Origen y espíritu de las antiguas peregrinaciones ad Loca Sancta

Abstract

This paper is about the origin and spirit of the ancient pilgrimages to Holy Land between IVth and VIth centuries. Many factors may have contributed which were the cause of this popular pious movement, among which we have to remark the recuperation of Jesus' tomb and of the whole Golgota's area by influence of Constantin the Great, the starting point of the creation of an real biblical geography. But so important for the development of the pilgrimages became the participation of the emperor's mother, Helena, whom was attributed the invention of the cross by a legend which was created in the last years of the IVth century.