After the conquest

The arrival of the crusaders at the main destination of their pilgrimage was described by the anonymous author of Gesta Francorum: ‘And they all came rejoicing and weeping from excess of gladness to worship at the Sepulchre of our Saviour Jesus.’Footnote ⁵ After the conquest of the city, the crusaders visited the site where, in the fourth century, the emperor Constantine had ordered the building of a large basilica, which was destroyed by Caliph al-Hakim at the beginning of the eleventh century and restored in the form of a rotunda in the subsequent decades. On 15 July 1099 pilgrims prayed at the tomb of Christ in that building. The tomb's shrine, the Aedicule, stood inside an enclosed rotunda consisting of a large apse. There was a courtyard with colonnades, and adjacent chapels on the east side of the church. At the south-eastern corner of the courtyard, the crusaders saw a chapel at the place of Calvary.Footnote ⁶ Early pilgrimage accounts credited Constantine and Helena with building this complex. This would have been a dominant opinion among the crusaders in 1099.Footnote ⁷

Moreover, Abbot Daniel of Czernichov reported that Latin pilgrims entering into the Anastasis rotunda would also have seen a rich mosaic.Footnote ⁸ Current knowledge of the decoration is based on Theoderic's description, written about 1170, but certainly the mosaics in the rotunda retained the same form after the early eleventh-century reconstruction of the complex.Footnote ⁹ There were images of the Christ Child with Holy Mary and the angel Gabriel, as well as the Anastasis icon, an image of the resurrected Christ with a cross descending into Hades to redeem mankind. On the north side of the rotunda the crusaders would have seen see the twelve Apostles with the emperor Constantine in the middle ‘robed in regal magnificence’. Twelve prophets adorned the opposite wall, with the empress Helena in the middle.Footnote ¹⁰ According to Franciscus Quaresmius, a seventeenth-century Franciscan and historian who produced a very valuable book containing a full list of the mosaics at Calvary with explanations, both Constantine and Helena were portrayed as holding a cross in their right hands and a cross-bearing orb in their left hands.Footnote ¹¹ This mosaic, containing prominent images of Constantine and Helena in the most holy sanctuary for all Christians, may be regarded as the backdrop to the events that occurred in the Holy Sepulchre after the crusader conquest. This icon of the glorious past of the Christian empire provided a visual context for the political culture of Latin Jerusalem, which shaped the historical imagination of the crusaders.

In the first month after the conquest, two significant constitutive events for the crusader kingdom took place in the Holy Sepulchre. The election and inauguration of Godfrey of Bouillon as ruler marked the starting point for the new Latin monarchy. Jaroslav Folda has pointed out a passage from William of Tyre's chronicle which describes Godfrey's particular interest in religious images and pictures.Footnote ¹² William of Tyre suggested that the electors chose Godfrey because his followers asserted that Godfrey was so interested in the pictures inside the church that he wanted the priests to explain the meaning of all of them. Then, according to William of Tyre, Godfrey offered himself before the Holy Sepulchre in a solemn celebration.Footnote ¹³ This tale bears interpretation as a significant element in the historical imagination associated with the election of the first ruler. Crucially, Godfrey's inauguration was remembered among the elites of the Latin kingdom as occurring in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with a significant role being attributed to religious images, a key point for understanding the centrality of the Holy Sepulchre for the Latin elites at the time when William was writing his chronicle.

After the establishment of Latin rule in Palestine, the inauguration of the first ruler, and the election of Arnulf as the first Latin patriarch, another event exerted a profound impact upon how the crusaders thought about their place and role in Christian history. The First Crusade chronicles, although in different ways, tell the story of the finding of the relic of the true cross by the Latins in Jerusalem. Amongst the early chroniclers, only Fulcher of Chartres, Albert of Aachen and Raymond of Aguilers wrote descriptions of these events. Raymond approached this event with scepticism, which ironically makes his account especially valuable in proving that the discovery was not simply in the imagination of other chroniclers.Footnote ¹⁴ These three early accounts agree in asserting that the relic of the cross came to light because local Christians revealed its place of concealment.Footnote ¹⁵ Anton Frolow and, more recently, Sylvia Schein have commented on the clear similarities between these accounts and the legends concerning St Helena and her discovery of the true cross. Given that the true cross became the symbol of the crusader monarchy, Frolow and Schein's remarks seem significant for interpreting the political culture in Outremer.Footnote ¹⁶

The texts recited during the liturgy for both feasts – the Invention (May 3) and Exaltation (September 14) of the Holy Cross – have served as the main source for shaping the myths surrounding the relic of the cross. Although they are different, both feasts commemorate the same story: Constantine's vision of the cross and his victory over his enemies. Whereas the Invention focuses on Helena's pilgrimage to the Holy City and her successful efforts to find Christ's cross, the liturgy of the Exaltation is devoted to the emperor Heraclius and his struggle for the cross; none the less, it also begins with the story about Constantine and Helena's miraculous discovery. The full texts of the divine office performed for the celebration of these feasts in the crusader context may be found in the breviary made for the Templars in Acre in the 1230s.Footnote ¹⁷ Notably, as Cristina Dondi has stated, this book to a large extent presents the use from twelfth-century Jerusalem.Footnote ¹⁸ The antiphons for the Invention narrate the history of Helena's pilgrimage and her efforts to find the true cross.Footnote ¹⁹ Moreover, the items used for the mass for this feast, which one can observe in the Jerusalem Sacramentary,Footnote ²⁰ are closely related to the holy war and the defence of Christianity.Footnote ²¹ This liturgical evidence regarding the holy cross confirms that the discovery of the cross after the crusader conquest of Jerusalem should be seen as an echo of the established legends concerning the glorious struggles for the cross.

Turning to the narrative sources, more evidence indicates that the liturgy commemorating Helena, Constantine and Heraclius functioned as the basic material in creating the story of the First Crusade and the crusading kingdom. Godfrey's famous exploit during the Battle of the Bridge Gate (6 March 1098) clearly resembles a story in the Sermo de exaltatione sanctae crucis, which Stephan Borgehammar has recently edited and commented upon.Footnote ²² The core of the tale about Godfrey, as narrated by a majority of the chroniclers, is that the duke of Lorraine cut a mighty Turk in two in such a way that his body fell into the river Orontes.Footnote ²³ Notably, a very similar story about Heraclius cutting in two the son of Chosroes on a bridge over the Danube was read during the liturgy of the Exaltation of the Cross.Footnote ²⁴ Consequently, it is clear that among the chroniclers of the First Crusade, it was important that Duke Godfrey be regarded as an imitator of the emperor Heraclius. From this perspective, it is clear that the crusaders perceived themselves as continuing the war for the cross with the enemies of the faith. Albert of Aachen advanced this argument a step further by making Godfrey's first entrance to the Holy City similar to Heraclius’ triumphal adventus after the recovery of the cross, as narrated in the most popular version of the Latin text recited for the feast of the Exaltation: Reversio sanctae crucis. According to the Reversio, Heraclius was instructed by an angel to imitate the humility of Christ, and then the emperor put aside the signs of imperial power and followed Christ's footsteps by entering Jerusalem through the Golden Gate.Footnote ²⁵ In Albert of Aachen's account, Heraclius’ imitation of Christ's humble entrance through the same gate functioned as a sign of the royal authority that was adopted by Latin monarchs in the Middle East.Footnote ²⁶

Another example from the crusade chronicle of Aachen is a tale about the Muslim governor of Ramla, who converted to Christianity after a conversation with Godfrey in which the duke spoke of the power of the holy cross.Footnote ²⁷ In this story, Godfrey takes the role of the empress Helena and the governor of Ramla that of Judas Cyriakus.Footnote ²⁸ In both the Albert narrative and the legend of Helena's finding of the cross, the conversion of an important figure after an intense discussion confirms the authenticity of the relic.Footnote ²⁹ Taking these passages from the First Crusade chronicles into consideration, it seems evident that the legends about the First Crusade and the identity and prestige of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem were closely related, even from the very beginning, to the traditions concerning Helena, Constantine and Heraclius.

The legends about Helena, Constantine and Heraclius are echoed not only in narratives of the First Crusade but also in early interpretations of the crusader conquest of Jerusalem. The first papal letter after 15 July 1099 is a powerful testimony to how the success of the crusade was perceived.Footnote ³⁰ Paschal ii wrote that the First Crusade fulfilled old prophecies and that ‘renovavit Dominus antiqua miracula’. Significantly, he regarded the victories of the crusaders against overwhelming odds and the discoveries of the holy lance and holy cross as God's renewal of ancient miracles during the crusade. This statement closely parallels a passage from the Reversio: in the divine office for the Exaltation of the Cross, participants heard that after Heraclius resituated the cross in its proper place in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, God renewed ancient miracles: that is, people returned from the dead and others were healed from various illnesses.Footnote ³¹ In the Reversio, these ancient miracles marked the renewal of Christendom, which was a consequence of Heraclius’ great triumph. It is worth noting that Paschal ii also refers to the renewal of the Church by interpreting the crusaders’ defeat of its enemies as a return to the ancient liberty of the Church in the Middle East, which was granted by Constantine and lost at the time of Muslim invasion.Footnote ³² One could find similar evidence in the liturgical sequence Manu plaudant, which was composed for commemorating the crusader conquest of Jerusalem. M. Cecilia Gaposchkin has argued that this sequence was composed soon after 1099, because it resonates with the atmosphere of the early chronicle tradition.Footnote ³³ The sequence opens with the sentence ‘All nations clap their hands in applause for the new miracles.’Footnote ³⁴ The next stanzas explain that the ‘new miracles’ are the victories achieved by the power of the cross over ‘many thousands’ of ‘proud pagans’. These two highly influential texts express the same idea: the restoration of a golden era of Christianity that began with the liberation of Jerusalem from Muslim domination. In this view, the triumph of the crusaders is seen as a repetition and renewal of Constantine's breakthrough and of Heraclius’ victory. Notably, the papal letter and the Manu plaudant sequence both reached a wide audience and, to some extent, affected the way the crusades were considered in the years following 1099. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Guibert of Nogent begins his chronicle of the First Crusade with a narrative about Helena and Constantine as the founders of Christian Jerusalem, and it is fully understandable why Ekkehard of Aura, after visiting the Holy Land in the first decade of the crusader kingdom, wrote that the first crusaders assumed the cross as a symbol because they had in mind the Constantinian vision of the cross and God's promise of victory.Footnote ³⁵

The first three decades

Royal ceremonies during the first two years after the conquest of Jerusalem played a formative part in the development of the political culture of the Latin monarchy in the Levant. Godfrey's burial and the inauguration ceremonies of Baldwin i confirmed the centrality of the Holy Sepulchre for the newly established kingdom. The death of the first ruler on 18 July 1100 initiated a new chapter in the struggle for power in the crusader state, and the decision about where to bury Godfrey marked an important move in the course of events. The tomb was situated in the triporticus – that is, in front of the chapel of Adam – in the space between the Anastasis rotunda and the Chapel of Calvary.Footnote ³⁶ Given the rivalry between Godfrey's followers, who wanted to put his brother on the throne, and an alliance between Patriarch Daimbert and Tancred, the decision to place Godfrey's body as near to the Sepulchre and Golgotha as possible seems to indicate how the elites of Latin Jerusalem planned to elevate the prestige of the monarchy.Footnote ³⁷ Accordingly, the inauguration of Baldwin i also focused on the most holy site of Christianity. On 9 November 1100 he entered into the Holy City in a solemn procession in the form of a royal adventus, which concluded in the rotunda, where the future king offered himself to the Holy Sepulchre. It seems probable that he wished to repeat, to some extent, the ceremony that Godfrey had performed a year before.Footnote ³⁸ Moreover, Jay Rubenstein clearly notes that, having organised the royal coronation in the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, Baldwin sought to confirm his royal authority in the Holy Sepulchre before crowds of pilgrims gathered for an Easter liturgy in 1101.Footnote ³⁹ In contrast to earlier historiography, which for the most part neglects the centrality of the Holy Sepulchre to royal power from the very beginning of the Latin kingdom, it seems evident that even the first rulers of the crusader monarchy constructed their authority in the visual context of the Anastasis Rotunda, where the empress Helena and the emperor Constantine were prominently depicted in a monumental mosaic.

For a full understanding of the sacral topography wherein the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, it is essential not to overlook the significance of the Chapel of St Helena and the Grotto of the Holy Cross. These were situated outside Calvary towards the east, and underground. Crucially, even the earliest pilgrimage guides written in the decade that followed the Crusade mention the Chapel of St Helena and associate this site with the empress's discovery of the holy cross.Footnote ⁴⁰ It has been a matter of dispute whether this chapel was built by the crusaders or whether it already existed when the crusade came to Jerusalem. A detailed examination by Jaroslav Folda leads to the conclusion that the Latins discovered an underground staircase that led to the Chapel of St Helena and the Grotto of the Cross but that after a few years they decided to undertake a large-scale reconstruction.Footnote ⁴¹ According to Folda, this passage from the De situ urbis – ‘outside to the east is the place where blessed Helena found the cross and a great church is built there’ – refers to the rebuilding of these sites by the crusaders.Footnote ⁴² What is striking is that the works undertaken at this site constituted the crusaders’ first serious architectural enterprise. The devoting of effort and resources to commemorating Helena's discovery of the cross should be put in the context of the life-and-death struggle of the crusaders in the first years after the conquest. When we consider that the relic of the cross was regarded as the symbol of the victories that Baldwin i won in the first years of his reign, it is easy to understand why the Latin elites expended so much effort in honouring both the relic and the empress Helena by rebuilding the place of its discovery.Footnote ⁴³

The chronicle of Bartolf of Nangis provides additional evidence for the importance of Helena and her finding of the cross to the political culture of the Latin kingdom.Footnote ⁴⁴ According to Fulcher and Bartolf, the relic had not been hidden shortly before the crusaders’ arrival but in ancient times.Footnote ⁴⁵ This narrative element is highly important, as it suggests that the relic found by the crusaders was directly related to Helena and Constantine. The Bartolf chronicle's description of Jerusalem also indicates that the three most holy sites were Golgotha, Christ's Sepulchre and the place where the holy cross had been discovered. The chronicler adds that the location of the holy cross was revealed to the Empress Helena by Judas and that she then established a large basilica, which was later destroyed by the Muslims. Most important, though, is the chronicle's assertion that Christians kept the relic in this place, and that since the crusader conquest the holy cross had been adored and honoured in a proper way.Footnote ⁴⁶ By associating the crusader relic of the cross with the empress Helena, this account clearly relates the Latin kingdom to the time when the Christian empire was founded. There should be no doubt that the relic of the cross was treated by the Latin elites as a sign of continuity between the crusaders and the most glorious victories in Christian history.

Furthermore, Helena's chapel and the grotto of the finding of the cross was the place of an original liturgical celebration performed on 3 May, the feast of the Inventio Crucis, which one can discern in a liturgical book that Sebastian Salvado refers to as the Jerusalem Ordinal.Footnote ⁴⁷ In singing antiphons about St Helena's pilgrimage to Jerusalem and reciting the story of the miraculous finding of the cross, participants at the liturgy in the frame of the religious ritual recounted the story of the relic of the cross, which was under crusader protection. However, rubrics from the Jerusalem Ordinal stated that when this feast occurs on Sunday, the liturgy should be augmented by an exceptional procession. According to the rubrics, all canons of the Sepulchre were obliged to participate in this celebration. First, they went in procession to the chapel in the church where the holy cross was held; then, led by the patriarch, who carried the relic that had been removed from a reliquary, they went to the Sepulchre and subsequently to a refectory through a cloister. Finally, they went from the refectory downstairs to St Helena's chapel and further to the grotto where the cross had been found, where the procession ended.Footnote ⁴⁸ The message seems perfectly clear: the cross that had been found and was being protected by the crusaders is the same cross that St Helena had found at a site which every pilgrim visiting Jerusalem could personally see, touch and venerate.

The same idea is expressed in a letter that was sent from the canons of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to the bishop of Paris in about 1120.Footnote ⁴⁹ The letter was probably written in response to a question about the origins of a relic of the cross that had been sent earlier from Jerusalem to Paris. The author, Anselm, cantor of the Holy Sepulchre, summarises the story of the cross starting with Constantine and Helena, through to the deeds of Heraclius, and finishing with an explanation that, despite the large number of relics of the cross in the East, the Latins hold the largest particle of the cross found by Helena and rescued by Heraclius. Hence, Anselm explained not only the story of the cross – which in Anselm's narration is a common story that connects Helena, Heraclius and the crusader monarchy – but also argued that the Latin rulers of Jerusalem had a special privilege and duty to protect the most precious particle of Christ's cross.

The royal dignity and prestige of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was, from its very beginning, closely associated with the Holy Sepulchre and the relic of the cross, and Baldwin i and Baldwin ii continued to promote this. In 1107 the king solemnly celebrated the Triduum and, on Easter Sunday, was crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.Footnote ⁵⁰ In 1112 a royal adventus processed through the Golden Gate on Palm Sunday. As the pilgrim Seawulf attests, this ceremony clearly evoked not only biblical associations but also the story of Heraclius’ triumph as recited during the liturgy of the Exaltation of the Cross.Footnote ⁵¹ In that way the king imitated, first, Jesus Christ, and second, the emperor Heraclius returning from the victorious struggle for the cross. There are parallels with the Heraclius-imitating adventus of Duke Godfrey's humble entry into Jerusalem, which can be found in Albert of Aachen's chronicle.Footnote ⁵²

This pattern was repeated and developed in 1118 when Baldwin i died and Baldwin ii was inaugurated. Once again, as when Godfrey died and Baldwin acceded to the throne, a power struggle obliged the candidate to draw upon the royal prestige centred on the Holy Sepulchre and the holy cross.Footnote ⁵³ Baldwin i's final adventus to the Holy City took place on Palm Sunday, when armed forces returning with the king's body from a military expedition to Egypt joined a solemn liturgical procession led by the patriarch descending with the relic of the true cross from the Mount of Olives.Footnote ⁵⁴ Baldwin ii entered the Holy City through the Golden Gate in the same procession, together with the dead king's body and the cross.Footnote ⁵⁵ After Holy Week and the Easter Triduum celebrations, Baldwin ii was inaugurated king of Jerusalem on Easter Sunday in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This Easter king-making ritual in 1118 was in continuity with the previous inauguration ceremonies, centred as it was around the Holy Sepulchre and the Easter liturgy.

Baldwin ii's Easter accession to the throne in 1118, as Simon John recently argued, contained all the necessary elements to establish the authority of the new monarch after the death of Baldwin i.Footnote ⁵⁶ In the first few years of Baldwin ii's reign, in the face of a critical military situation, the prestige of the crusader monarchy was continuously linked to the glorious past struggles for the cross. In 1119 the king took the relic north on a victorious campaign to provide aid for the principality of Antioch after the disastrous defeat suffered in the battle of Ager Sanguinis. He then sent the cross back to Jerusalem. The day that the cross arrived in Jerusalem, 14 September, was solemnly celebrated as the Exaltation of the Cross. Fulcher of Chartres, an eye-witness, wrote that it was on the same date that Emperor Heraclius had returned with the cross from the campaign against the Persians.Footnote ⁵⁷ Thus the liturgy that commemorates the deeds of Helena, Constantine and Heraclius connected the past with the present, implying that the crusader kingdom was their rightful heir.

In 1123, during the king's captivity, the Christian forces of Jerusalem won an important battle against a huge Fatimid army. Once again, the victory was ascribed to the power of the cross being present on the battlefield.Footnote ⁵⁸ After this battle, the cross was returned in a triumphal procession to the Holy Sepulchre, a crucial stage for all the previous rituals; consequently, its interior decoration played a formative role in constructing the identity of the crusader kingdom. Moreover, the sacred topography of Jerusalem allowed the Latins not only to associate themselves in a specific way with Jesus Christ and other biblical figures but also to regard Constantine, Helena and Heraclius as their predecessors in defending the Holy City and the cross. All of this was background for the political culture and royal prestige developed by Queen Melisende in the 1130s and 1140s.

The zenith: the Melisende Psalter and the crusader Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre

The coronation of Fulk and Melisende on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross in 1131 marked the introduction of a new period in the crusader kingdom. As Jaroslav Folda has pointed out, with Fulk and Melisende's accession to the throne, power moved to the heirs of the first generation of crusaders.Footnote ⁵⁹ Fulk and Melisende became rulers during the liturgy of the Exaltation in which the Reversio sanctae crucis was recited narrating the glorious deeds of the Constantine, Helena and Heraclius.Footnote ⁶⁰ The ritual of anointing and the reception of the symbols of power took place during a celebration in honour of the holy cross, framing the solemn celebration in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where the regally robed images of Constantine and Helena looked down at the newly inaugurated royal couple. Presumably the second generation had a different perspective on the crusader kingdom than did their predecessors. During the 1130s and 1140s the idea developed that the crusader kingdom was more than only the state of the conquerors of Jerusalem. That the crusader monarchy regarded itself as linked to the story of the holy cross is evident from the inauguration on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Melisende and Fulk, in contrast to the previous monarchs, were able to enhance the concept of royal power in the crusader kingdom as something more than rituals and celebrations.

The Melisende Psalter, a unique work that was produced in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, gives invaluable insight into the political and religious culture that was developing in the reign of Fulk and Melisende as it expresses a number of features related to the concept of royal power in its texts, decorations and miniatures.Footnote ⁶¹ First, the ivory covers of the queen's psalter bear close examination, as on its front panel can be seen six medallions depicting scenes from the life of King David in the Bible.Footnote ⁶² These scenes relate to royal power, with images such as the anointing by Samuel of David sitting on a throne, and were arguably meant to evoke the biblical origins of Christian kingship. In addition, the back cover has six medallions that show a monarch performing six Deeds of Mercy. Notably, the royal figure illustrated here is robed in Byzantine ceremonial style.Footnote ⁶³ In a miniature at the end of the psalter, the archangel Michael is shown wearing the same robes and holding a royal sceptre and orb, thus resembling the way in which Constantine and Helena are represented in the mosaics in the Holy Sepulchre.Footnote ⁶⁴ In order to appreciate the influence of this image, it should be remembered that it was King Amalric's custom to wear Byzantine ceremonial dress.Footnote ⁶⁵ Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the Latin monarchs of Jerusalem intended to imitate Constantine and Heraclius, linking themselves with the tradition as a powerful way to increase their prestige and authority.

The liturgical content of the Melisende Psalter also offers significant evidence for surveying the political and religious culture in the crusader kingdom. After a famous cycle of miniatures depicting scenes from the life of Jesus, prayers begin with texts devoted to the holy cross, including the formulas from the Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday.Footnote ⁶⁶ Thus, the prayers in honour of the cross occupy an important place in this prayer book; however, the significance is clear when one considers the importance of the relic of the cross for the crusader kingdom. Turning to the liturgical calendar, the feast of the Invention of the Cross is highlighted in gold ink in the same style as the feasts of the Apostles.Footnote ⁶⁷ These elements testify to the high importance of Constantine, Helena and Heraclius in the political and spiritual culture of the elites in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Through the Melisende Psalter, one can see that the devotion focused on the holy cross referred to and commemorated the glorious past of the Christian empire.

Finally, the same ideas were expressed in the greatest and most significant crusader achievement, which was the extensive rebuilding of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre during the 1130s and 1140s. Jaroslav Folda's detailed examination explains that although preparatory work and the assembling of resources was a long process, the major parts of the new construction were completed in the years just prior to the dedication of the new basilica. This took place on the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Jerusalem by the crusaders.Footnote ⁶⁸ The main sanctuary of Christendom was enlarged to the east by the addition of an apse and a choir with an ambulatory and radiating chapels. The space between the Anastasis Rotunda and the Calvary chapel was covered by a magnificent dome, and a new south transept facade with two portals was designed to serve as the main entrance to the church. On Calvary, a system of galleries was built with newly constructed chapels, which provided an opportunity to decorate these new spaces with mosaics.Footnote ⁶⁹ Although none of the medieval pilgrims wrote a detailed description of the crusader mosaics in the Calvary chapel, Franciscus Quaresmius’ book contained a full list of the mosaics at Calvary with explanations. He described, among other chapels, one with a mosaic of the empress Helena and the emperor Heraclius, both holding a cross and an orb.Footnote ⁷⁰ The monk Theoderic also describes a chapel at the north side of the church, where the relic of the cross found by the crusaders after the conquest was kept. He mentions a beautiful mosaic decoration in that chapel without indicating what it portrayed.Footnote ⁷¹ Nevertheless, Theoderic explains that this large particle of the cross, which was sometimes carried into battles against enemies, is exactly the same relic that had been restored by Emperor Heraclius in the great war fought with Chosroes, king of Persians. Taking Theoderic's explanation into account, it might be presumed that the mosaics in the chapel illustrated this story, but there is no direct evidence that such was the case.

It seem clear that all the additions to the crusader basilica were powerful expressions of royal power in the crusader kingdom. Thus, next to the very place of Christ's crucifixion, where pilgrims venerated the passion of the Saviour, the history of the struggles for this cross is narrated by illustrations of Helena and Heraclius. In addition, the tombs of the crusader kings, placed in front of the stairs leading to Calvary as well as behind the main entrance to the Church, situated the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem as the heirs of the Christian emperors. The stories of the redemption of humankind by Christ, of the triumph of Christianity over enemies of the faith, and of the restoration of Christian rule over the Holy Land by the crusaders, were put together in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, thus creating just one story in which the crusader kings in succession played the role of leading the defence of Christian civilisation.

The introductory chapters to William of Tyre's chronicle reveal a specific vision of the past as created in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The archbishop of Tyre and chancellor of the crusader monarchy opens his narrative by describing the emperor Heraclius’ great triumph, after which he ordered the rebuilding of the Holy City ad priorem statum – that is, to restore the glory of Jerusalem that had been constituted at the time of Constantine and Helena, and had subsequently been destroyed by the Persians. The restoration of Jerusalem, however, became impossible because of the Muslim invasion of the Holy Land. In William's narrative, a man chosen by God and encouraged by Jesus Christ himself, Peter the Hermit, came from Jerusalem to Rome carrying a call for help from Patriarch Symeon to Pope Urban ii.Footnote ⁷² With this the fate of the holy sites and of Christians in the East began to change. From this perspective, the first crusaders and the rulers of the crusader kingdom were continuing the work of Heraclius by restoring the holy sites to their previous condition, to that established by Constantine and Helena. In the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, this vision of the past was expressed in the liturgy, by the visual arts and by a cross-centred reinforcement of royal prestige.

It could be argued that this specific vision of the past constitutes a hostile borrowing of the Byzantine symbols of power. Elizabeth Lapina has recently examined the appropriation of Byzantine saints by the Normans of the South, which was echoed in First Crusade narratives.Footnote ⁷³ However, it seems clear that the crusaders, by associating themselves with glorious Christian emperors, were trying to base their authority on royal imagery that was widely recognised in the East.

Jaroslav Folda has stressed that some of the artistic glories achieved under the patronage of Queen Melisende were a result of Byzantine influence on the Latin East, which reached its high point at the time of the emperor Manuel Komnenos.Footnote ⁷⁴ Nevertheless, given the evidence that has been examined from the first decades of the crusader monarchy, a joint crusader-Byzantine sponsorship may not be a sufficiently convincing explanation for why images of Helena and Heraclius were used to adorn the Calvary Chapel as expanded by the crusaders.

According to H. E. J. Cowdrey, the crusading movement had been associated with the memory of Constantine from the time that Pope Urban ii preached the First Crusade.Footnote ⁷⁵ M. C. Gaposchkin explains that the cross-centred liturgy, in which Constantine, Helena and Heraclius occupied a prominent place, played a fundamental role in the medieval understanding of the struggle for the liberation of the Holy Land.Footnote ⁷⁶ As this article has attempted to show, these ideas were strongly developed by the elites of the crusader monarchy. These people, who moved in the circles around the Latin kings of Jerusalem, used the arts, liturgy, letters and chronicles to create a foundational myth in which the finding of the cross after the crusader conquest represented continuity with Constantine, Helena and Heraclius. The crusader kings, being defenders of the holy sites, wanted to be perceived as the continuers of Heraclius’ mission to restore the status of Jerusalem that the Holy City had enjoyed at the time of Constantine and Helena. The development and representations of this vision of the past as linked to the present is key to understanding the political culture of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.