The Fiesta de las Cruces ("Festival of the Crosses") or Cruz de Mayo ("May Cross") is a holiday celebrated on 3 May in many parts of Spain and Hispanic America.
Origins
Religiously, the festival is rooted in the legendary search by Byzantine Empress Saint Helena for the cross on which Jesus died, but the popular traditions connected to the festival certainly trace back to pagan traditions brought to Spain by the Roman Empire (see May Day).
The legend is that Emperor Constantine I, in the sixth year of his reign, confronted the barbarians on the banks of the Danube, in a battle where victory was believed to be impossible because of the great size of the enemy army. One night, Constantine had a vision of a cross in the sky, and by it the words "In hoc signo vincis" (With this sign, you shall be victorious). The emperor had a cross made and put it at the front of his army, which won an easy victory over the enemy multitude. On returning to the city and learning the significance of the cross, Constantine was baptized as a Christian and gave orders to construct Christian churches. He sent his mother, Saint Helena, to Jerusalem in search of the True Cross, the cross on which Jesus died. Once there, Helena summoned the wisest priests to aid in her attempt to find the cross. On Calvary Hill, traditionally considered the site of Jesus's crucifixion, she found three bloody logs hidden. In order to discover which was the True Cross, she placed the logs one by one over sick people, and even dead people, who were cured or resuscitated at the touch of the True Cross. The veneration of the True Cross, and the use of pieces of the True Cross as relics, begins at this time. Saint Helena died praying for all believers in Christ to celebrate the commemoration of the day the Cross was found.
Places where the holiday is celebrated
The "Fiesta de las Cruces" is celebrated in numerous places in Spain and Hispanoamerica.
Spain
Various groups of people - usually linked to the Hermandades, the religious Brotherhoods who organise the Easter Week processions, get together and decorate a tall cross with flowers.
They choose a pretty square or street, and also decorate the area around the cross with typical and traditional items. A guitar. An embroidered shawl. Old earthenware pots. Even an old-fashioned sewing machine! For the cross of the Hermandad de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, Queen of the Sea, they use fishing nets and tackle. For San Isidro the Ploughman Saint, they have crops and traditional foodstuff.
They set out these beautiful items, redolent of the past and of the traditions of the town, making an artistic display that everyone comes to admire.
Although it is normally one of the Brotherhoods decorating the crosses, it can also be a group of friends and neighbours, a youth group, a Charity, who get together to produce these lovely events.