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]
[Illustration: _CHURCH of the HOLY SEPULCHRE at JERUSALEM_. _Copied from
the Early Edition of Breydenbach, printed at Mainz in 1486._ In the
courtyard, pilgrims are shown kissing the stone marked with the cross,
which represented the Site of the Third Fall.]
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.”
[Illustration: _PART OF BERNARDINO AMICO’S MAP OF JERUSALEM, 1609-1620._
_The right hand side of the Map is the North._ 47—Prætorium. 48—Herod’s
Palace. 1—The Ecce Homo Arch. 12—St Mary’s Swoon. 4—Simon of Cyrene.
30—Daughters of Jerusalem. 6—Veronica’s House. 27—Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. 37—The Temple (the Mosque of Omar).]
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.
[Illustration: _THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE._ _From a Drawing by W.
H. Bartlett, c. 1835._]
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.