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History and Memory as Factors in Greek Orthodox Pilgrimage to the Holy Land under Crusader Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Andrew Jotischky
Andrew Jotischky*
Affiliation:
Lancaster University
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Extract

Western pilgrimage to the Holy Land can be explained through patterns of evolving spirituality. The development in the eleventh century of a penitential theology in which pilgrimage played a crucial role, coupled with the practical opportunities for travel occasioned by the success of the First Crusade, brought the Holy Land closer than ever. The survival of a strong textual tradition manifested in pilgrimage itineraries, many of which are autobiographical in tone, further contributes to our perception of pilgrimage as an example of medieval religion in practice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 36: The Holy Land, Holy Lands, and Christian History , 2000 , pp. 110 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2000

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References

1 Talbot, Alice-Mary, ‘Byzantine pilgrimage to the Holy Land, from the 8th to 15th centuries’, in Patrich, J., ed., The Sabaite Heritage Google Scholar (forthcoming).

2 The rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre by Constantine IX (c. 1042-8), which involved relocating some shrines to the interior of the church, is suggestive of pilgrimage interest in the Orthodox world. See Ousterhout, Robert, ‘Rebuilding the Temple: Constantine Monomachos and the Holy Sepulchre’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historiam, 48 (1989), pp. 66–78 Google Scholar; Corbo, V., Il santo sepolcro di Gerusalemme, 3 vols (Jerusalem, 1981-2), 2, pl. 4 Google Scholar.

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6 The word oikoumene is here used in the sense employed by Photius, of the inhabited world as the scene of Christ’s activity and the celebration of the sacraments: Photius, Epistolae et Amphilocia, ed. B. Laourdas and Westerink, L., 6 vols (Leipzig, 1983-8), ep. 284, 3, pp. 2300–2 Google Scholar.

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12 Phokas, Descriptio, 1 (PG 133, col. 928).

13 Thus A. Grabois, ‘Christian pilgrims in the thirteenth century and the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem: Burchard of Mt Sion’, in B. Z. Kedar, R. C. Smail, and Mayer, H. E., eds, Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem presented to Joshua Prawer (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 285–97 Google Scholar. There are, of course, exceptions, and one must distinguish between the text and the pilgrim: even pilgrims interested in contemporary life wrote within a specific genre.

14 Daniel, 27-39, 56, pp. 136-41, 149; Phokas, , Descriptio, 16–24 (PG 133, cols 945–53 Google Scholar). On the desert monasteries, see Patrich, J., Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism. A Comparative Study of Eastern Monasticism, Fourth to Seventh Centuries (Washington, DC, 1995 Google Scholar); Perrone, L., ‘Monasticism in the Holy Land: from the beginnings to the crusaders’, POC, 45 (1995), pp. 31–63 Google Scholar.

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17 De locis Sanctis et populis et bestiis in Palaestina vitam degentibus, i, 6 (de Sandoli, Itinera Hierosolymitana, 3, p. 30), c. 1180, mentions Armenian and Greek churches. John of Würzburg (c. 1160/5) visited the Jacobite monastery of Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem, Peregrinatores Tres, ed. Huygens, R. B. C., CChr.CM 139 (Turnhout, 1994), p. 111 Google Scholar. Saewulf (c. 1102/3) mentions St Sabas, De situ Ierusalem, vi, 21 (de Sandoli, Itinera Hierosolymitana, 2, p. 22).

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19 Thietmar, Iter ad Tenant Sanctam, prologus (de Sandoli, Itinera Hierosolymitana, 3, p. 254).

20 Daniel, 39, p. 141.

21 Ibid., 38, p. 140.

22 Phokas, , Descriptio, 16 (PG 133, col. 948 Google Scholar). The monks supposedly killed in the Persian invasion of 614 are still kept in the martyrium in the church of St Nicholas.

23 Phokas, , Descriptio, 17 (PG 133 Google Scholar, col. 948); Daniel, 37, p. 139. Daniel mentions the tradition, apparently unknown to Phokas, that the cave-tomb of the saints was the place where the Magi had rested on their flight from Herod. He also specifies among the other bodies in the tomb the mothers of Theodosius and Sabas.

24 Phokas, , Descriptio, 22–4 Google Scholar, 27, 28 (PG 133, cols 952-3, 956, 960).

25 Ibid., 25 (PG 133, col. 956).

26 Ibid., 16, 19 (PG 133, cols 948-9).

27 Ibid., 22, 24 (PG 133, cols 952-3). On the rebuilding of Kalamon, see Pringle, Denys, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Corpus, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1993-8), 1, pp. 197–201 Google Scholar.

28 Phokas, Descriptio, 11, 16 (PG 133, cols 937, 945-8).

29 Ibid., 24 (PG 133, col. 953).

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31 Ibid., 23 (PG 133, cols 952-3).

32 Gabriel, another Georgian, occupied a stylos in the Judaean desert in the 1180s: Narratio de monacho Palaestiniensi, ed. Delehaye, H., ‘Saints de Chypre’, AnBoll, 26 (1907), pp. 162–75 Google Scholar. The Georgians presumably came from or were associated with the Georgian monastery of Holy Cross to the west of Jersusalem. For further discussion of Gabriel, see Andrew Jotischky, ‘Greek Orthodox and Latin monasticism in the Holy Land under crusader rule’, in Patrich, The Sabaite Heritage.

33 See Morris, Rosemary, Monks and Laymen in Byzantium, 843-1118 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 57–63 Google Scholar, for changes in stylitic practices.

34 For an early example, see the life of Pachomius, St, Sancti Pachomii vitae Graecae, vita prima, 23, ed. Halkin, F., in Life of Pachomius, tr. Athanassakis, Apostolos A. (Missoula, GA, 1975), p. 28 Google Scholar.

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37 John Moschus, Pratum spirituale, 107 (PG 87, cols 2965-8).

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39 A fine example of a xenodochium has been excavated at the monastery of Martyrius at Macale Adumim, east of Jerusalem: Y. Megan and R. Talgam, The monastery of Martyrius at Macale Adumim (Khirbet el-Murassas) and its mosaics’, in G. C. Bottini, L. Di Segni, and Alliata, E., eds, Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land, New Discoveries: Archaeological Essays in Honour of Virgilio C. Corho OFM (Jerusalem, 1990), pp. 91–152 Google Scholar.

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46 Phokas, Descriptio, 27 (PG 133, col. 956). Note also Manuel’s patronage in the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity: Folda, J., The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 347–64 Google Scholar, 379-82.

47 B. Hamilton, ‘Manuel I Comnenus and Baldwin IV of Jerusalem’, in J. Chrysostomides, ed., Kathegetria: Essays Presented to Joan Husseyfor her 80th Birthday (London, 1988), pp. 353–75; A. Jotischky, ‘Manuel Comnenus and the reunion of the Churches: the evidence of the conciliar mosaics in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem’, Levant, 26 (1994), pp. 207-25.

48 Phokas, Descriptio, 27 (PG 133, col. 957).

49 Ibid., 27 (PG 133, col. 957): the word used is TmpevBeros. H. E. Mayer, Bistümer, Kloster una Stifle in Kónigsreich Jerusalem (Stuttgart, 1977), pp. 55-6.

50 Phokas, Descriptio, 11 (PG 133, cols 936-7): ‘ayia(,o)i£voi ‘ayiat,ovai.

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