in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where they were free to venerate those holy shrines now honoured in the five last Stations of the Cross. This is the account which Fabri gives of his experiences:

“On the fourteenth day, beginning the day from the evening of the day before, because the procession to the holy places is appointed in that fashion, when the sun was setting, warning was given to all the pilgrims that they should straightway present themselves at the court or yard which lies before the [door of the] Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and that they should hurry over their supper, because the Moorish lords who keep the keys of the holy church were waiting for us there. So we made haste, and having taken with us the things which we meant to use, we came down to the courtyard of the aforesaid church, wherein we found a great disorderly crowd of eastern Christians and Saracens—men, women and children. Also dealers in precious wares sat there and sold them, and some had loaves of bread, eggs and grapes for sale, whereof we bought some, and put them in our scrips for the repast which we should take within the church. Now, as soon as all the Saracen lords who had to do with the opening of the church were present at the door of that holy temple, they took their places gravely and seriously. Before the door on either side thereof great stones of polished marble have been placed for benches, upon which these men sat, with their faces turned away. They were men of a fine presence, well stricken in years, handsome, wearing long beards, and of solemn manners, dressed in linen clothes, and with their heads wrapped round and round with countless folds of very fine linen. When all of us were collected together before those doors, they opened the church doors with their keys, and, standing beside them, let us in two by two, counting us even as they did when we came out of our ship on to the land, as aforesaid, and they looked at us very keenly. It is said of them that they are greatly skilled in the art of physiognomy, and that as soon as they look upon any man they perceive his station in life, his disposition and his desires. We went by them with shame and blushing, because it is a great confusion that CHRIST’S faithful worshippers should be let into CHRIST’S church by CHRIST’S blasphemers; and they let in whom they please, and keep out whom they please; for they drove away from the church-doors, with blows from their staves and fists, many Christians of other rites who wanted to come in together with us. I confess that while I was passing between them into the church I was filled with confusion and covered with blushes, nor could I look them straight in the face by reason of the shame which I felt: not because of the badge of the cross which I bore on my clothes, but because of their unrighteous and impious power over those who bear the cross. There sat those dogs, as though they were our judges, and doubtless judged us to be fools because of the cross of CHRIST, because the name and sign of the cross is foolishness to them that are appointed to perish (1 Cor. i, 23). Thus, however, is it ordered by the divine wisdom, that the followers of the Crucified should be brought to the place where the cross stood by those who scoff at the cross, that by the foolishness of the cross they may believe and be saved. Now, as soon as we were all inside, the Saracens straightway pulled back the doors of the church quickly behind our backs, locked them with bolts and locks, as men are wont to do after they have pushed robbers violently into a dungeon, and went away with the keys, thus leaving us prisoners in the most delightful, lightsome and roomy of prisons, in the garden of the most precious sepulchre of Christ, at the foot of the Mount of Calvary, in the middle of the world. Oh, how joyous an imprisonment! how desirable a captivity! how delightful an enclosure! how sweet a locking-in, whereby the Christian is locked in and imprisoned in the sepulchre of his LORD!”[32]

It is easy to see from the tone of Fabri’s narrative that the relief of being free for a time from the contemptuous and often threatening glances of the Saracen conquerors gave free play to devotional feelings of which we should otherwise have had a very imperfect idea. The following incident affords a very pleasing insight into the character of the narrator:

“Lo, my brethren! the truth compels me to begin by telling you of my own stupid carelessness and grievous irreverence, for which I beseech you to pray to GOD on my behalf, that He may not lay up my misdeeds for punishment at the last. This was what befell me, unhappy wretch that I was, on my first pilgrimage. When we had been locked into the church, and no longer feared any one, because no infidel was with us, we began in our joy to run to and fro through the church, seeking the holy places without any regular order, and every man went whithersoever he would at the bidding of his own spirit. I did not hurry, but went with a slow step towards the middle of the church, walking without any set purpose, and after I had gone forward about seventeen paces I stopped, and lifting up my face, looked at the vault above me. I cast my eyes upon the upper windows with curiosity, as ill-bred men stare about in strange places and houses without respect for any one, and so I stood by myself with wandering eyes. As I stood thus thoughtlessly, there came to me two ladies who were pilgrims; one of them was a German, Hildegarde by name, and they fell down before my feet and lay there weeping and sobbing, kissing the stone whereon I was standing. I was surprised and astonished, and said in German to her: ‘What is the matter, Lady Hildegarde, that you should do so?’ She answered me, scarce able to speak for weeping: ‘Lo, my brother! the stone whereon you stand is that whereon Joseph and Nicodemus laid the most precious body of our LORD when He was taken down from the cross, and they anointed Him and wrapped Him in His shroud upon this table of stone.’ When I heard this I trembled, and drawing back my feet with horror, I fell on the earth before the stone. I scarce dared now to touch with my mouth that which before I had not feared to tread irreverently upon with my shod feet. ‘O LORD,’ I prayed, ‘remember not the past sins of my youth, and the present sins of my ignorance. O LORD my GOD, Thy chosen servant Moses was bidden by Thee when in the desert of Midian to put his shoes from his feet because the ground whereon he stood was holy; and the holy Joshua did not dare to stand shod in the field of Jericho, yet I, who am devoid of all holiness, full of vices, have dared to trample with my shod feet all irreverently upon the place which Thou Thyself hast sanctified with Thy most precious body, naked and wounded; nor can I find any excuse, for we read that Uzzah was stricken dead by Thee because he put forth his hand to the wain which bore Thy ark when it was like to fall. And behold, here we have incomparably more beneath our feet than the land of Midian or the field of Jericho; and a stone which is more worthy of honour than the wain or the ark. Therefore, LORD GOD, have patience with me, and I will pay Thee all reverence and honour at Thy holy places, and will render to Thee whatever else is Thy due with all the piety of which I am capable, and which Thou Thyself shalt bestow upon me.’ After having prayed thus, I arose, and sought my lords and companions throughout the church, and found them sitting together in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, waiting till the procession should be formed.”

I trust that the reader will not take in bad part the prolixity of Brother Fabri’s Scripture references. They bring out something of the moral conditions under which medieval pilgrimages were made, just as the material conditions are well illustrated in the passage which follows.

“Now the Father Guardian called together all the pilgrims, and set forth to them the rules and customs of the Church, which he reduced to thirteen heads:

“First, he told us that every pilgrim must buy a wax taper, which he must carry lighted in the procession. For many merchants had come in with us having wax tapers and other things for sale.

“Secondly, he bade the pilgrims take care to walk orderly in the procession, so that one should not get in the way of another nor push against him, as also we were bidden to do in the sixth article given to us at Rama.

“Thirdly, that we should consecrate this night to God, and take part in Matins and other services without any slackness.

“Fourthly, that we should not make the house of prayer into a house of merchandise, and not sit and waste our time trafficking with the Eastern merchants.

“Fifthly, he begged all such as were priests to go and celebrate Mass without disputing one with another. For they are wont to quarrel about places, and all of them want to celebrate Mass in the holy Sepulchre of our Lord, which is impossible in one day.

“Sixthly, he appointed four altars for the celebrants—that is to say, one in the Holy Sepulchre, one on Mount Calvary, one at the place of the unction of Christ, whereof I have already spoken, and a fourth in the chapel of the Virgin Mary. Besides these there are many other altars in different parts of the church; but they belong to schismatics and heretics, wherefore we did not celebrate Mass at them.

“Seventhly, he bade all pilgrims make ready to confess themselves, and every one of them receive holy Communion after the service.

“Eighthly, he gave authority to all pilgrim priests, and to his own brethren who had entered the church with us, to hear confessions both actively and passively[33] and to absolve from all sins, even from those reserved for the Holy See, for the guardian of Mount Sion has this power delegated to him by the pope.

“Ninthly, he forbade any priest to administer the Eucharist to any pilgrim as he stood at the place where he celebrated Mass, but he ordered that all should receive the Sacrament after High Mass on Mount Calvary from the priest who officiated there, unless he should grant any special privilege to any one.

“Tenthly, he warned the pilgrims not to lay down or leave about their property while they were making the round of the holy places in the church, lest they should lose it, because thefts often took place there, when suspicion and much disturbance arose.

“Eleventhly, in case any one should wish to give alms at the holy places, and in giving them should wish to favour the Catholics rather than the schismatics, he explained to them which were the places of the Catholics and which were those of the schismatics.

“Twelfthly, he warned us that, as has been already treated of in the first of the articles delivered to us at Rama, we must not break anything off at the holy places, neither must any man draw his coat of arms there, lest by their means holy places should be defiled.

“Thirteenthly, he besought us that each of us would rouse himself to a spirit of lively devotion and that we would profit by these most holy places, showing them that honour and reverence which is due to them.”

Of the emotions suggested by the procession itself as it passed from shrine to shrine within the enclosure—the friars of Mount Sion arrayed in their sacred vestments, the pilgrims following with lighted candles, the precentor at the head of the procession intoning the “Salve Regina,” as they started, “in a loud and cheerful voice” while all present took up the strain—we shall have opportunity of speaking in a later chapter. Fabri enumerates seventeen separate shrines which were thus visited, including of course the place of the Crucifixion, the Holy Sepulchre, the stone of unction, and the spot where our LORD was stripped and nailed to the cross. Appropriate hymns and prayers were appointed for each, and the ceremony must have taken some hours. In what follows the narrator again reveals the spirit of the earnest pilgrim.

“When the procession was over, the pilgrims drew together according to their several companies, into the various corners of the church, each company sitting in its own place, for we were wearied and worn out, and we made a sober meal. After we had eaten, we laid our heads against the wall for a short rest, and lay asleep against the pavement. I myself abode with the brethren of Mount Sion in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, who had given me a quiet place to sleep in, but I could by no means close my eyes to sleep. Wherefore I arose straightway, lit my candle, and joined the watchers at the holy places; for indeed the greater part of the pilgrims were wandering about all the aforesaid holy places as each one pleased, passing hither and thither as the spirit of prayer moved them; for a pilgrim may enter the Holy Sepulchre, ascend the Mount Calvary, or descend into the chapel of the Invention of the Cross, and the other places as often as he pleases. In these solitary visits to the holy places men feel greater devotion and abstraction from the world than when they do so in the general procession, in which there is much pushing and disorder and disturbance and singing and weeping, whereas in the other case there is silence and peace. As I went the round of the places for the second time I went down to the place of the Invention of the Cross, and there said my matins. I took great delight in that underground place, because it was quiet and suited to me, for the Mount Calvary and the LORD’S Sepulchre and the other places up above were filled with an unbroken throng of pilgrims, and very noisy. Meanwhile some of my lords and their servants were running to and fro in the church up above me, hunting in every corner, seeking for me to hear their confessions, and never guessed me to be in that place. At last they came down to where I was, and I heard them there, sitting in the chair of St Helena.”

A quaint and very frank description follows of the struggle among the priests to say Mass at the most coveted altars, and then good Brother Fabri tells us briefly how:

“After we had finished our services and Masses, there came the pagan Moorish lords, who threw open the gates of the church, making a great noise with the doors, that we might go forth more quickly. On hearing this we were frightened and distressed at our separation from such delightful places, and we ran round from one holy place to another kissing them; but as the pilgrims delayed their going by acting thus, the Moors became angry, banged the doors of the church so violently that the hinges creaked, and ran about with frightful yells among the holy places, from which they drove the pilgrims by force, and turned every one of us out of the church, except only the usual guardians. When they had turned us out they shut the church doors and went their way, leaving us in the courtyard outside. There we addressed ourselves to the visiting of certain holy places near to the church.”

It is not very difficult to understand in the light of these descriptions, first, that if men were resolute enough to face the hardships of such a pilgrimage, the consolation and merit of visiting the holy places must have appealed to them very strongly; and, secondly, that among those unable to leave their homes a very ardent desire must often have been felt to replace the actual pilgrimage by some domestic practice of devotion. It is undoubtedly to this longing to share the privileges of those who travelled beyond seas that we owe both the first suggestion and the later developments of the exercise of the Way of the Cross.

Footnote 22:

Keppler, “Die XIV Stationen des hl. Kreuzwegs. Eine geschichtliche und
kunstgeschichtliche Studie,” p. 13. Freiburg: Herder. This has been in
large measure supplemented by an article by Dr N. Paulus in the
“Katholik” for April, 1895, entitled, “Zur Geschichte der
Kreuzwegandacht.”

Footnote 23:

“The Departure of my Lady Mary from this world,” translated from the
Syriac by Dr William Wright, “Journal of Sacred Literature,” April,
1865. This account is copied from a MS. of the sixth century. On the
apocryphal “Transitus Mariæ,” see O. Sinding, “Mariæ Tod und
Himmelfahrt,” and Mommert, “Die Dormitio und das deutsche Grundstück
auf dem traditionellen Sion,” Leipzig, 1899.

Footnote 24:

Tischendorf, “Apocalypses Apocryphæ,” introduction. This account is
derived from the Codex Ambrosianus, L. 58.

Footnote 25:

This, on the whole excellent, translation is the work of Mr Aubrey
Stewart. In this and future extracts from Fabri I have occasionally
ventured to modify a phrase or two where the original Latin seemed to
be less felicitously rendered.

Footnote 26:

Fabri (P.P.T.S.), vol. I, pp. 505, 506.

Footnote 27:

According to the statement of an English pilgrim in MS. Harleian 2333,
fol. 5a, the Franciscan guides used to explain everything in four
languages, “that is to say, latyn, italien, frensche and duche.”

Footnote 28:

Felix Fabri, p. 440.

Footnote 29:

“The Book of the Wanderings of Brother Felix Fabri,” vol. I, pp. 393,
394.

Footnote 30:

“Voyage de la Saincte Cyté de Hierusalem,” ed. C. Schefer, p. 75.

Footnote 31:

Fabri, pp. 508, 509.

Footnote 32:

pp. 340, 341.

Footnote 33:

The Latin is “dedit auctoritatem omnibus sacerdotibus ... active et
passive audiendi confessiones.” It probably means that they could both
receive the confession and give absolution.