Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Edited volume · 1982

Crusader Art in the Twelfth Century

J. Folda (ed.)

Oxford: BAR

A collection of ten papers on Crusader-period churches, chronicles, sculpture and wall painting in the Latin East and their links with Europe, from a Jerusalem symposium of 1982.

Papers from a symposium held in Jerusalem in January 1982, on relations between the visual arts of the Latin East and Europe, deal with Crusader-period churches, chronicles, sculpture and wall painting. Folda's preface describes studies of monuments, media and historical sources rather than a formal record of the symposium. It recalls that Louis de Clercq made the first large photographic campaign on the Crusader monuments of Syria-Palestine in the 1850s, and that Melchior de Vogüé had studied them in 1854. The British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem organised the symposium.

How it is organised

Ten papers run from pre-Crusader church building in Palestine to Apulia. Denys Pringle opens with church types, Xenia Muratova follows with the chronicles of the First Crusade, and Helmut Buschhausen, writing in German, takes up the façade of the Holy Sepulchre. Alan Borg and Zehava Jacoby treat Crusader sculpture, Hugh Plommer the Cenacle on Mount Sion, and Erica Cruikshank Dodd, Lucy-Anne Hunt and Annemarie Weyl Carr wall paintings in Syria and the Holy Land. Valentino Pace closes with Apulia, and plates illustrating the works discussed in the papers follow.

The papers

Pringle classifies the church types known from before 1099 and relates them to later Crusader buildings, with a gazetteer and plans (pp. 5–46). Muratova examines the account of a statue destroyed at al-Aksa and the literary traditions through which the episode was transmitted. Buschhausen studies the south façade of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, its sculpture and portal programme, including the reading of the carved lintels.

Borg proposes a career for the sculptor associated with Plaimpied, the Holy Sepulchre and Nazareth, and then follows connections between the Rhone Valley, Avignon and the Latin Kingdom. Jacoby traces the reuse and proposed origins of Crusader carvings in Cairo, a portal, roundels and two columns among them, as evidence for the Temple area workshop of Jerusalem (pp. 121–138). Plommer assesses the plan, architectural details and date of the Cenacle, and argues for construction in the late twelfth century rather than at the time of Frederick II's visit in 1229.

Dodd describes the inscriptions and surviving wall paintings of the monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi, near Nebek, with their subjects and proposed chronology. Hunt considers the chapel excavated at Damascus Gate, its painted fragments, their date and the possible dedication of the building. Carr analyses the painted programme of the church at Abu Ghosh, its Byzantine styles and imagery, and the relationship between Greek and Latin patrons. Pace weighs proposed links between Apulian and Crusader painting and sculpture, and argues for influence from the Holy Land on south Italian sculpture (pp. 245–259).

What it records

  • Louis de Clercq made the first large photographic campaign to study the Crusader monuments of Syria-Palestine in the 1850s.p. ix
  • About 300 church buildings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are known in Palestine from historical and archaeological sources combined, by Pringle's count.p. 5
  • Over 100 of the roughly 300 known twelfth- and thirteenth-century church buildings in Palestine survive as physical remains, according to Pringle.p. 5
  • Six types of church building are known from before 1099, among them the cross-in-square and the domed basilica, the last of which Pringle calls more problematical.p. 14
  • Raoul of Caen's account describes a statue found in the al-Aksa mosque and destroyed by Tancred and his warriors after the seizure of al-Aksa on 15 July 1099, as Muratova reports.p. 47
  • Muratova estimates that the statue described by Raoul of Caen weighed about 600–700 kg.p. 51
  • Jacoby dates the activity of the Temple area workshop in the Holy Land from about the early 1170s until Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem in 1187.p. 121
  • Two columns in the mosque of Sultan Hasan at Cairo stand about 162 cm high, with faces 16 cm wide.p. 123
  • An Arabic inscription over the painting of St John the Evangelist at Mar Musa al-Habashi dates the top layer of painting to 504 AH, or AD 1110, Dodd reports.p. 174
  • Excavations at Damascus Gate in 1964–65 by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem revealed painted masonry blocks in a chamber west of the gate.p. 191
  • Hunt proposes that the Annunciation painting in the Damascus Gate chapel is Byzantine work of about the mid-twelfth century.p. 195
  • Carr dates the Abu Ghosh mural paintings to the 1170s and identifies their painters as Byzantine artists.p. 220

Where to read

  • Pre-Crusader church types and the gazetteer of surviving buildingspp. 8–27
  • Raoul of Caen's account of the statue at al-Aksapp. 47–53
  • The Holy Sepulchre's south façade and carved lintelspp. 75–84
  • Reused Crusader portal, roundels and columns in Cairopp. 121–126
  • Mar Musa church paintings and the 1110 inscriptionpp. 170–174
  • Damascus Gate chapel paintings and proposed dedicationpp. 192–198
  • Abu Ghosh mural programme and Byzantine imagerypp. 216–224
  • Comparisons between Apulian and Crusader painting and sculpturepp. 245–251

Contents

  • Church-Building in Palestine before the Crusades5
  • Western Chronicles of the First Crusade as Sources for the History of Art in the Holy Land47
  • Die Fassade der Grabeskirche zu Jerusalem71
  • Romanesque Sculpture from the Rhone Valley to the Jordan Valley97
  • Crusader Sculpture in Cairo: Additional Evidence on the Temple Area Workshop of Jerusalem121
  • The Cenacle on Mount Sion139
  • Notes on the Monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi, near Nebek, Syria167
  • Damascus Gate, Jerusalem, and Crusader Wallpainting of the Mid-Twelfth Century191
  • The Mural Paintings of Abu Ghosh and the Patronage of Manuel Comnenus in the Holy Land215
  • Italy and the Holy Land: Import-Export, 2. The Case of Apulia245

People, places and institutions

People

  • Louis de Clercqphotographed Crusader monuments in the 1850s
  • Melchior de Voguestudied Crusader monuments in 1854
  • Tancred of Caendestroyed the statue at al-Aksa
  • Raoul of Caenchronicler of the First Crusade
  • Constantine IX Monomachusrebuilt the Holy Sepulchre rotunda
  • Manuel I Comnenuspatron of churches and monasteries

Institutions

Places

  • Jerusalemsetting for several studies
  • Palestineregion whose church-building is studied
  • Church of the Holy Sepulchrechurch whose façade is studied
  • Mar Musa al-Habashimonastery with studied church paintings
  • Damascus Gateexcavated chapel with studied paintings
  • Abu Ghoshchurch with studied mural cycle
  • Cairocity where Crusader carvings were reused
  • al-Aksa mosquesetting of the statue episode
  • ʿAbudsite of three pre-Crusader churches
  • Sabastiyasite of a cross-in-square church
  • Nazarethsite of Crusader sculpture
  • Apuliaregion compared with the Holy Land

Also named: Saladin.

Extent Pls 1.1–10.9; figs 1.1–1.14 and chapter-numbered figures; 3 maps

Defines single-celled church, octagon-domed building, four-columned, cross-in-square, triconch, columned basilica, domed basilica

MedievalLate AntiqueRomanModernArchitectureSculptureReligion and CultIconographyHistory of Archaeology

Cited on Ancient Cyprus

1 page