The Archaeology of the Pardouns de Acre (original) (raw)
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Crusader art in the Holy Land, from the Third Crusade to the fall of Acre, 1187-1291
2005
This book tells the story of the Architecture and the Figural Art produced for the Crusaders after the battle of Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, during the one hundred years that Acre was the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1191-1291. It is an art sponsored by kings and queens, patriarchs and bishops, clergy, monks, friars, knights and soldiers, aristocrats and merchants, all men and women of means, who came as pilgrims, Crusaders, settlers, and men of commerce to the Holy Land. The artists are Franks and Italians born and/or resident in the Holy Land, Westerners who traveled to the Latin East, Eastern Christians, and even Muslims, who worked for Crusader patrons.
'Akko III : the 1991–1998 excavations : the late periods. Part I, The Hospitaller Compound. (IAA Reports 72). , 2023
This chapter presents a brief survey of 'Akko's history and archaeology, setting the stage for detailed descriptions of the archeological finds in the following chapters. We summarize the data available from a wide range of historical sources referring to 'Akko from the Early Islamic through the Ottoman periods (eighth-nineteenth centuries CE), including written documents, maps, engravings and even photographs from the late Ottoman period, based largely on the works of Schur (1990) and Pringle (2009:3-35). The geographical location of 'Akko has always been significant in shaping the history of the city and its economic and political importance. 'Akko is situated on the Mediterranean coastal plain of northern Israel, on the northern shore of a natural sandy bay, bordered on the west by a peninsula that is part of a calcareous sandstone (kurkar) coastal ridge. As the bay is protected from most winter storms and provides a fair harbor, it was an important port as early as biblical times. 'Akko's harbor appears to have operated uninterrupted throughout history, and in Crusader times it was the main harbor of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The earliest settlements at 'Akko, from the Middle Bronze Age to the Persian period, were located at Tel 'Akko, about 2.5 km east of the bay. Toward the end of the Persian period, new suburbs were built to the west of the tell, in the direction of the bay. By the end of the third century BCE, the Hellenistic city of 'Akko-Ptolemais was almost entirely located on the northern shore of the bay and on the peninsula. It was a thriving commercial center throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods and up to the Arab conquest in the seventh century CE. 1 The Early Islamic, Crusader and Ottoman-period settlements were also located on the northern shore of the bay and on the peninsula. 'Akko also straddles the junction of two important ancient trade routes, the Via Maris, a north-south road along the Mediterranean coast, and an east-west road that connected 'Akko with Damascus. In addition, 'Akko is located in the northern part of the fertile 'Akko plain, which supplied the city with agricultural produce for its own use and for export through its port.
This article analyses an unusually large and generally ignored corpus of private charters: namely, testaments from eleventh-century Catalonia, some of them as yet unedited, that make reference to an upcoming or consummated pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The documents provide rare information about the testators' social, financial and spiritual circumstances. They not only open a window to the mindset of medieval men and women, but also enable us to discern changes of devotion over time. An analysis of the pilgrims' declared goals reveals the paramount importance of Christ's Sepulchre during the largest part of the eleventh century, whereas the town of Jerusalem gained momentum as an "attractor" already prior to the First Crusade. Similarly, a growth of penitential anxieties can be discerned in the second half of the century. The documents analysed in this article therefore substantiate the narrative sources generally used to study pre-crusade pilgrimage. They also demonstrate that Catalonia in the eleventh century was an area much more closely connected to Jerusalem and Palestine both by land and by sea than hitherto thought. Veneration of the holy sites was strengthened by the construction and dedication of churches and chapels, by the transfer of relics and other material and mnemonic devices. As a result, the call to the First Crusade did not go unheard in eastern Iberia.
Speculum, 2020
off each other-or, in another commonplace, that Alfonse (with "une soumission silencieuse," p. 47) was constantly absorbing Louis's. These commonplaces arose in large part from the fact that Alfonse governed "from Paris." I still vividly remember Joseph Strayer using this proximity-both brothers issuing administrative orders to far-flung territories from the capital-as evidence both of harmony of spirit and identical policies and practices on the ground. Yet Chenard shows that what evidence survives-perhaps only suggestive rather than conclusive, but challenging the commonplaces all the same-makes it seem as if Alfonse was not in Louis IX's presence as much as scholars have assumed. Paris and its environs constituted a pretty large area. Most often, insofar as one can tell, where Louis was, Alfonse was not, a pattern that became more pronounced as time passed. Does enduring and perhaps worsening physical semi-paralysis explain this or is it evidence of a little fraternal testiness between the count and the saint? And how important was the phenomenon, assuming it is not a misapprehension based on the fragmentary record? After all, Count Alfonse did set out on King Louis's last crusade. The king died in the crusader camp outside Tunis. The count and his countess perished on their way back home.
The monastic church of Christ (St-Sauveur) at Charroux was one of a number of buildings in the Latin West that were intended to evoke the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. This is clear both from the unusually precise correspondences between the respective rotundas, and the important christological relics the rotunda at Charroux was designed to enshrine. The main building campaigns probably date to the 1060s and 1070s, but in a strikingly simple and effective modification, the rotunda was remodelled within a generation at most by the insertion of a crypt. Historically, this is most likely to have coincided with the consecration of the high altar by Pope Urban II on 10 January, 1096, some six weeks after the Council of Clermont and in the course of a journey which went on to see important consecrations of altars dedicated to the Holy Cross at Marmoutier, Vendôme and Moissac. Charroux was not alone in recreating Jerusalem in the West, but it is remarkable in realising a church of such symbolic potential at a moment of religious anxiety.
The Crusader Loss of Jerusalem in the Eyes of a Thirteenth-Century Virtual Pilgrim
The Crusades and Visual Culture, 2015
The rich images of the Riccardiana Psalter (Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, ms. 323) symbolize the significance of Jerusalem in the competing claims of Christians and Muslims in the later Crusader era. Several references to the holy city appear in eight scenes portraying Christ’s life from the Annunciation to the Pentecost. Through details and precise architectural forms, the images allude to actual locations where the events took place, which were also medieval pilgrimage sites. Paradoxically, these sites were in Muslim possession at the time and inaccessible to Christians. The Jerusalem attachment is strengthened by scholars’ association of the psalter with the era of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (1220-50), in part because it was produced perhaps in ca. 1225 in his Italy or in Acre, then-capital of the Latin Crusader Kingdom (1187-1291) under his and then his son’s control (1225-54). Also, textual evidence within suggests that Frederick’s wife (at most) or a lay noblewoman (at least) with Jerusalem ties was the owner. I suggest that this psalter provided its owner with a virtual replacement for pilgrimage to Holy Land locations, which were special to her, when political circumstances disallowed her from experiencing them herself.