Helena Augusta: The Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of Her Finding of the True Cross (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History)

This study on Flavia Julia Helena Augusta, mother of Constantine the Great, is divided into two parts. The purpose of the first part is to ascertain the facts of Helena's life on the basis of reliable historical sources. The second part deals with the legends concerning the discovery of the True Cross in Jerusalem by Helena. Fact and fiction, which are so often confused in the secondary literature, are carefully distinguished. The first part deals with subjects like Helena's life before the reign of Constantine, her residences in Trier and Rome, her conversion, her position at the court of Constantine, and her pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The second part investigates the origin, development and function of the legends of the discovery of the True Cross, which were developed in the 4th and 5th centuries: the Helena legend, the (Syriac) Protonike legend and the Judas Cyriacus legend. An appendix deals with the portraits of Helena. "In general, the 'historical' picture of Helena presented in modern historiography is still confused by the unhistorical legend. This picture therefore needs the clarification afforded by a strict separation of historical and legendary material. That is the main aim of this book, which is consequently presented in two parts. In the first part an attempt is made to present something like a biography of Helena based on historically reliable data, i.e. non-legendary material, while in the second part the legend is treated."--Introduction, pages 2-3 This book about Flavia Julia Helena Augusta, mother of Constantine the Great, deals with the historical facts of Helena's life and investigates the origin and function of the legends concerning the discovery of the True Cross by Helena, which were developed in the 4th and 5th centuries.