The high altar of the choir, on the east, had behind it the throne of the patriarch—according to the Greek and ancient Latin custom. Images of the Virgin, the Baptist, and the angel Gabriel stood under the arches which opened into the ambulatorium, or walk; and above the altar, on the ceiling, was the great picture of the exaltation of Adam: “Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, bearing the cross in His left hand, holding Adam with His right, leading majestically to heaven with a giant’s stride, His left foot raised, His right still planted on earth.”[523] Beneath this picture were verses in Latin. The rotunda had a gallery, with a door on the west leading to the palace.[524] Godfrey and Baldwin I. had lived in the Aḳṣa Mosque, but after the establishment of the Templars the Latin kings held their court where the Greek patriarch now lives, west of the cathedral. An arch over Patriarch Street seems to have led to the gallery door (still visible, though now blocked up), and through a window the kings could look down on the sepulchre. The palace had many vaulted rooms, and a courtyard filled with orange trees and pomegranates. It could contain a household of an hundred persons.
The present groined roof of the Calvary Chapel, supported on heavy piers, is also probably Crusaders’ work. Two pictures in this chapel represented the Crucifixion and the Descent from the Cross. The ante-chapel of Golgotha beneath (built in 1808) did not exist, nor apparently did the flights of steps now leading up on the west from the floor of the church. For, facing Calvary, the first two rulers of the Latin kingdom were buried, and the monuments of their six successors were against the south wall of the choir. Godfrey’s tomb was to the right, and that of his brother Baldwin I. to the left, in front of the Golgotha Cave. The former was marked by a plain block on which stood a stone roof or pediment, supported by four twisted dwarf pillars at the corners, according to Zuallardo’s picture. It bore the simple Latin text, in “Lombard” letters, “Hic jacet inclitus Dux Godefridus de Bullion, qui totam istam terram acquisivit cultui divino. Cujus anima requiescat in pace. Amen.” The tomb of Baldwin I. was probably much like Godfrey’s, with the inscription:
Rex Balduinus, Judas alter Maccabæus
Spes patriæ: vigor ecclesiæ: virtus utriusque
Quem formidabant, cui dona tributa ferebant
Cedar, Ægypti, Dan, ac homicida Damascus
Proh dolor, in modicó clauditur hoc tumulo.
These tombs apparently escaped the fury of the Kharezmians, and were only removed by the Greeks in 1808, but they were ransacked in 1244 A. D. There is some doubt as to the exact position of the six later tombs, but the description by Theodorich (about 1172 A. D.) seems to show that Baldwin II. lay immediately north of Baldwin I., in the same line with Godfrey, and the remaining five kings were to the west, in line with Baldwin II., in proper order, Fulk next to him, followed by Baldwin III., Amaury, Baldwin IV., and Baldwin V., the latter being a child, and placed farthest from Calvary. Their graves are distinctly stated to have been “contiguous to the choir.” The same writer says that the vaulted roof of Calvary was painted with representations of David, Solomon, Isaiah, and other prophets, and that the pilgrims laid wooden crosses on the rock, where the holes for the three crosses were shown (as now); these votive offerings were removed and burned in a great bonfire at Easter-time.
THE HOLY FIRE
The Easter ceremony of the Holy Fire is described by the Russian abbot Daniel in the reign of Baldwin I. On Good Friday the church was cleansed, and all the lamps put out and filled with fresh oil. Every candle in Jerusalem was extinguished, and on Easter Eve the rotunda was crowded with pilgrims holding unlighted tapers. The cathedral rang with their cry, “Lord, have mercy upon us,” and the Syrians perhaps already sang as they still do:
“The eve of fire’s our feast-day;
This is the tomb of the Saviour.
O thou Jew, O thou Jew,
A feast of apes is the feast for you.”