How the Holy Cross came from Antioch to Brogne: A Critical Edition and Translation of Quomodo Sancta Crux ab Antiochia allata sit in Broniense cenobium, ed. and trans. Nicholas L. Paul and Wolfgang P. Müller, Crusading in Context. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2025, x, 240 pp.

Throughout the medieval period, pilgrims and crusaders returned to their homelands after a sojourn in the Holy Land, carrying all manner of items and souvenirs acquired during their travels. The First Crusade commander Bohemond of Taranto sent back an enemy commander’s tent; another crusader tried – and failed – to transport a lion. Within this traffic, many went back to Western Christendom bringing relics connected in some way to: the life of Jesus, Biblical events, miracles, or the lives of the saints. This present work, How the Holy Cross came from Antioch to Brogne, provides critical editions and translations of two little-known texts describing how the former constable of the kingdom of Jerusalem, Manasses of Hierges, returned to his lands near Namur (in modern-day Belgium) in 1152/1153 bearing a fragment of the True Cross.