A History of the Crusades

by Jonathan Riley-Smith

  In Syria and Palestine a harder type of limestone, known as narī, was normally used for walls, while a softer type, known as malikī (or ‘royal’), was the freestone favoured for quoins, doors, windows, and sculptural ornament. In some areas, such as Bethlehem, the limestone was semi-marmorized, allowing it to be used as a substitute for marble. However, virtually all the fine marble used on such monuments as the royal tombs in the Holy Sepulchre or the exquisite architectural sculpture associated with the Temple Area was derived from antique columns and sarcophagi that had been imported during the Roman and Byzantine periods. Antique column-drums, both marble and granite, were also reused by the Franks, as by the Fatimids before them, to add solidity to harbour works and fortifications at Acre, Ascalon, Sidon, Jaffa, and Caesarea.

  Deforestation was already well advanced by the time of the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. In the Middle Ages timber suitable for building was therefore only to be found in pockets: for example in the cedar forests of Mount Lebanon or in the famous forests of Aleppo Pine and Stone Pine outside Beirut, from which the bishop was permitted to take beams for his cathedral in 1184. Certain buildings, such as the Aqsa Mosque (Palatium Salomonis) and Dome of the Rock (Templum Domini) in Jerusalem and the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, had roofs made of timber that had been imported in Byzantine times; and when the roof at Bethlehem was repaired around 1480, the wood had to be brought from Venice. In general, however, although timber was often used during construction as scaffolding and as centring for vaults and arches, and although some buildings had timber features, such as the mezzanine floors in the castle towers at Qal‘at Yahmur (Chastel Rouge) and Tukla in north Syria, and the projecting balconies at Qal‘at Jiddin (Judyn) in Galilee, the more usual material for floors, roofs, balconies, and stairs was stone. This, perhaps more than anything else, gives the ‘crusader’ architecture of the Levant a particular character, which impressed itself on a German pilgrim to Jerusalem in 1172, who noted, ‘The houses… are not finished with high-pitched roofs after our fashion, but have them level and of a flat shape.’

  Timber would also have been used for the internal fittings of houses, castles, and churches; but these have rarely survived. Architectural metalwork has also mostly gone, though some of the wrought-iron grilles that surrounded the rock in the Templum Domini survive, both in situ and in the nearby Islamic Museum, and other similar pieces may be seen reused in Cairo mosques.

  Although the patrons of building works are sometimes known to us, either by documentary record or even on occasion through inscriptions, the builders themselves rarely are. One inscription, in Greek and Arabic at the Orthodox monastery of Choziba between Jerusalem and Jericho, identifies those who restored the monastery in 1179 as Syrian Christians: Ibrahim and his brothers, the sons of Musa of Jifna. Indeed, the corps of skilled masons throughout the Latin East seems to have included Greeks, Armenians (whose masons’ marks appear on the church of the Annunciation in Nazareth), and Syrian Christians, as well as Franks.

  The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Counties of Tripoli and

  Edessa, and the Principality of Antioch

  Muslim restrictions on the construction of new churches and the dwindling numbers and resources of the indigenous Christian communities meant that the church buildings encountered by the crusaders when they arrived in Syria and Palestine were generally small and few in number. During the reign of the caliph al-Hakim (996–1021), most of those in the Fatimid sphere of influence had been destroyed, including the church of the Holy Sepulchre (or Resurrection) itself.

  In 1036, however, the Byzantines were permitted to begin rebuilding the Holy Sepulchre. Other Orthodox churches rebuilt during this period around Jerusalem included the monastery of the Cross (c .1020–38) and the churches of St John at ‘Ain Karim and at Sabastiya. The Jacobites also rebuilt the church of St Mary in ‘Abud in 1058, and Italian Benedictines the churches of St Mary Latin and St Mary Magdalene (for nuns) in Jerusalem.

  The opportunity for rebuilding following the crusader conquest was seized not only by the Latins, but also by indigenous Christians. In the 1160s, the Armenian cathedral of St James was rebuilt and expanded, with a new south-facing narthex. Although the general planning of this church was evidently dictated by the requirements of the Armenian liturgy, much of the workmanship seen in the capitals and doorways is similar to that found on Frankish buildings of the period; furthermore, the masonry marks on the narthex suggest that the construction work itself was organized along western lines. The large Jacobite church of St Mary Magdalene, in the former Jewish quarter (now the Muslim quarter) of the city, also probably dated from the twelfth century.

  In the 1160s and 1170s, a period of relatively cordial relations between Emperor Manuel I Comnenus and Kings Baldwin III and Amalric encouraged the rebuilding of a number of Orthodox churches and monasteries, including those of Choziba, St Elias (near Bethlehem), St John the Baptist beside the Jordan, and St Mary of Kalamon near Jericho. Orthodox churches rebuilt in Jerusalem included the small domed churches of St Michael the Archangel and the Dair al-‘Adas (convent of Lentils), besides St Nicholas and St Thecla. In Bethlehem, the paintings and mosaics in the sixth-century church of the Nativity were renewed with imperial assistance, even though the church was under the authority of a Latin bishop. Indeed, in Bethlehem, as in the Holy Sepulchre and St George’s cathedral in Lydda, it seems that communities of Orthodox and Latin clergy existed side by side in the twelfth century.

  The church of the Holy Sepulchre represented not only the patriarchal cathedral of Jerusalem but also the holiest of all the holy places, the site of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Between 1042 and 1048, the rotunda covering the Tomb of Christ had been rebuilt as a church by the Byzantines, who added a gallery and an east-facing apse. During the first half of the twelfth century, the Latins enlarged the building by demolishing the apse and constructing a new choir and a transept to the east, thereby bringing all the traditional sites associated with the Passion, such as the Prison of Christ, Calvary, Golgotha, and the Place of Anointing, under one roof. To the east of this, on the site of the large basilica constructed by Constantine I (335) and destroyed by al-Hakim (1009), they erected a cloister surrounded by conventual buildings for the canons who served the church. The cloister covered an underground chapel of St Helena, built to commemorate the discovery of the relic of the True Cross.

  Nothing is known of the architecture of the patriarchal cathedral in Antioch. However, many of the cathedrals of the Latin archbishops and bishops survive or are known from antiquarian or archaeological record. The grandest of all were the cathedrals of the archbishops of Tyre and Nazareth. The latter measured some 68 by 30 m. overall. Little now remains of the building, following its destruction by Sultan Baybars in 1263 and the construction of a new church on the site in 1959–69. It appears, however, to have been a three-aisled basilica of seven bays, terminating in three deeply recessed apses; the eastern bay of the nave was roughly square in plan, suggesting that it may have been covered by a dome or lantern tower. The nave piers were cross-shaped, and had an engaged column on each face, as had the responding aisle pilasters. The north aisle enclosed an aedicule covering the Cave of the Annunciation (or House of the Virgin). The cathedral of Tyre was of comparable size, but had projecting transepts.

  The other cathedral churches seem to have been more modestly proportioned. At Caesarea the remains of the cathedral were excavated in 1960–1. The building, measuring overall a mere 55 by 22 m., had three aisles with semi-circular eastern apses. In common with other smaller churches the vaulting was supported on rectangular piers with an engaged column on each face; the nave was apparently groin-vaulted, as probably were the aisles. Traces of an opus sectile pavement composed of reused mosaic tesserae and fragments of marble were also found. The building was probably completed by the middle of the twelfth century, but the east end seems to have been rebuilt, possibly after damage sustained in 1191 or in 1219–20. The new pilasters
are different from the old ones, and do not fit precisely on to their bases. While the rebuilding was in progress, a temporary apse was constructed in front of the sanctuary to allow religious services to continue without interruption.

  Cathedrals of comparable size and style were also built in the twelfth century at Beirut, Jubayl (Gibelet), Tortosa (Tartus), Karak in Moab, Hebron (St Abraham), and Lydda (St George). In Hebron, the plan had to be compressed in order to fit within the Herodian precinct above the Cave of Machpelah, the burial place of the Patriarchs and their respective wives. The present building probably dates from soon after 1120, when the entrance to the cave was accidentally discovered by one of the Augustinian canons and relics of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were recovered.

  The cathedral at Jubayl (Gibelet) also has a somewhat irregular ground plan, possibly the result of having replaced an earlier structure. As originally planned from 1115 onwards, it would have been a three-aisled building of six bays, the east end terminating in semi-circular apses, the nave arcades carried on elongated rectangular piers with engaged columns on their east and west faces, the nave barrel-vaulted and the aisles groin-vaulted. However, the building was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1170, after which only its eastern half was restored. As at Caesarea, in the rebuilding, which here concentrated on the south aisle, the engaged piers were replaced by plain rectangular ones. Attached to the north side of the third bay, and apparently predating the 1170 earthquake, stands an open-air baptistery, consisting of three chevron-moulded arches supporting a dome on pendentives.

  Some development in style may be seen at Sabastiya, which was probably built in the 1170s. The church was rectangular in plan (54 by 26 m.) with a projecting central apse, the outer face of which was decorated, as at Beirut, with rounded pilasters. The central nave had four bays, three of which seem to have been covered by sexpartite rib-vaults, while the second from the east seems to have formed an inscribed transept, covered by a dome or lantern. The nave piers that supported the vaulting alternated with free-standing pairs of columns, which would have carried the clerestory and the quadripartite rib-vaulting of the aisles. Recent study by Nurith Kenaan-Kedar suggests that this building is likely to have been designed and constructed by someone familiar with the cathedral of Sens, whose archbishop, William, was a benefactor of Sabastiya in the 1170s. To the same period also belongs the nearby church at Jacob’s Well, which is stylistically similar though different in plan.

  At Tortosa the cathedral was probably begun in the second quarter of the twelfth century, but was not completed until sometime in the thirteenth; thus the capitals of the nave show a stylistic progression, from Romanesque at the east end to early Gothic at the west. On a number of occasions in the twelfth century the Frankish inhabitants of towns such as Jaffa, Lydda, and Nazareth had to take refuge on church roofs when under Muslim attack. The cathedral of Tortosa, however, appears to be unique among surviving Latin churches in showing evidence for fortification. A pair of rectangular tower-like sacristies which project from the north-east and south-east corners of the building were evidently intended to provide flanking cover, and the buttresses attached to the north and south walls probably once supported machicolations serving the same purpose (as on the late thirteenth-century church of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue). Camille Enlart also found evidence for a pair of towers over the western aisle bays. This transformation of the church into a small castle appears to date to the 1260s, when Tortosa was being threatened by the Mamluks.

  The distribution of Latin parish churches reflects that of the Frankish population. In general, with the exception of certain particular areas, such as the territories of Jerusalem and Acre where settlement in the countryside was widespread, westerners seem to have been concentrated in towns, with smaller numbers of them settled in villages, castles, and rural monasteries. In Gaza, Ramla, and Nablus the parish churches rival the cathedral churches by their size, though in Gaza one may doubt whether the inhabitants would ever have filled the building. Smaller three-aisled parish churches are found at Amiun, al-Bira, al-Qubaiba, Yibna, Bait Nuba, Saffuriya, Tiberias, and Qaimun. Village churches, however, were more often simple box-like buildings with a barrel-vaulted or groin-vaulted nave and a semi-circular apse; such churches occur at Fahma, Sinjil, Baitin, Dabburiya, Zir‘in, and ‘Amwas, and in the cities of Tiberias and Beirut.

  Another important element in the Latin religious establishment in the East was represented by the religious orders. In the twelfth century, Augustinian canons rebuilt the church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives to an octagonal plan, reflecting that of the Templum Domini (Dome of the Rock), which they also served. In the Valley of Jehoshaphat a new church was built over the Byzantine crypt enclosing the Tomb of the Virgin, and the buildings of a Benedictine abbey were laid out to the west of it. Just inside the Jehoshaphat gate of the city the church of St Anne was served by Benedictine nuns. The largest church in Jerusalem after the Holy Sepulchre was St Mary of Mount Sion, built on the supposed site of the Dormition of the Virgin. All that now remains of it is a southern gallery chapel that would have overlooked the sanctuary of the main church and is associated with the upper room of the Last Supper. The early Gothic rib-vaulting of this structure was probably modified in the late fourteenth century when the chapel came into the hands of the Franciscans; but opinion is divided on whether it originally dated to the years immediately preceding 1187 or to the brief period when Jerusalem returned to Latin hands between 1229 and 1244.

  Outside Jerusalem, the Benedictines possessed a large church on Mount Tabor, marking the site of the Transfiguration. In 1143 Benedictine nuns, under the patronage of King Fulk and Queen Melisende, established the abbey of St Lazarus in Bethany, incorporating both the old Byzantine church, now dedicated to Sts Mary (Magdalene) and Martha, and a new one of St Lazarus, built above the tomb itself and associated with a new cloister and conventual buildings.

  The Cistercians of Morimond established a daughter house at Belmont near Tripoli in 1157, and another called Salvation near Jerusalem in 1161. A daughter house of Belmont, called St John in the fioods, was also established at ‘Ain Karim in 1169. The modest layouts of these three houses have a family resemblance, with single-celled churches and the conventual buildings laid out around a small rectangular courtyard or cloister. They have little in common with the normal type of Cistercian plan found in the West. A more classic Cistercian church plan, however, is represented by the cruciform building erected by the Premonstratensians over the tomb of the prophet Samuel on Mount Joy, north-west of Jerusalem. Between c.1220 and 1283, the Carmelites also built a small church and cloister in the Wadi al-Siyah on the western edge of Mount Carmel.

  The church architecture of the military orders deserves special mention. Although in the West a number of surviving Templar and Hospitaller churches and chapels have circular or polygonal plans, apparently imitating the rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre (or in the Templars’ case arguably that of the Templum Domini), in the Latin East their churches were more often conventionally rectangular. Such, for example, are the Hospitallers’ castle chapels at Crac des Chevaliers, Margat, and Belvoir, and their churches at Bait Jibrin, the German hospital in Jerusalem (St Mary of the Germans), and Abu Ghosh (Castellum Emmaus). The latter was built around 1140 to commemorate Christ’s resurrection appearance on the road to Emmaus; appropriately enough, it was associated with a roadstation serving a twelfth-century pilgrimage route. Similarly, the Templars’ castle chapels at Tortosa and Chastel Blanc (Safitha) were rectangular, the latter taking the form of a keep or donjon; but the chapel built at Chastel Pèlerin (‘Atlit) sometime after 1218 was twelve-sided and that at Safad (1240–60) was also possibly polygonal.

  In addition to religious buildings, the Latin settlers constructed a range of secular works throughout the period of their occupation of the Levant. Apart from castles, these have received relatively little scholarly attention, partly because many of them fall into the class of civil engineering rathe
r than architecture, and partly because the lack of diagnostic architectural traits, such as sculpture or masonry marks, means that it is often difficult to be sure whether a given structure is Frankish or Muslim.

  Most of the towns and cities of the Latin East had existed before the crusader conquest, and the same is true of their town walls. Consequently there is scant mention of building work on walls in the twelfth century. After 1187, however, when Frankish control was reduced to a thin coastal strip, much greater effort went into strengthening the defences of towns such as Ascalon, Beirut, Tyre, Sidon, Acre, Caesarea, Jaffa, and Tortosa, often with direct assistance from the West.

  For their water supply, most towns relied on cisterns and wells, though in the case of Tyre, Antioch, Caesarea and Jerusalem, these were supplemented by ancient aqueducts. Covered markets of the twelfth century survive in Jerusalem, where some of the shop fronts bear the letters SCA ANNA, showing that they belonged to the abbey of St Anne. In Acre part of the royal customs house, or Chaine, survives in the Ottoman Khan al-‘Umdan. Crusader harbour works, incorporating those of the Abbasid and Fatimid periods, survive at Sidon, Tyre, Caesarea, Arsuf, and Acre; and a thirteenth-century bath-house has been excavated in the town adjoining the Templar castle of Chastel Pèlerin.

  Documentary and archaeological evidence suggest the existence of two different types of urban house. The oriental type, closed to the outside street and with its main rooms opening on to a central courtyard, containing a cistern to catch the rain from the roofs, is attested by written sources in Jerusalem, and by excavated examples at Caesarea. The latter were apparently built in the eleventh century, but were extended and kept in use by the Frankish newcomers in the twelfth. The second type of house is similar to those found in the West in areas bordering the Mediterranean, with shops, magazines, or a loggia opening on to the street at ground level and several floors of domestic apartments, or ‘solars’, above. Examples are recorded in Jerusalem, Acre, Caesarea, and Nablus.