and increase of the christian faith, wherein as yet he was not fullie
instructed. ¶ Some writers alledge, that she being at Ierusalem, made
diligent search to find out the place of the sepulchre of our Lord,
and at length found it, though with much adoo: for the infidels had
stopped it vp, and couered it with a heape of filthie earth, and
builded aloft vpon the place, a chappell dedicated to Venus, where
yoong women vsed to sing songs in honour of that vnchast goddesse.
Helen caused the same to be ouerthrowne, the earth to be remooued, and
the place cleansed, so that at length the sepulchre appéered, and fast
by were found there buried in the earth thrée crosses and the nailes.
But the crosse wherevpon our Sauiour was crucified, was knowne by the
title written vpon it, though almost worne out, in letters of Hebrew,
Gréeke, and Latine: the inscription was this, _Iesus Nazarenus rex
Iudæorum_. It was also perceiued which was that crosse by a miracle
(as it is reported, but how trulie I can not tell) that should be
wrought thereby: for being laid to a sicke woman, onlie with the
touching thereof she was healed. It was also said, that a dead man was
raised from death to life, his bodie onlie being touched therewith.
Wherevpon Constantine mooued with these things, forbad that from
thencefoorth anie should be put to death on the crosse, to the
end that the thing which afore time was accounted infamous and
reprochfull, might now be had in honour and reuerence.

The empresse Helen hauing thus found the crosse, builded a temple
there,& taking with hir the nailes, returned with the same to hir
sonne Constantine, who set one of them in the crest of his helmet,
[Sidenote: _Polydor_.]
an other in the bridle of his horsse, and the third he cast into the
sea, to asswage and pacifie the furious tempests and rage thereof. She
also brought with hir a parcell of that holie crosse, and gaue it