The instrument of Jesus' crucifixion,
supposedly found by St Helena, the mother of
the emperor Constantine, on the hill of the
Calvary 326. She is reputed to have placed
most of it in a church built on the site and
to have taken the rest to Constantinople.
During the Middle Ages, a large number of
relics were claimed to be fragments of the
True Cross and were preserved and exhibited
in churches and cathedrals.