Editing Helena, mother of Constantine I (section)

== Early life ==
Though Helena's birthplace is not known with certainty,<ref>{{Cite book |title=Helena Augusta: The mother of Constantine the Great and the legend of her finding of the true cross |last=Drijvers |first=Jan Willem |publisher=BRILL |year=1991 |isbn=9789004246768 |chapter=Helena's position at the court of Constantine |pages=9–17 |series=Brill's Studies in Intellectual History| quote= "...lack of clarity about Helena's birthplace..."}}</ref> [[Helenopolis (Bithynia)|Helenopolis]], then Drepanon, in [[Bithynia]], following [[Procopius]], is the one supported by most secondary sources,{{sfn|Drijvers|1992|p=9}} and by far the most likely candidate for her place of origin. If so, it would make her a [[Ancient Greek|Greek speaker]] or possibly bilingual.{{sfn|Hillner|2023|pp=19–20}} Her name is attested on coins as Flavia Helena, Flavia Julia Helena and sometimes Aelena.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Helena Augusta: The mother of Constantine the Great and the legend of her finding of the true cross |last=Drijvers |first=Jan Willem |publisher=BRILL |year=1991 |isbn=9789004246768 |chapter=Helena's position at the court of Constantine |pages=41 |series=Brill's Studies in Intellectual History}}</ref>{{Efn|It has been speculated that the name "Aelena" is the result of poor minting, with ''H'' turning into ''A''. Nonetheless the 5th-century Latin text ''Acta Cyriaci'' (based on an earlier Greek text)<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Text as Revelation: Constantine's Dream in "Elene" |journal=Neophilologus |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/d9478649c6b3bc72067c270da4189c99/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1817933 |last=Harbus |first=Antonina |date= October 1, 1994 |issue=4 |volume=78 |pages=645–653 |doi=10.1007/BF01003514 |s2cid=161998085 |via=ProQuest}}</ref> also refers to her as ''Aelena''.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Accommodated Jew: English Antisemitism from Bede to Milton |last=Lavezzo |first=Kathy |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-5017-0615-8 |pages=28–63 |language=en |publication-place=Ithaca |chapter=1 Sepulchral Jews and Stony Christians: Supersession in Bede and Cynewulf |chapter-url=https://academic.oup.com/cornell-scholarship-online/book/21546/chapter-abstract/181380787?redirectedFrom=fulltext}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |title=Anglo-saxon self-consciousness in language |journal=English Studies |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00138388708598490?journalCode=nest20 |last=Bodden |first=Mary Catherine |date= 1987|issue=1 |volume=68 |pages=24–39 |doi=10.1080/00138388708598490 |via=Tandfonline}}</ref>}} [[Joseph Vogt]] suggested that the name Helena was typical for the [[Greek East and Latin West|Greek-speaking part of the Roman Empire]] and that therefore her place of origin should be looked for in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.<ref name="Drijvers1992a">{{harvnb|Drijvers|1992|p=12}}</ref> No Greek inscriptions have been attested dedicated to Helena during her lifetime, which may be because her fame was not as great in the Greek East as in the Latin West where she resided as empress.<ref name="Drijvers1992b">{{harvnb|Drijvers|1992|p=53}}</ref> The 6th-century historian [[Procopius]] is the earliest authority for the statement that Helena was a native of Drepanon, in the province of [[Bithynia]] in [[Asia Minor]]. The name Helena appears in all areas of the Empire, but is not epigraphically attested in inscriptions of Bithynia (Helena's proposed region of origin) and it was also common in Latin-speaking areas. Procopius lived much later than the era he was describing and his description may have been actually intended as an etymological explanation about the toponym ''Helenopolis''.<ref name="Drijvers1992b" /> On the other hand, her son Constantine renamed the city "[[Helenopolis (Bithynia)|Helenopolis]]" after her death around AD&nbsp;330, which supports the belief that the city was indeed her birthplace.<ref name="Harbors, 12">Harbus, 12.</ref>{{sfn|Hillner|2023|pp=19–20}} The historian [[Cyril Mango]] has argued that Helenopolis was refounded to strengthen the communication network around Constantine's new capital in [[Constantinople]], and was renamed simply to honor Helena, not to necessarily mark her birthplace.<ref>Mango, 143–58, cited in Harbus, 13.</ref> However, according to historian [[Julia Hillner]], Constantine's nephew, [[Emperor Julian]], granting city status to a nearby village in Bithynia and naming it [[Basilinopolis]] in honor of his own mother, [[Basilina]], who was undoubtedly from Bithynia, provides solid evidence that the renaming to Helenopolis marked Helena's birthplace.{{efn|Hillner argued that: "Julian was famously disgruntled with Constantine and Helena on account of Helena's grandsons' complicity in the murder of his father and generally keen on stressing his own lineage. He must in this way have been seeking to allow his mother's birthplace, now Basilinopolis, to rival nearby Helenopolis."{{sfn|Hillner|2023|pp=19–20}}}} Constantine named two other locations after Helena: [[Helenopolis (Palestine)|Helenopolis in Palestine]],<ref>Günter Stemberger, ''Jews and Christians in the Holy Land: Palestine in the fourth century'', 2000, p. 9 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=tu7esOXinfkC&pg=PA9 full text]).</ref> apparently due to Helena's renowned pilgrimage to the Holy Land,{{sfn|Hillner|2023|pp=19, 219, 259}} and the province of [[Helenopontus]] in the Pontus, which was in the same region as Drepanon, but further to the east.<ref name="Harbors, 12"/>{{sfn|Hillner|2023|pp=19–20}} Two other locations have been named after Helena: a ''[[vicus]]'' Helena in northern France, and an ''[[oppidum]]'' Helena in the [[Pyrenees]], which took its name due to [[Emperor Constans]], a grandson of Helena, being murdered there, and corresponded with a prophecy which predicted that Constans would die in the arms of his grandmother.<ref name="Drijvers1992a" /> Other suggestions about her birthplace, without strong documentation, are [[Naissus]] (central Balkans), Caphar or [[Edessa]] ([[Mesopotamia (Roman province)|Mesopotamia]]), and [[Trier]].<ref name="Drijvers1992b" />

The bishop and historian [[Eusebius of Caesarea]] states that Helena was about 80 on her return from Palestine.<ref>Eusebius, ''Vita Constantini'' 3.46.</ref> Since that journey has been dated to 326–28, she was probably born around 246 to 249.<ref name="Harbus, 13">Harbus, 13.</ref>{{sfn|Drijvers|1992|p=15}} Information about her social background universally suggests that she came from the lower classes. Fourth-century sources, following [[Eutropius (historian)|Eutropius]]' ''Breviarium,'' record that she came from a humble background. Bishop [[Ambrose]] of Milan, writing in the late 4th century was the first to call her a ''stabularia'', a term translated as "stable-maid" or "inn-keeper". He makes this comment a virtue, calling Helena a ''bona stabularia'', a "good stable-maid",<ref>Ambrose, ''De obitu Theodosii'' 42; Harbus, 13.</ref> probably to contrast her with the general suggestion of sexual laxness considered typical of that group.<ref>Drijvers. 1992. p 12-18</ref> Other sources, especially those written after Constantine's proclamation as emperor, gloss over or ignore her background.<ref name="Harbus, 13"/> Some ancient historians, "[[pagan]] and therefore hostile to the family ... suggested that as a girl she had been one of the supplementary amenities of her father's establishment, regularly available to his clients [[prostitution|at a small extra charge]]."<ref>{{cite book |last=Norwich |first=John Julius |author-link=John Julius Norwich |date=1990 |title=Byzantium: The Early Centuries |location=London |publisher=Penguin Books |page=33 |isbn=0-14-011447-5}}</ref>

Both [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]] and [[Henry of Huntingdon]] promoted a popular tradition that Helena was a British princess and the daughter of "[[King Cole|Old King Cole]]" from the area of [[Colchester]]. This led to the later dedication of 135 churches in England to her, many in around the area of [[Yorkshire]],<ref>John Munns, ''Cross and Culture in Anglo-Norman England: Theology, Imagery, Devotion'', p245</ref> and revived as a suggestion in the 20th century in the novel by [[Helena (Waugh novel)|Evelyn Waugh]].