The word _statio_ (station) appears in Christian literature from a very
early date, with a special and quasi-liturgical signification. It is not
quite easy to trace its primitive development. There can be little doubt
that its Christian meaning grew out of the military use of the term to
designate an outpost or picket, especially for night duty.[34] Early in
the second century it is familiar to Hermas[35] in the sense of a
“fast,” possibly, because on certain days, _stationes_ (i.e., vigils)
were kept up during the night and early morning beside the tombs of the
martyrs, such vigils being, perhaps, marked by a fast, or at least a
_semijejunium_. This, however, is quite uncertain. In the time of St
Cyprian, the word frequently had reference to the “synaxis,” or
gathering of the faithful for liturgical purposes, which took place on
those fast-days. In the indications still retained in the Roman Missal,
e.g., “Statio ad S. Anastasiam, Statio ad S. Laurentium,” etc., _statio_
no doubt denotes rather the service itself than the meeting-place in
which it was held. Such a rubric was intended to convey that the
_statio_, i.e., solemn Mass, with its accompanying procession, etc.,
took place on this day at the Church of St Anastasia or of St Laurence.
But the further use of the term in the general sense of halting-place in
a procession, or site calling for special veneration, was obvious, and
became familiar in the vulgar tongue of most European countries during
the middle ages. The “Stations of Rome,” for instance, is the title of a
fourteenth-century English guide-book, which gives in rude verse an
account of all the more conspicuous churches and of the holy places in
the city where indulgences could be gained.
In this sense the word _statio_ has been applied to the different
halting-places along the _Via Dolorosa_. Curiously enough, the first
instance of its consistent use, with this signification, meets us in the
narrative of an English pilgrim, Master William Wey, one of the original
fellows of Eton College. Wey visited Palestine on two separate
occasions—in 1458 and 1462. On both occasions he went to Jerusalem, and
made the ordinary round of the holy places (through the the city, and to
the Mount of Olives and back), under the guidance of the Franciscans of
Mount Sion. He obviously took special interest in the minute details of
these tours, for he has not only written a twofold account of most of
them, but he has invented an elaborate _memoria technica_, of which more
anon, for recalling them to mind in their proper order. Now, while Wey
gives minute descriptions, providing also memorial verses for each, of
several other tours, namely, the holy places around Bethlehem, the
places within the precincts of the Holy Sepulchre, the holy places
beside the Jordan, the holy places on Mount Sion, etc., he reserves the
name Stations for one tour, and one tour only, that within Jerusalem,
which begins with the sites of the _Via Crucis_. If these places had
been but once referred to in the volume which he has left us, we might
easily have supposed that the word _stationes_ appeared there by
accident, but seeing that it occurs four separate times in the same
connexion, and nowhere else, it would hardly be reasonable to explain
its presence in these passages by mere coincidence. First, we note that
among the headings of the memorial verses the tour beginning with the
_Via Crucis_ is entitled “Loca Sancta in _Stacionibus_ Jerusalem.” In
none of the rest does the italicized word appear, though we have “Loca
Sancta in Monte Syon,” “Loca Sancta in templo sancto Christianorum,”
“Loca Sancta in Bethlehem,” etc., in any one of which we might have
expected to find it. Again, in the general account, which is given
apart, when Wey begins a detailed description of the same tour, starting
eastwards from the Holy Sepulchre, we meet the rubric, “Hic incipiunt
sancte _Staciones_,” the other tours being headed like those just
referred to—“Peregrinaciones Vallis Josaphat,” “Peregrinaciones Montis
Oliveti,” “Peregrinaciones sacri Montis Syon,” etc. Then, in Wey’s
narrative of his first pilgrimage, the same word is twice repeated in
connexion with the same series of sites under the form “Peregrinaciones
ad loca _Stacionum_,” and, finally, in the account of the second journey
of 1462, the term seems to be introduced with emphasis into the text
itself. It will be well to translate this brief passage:
“After supper,” says the writer, “we lay down upon mats, and at early
dawn the brothers came to call us to make the round of the stations
(veniunt fratres vocantes nos ad peragrandum _staciones_). And so, upon
July 20, we traversed those sites (ivimus per ista loca). First, the
stone with crosses upon it on which CHRIST fell;[36] second, that paved
street in which CHRIST carried the cross; third, the house of the rich
man that was damned; fourth, the meeting of the ways where CHRIST fell
with His cross; fifth, the place where the women wept over CHRIST;
sixth, where Veronica received the countenance of CHRIST upon her
napkin; seventh, where the Blessed Virgin Mary swooned; eighth, the gate
through which CHRIST was led out to death; ninth, the pool where the
sick were healed at the moving of the waters; tenth, where are two white
stones built into the wall over the head of the passers-by, upon which
Jesus stood when He was sentenced to death by Pilate; the eleventh is
the school of the Blessed Mary, where she learnt to read; and along that
road on the other side is the house of Pilate, in which CHRIST was
scourged and condemned to death; and so on for the rest of the places in
Jerusalem—Josaphat, the Mount of Olives, the Valley of Siloe and Mount
Sion, as I have described them in my preceding itinerary.”
It seems to me not wholly accidental that Wey interrupts his list at the
house of Pilate. We may remember that the famous stations erected in
Nuremberg, at the instance of Martin Ketzel, begin with a _Pilatushaus_,
and were suggested seemingly by the pilgrimage he made in Palestine
about 1468, six years after Wey’s last visit to the Holy Land. We may
also remember that in the next century there is strong evidence of a
special cultus paid to this clearly-defined portion of the tour
(_peregrinatio_, _circulus_ or _Umgang_). Hence it seems likely that Wey
himself regarded the road along which our Saviour travelled to His death
as standing out in some conspicuous manner from the rest.
Other pilgrims in the latter part of the fifteenth century use the name
_Stationes_, though not seemingly with such an exclusive reference as
this English traveller to the sites along the Holy Way. The matter
deserves fuller investigation, although, on account of the very large
number of those who have left accounts of their pilgrimages at this
period, the undertaking would be a serious one. I may be content to
notice here the prominence given to the word Stations in the Pilgrims’
Guide of Antonio de Aranda, a Spanish Franciscan, who wrote in 1530. The
book is particularly important, because it does not, like so many of the
others, record merely the fleeting and necessarily inaccurate
impressions of a single hurried visit to the holy places, but the
writer, who was guardian of the important Franciscan Friary of Alcalà,
seems during a considerable period to have been the honoured guest of
his brethren of Mount Sion, and to have had constant opportunities of
obtaining information from those who lived on the spot.[37] Of Aranda’s
volume we shall have to speak further, but for the present it will be
sufficient to notice that he uses the word _estaciones_ frequently, and
that it seems to be particularly applied to the sites on the way to
Calvary, and not so commonly to be employed of the sites, even though
richly indulgenced, in the pilgrimages outside Jerusalem. Thus Chapter
XIV bears the following heading, conspicuous among the few such headings
in which the word _estaciones_ is introduced:
“_Cap. XIV.—Of the Stations [estaciones] which there are from the
House of Caiphas up to Calvary along the Road which_ CHRIST
_travelled_.”
In this chapter, when referring more particularly to the way between
Pilate’s house and Calvary, Aranda makes the further statement that “in
this road there are three stations.” The first station so specified is
the meeting-place of our Blessed Lady and her Son. The second is that of
the meeting with the women. The third the house of Veronica.
Now, whether we look to the sites which, according to the testimony of
travellers, were held in honour in Jerusalem itself, or whether we look
to the imitation pilgrimages which were carved in stone or set down in
books for the devotion of the faithful at home, we must recognize that
there was a complete want of any sort of uniformity in the enumeration
of the Stations. As so much has just been said of William Wey’s
pilgrimage, we may conveniently take the first two verses of his
_memoria technica_, which by a coincidence happen to commemorate just
fourteen sites. They run as follows: In Wey’s own manuscript, and in the
reproduction of it for the Roxburghe Club, the words of which the verses
are made up are written in a very large hand, while the explanations of
each, here given in footnotes, are added in minute writing over the word
to which they have reference. The crosses, which in the MS. have been
written in red ink, indicate the places where plenary indulgences may be
gained.[38]
“_Loca Sancta in Stacionibus Jerusalem_
“Lap[39] strat[40] di[41] trivium[42] flent[43] sudar[44]
sincopizavit[45]
“Por[46]☩pis[47]☩lap[48]☩que schola[49]☩domus[50]☩ Her[51]
Symonis[52] Pharisey.”
Those of my readers who do not understand the Latin explanations may be
referred back to the passage already translated from Wey (p. 48). The
places there mentioned are the same as those cited here, except that two
others, viz., the house of Herod and the house of Simon the Pharisee are
here added. It should be observed, too, that the memorial verses
continue without any break or division to indicate nearly thirty sites,
some within Jerusalem, some outside the walls. In all, the holy places
about Jerusalem number in his reckoning more than a hundred. It will be
seen that the fourteen Stations on this list by no means correspond to
those with which we are familiar. If we count the first mentioned by Wey
(_Lapis cum crucibus_, i.e., the stone with crosses shown in the
courtyard before the church of the Holy Sepulchre,) as the equivalent of
the scene of His third fall, we have only four others which can be
properly identified with ours. These are _trivium_, the “cross-road”
where Simon of Cyrene was made to assist our LORD; _flebant_, the
weeping women; _sudar_, i.e., _sudarium_, the napkin of Veronica; and
_sincopizavit_—“she swooned,” the meeting with Mary. _Strat_, the paved
way leading to the hill of Calvary; _di_, the house of the rich glutton
of the parable; _por_, the judicial gate of the old city: _pis_, the
probatic pool; _lap_, the two stones in the Ecce Homo arch; _schola_,
our Lady’s school; and the houses of Pilate, Herod and Simon the
Pharisee, expressed by the words _dom_, _Her_, _Symonis Pharisey_, are
only remotely related to the Way of the Cross as we know it. For
purposes of comparison it may be interesting to quote the narrative of
another English pilgrim, a layman of distinction, who made the same
round of stations about fifty years later, in 1506, and who has left an
account in the vernacular. He also, like Wey, travelled eastwards from
Calvary, but the pilgrimage, which in Wey’s time was performed in one
day, seems in 1506 to have been spread over several. The site which Wey
mentions first as _lapis cum crucibus_ (the stone with crosses) is
included by Sir Richard Guylforde[53] in the series of “stations” at the
Holy Sepulchre, being referred to in the following words:
“And withoute, forthe before the entre into this Temple (of the Holy
Sepulchre), X paces in distaunce, is put a stone in memorye and token
that our SAVYOUR CRISTE, berynge His Crosse, for very feblenesse, fell
there to the grounde undernethe the crosse.”
Then under the heading, “Pylgrymages within Iherusalem,” Guylforde
continues:
“[7] And so this day aforesayde we vysited all ye longe wey by the
whiche our SAVYOUR CRISTE was led frome the hous of Pylate unto the
place of His crucyfyinge.
“[6] And firste, as our way laye, we came to the house of Veronica,
whiche is from Pylate’s house 550 paces, where as our blessyd SAVYOUR
impressyd ye ymage of His face in her wympell whiche is at Rome, and is
there called the varnacle.
“[5] And from thens we went to the house of Diues Epulonis, qui sepultus
est in inferno, etc.
“[4] And from thens we went to a place called Bivium, that is as moche
to say as a crosse strete, or a crosse wey, where ye women of Jherusalem
stode and sorowfully wepte whan oure SAVYOUR was led to His deth, to
whom He sayde, ‘Wepe ye not vpon me, ye daughters of Jherusalem, but
wepe ye vpon yourself and vpon your children,’ etc.
“[3] Item nexte is the place where ye Jewes constreyned Symeon Cirenen,
comynge from the towne, to take the crosse after our SAVYOUR, etc.
“[2] The next place y^t we come to is wher our blessyd Lady stode when
she met with her dere Sone berynge His crosse, where, for ouer moche
sorowe and dolour of herte, she sodenly fell into a sowne and
forgetfulness of her mynde; and this place is called Scta Maria de
Spasmo. Saynt Elyn buylded a churche there, but it is downe, and ye
Sarrasyns haue often attempted to buylde there, but their edifying wold
not stande in no wyse.
“[1] Item, as we passyd by ye strete, there standeth an arche ouer ye
way, vpon ye whiche stoude ii large whyte stones; vpon the one of them
our SAVYOR stode whan he was juged to deth, and upon ye other stode
Pylate whan he yaue sentence yt he shuld be crucyfied.”
I have prefixed numerals in square brackets to these paragraphs to call
attention to an interesting change in the practice of the pilgrim guides
at Jerusalem. Eleven years after the voyage of Sir Richard Guylforde to
the East, another English pilgrim, Sir Richard Torkington, a priest, set
out to visit the holy places, and he also compiled an account of his
adventures. In accordance with a custom very prevalent in the days when
literary copyright was yet unknown, Torkington freely availed himself of
the descriptions left by previous travellers. Guylforde’s pilgrimage had
been printed by Pynson in 1511, and from this source Torkington has
copied almost verbatim the account there given of the various shrines
and stations in Jerusalem. But there is one noteworthy modification. In
his description of “the longe way by whiche our SAVYOUR CHRISTE was led
unto the place of His crucyfyinge,” Torkington, while borrowing sentence
by sentence the exact words of his predecessor, has carefully arranged
the sites in the reverse order. From this it seems clear that in 1517
the good Franciscans at Jerusalem had for some reason changed their
practice and now conducted the pilgrims along the way of the Cross
_towards_ Calvary, as our LORD Himself had travelled on His last
sorrowful journey. At any rate, so far as I am aware, we do not after
this date find in the descriptions of the _Via Dolorosa_ that the sites
are any longer enumerated in the reverse order _from_ Calvary eastward.
But to return to Sir Richard Guylforde’s description. It may be noted
from what follows that he passes without perceptible break from the
Stations of the Way of the Cross to other sanctuaries. We may fairly
infer that in 1507 the Way of the Cross was not yet generally recognized
as a separate object of devotion:
“From thens we went vnto ye hous of Pylate, in ye whiche our SAVYOURE
was scorged, betyn, crowned with thornes, and put to all iniuryes y^t
myght be deuysed, and fynally condempned to deth; there is also clene
remyssyon.
“And there is also the way that gothe to the Temple, by the whiche, when
the Jewes came from the Temple, they cryed, ‘Crucifige,’ etc.
“From thens we went vnto the hous of Herode, that is on the lefte hand
of Pylates hous, and standeth hygher vpon the fronte of the hyll, into
the whiche hous our SAVYOUR was presented unto Herode by Pylates
sendynge, accusyed by ye Jewes; neverthelesse, the sayde Herode clothed
hym in a whyte garment, and sent hym agen to Pylate, _et facti sunt
amici Herodes et Pilatus in illo die_, etc., and thyse ii houses of
Pylate and Herode be yet now moch what the fayrest houses in Jherusalem,
and specyally the house of Herode.
“Therby is an other fayre hous y^t was sometime a fayre churche of Saynt
Anne, but now ye Sarrasyns have made thereof a muskey [mosque], that is
to say, theyr temple, and that is the selfe place y^t was Saynt Anne’s
house, and there she died; and in a vaught vnderneath is the very selfe
place where our blessyd Lady was borne; and there is plenarye remyssyon.
The Sarrasyns wyll suffre no man to come into this place, but pryuely or
for brybes, because it is theyr muskey.
“Nota that relyques of the stones of the place there our Lady was borne
is remedy and consolacion to women that travayll of childe, etc.
“Item, a lytell therby is Probatica Piscina, where our SAVYOUR healyd
many men that were seke, as the Gospell sheweth, etc.
“From thens we went to the hous where the synnes of Mary Magdalene were
foryeuen.”[54]
[Illustration: _MAP OF JERUSALEM._ _From MS. Addit. 33566, at the
British Museum, drawn about 1616 by Giovanni Cales to illustrate the
Viaggio di Gerusalemme of Vincenzo Favi._ The dotted line from 29 to 38
represents the Via Dolorosa. The other dotted line represents what Cales
believed to be the position of the City Wall in the time of Our Lord.
_The principal sites, as indicated by the numbers, are thus explained by
the artist_: 12-14. The Temple, now the Mosque of Omar. 29. Pilate’s
House. 30. Herod’s House. 31. Supposed place of the Scourging. 32. Arch
from which Christ was shown to the people. 33. Church of Our Lady’s
Swoon. 34. Place where Simon of Cyrene came to help our Lord. 35. The
Glutton’s House. 36. The House of the Pharisee. 37. House of Veronica.
7. Judicial Gate. 38. Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 9. Mount Sion and
the Cenacle.]
However, despite a good deal of variation in the selection, arrangement,
number and distances of the Stations, it is clear that at Jerusalem in
the early part of the sixteenth century the traversing of the route of
our SAVIOUR from Pilate’s house to Calvary had already begun to be
regarded as a special exercise of devotion which was in some sense
complete in itself. Aranda, who, by the by, sets down the distance at
1,862 _passos_,[55] tells us that this is the Holy Way, _par
excellence_, “Esta es la via sancta particularmente ansi llamada de los
Cristianos”; and he remarks further, “Also it is to be observed that
this road from Pilate’s house to Calvary is that which we friars
(nosotros los frayles) are wont to follow when for our devotion, and out
of reverence for our SAVIOUR, we set out to traverse the very road
which, as we believe, His most compassionate Majesty Himself trod.”
Undoubtedly one of the earliest indications of special veneration
attaching to the holy “Cruysganck,” i.e., the carrying of the Cross, is
the practice of measuring the distance from the Prætorium to the place
of Crucifixion. The first traveller who seems to attach importance to
the exact distance from Pilate’s house to Calvary, and who professes to
have carefully measured it, is Martinus Polonus, in 1422.[56] Polonus
estimates the length of our LORD’S last journey at 450 paces. Martin
Ketzel, who had the famous Stations erected at Nuremberg, lost the
measurements he made during his first pilgrimage (_c._ 1468), and
actually undertook a second pilgrimage some few years later in order to
take the measurements again. In spite of all the care supposed to have
been used by Polonus and others the most extraordinary diversity
prevails in the measurements given, which, for fear of the Turks, could
only be made in paces. Thus, while Polonus, in 1422, gives the distance
from Pilate’s house to Calvary at 450 paces, it is set down by sundry
different travellers—as Tobler[57] points out—in 1479, at 1,050 paces;
in 1491, 1000; in 1507, 1,067; in 1508, 500; in 1519, 846; in 1586, 750;
in 1593, 1,321 (this last measurement is that of Adrichomius); in 1611,
850. It is to be noted that by _passus_ some travellers must have meant
a double step, others a single stride, but even so the divergence is
difficult to explain. Probably the main cause of the discrepancy was the
fact, as we shall have occasion to note further on, that the ground
between the old Judicial Gate and Calvary was all built over. Hence
pilgrims could only guess at the path actually followed by our LORD.
The only satisfactory way of bringing home to the reader the wide
divergence between the Stations in Jerusalem itself, as known to
travellers between 1300 and 1720, and those of our modern Way of the
Cross would be to draw up an elaborate table recording the dates of the
principal narratives and all the sites mentioned in them. This can
hardly be attempted here save on a very small scale, which does not in
any way make apparent to the eye the complete absence of any record
regarding the first two falls, the sentence by Pilate or the stripping
of the garments. On the other hand, if we accept the mention of the Ecce
Homo Arch—i.e., the two stones, as Wey calls them—as the equivalent of
the reception of the cross, and the stone marked with crosses before the
Holy Sepulchre as the site of the the third fall, it may be said that
these two stations—the second and the ninth—appear in the narrative of
almost every early traveller.[58] This disposes of six stations, and the
four last—the nailing to the cross, the crucifixion, the taking down and
the entombment of our SAVIOUR—call for no comment. We are left,
therefore, with four variable stations, which may be thus indicated: the
meeting with our Blessed Lady by M, that with Simon of Cyrene by S, that
with the women of Jerusalem by W, and that with Veronica by V. With
regard to these, the data of our selection of travellers may be
tabulated as follows. The order of these meetings is that in which they
would have occurred as our SAVIOUR made His painful way from the
Prætorium towards Calvary.[59]
1294 Ricoldo W M S
1320 Pipinus M S W
1350 Dublin MS. W M S
1384[60] Gucci M M[61] S
1391 Swinburn and Brigg M S
1395 Ogier d’Anglure M W S
M
1419 Nompar de Caumont M { W
{ S
1422 Johannes Polonus M { W
{ S
1435 Lochner M V W S V
1436 Georg Pfintzing M W S V
1458 Wey M V W S
1480 Fabri M W S V
1483 Breydenbach M S W V
1484 Francisco Suriano M W S V
1491 Dietrich von M { W V
Schachten
{ S
1496 Harff M W V
1506 Guylforde M S W V
1530 Aranda M S W V
1586 Zuallardo M S W V
1620 Bernardino Amico M S W V
1639 Quaresmius M { S V
{ W
1646 Surius M S W V
1656 Parviller M S W V
1674 Nau M S W V
1694 Caccia M S W V
1713 Hietling M S V W
1716 Turpetin M S W V
1724 Francisco Jesus M S W V
Maria
1735 Myller M S V W
1736 Antonio do M S V W
Sacramento
1744 Horn M S V W
It will be remarked that no mention of Veronica occurs before the
account of Lochner in 1435. In his narrative, her name appears twice,
though that marked V(1) is but a casual allusion. In all the later
descriptions down to 1713, with the single exception of Wey in 1458, the
meeting with Veronica comes nearest to Calvary. Wey is so painstaking in
his descriptions that when we couple his divergence from the commoner
arrangement with the double mention of Veronica in Lochner we are led to
the conclusion that the tradition about the site of Veronica’s house
remained rather vague and uncertain until some years after we first hear
of it. During the same period the meeting of our LORD with Simon of
Cyrene and that with the holy women were uniformly regarded as having
taken place close together. It is noteworthy, then, how completely our
present arrangement of stations, which separates the holy women and
Simon of Cyrene by Veronica and by the second fall, contradicts all
local tradition. But upon this point there will be occasion to speak
further in a later chapter.
Footnote 34:
See Professor Funk’s article in the “Real-Encyclopädie der
Christlichen Alterthümer” (F. X. Kraus), II, p. 783.
Footnote 35:
“Pastor”; Sim. v, I.
Footnote 36:
It will be noticed that Wey, like the pilgrims referred to in our last
chapter, travelled in the opposite direction to our Lord, beginning
from Calvary and going eastwards.
Footnote 37:
“Verdadera Informacion de la Tierra Sancta,” by Ant. de Aranda,
Guardian de Sant Francisco de Alcalà de Henares. The preface is dated
1530 from the Franciscan monastery of Mount Sion, but the first
edition of the book, it is interesting to note, was printed in 1533,
by Miguel de Eguya, the printer who harboured St Ignatius at Alcalà,
and brother of the Diego de Eguya who became a Jesuit, and who was the
saint’s confessor down to the time of his death. I have only had
access to the edition of Toledo, 1550.
Footnote 38:
Wey also copied into his book another account of the holy places at
Jerusalem in English verse. This is seemingly of older date than his
own, and no mention is made of Veronica. But we read, e.g.:
Ther JHESU mett with his Modyr Marie
Ther sorowyd together both He and she;
And ther the wymmen of Jerusalem
Wept on CHRYST when that He cam.
Another copy of this poem, with many variations, is in MS. Ashmole,
61.
Footnote 39:
_Lapis_ cum crucibus super quem CHRISTUS cecidit cum cruce.
Footnote 40:
_Strata_ per quam CHRISTUS transivit ad suam passionem.
Footnote 41:
Domus _divitis_ negantis micas dare Lazaro.
Footnote 42:
Ubi CHRISTUS cecidit cum cruce.
Footnote 43:
Locus ubi mulieres _flebant_ propter CHRISTUM.
Footnote 44:
Locus ubi vidua sive Veronica posuit _sudarium_ super faciem CHRISTI.
Footnote 45:
Locus ubi beatissima Maria _sincopizavit_.
Footnote 46:
_Porta_ per quam CHRISTUS transibat ad passionem.
Footnote 47:
_Piscina_ in qua egroti sanabantur tempore CHRISTI.
Footnote 48:
_Lapides_ super quos stetit CHRISTUS quando judicatus erat ad mortem.
Footnote 49:
Locus ubi beata Maria transivit ad _scolas_.
Footnote 50:
_Domus_ Pilati.
Footnote 51:
Domus _Herodis_.
Footnote 52:
Domus _Simonis Pharisey_.
Footnote 53:
Sir Richard Guylforde was Master of the Ordnance, Knight of the Garter
and a privy councillor. He died at Jerusalem in the course of his
pilgrimage, and the account of his travels was written by his
chaplain.
Footnote 54:
“The Pylgrymage of Sir Richard Guylforde to the Holy Land, A.D. 1506,”
pp. 28-30.
Footnote 55:
He evidently means to be particularly accurate, for he remarks that
the said paces are “those which we friars commonly use when we are
stepping out freely”; “que comunmente hazemos los frayles quando
caminamos a passo largo.”
Footnote 56:
“Et est notandum quod a loco Calvarie usque ad idem prætorium sunt 450
passus, quos omni diligentia, qua potui, numeravi” (Tobler,
“Descriptiones,” p. 229).
Footnote 57:
“Topographie von Jerusalem,” I, p. 236.
Footnote 58:
Curiously enough this stone with crosses—“_lapis cum crucibus_,” as
Wey called it—in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
seems to drop out of sight in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
It is clearly shown in Breydenbach’s woodcut (_c._ 1487), copied on p.
28, where the pilgrims are seen kissing it. Not only Wey but Fabri
asserts that there were many crosses on the stone (see p. 29 above).
Yet many other pilgrims state that it was a small stone marked with
only one cross. See e.g. M. Tschudi, 1519, “Reyss,” p. 191.
Footnote 59:
In the narratives of the pilgrims, as explained above, the Stations
are nearly always described in the reverse order, as seen by one
travelling eastwards away from Calvary.
Footnote 60:
Where two M’s or two V’s are given there are two mentions of Mary or
Veronica, as the case may be.
Footnote 61:
Dietrich expressly states that CHRIST spoke to the Holy Women in the
very act of being relieved of His Cross by Simon of Cyrene. Aranda
suggests the same. Others, e.g., Brasca, remark that He spoke to them
as soon as the taking of the cross by Simon enabled Him for the first
time to turn His head.