1

Adventus in Jerusalem: The Palm Sunday Celebration in Latin Jerusalem

Iris Shagrir, The Open University of Israel

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in the

Journal of Medieval History on 17/11/2014

available online

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03044181.2014.979220#.VGxFpzTLe1k

The Latin liturgy of Jerusalem in the twelfth century was a unique creation with a

distinct ritual program designed by the Latins in their newly established capital of the

Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Creating the liturgy was part of a massive project aimed

at transforming the pre-conquest city into the Latin, Catholic capital of their

Kingdom, and at reclaiming its position as the spiritual centre of the Christian world

that would accommodate Catholic immigrant-settlers, pilgrims, crusaders and tourists

as well as natives.

The city of Jerusalem that the crusaders took possession of on 15 July, 1099 was an

extraordinary place, but odd one to Western eyes, even though many Latins had

pilgrimaged to the city throughout the nearly 500 years of Muslim rule, and small

Catholic nuclei dwelled there, especially in the Christian Quarter surrounding the

church of the Holy Sepulchre.1

Before the crusader conquest, Jerusalem was relatively small, politically unimportant

and recently ravaged by Turkish campaigns, which caused upheaval, uprooting and a

decline in its appearance and infrastructure. Its population was diverse, with Muslims,

1 Gideon Avni, The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine: An Archaeological Approach

(Oxford, 2014), 38-39, 125-131.

2

Jews and Christians of several denominations; as Joshua Prawer wrote: "on the eve of

the Crusades, Jerusalem displayed a most heterogeneous range of Christian creeds and

denominations. There was hardly any other place under the sun where so many sects

and so many divisions existed as in the Holy City in the Holy Land".2 Indeed,

although the city was under Muslim rule for several centuries, evidence indicates that

in the eleventh century most of its population belonged to the Orthodox and Eastern

Christian denominations.3 But many of Jerusalem's Christian holy sites were in a state

of disrepair, old churches were deserted or had disappeared altogether,4 and a

tendency toward linguistic Arabization of the Christian communities, including the

use of Arabic in Christian liturgy is evidenced from the eleventh century.5 At the

same time, the city's status as a Muslim holy place was affirmed during the centuries

of Muslim rule through both monumental buildings and a religious-spiritual revival.

Throughout the Early Islamic period, Muslim construction and renovation works were

visible not only in the Haram al-Sharif area, but also in places outside the Haram

2 Joshua Prawer, 'The Armenians in Jerusalem under the Crusaders', in M. E. Stone (ed.),

Armenian and Biblical Studies (Jerusalem, 1976) 222-236, at p. 222.

3 The remark by the Sevillan scholar Ibn al-'Arabī (d. 1148) - who dwelled in Jerusalem from

1093 to 1095 and visited it again in 1098, shortly before the crusader conquest - about the

local Christians that 'the country is theirs; because it is they who work its soil, nurture its

monasteries and maintain its churches' refers most likely to the countryside; see Joseph Drory,

Ibn al-'Arabī of Seville. Journey in Palestine, 1092-1095 (Ramat Gan 1993), p. 96 [in

Hebrew]; Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, trans. E. Broido, Cambridge 1992),

Gil writes that 'Jerusalem was certainly inhabited mainly by Christians during the entire [634-

1099] period' (p.171). The demographic make-up of the city specifically before the crusader

conquest, however, remains uncertain.

4 Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the Holy : Early Islamic Jerusalem (Princeton 1996), 167-169;

M. Levy-Rubin, 'The Reorganisation of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem', ARAM Periodical 15

(2003), 197-226.

5 Kate Leeming, 'The Adoption of Arabic as a Liturgical Language by the Palestinian

Melkites', ARAM Periodical 15 (2003), 239-240.

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invested with Muslim sanctity, such as the Mihrab Dawud (Tower of David), Kanisat

Maryam (the Church of Mary in the Valley of Jehoshaphat) and the Mount of Olives.

Under the Fatimid rule in the eleventh century the Haram area saw architectural

rebuilding and the transfer of traditions into it that defined it as a place of Muslim

spiritual power, with both ritual and political implications.6 Furthermore, evidence

gathered from Arabic sources indicates considerable Muslim intellectual and religious

activity in the city, including scholarly circles, madrasas and worship in the Muslim

shrines and holy places, as well as economic activity around its main Muslim sites.7

The Franks, as they came to be known, settled in a city they had to transform. The

task of the settlers was to conjure up a Latin, Catholic, capital city of their kingdom,

and to reaffirm its position as a religious centre in the Christian world. This was a

massive project, one that posed challenges in shaping the physical environment as

well as in shaping the social environment and collective consciousness. Several

studies have touched upon this process, and valuable information on the state of

Jerusalem at the time of the conquest and its immediate aftermath is provided by Latin

and Arab writers, 8

nevertheless the details of this process both in the physical and in

the devotional sense still warrant further study.

6 Amikam Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Ceremonies,

Pilgrimage (Leiden, 1995); Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the Holy : Early Islamic Jerusalem

(Princeton 1996), 135-169; Andreas Kaplony, '635/638-1099: The Mosque of Jerusalem

(Masjid Bayt Al-Maqdis)', in O. Grabar and B.Z. Kedar, Where Heaven and Earth Meet:

Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade (Jerusalem & Austin, TX, 2009), 101-131.

7 See B.Z. Kedar, 'Some New Sources on Palestinian Muslims before and during the

Crusades', in Die Kreuzfahrerstaaten als multikulturelle Gesellschaft, ed. Hans E. Mayer,

Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquium 37 (Munich, 1997), 129-140.

8 See for example: John France, 'The Use of the Anonymous Gesta Francorum in the Early

Twelfth-Century Sources of the First Crusade', in From Clermont to Jerusalem. The Crusades

4

The first step in transforming the city was drastic and brutal: the elimination of the

entire non-Christian population by massacre or expulsion. But the transformation was

naturally a prolonged process, not a single event. The Franks' treatment of the

cityscape included the significant decision not to destroy the Muslim shrines on the

Temple Mount but to convert them and endow them with Christian significance, a

decision that entailed unprecedented ritual and liturgical reorganization. It also

included an extensive building campaign, conceived in recent scholarship as an act of

Latin-Christian capital building.9 The reappropriation of existing shrines, the

augmenting of existing structures and the construction of new ones created a new

religious map, which had to be achieved within an urban setting already cluttered with

pre-existing structures. The process thus entailed a religious and ecclesiastical

reorganization that interconnected the shrines and manipulated the competition

between them, for which anew indoor and outdoor liturgical program had to be

devised. The close link between the Frankish physical construction works and their

devotional policies is well exemplified in the rebuilding of the Church of the Holy

Sepulchre, where the roofing over several of the smaller shrines created a new

enclosed space conductive to devotion and spiritual experience.10

Considering the

and Crusader Societies 1095-1500, ed. Alan V. Murray (Turnhout, 1998), 29-42; Konrad

Hirschler, 'The Jerusalem Conquest of 492/1099 in the Medieval Arabic Historiography of the

Crusades: From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative', Crusades 13 (forthcoming, 2014).

The chapter written by Joshua Prawer, 'The Latin Settlement of Jerusalem', in Crusader

Institutions (Oxford, 1980), remains a seminal starting point.

9 Alan V. Murray, 'Construir Jerusalén como capital cristiana: Topografía y población de la

Ciudad Santa bajo el dominio franco en el siglo XII', in Construir la Ciudad en la Edad

Media, ed. Beatriz Arízaga Bolumburu, Jesús Ángel Solórzano Telechea (Logroño: Instituto

de Estudios Riojanos, 2010), 91-110. See also Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader

Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus. Vol. 3: The City of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 2007), 3-6.

10 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A History (London, 2005), 58-60.

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centrality of Jerusalem in the eyes of its Latin conquerors, the structural, architectural

and artistic planning had to be accomplished in conjunction with the creation of a

livable city for routine daily life and an economically functioning one for its resident

population: immigrants, pilgrims, crusaders and, native inhabitants, as well as non-

Christian visitors. The rebuilding of churches was only part of this massive

undertaking; repair of the city walls, the gates, and the citadel, the building of shops,

markets and urban infrastructure were also part of the project. All this required

planning, creativity and innovation. It is with the liturgical aspect of this

transformation, as manifested in the celebration of the important Jerusalem ritual of

Palm Sunday, that this paper is concerned.

The Ordinal of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (Barletta, Archivio

della Chiesa del Santo Sepolcro, ms. s.n.), on which the following analysis is based, is

a liturgical manuscript of great importance. It is a clear archetype of the Frankish

liturgy and an essential record of the Jerusalem Latin rite in the formative period of

the first half of the twelfth century.

The manuscript of Barletta is an unicum, which has been kept since the 13th

century in

the church of the Holy Sepulchre of Barletta, Apulia, in southern Italy. 11

It is a

relatively large codex of over 250 folios in a seventeenth-century binding, with the

11

The Ordinal was probably brought to Barletta via Cyprus after the fall of Acre in

1291. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre of Barletta was established in the first half of the

twelfth century, see C. Enlart, 'L'eglise des chanoines di Saint-Sepulchre à Barletta en

Pouille', Revue de l'Orient Latin 1 (1893), 556-566. After its arrival a few additions to the

manuscript were made, such as the addition to the calendar of the obituary of Raoul of

Granville, titular patriarch of Jerusalem, who died in 1304; Ms. Barletta fol. 3b has a Bull of

Pope Honorius III (d.1227) to the clerus of Apulia, Calabria and Terra di Lavoro

(surroundings of Napoli).

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Latin text appearing either in a single column or in two columns; many folios contain

musical notes.12

Most of the folios are legible, but some are damaged beyond

legibility, due to wear of time and unsuccessful attempts to emend the script. The

manuscript has been partially published three times. In 1828 by Giusppe-Maria

Giovene, in 1901 and 1906 by Charles Kohler, and a dependent publication by

Gabriel Wessels in 1910 in the journal of the Order of the Carmelites, who consider

their liturgy a descendant of the liturgy of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in

Jerusalem.13

The codex does not have a title; Charles Kohler titled it a ritual or a

breviary, because most of its folios contain rubrics and texts detailing in an

abbreviated or full-length form the canonical hours and festive and other special

ceremonies of the church. The codex also contains fragments of different works,

liturgical and non-liturgical, but most of it consists of two distinct breviaries of the

12

In a single column: folios 1-34; 152-254. In two 36-line columns: folios 35-151.

Musical notes appear especially between folios 150 and 203.

13 Giuseppe-Maria Giovene, Kalendaria vetera mss. Aliaque monumenta ecclesiarum

Apuliae et Iapygiae (Napoli, 1828), 7-68. Giovene (1753-1837) was an archpriest in the

cathedral of Molfetta and a member of the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze. He published

excerpts of several liturgical calendars from Apulia of the 11th-16

th centuries. His analysis of

the Barletta Ordinal is contained in the footnotes; Charles Kohler, Revue de l'orient latin 8

(1900-1901), 383-469 = Ch. Kohler, 'Un Rituel et un Bréviare du Saint-Sépulchre de

Jérusalem (12e-13e siècle)', Mélanges pour servir à l'histoire de Lorient Latin et des

Croisades (Paris, 1906), 286-403. Kohler provided a scholarly essay on the significance of

the manuscript, which he edited on the basis of reviewing the manuscript in Barletta and

Giovene's edition. Both editions contain errors and many lacunae; G. Wessels, "Excerpta

Historiae Ordinis: Ritus Ordinis B.V. Mariae de Monte Carmelo. Antiquus Ritus de Monte

Carmelo", Analecta Ordinis Carmelitarum 1 (1909-1910): 95ff. Excerpts were also printed,

with an Italian translation by Sabino de Sandoli, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum,

vol. 4, Tempore Regni Latini Extremo: 1245-1291 (Jerusalem, 1984). See also Christina

Dondi , The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem: a Study and a

Catalogue of the Manuscript Sources (Turnhout, 2004), 77-79, 195-201. Dondi defined it as

an ordinal, and this is the definition I use here.

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Holy Sepulchre. The sentence "Incipit breviarium adbreviatum" appears twice, on

folios 25a and 33a.14

Thus, the greater part of the manuscript presents the liturgical

order of festivities celebrated by the canons of the Holy Sepulchre, including the

various services and duties of the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and his congregation

toward the Latin community of Jerusalem. The time of its compilation has been

debated. Undoubtedly, the Ordinal reflects the practices of the twelfth-century Church

of the Holy Sepulchre. This is evident from mentions in the text to the patriarchs

Arnulf (1112-1118), William I of Malines (1130-1145) and Fulcher (1146-1157), 15

and to the priors of other Latin religious establishments in Jerusalem. Also mentioned

is the relic of the True Cross, the most important object of veneration in the kingdom,

which the Franks lost in the Battle of Hattin in 1187. The Ordinal may also have been

in use in 1229-1244, when the Latins regained control of Jerusalem by agreement

between the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen and the Egyptian

Sultan al-Kamil. The codex contains a chronicle of crusader events, written in the old

annals form, which ends in 1202. Charles Kohler argued that the manuscript is a copy

of one, or several, twelfth-century manuscripts, put together between 2130 and 2144.

Christina Dondi, who examined and indexed many of the Jerusalem liturgical

14

On Ms. Barletta fol. 25r begins a fragment of the ritual, written in two columns, and

continues up to fol. 32v, where a short chronicle of the crusader conquests begins. The longer

ritual, also in two columns, begins on fol. 33r. From Ms. Barletta fol. 140r the text runs in one

column. On fol. 138va, towards the bottom, and continuing to 139v, the hand seems to

change. Other fragments and components in the codex include a bull of Pope Honorius III

2111-2121) ) to the clergy of Apulia, Calabria and Terra di Lavoro, and the coronation oath

(1269) of Hugh I of Jerusalem (Hugh III of Cyprus). The composite nature of the Barletta

codex is evident from the statement: "Incipit breviarium adbreviatum, id est quoddam

excerptum de pluribus libris, secundum antiquam consuetudinem institutionum dominici

ecclesie Sepulcri…", fol. 25r.

15 E.g. 'Ego Willelmus dei gratia Ierusalem patriarcha, atque Petrus dominici sepulcri

prior' Ms. Barletta fol. 138ra; 'Secundum novam institutionem Fulcherii patriarche', 98ra.

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manuscripts, dates the Barletta Ordinal to 1202-1228. It seems safe to assume that it is

a thirteenth-century copy of twelfth-century manuscripts, and that it reflects the rituals

and ceremonies of the twelfth century up to 1187 and perhaps of the years 1229-

1244.16

The Barletta Ordinal is very close in its arrangement and content to another ordinal

from Jerusalem (Rome, Bib. Vat., Barb. Lat. 659), which details the complete

liturgical activities in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the twelfth century. The

two manuscripts may have originated from the same source, but they are not identical

and show some differences in wording, orthography and internal organization.17

It

must be noted, furthermore, that while both manuscripts originate in the Church of the

Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the ordinal of Barb. Lat. 659 reflects Templar use, while

the Barletta Ordinal reflects the use of the Holy Sepulchre itself, hence its special

significance as reflecting most faithfully the practices as the cathedral church of the

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, the main church of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and

the holiest place in Christendom, the site of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

The Barletta Ordinal thus provides significant and unique information about the

liturgical cycle of the church, the celebration of general Christian feasts and of the

specific Jerusalem feasts, the weekly hours, saints' days, care of the sick and dying,

matrimonial ceremonies and more. Since many feasts, especially those of the major

16

Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, 77-79.

17 Sebastian E. Salvadó, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre and the Templar Rite: Edition and

Analysis of The Jerusalem Ordinal (Rome, Bib. Vat., Barb. Lat. 659) with a Comparative

Study of the Acre Breviary (Paris, Bib. Nat., Ms. Latin 10478) (PhD dissertation, Stanford

University, 2011); see also Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre

of Jerusalem, 64-66. The texts of Barletta and Rome, Bib. Vat., Barb. Lat. 659, are very close

to each other, but not identical.

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feasts, were celebrated in collaboration with other religious institutions of the city and

included outdoor processions, the Ordinal partly reflects the rituals of other religious

establishments, as well as an aspect of the public urban religious life. Assuming that

the liturgical language may not only shape the religious experience of the

congregants but also indirectly express it, one can look in it for what people saw and

felt during the church rituals. It impresses upon the modern reader the unique nature

of the Jerusalem community in the twelfth century.

In recent years, 'reading the liturgy' has become ever more sensitive to the less

immediately explicit meaning of the liturgical text. Rather than being seen as simply

indicating what was to be done and said on a specific occasion, liturgical texts are also

analyzed for their social and political content, the role of religious ceremonies in

representing and acknowledging a particular order, as well as the relationship of the

rituals to the space, audience and circumstances of the community for which the

liturgy was produced.18

In this paper I focus on the celebration of Palm Sunday in twelfth-century

Jerusalem.19

In Jerusalem, as elsewhere, this was a major event with religious, royal

and civic overtones. Already at the end of the fourth century, the pilgrim Egeria

described the liturgical re-enactment of Jesus' entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as a

18

David Chadd, 'The Ritual of Palm Sunday: Reading Nidaros', in The Medieval

Cathedral of Trondheim, ed. M. S. Andas et al. (Turnhout, 2007), 253-278, at 253-255; Iris

Shagrir, 'The Visitatio Sepulchri in the Latin Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem', Al-

Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 22 (2010): 57-77. On the 'interdependence of

cult and historical understanding' see Margot Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres (Yale University

Press, 2012), 3-27 (quote p. 55).

19 Ms Barletta, fols. 69v-71r. The text appears in the appendix to the present paper.

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lively urban event in which many Christians of all ages took part. 20

It was

continuously celebrated in Byzantine and in Early Muslim Jerusalem.21

Under

Muslim rule, the Christians of Jerusalem were allowed on this day to hold a

boisterous public procession, to parade with their crosses through the streets and

markets, and to display palm and olive branches. From Muslim criticism of the event

and the attempts to restrict it, it may be inferred that throughout the centuries it has

drawn attention and crowds of different denominations.22

Geoffrey Koziol notes in the

context of ceremonial town entries in early medieval Europe that 'human nature being

what it is, we can assume that many people turned out for no other reason than the

excitement'; this must have held true for Jerusalem.23

After the crusader conquest its

significance could only behave been augmented, given the ceremony's obvious

connotations of legitimacy, victory and eschatology.

20

Itinerarium Egeriae, ed. A. Francheschini and R. Weber, Corpus Christianorum Series

latina (Turnhout, 1965), 76-77.

21 For the Orthodox Palm Sunday procession in pre-crusader Jerusalem according to the

various liturgical sources, see John Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship:

The Origins, Development and Meaning of Stational Liturgy (Rome, Pontifical Institute,

1987), 75-80, 94-102; Mark Morozowich, ‘A Palm Sunday Procession in the Byzantine

Tradition? A Study of the Jerusalem and Constantinopolitan Evidence’, Orientalia Christiana

Periodica 75 (2009), 359-383.

22 The evidence from the early Muslim period shows that the festive Palm Sunday procession

was considered an affront to the Muslims. Prohibitions against it were issued, though

sometimes exceptional permission to hold it was granted, with the special protection of the

governor of Jerusalem; see Milka Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire:

From Surrender to Coexistence (Cambridge, 2011), 72-78 and passim; Ibn al–Qalānisī, Dhayl

ta'rikh Dimashq, ed. H. F. Amedroz (Leiden, 1908), 66. I thank Dr Levy-Rubin for the

references.

23 Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval

France (Cornell University Press, 1992), p.133.

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I attempt to place the Palm Sunday ritual in the context of two traditions: the

Greek Orthodox practice of pre-crusader times on the one hand and the Latin tradition

on the other. An examination of the Latin Palm Sunday celebration as described in the

Barletta Ordinal reveals some marked departures from pre-crusader practices, though

a few characteristics of the Byzantine rite are adopted. The examination also yields

some unexpected conjunctions regarding the earliest layers of the religious life of

Jerusalem and the persons involved in its formation.

The celebration of Palm Sunday in Frankish Jerusalem begins with the offices of

Matins, Lauds and Prime at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Ordinal gives a

condensed paraphrase of John 12, which is rendered in the text after the description of

the morning service has ended. The paraphrase reads: Post Resurrectionem Lazari

ante sex dies pasche, dominus veniens Iherusalem, premisit duos ex discipulis suis, ut

ad ducerent ei asinam et pullum. This paraphrase of the Gospel serves perhaps as a

transition from the morning liturgy inside the church to the description of the

procession. The text adds that the procession is made for the sake of Christ's memory

and imitation, accentuating the mimetic character of the procession that will follow.

After the service in the church, before sunrise, the procession leaves the Church of the

Holy Sepulchre. The patriarch and the treasurer of the Holy Sepulchre walk to

Bethany together with the priors of the abbeys of Mt Zion, Mt Olivet and Saint Mary

in the Valley of Jehoshaphat and their congregations, all dressed solemnly. They carry

the True Cross, the kingdom's most sacred relic. After praying in Bethany, the

procession starts walking back toward Jerusalem 'in the Lord's footsteps'. Their route

exactly follows the route that Jesus took on Palm Sunday. All the way, the procession

alternates the singing of hymns and antiphons.

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Meanwhile, those who had remained in Jerusalem, i.e. the people of Jerusalem

with the members of the chapter of the Holy Sepulchre, the Hospital of St. John, St.

Mary the Latin and Mt. Zion, congregate at the Temple of the Lord. There, the

blessing of the palm and olive branches takes place.24

Following this ceremony, the

group proceeds to meet the patriarch with the Lord's cross in the Valley of

Jehoshaphat, where the two contingents converge and the procession is rearranged,

with some four or five dignitaries elected to walk at its head. At this point comes the

first dramatic climax of the morning, with the adoration of the True Cross, held in the

hands of the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem. The adoration ritual is accompanied by

antiphonal singing alternating between the cantor and the patriarch. The cantor begins

antiphonal singing with a solemn triple prostration in front of the cross and the

patriarch holding it. The group of the patriarch, including the four or five dignitaries,

then sings the same antiphon with prostration toward the Holy Sepulchre and the

Temple of the Lord. The following blessings and prayers are recited from an elevated

spot so that everyone can see and hear. The patriarch and the king of Jerusalem mount

to this elevated spot, and the patriarch delivers a sermon. Next, another majestic

ceremony is held at the Golden Gate. The sub-cantor (succentor), the magister schole

and the children of Jerusalem climb to the top of the gate and wait for all to arrive.

The antiphonal singing begins, again alternating between those at top of the gate and

those on the ground. The singing at the Golden Gate, which was opened exclusively

on Palm Sunday, includes the famous Carolingian hymn Gloria laus et honor tibi sit,

composed by Theodulph of Orléans, and the long-awaited responsory Ingrediente

domino, reserved for the exact moment of the procession's entry through the gate.

24

Since the Barletta Ms. is closely related to the Templar rite it is interesting that the

Templars are not on the list. This may perhaps indicate the early date of the liturgy, before the

establishment of the Order of the Temple in 1118 or its official recognition in 1128.

13

Finally, rather than returning to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the procession

heads toward the Temple of the Lord, where the public procession began. There, the

procession performs several stations around the courtyard. When this is finished,

everyone disperses to their homes: unaqueque congregatio divertitur, ad locum suum.

At the Holy Sepulchre, the service continues with Terce followed by a Mass

celebrated privately in the chapter house.

A number of aspects of this dynamic public ceremony deserve attention. It was a

traditional magnificent event celebrated continuously in Jerusalem from the fourth

century – but for the Franks the integration of time and place was a novelty. Together

with other major celebrations, most notably the Feast of the Liberation celebrated on

July 15 (which in 1149 was transformed into the Dedication ceremony of the rebuilt

Church of the Holy Sepulchre), the outdoor liturgy with an elaborate stational

program of liturgy served to validate the new Christian possession of Jerusalem and to

manifest the spiritual essence of the Frankish presence in the city. 25

The Jerusalem

liturgical processions, known for their grandeur under the Christian empire, had

declined in their extent under Muslim rule. But they could now be rehabilitated to

their former scale and splendour. The description of the ceremony is extensive and

detailed, spreading over five manuscript folios (69v-71r). The length and detail

indicate the importance ascribed to the ceremony, as indeed is to be expected of such

a central ceremony (by comparison the liberation and dedication ceremony is about 3

25

Amnon Linder, 'Like Purest Gold Resplendent: The Fiftieth Anniversary of the

Liberation of Jerusalem', Crusades 8, (2009) 31-51, esp. pp. 47-78. Also Albert Schönfelder,

'Die Prozessionen der Lateiner in Jerusalem zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge', Historisches Jahrbuch,

32 (1911), 578-597.

14

folios long, 119v-120v). However, it is not only detailed, it is also very specific.

Consider, for example, the following elements:

Those who remain in Jerusalem, that is, the community of the Lord's

Sepulchre, of the Hospital of Saint John, of Saint Mary the Latin, and of

Mount Zion, gather in the Temple of the Lord with the entire people. One of

the bishops - and if there is no bishop then the prior of the Monastery of the

Holy Sepulchre, or the sub-prior, or one of the dignitaries, or the

hebdomadarius [canon or priest appointed for weekly duty], because this week

is common (comunis [sic] est) in the same way, the next week is also

common, and the week of Pentecost and Christmas are common in the same

way - blesses the palm and olive branches.

Such detail testifies to the organizers' attention to the proper implementation of the

ritual. One way in which such detail could have been achieved is the incorporation of

marginal notes into subsequent copies. Thus the richness of detail regarding the ritual

may represent textual layers and offer an indication of the age of the text and the

number of revisions it underwent.26

It may also represent the accumulated experience

of the organizers and the adjustment of the text to varying circumstances. Following

the proper liturgical practice had important implications for the procession's sacred

import. Moreover, the crowd, originating in many parts of the Christian world and

accustomed to varied liturgies, expected to find an exemplary ceremony in the church

of Jerusalem, familiar yet exceptional. Theologically, the procession signaled the

26

This suggestion is based on David Chadd, 'Reading Nidaros', 258; in the Barletta

Ordinal it might have happened in the case of such directives: 'unus ex episcopis, et, sinon

fuerit episcopus, prior predicti Sepulcri vel subprior, aut unus ex maioribus, vel

ebdomadarius', fol. 70r.

15

beginning of the participants' journey from the present time to eschatological time and

initiated the spiritual preparation for the most exhilarating week in the Christian

calendar. At the same time, the historic nature of the procession was of the highest

importance. The text emphasizes (in this and in other ceremonies in the Ordinal as

well) the mimetic aspect of the ritual, with such phrases as ad cuius processionis

memoriam et imitationem nos processionem nostram ita facimus and super portam

per quam Dominus Ihesus adveniens intravit. It is a historicizing liturgy, while at the

same time spiritually powerful through the presence of not only the bishop/patriarch

taking the role of Jesus but also of the most revered relic, the True Cross.27

A second remarkable point is that this Palm Sunday procession broke away

from the local tradition of Jerusalem. In Early Christian Jerusalem, as described in

great detail in Egeria's Peregrinatio, the Palm Sunday procession starts at 1 o'clock in

the afternoon, when the bishop and the people of Jerusalem gather to go up to the Mt.

of Olives and pray at the Eleona church. At 3 o'clock the procession goes to the

Imbomon, the Church of the Ascension, where they pray, read from the gospels and

(probably) the palms are blessed. At 5 o'clock the bishop and all the people, including

young children carried by their parents, start descending, carrying branches, singing

hymns and antiphons, and proceed back to the city. They finish with the evening

prayers (Lucernare) at the Anastasis, i.e. the circular building, or rotunda, erected

over the Jesus's tomb within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.28

In the early fifth

century, according to the Armenian Lectionary (dated 417-439) the procession also

27

On the issue of the historicism of the Jerusalem rite, see Robert E. Taft, ‘Historicism

Revisited’, in Taft, Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding (Rome,

Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2001), 31-49; and Mark Morozowich, ‘A Palm Sunday

Procession', esp. 377-383.

28 Itinerarium Egeriae, ed. A. Franceschini and R. Weber, CCSL 175 (Turnhout 1965),

ch. 31; Egeria's Travels, trans J. Wilkinson, (London, 1971), 132-133.

16

went up to the top of the Mount of Olives. According to the Gregorian Lectionary

(fifth to eighth century) the procession was shorter in the eighth century, i.e. under

Muslim rule, and it went only as far as Gethsemane and then back into the city.29

The most recent form of the Greek Orthodox ceremony, dating from before

the crusades, is rendered in the tenth century Typikon of the Anastasis, a Greek text

that includes only the liturgy of the Holy Week in Jerusalem. According to the

Typikon of the Anastasis, the Palm Sunday procession has been lengthened by going

to the churches at the top of the Mount of Olives, where the patriarch himself blessed

the palms and olive branches. From there they descended to Bethany, then went

westward toward the Virgin's Tomb at Gethsemane, thence to the Church of the

Probatic Pool, and back to the Holy Sepulchre, finishing full circle at the Anastasis,

where the procession began. 30

29

Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship, 95-99. Between the fifth and

eighth centuries a shift in the time of the procession occurred and it was incorporated into the

morning liturgy (rather than the afternoon); on the shift in timing see Morozowich, 'A Palm

Sunday Procession', 368.

30 The extant manuscript of the Typikon of the Anastasis is dated to 1122. See: J.-B.

Thibaut, Ordre des offices de la Semaine sainte a Jerusalem du JV au Xe siècle (Paris 1926);

Gabriel Bertonière, The Historical Development of the Easter Vigil and Related Services in

the Greek Church (Rome, Pontifical Institute, 1972), 12-18. See also Morozowich, 'A Palm

Sunday Procession', 368-372. It has been shown that the Typikon evidences routine liturgical

activity of the Greek Orthodox clergy in the Frankish Church of the Holy Sepulchre by 1122;

see Johannes Pahlitzsch, 'The Greek Orthodox Church in the First Kingdom of Jerusalem

(1099-1187)', in Patterns of the Past, Prospects of the Future. The Christian Heritage in the

Holy Land, ed. Thomas Hummel, Kevork Hintlian and Ulf Carmesund, (London, 1999), 195-

212. A gloss in the Typikon of the Anastasis from 1122 indicates that by then the Orthodox

Palm Sunday procession also had a station at the Templum Domini instead of at the Probatic

Pool, and thus probably imitated the itinerary of the Latin procession, perhaps because the

Golden Gate was opened especially for the entry liturgy and only then could the citizens go

through it in the Jesus' footsteps. See Bertonière, The Historical Development of the Easter

17

This very long route of the immediate pre-crusader period, which included an

arduous climb, described by Morozowich as 'a procession for ardent Christians',31

was

significantly shortened in crusader times. The Latin patriarch and his group did not

climb all the way to the top of the Mount of Olives but went to Bethany, on the south-

eastern slopes of the mountain, and back to the city, which is a route of about half the

distance and without the arduous climb. In the Latin rite, it was not the patriarch who

blessed the palms. That ceremony was held at the Temple of the Lord by the monastic

communities with the people of Jerusalem. Also, the Latin public procession

explicitly ended on the Temple Mount (as Jesus himself did). Another notable

difference is that the Latin procession is in fact a combination of two separate

processions, outgoing and incoming, that converged outside the city walls and

continued together through the Golden Gate, associated in the twelfth century with

Jesus' entry into the city.32

There are, however, a few shared elements. Like the Byzantine procession,

the Latin one began before sunrise and seems to have been similarly incorporated into

the monastic morning liturgy, with Terce and Mass solemnly celebrated by the

patriarch and his community in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, after the procession

dispersed.

Vigil, 14, and the reference to the opening of the gate in the accounts of the pilgrims John of

Wurzburg and Theodoric in Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem:

Volume 3, The City of Jerusalem, 104-106 . An interesting perspective on liturgy as a mode of

accommodation between Latins and Greeks is offered in Brendan J. McGuire, 'Evidence for

religious accommodation in Latin Constantinople: A new approach to bilingual liturgical

texts', Journal of Medieval History 39 (2013), 342-356.

31 Morozowich, 'A Palm Sunday Procession', 372.

32 Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: Volume 3, The City of

Jerusalem, 104.

18

The function of the relic of the True Cross raises another point of departure

from pre-crusader times. The relic, the symbol of the Christian kingdom, which was

carried in the ceremony by the religious leader of the kingdom, was perceived by the

Franks as a direct source of divine protection for the Kingdom, its church, inhabitants

and warriors.33

While in the preceding centuries the relic was conceived of as an

object of adoration and veneration, in the twelfth century it was 'much more than a

precious relic, an object of minutely regulated rites: it was considered a concrete sign

that the spirit of God was hovering over the Franks… a symbol of holy warfare waged

in defense of the holy places'.34

This new meaning of the advent of the True Cross

into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday relates to the idea that fighting for Jerusalem, the city

of Christ, was a holy war; it also amplifies the association between the re-enacted

scene of Christ's entry into Jerusalem and the ideas of military triumph and protection

of the holy city, within the reciprocal relations between Christ as protector and the

crusaders/Franks as defenders of the Cross and Christ. Thus entering the city as

victorious refers both to Christ and his people, and conveys the idea that the city is

safeguarded by their presence in it.35

33

Cf. e.g. Fulcherius Carnotensis, Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. Heinrich Hagenmayer

(Heidelberg, 1913), book 2 ch. 11, p. 409; Alan V. Murray, 'Mighty against the Enemies of

Christ: The Relic of the True Cross in the Armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem', in The

Crusades and Their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton , ed. J. France and W. G.

Zajac (Aldershot 1998), 217-238.

34 Benjamin Z. Kedar, ‘Intellectual Activities in a Holy City: Jerusalem in

the Twelfth Century’, in Sacred Space. Shrine, City, Land, ed. B.Z. Kedar and R.J. Zwi

Werblowsky, (New York, 1998), 131.

35 The notion that the city offers divine protection appears also in a special blessing, oratio

[ante portas], to be recited at the gate of Jerusalem, appearing in the Ordinal of Barletta:

"Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, edificator et custos Ie[rusalem civitatis super]ne, custodi die

noctuque locum istum [cum habitatoribus suis]", ms. Barletta fol. 189r. the condition of this

folio is miserable. But a complete reading is possible in the Sacramentary of Jerusalem, Paris,

19

The creators of the Latin liturgy of Jerusalem were doubtless aware of how things

were done before they came. Research has shown that considerable religious and

cultural reciprocity between Latins and non-Catholic Christians existed in twelfth-

century Jerusalem, and that after the initial expulsion of the Orthodox, they were

readmitted into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had their own altars and held

ceremonies and processions.36

But the Latins designed their ceremonies differently.

The inclusion of the Temple Mount in the celebration is an obvious decision, given its

importance to the Franks, its focal role in the religious life of the city and, perhaps

significantly, the fact that it was the site of the royal palace until 1118.37

It was

furthermore a more historical route, since according to the Gospel Jesus himself went

to the Temple after entering through the Golden Gate. On the whole, the Latin

procession was more condensed in terms of ceremony and more performative and

triumphal in quality, with highly elaborate stations at Gethsemane, the Golden Gate

and the Temple of the Lord.

On the other hand, the Western European influence on the Latin rite of

Jerusalem seems unmistakable, especially the affinity to the Palm Sunday celebration

Bib. Nat., ms. Lat. 12056, fol. 301v (available online on Gallica Digital Library, Bibliothèque

nationale de France).

36 Bernard Hamilton, The Latin Church in the Crusader States. The Secular Church

(London, 1980), 170-171; B.Z. Kedar, 'Latins and Oriental Christians', in Sharing the Sacred,

eds. A. Kofsky and G. Stroumsa (Jerusalem, 1998), 209-22; J. Pahlitzsch and D. Baraz,

'Christian Communities in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1187)', in Christians and

Christianity in the Holy Land from the Origins to the Latin Kingdoms, eds. O. Limor and G.

Stroumsa, (Turnhout, 2006), 205-235.

37 Benjamin Z. Kedar and Denys Pringle, ‘1099-1187: The Lord's Temple and the

Temple of Salomon under Frankish Rule’, in Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem's

Sacred Esplanade, ed. B.Z. Kedar and O. Grabar (Jerusalem and Austin, TX, 2009), 132-49;

See also John Giebfried, ‘The Crusader Rebranding of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount’,

Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 44 (2013): 77-94.

21

in the cathedral of Chartres. It has been observed by Dondi, based on the examination

of several manuscripts, that the liturgical sources reveal a Chartres component that

can be linked to the reform of the chapter of the Holy Sepulchre in 1114, when the

liturgy of the church of the Holy Sepulchre was revised. Dondi also suggested that it

is possible that the liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre contained a Chartres element earlier

on, from 1100 with the arrival in Jerusalem of Fulcher of Chartres (c.1059-1127), and

that this 'Chartres derivation' was to become stronger in 1114 and even later on.38

The processions in Chartres and in Frankish Jerusalem have similar routes and

stations. 39

In Chartres, after Matins and Lauds in the Cathedral, the Palm Sunday

procession proceeded to the cemetery of St. Bartholomew, where the bishop's

procession joined with the other religious congregations of the city. The bishop

carried Chartres' most precious relic, the box (capsa) containing the virgin's chemise.

At the cemetery, the procession began the reenactment of Jesus' entry to Jerusalem.

This ritual, conducted in the Chartres cemetery, occurred in Jerusalem in the Valley of

Jehoshaphat, near the Tomb of the Virgin. The blessing of the palms which was

performed in Jerusalem at the Temple of the Lord, took place in Chartres at a

secondary church, on the hill of St. Cheron. The Chartres procession then returned to

the cemetery, where the dramatic adoration of the cross ceremony took place in front

38

Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, 59-60.

I discuss further the influence of Chartres and the role of Fulcher of Chartres, below.

39 For the twelfth century ceremony at Chartres, see Margot Fassler, ‘Adventus at

Chartres’, in Ceremonial Culture in Pre-Modern Europe, ed. N. Howe (University of Notre

Dame Press, 2007), 13-62; procession summary at 30-34, 49-50; and Craig Wright, ‘The

Palm Sunday Procession in Medieval Chartres', in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle

Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, ed. M. Fassler

and R. Baltzer (Oxford University Press, 2000), 344–71. The liturgical arrangement and the

antiphonal singing vary somewhat and require further inquiry. For example, Terce in Chartres

was sung at St. Cheron, while in Jerusalem, it was sung in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

21

of the cross of St. Bartholomew, with alternate singing by the cantor and the bishop,

triple prostration and the bishop's sermon.40

The liturgy performed at the Golden Gate

in Jerusalem, including the Gloria laus, was performed at the Chartres cemetery.41

The people of Chartres then entered through the city gates and the procession returned

to the cathedral.

The distinctive influence of Chartres on early Frankish Jerusalem in general

has been noted by previous scholars and is considered to have been mostly manifested

in the Easter Triduum - the three days leading up to Easter Sunday.42

The text from

the Ordinal of Barletta examined here shows that this is true for Palm Sunday as well.

The most striking similarity, and a point not yet discussed in scholarship is the

Adventus-like structure of the procession.

The ceremony of adventus, originating in Classical antiquity, was the solemn

celebration of the arrival of the ruler into a city. The ceremony follows a general

pattern that includes a procession of townspeople, headed by dignitaries, which would

go to a certain, usually fixed, point outside the city walls, and would meet the ruler

there. The processants would carry flowers, olive or palm branches, incense and

statues of the gods, and they would sing hymns and acclamations. After the exchange

of greetings outside the walls the citizens would accompany their ruler into the city,

40

Fassler, 'Adventus at Chartres', 32.

41 It may be worthwhile to note here that a cemetery may very possibly have existed

around the Golden Gate area; see Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of

Jerusalem, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 2007), 108. It is possible, though it cannot be proven, that the

cemetery is the "elevated spot" from here the sermon is delivered.

42 Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, 47. See also

Dondi's discussion, 73-75, of the Holy Sepulchre ordinal, Ms. Lucca, which is also closely

related to the liturgical use of Chartres in the twelfth century.

22

where there could be further ceremonies. The adventus always had secular as well as

religious associations, underscoring the divine and the human characteristics of the

ruler, and it traditionally served to affirm the authority of the ruler and his relationship

with the community applauding him at the city gate. In the Christian Roman Empire

the imperial adventus continued to be celebrated, and it also assimilated the

ceremonial characteristics of the ruler's victorious arrival.

Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was conceived of in the New Testament

as both a concrete adventus, i.e. the entry of a ruler into a town, and as prefiguring

Christ's second coming, i.e. a timeless imperial adventus. 43

The entry into Jerusalem

was accorded a prominent place in the four gospels, and as such it has exerted a great

influence on the Christian collective memory and iconography, and served as a model

for solemn processions in the Middle Ages, organized for the arrival of bishops and

other holy men, and of the relics of saints into a city. 44

The Jerusalem liturgy itself

reflects this link between the royal adventus and the celebration of Palm Sunday in the

blessing for the day: 'Deus cuius filius pro salute generis humani de celo descendit ad

terras et, appropinquante hora passionis sue, Ierosolimam in asino venire et a turbis

rex appellari et laudari voluit'.45

43

Matt. 21.1-12; Mark 11.1-11; Luke 19.28-45; John 12.12-18; 1 Thessalonians 4.16-17.

44 These notes follow the discussion of Sabine MacCormack, 'Change and Continuity in Late

Antiquity: The Ceremony of Adventus', Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 21 (1972),

721-752, esp. 723-725. The adventus of Jesus into Jerusalem became a familiar depiction in

Christian art. See Kenneth G. Holum and Gary Vikan, 'The Trier Ivory, "Adventus"

Ceremonial, and the Relics of St. Stephen', Dumbarton Oaks Papers 33 (1979), 113-133.

45 Ms. Barletta fol. 12r. This blessing also appears in a Sacramentary of Jerusalem,

Paris, Bib. Nat., ms. Lat. 12056, f. 96r (available online on Gallica Digital Library,

Bibliothèque nationale de France). On this manuscript, see Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons

Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, 62-63. The blessing does not appear, it seems, in

the other Jerusalem ordinal, ms. Rome, Bib. Vat., Barb. Lat. 659.

23

Every Palm Sunday procession is clearly fashioned according to the basic

structure of the classical imperial adventus, as in fact are all medieval processions.46

But there are variants, and Jerusalem's is a special one. Margot Fassler, in her analysis

of the Palm Sunday procession in Chartres entitled 'Adventus in Chartres', identifies

the three major components of a classic adventus in the Palm Sunday procession there

in the twelfth century, and these are also readily recognizable in Frankish Jerusalem:

(1) the gathering and arranging of those who will receive the persons coming, by

ceremonially leaving the town to meet those entering; (2) the entrance itself, in a

ceremonial procession; and (3) the reception ceremony, after which those entering the

town are escorted to a destination where the last ceremonial element takes place and

the feast ends.

Of note are the two separate processions, one led by the patriarch coming from

Bethany into town and the other leaving the town to greet it. This model follows the

biblical narrative in John 12:13, where the people went out of the city to greet Jesus in

his advent, carrying branches and blessing him with Hosanna, benedictus qui venit in

nomine Domini, rex Israel. This is a marked departure from the local pre-crusader

tradition in Jerusalem. But it is in accordance with the Western tradition, documented,

for example, in tenth-century Palm Sunday processions in Germany.47

Also notable is

the curtailing of the older, longer route. This was perhaps carried out by the Latins

with the intention of allowing more time for the rituals of reception and entrance.

The adventus-like character of the ceremony is enhanced by the mention of important

people in the text, not least the king of Jerusalem, who most likely attended with his

46

Fassler, ‘Adventus at Chartres’, 20.

47 David A. Warner, ‘Ritual and Memory in the Ottonian Recht: The Ceremony of

Adventus’, Speculum 76 (2001): 255-283, at 264.

24

entourage. The king was seen to be an active participant in the public religious

ceremony; he ascended with the patriarch to an elevated spot that everyone could see,

just before the procession entered through the Golden Gate. Thus, when the king was

present in Jerusalem, the Palm Sunday procession may have honoured him as well.

That Palm Sunday was used in Jerusalem as an occasion for a royal adventus can be

inferred from the narrative sources describing the entry of Baldwin I into Jerusalem

on Palm Sunday of 1112:

[Baldwin I] entered on that holy and festive Day of Palms through the gate

which looks towards the Mount of Olives, through which Lord Jesus entered

riding on a donkey, the king with his men, and along with certain splendid

legates from the king of the Greeks.48

The description of Baldwin I's funeral on 7 April, 1118, which could have been timed

to coincide with the Palm Sunday festival, is also suggestive of a royal adventus, with

the funeral meshed into the Palm Sunday procession:

On that same day the lord patriarch Arnulf had come down from the Mount of

Olives with his clergy after the consecration of palms, and his brothers came

out from the Temple of the Lord and from all the churches to meet him for the

festival, with hymns and songs of praise in celebration of the holy day on

which Lord Jesus, riding on a donkey, deigned to enter the holy city of

Jerusalem. So, with all the Christian congregations gathered together for the

festival in praise of God, suddenly the dead king was borne into the middle of

the people as they sang. At the sight of him their voices were hushed and their

48

Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, book 12:7, ed. Susan B. Edgington

(Oxford, 2007), 835.

25

praises were brought low, and a very great weeping was heard from the clergy

and people alike. Nevertheless the Palm Sunday service was completed, and

everyone came in with the dead king through the gate which is called Golden

through which Lord Jesus had entered when coming to his Passion, and it was

decided by common consent that the lifeless body should at once be taken to

its burial…49

Like the festive procession, the funeral ended at the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Thus it may be suggested that the royal adventus utilized the processional qualities of

the Palm Sunday ritual and the adventus-like Palm Sunday procession, with its

potential to represent and affirm authority, may have been used as a spectacle in the

service of royal power and as a festive occasion honouring the kings or other

dignitaries attending the celebration. In the specific fusion of Palm Sunday ritual and

the adventus, the ritual space was experienced by the participants as both a religious

space and a political one, an adventus Christi and an adventus regis, in the spirit of

the biblical verse "Behold, your King is coming to you."50

As such, the royal adventus

may have echoed Emperor Heraclius' (d. 641) recovery of the True Cross and his

entry to Jerusalem through the Golden Gate, as well as, albeit more vaguely, the

legends of Charlemagne's imagined entry to Jerusalem on his 'crusade', as well as his

49

Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, book 12:29, ed. Edgington, 871. On the

connection between the adventus and funeral processions, see Timothy Reuter, ‘A Europe of

Bishops: The Age of Wulfstan of York and Burchard of Worms’, in Patterns of Episcopal

Power: Bishops in Tenth and Eleventh Century Western Europe, ed. L. Körntgen and D.

Waßenhoven (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 17-38, at 20-21.

50 Matt. 21:5; Zechariah 9:9.

26

actual adventus on his first visit to Rome in 774, when he was received with palm

leaves, olive branches and the singing of hymns.51

Furthermore, the particular adventus structure of the ceremony, with the two

initial contingents in which the various urban congregations play a role, may have

helped to define the relationships between the religious houses of Jerusalem, linking

them in a common liturgy without, in this case, giving preference to any particular

congregation; the shared nature of the ceremony is explicitly declared in the words

illa ebdomada comunis est. Described from the point of view of the community of the

Holy Sepulchre, the text reveals the cooperation of the different monastic

communities, all of whom are summoned under the leadership of the Domnus

patriarcha and the king.

The issue of the influence of the Cathedral of Chartres raises a further point,

namely, that Chartres influenced the Holy Sepulchre not only as a Western European

source of liturgical inspiration, but specifically as an important centre of church

reform in the twelfth century. Kaspar Elm has observed that since 1114 the spiritual

51

James Howard-Johnston, 'Heraclius' Persian Campaigns and the Revival of the East

Roman Empire', War in History 6 (1999), 1-44; On the significance of Emperor Heraclius for

the crusaders, see Christopher Tyerman, God's War: A New History of the Crusades,

(Cambridge Mass., 2006), 379. The description of Charlemagne's imaginary entry into

Jerusalem on his alleged crusade reads: "letus et supplex advenit ac patriarche totique

christicole plebi cuncta prospera deo opitulante solidavit,” in the late 11th or early 12

th

centuries. Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus. See Matthew Gabriele, ‘The Provenance of

the Descriptio Qualiter Karolus Magnus: Remembering the Carolingians in the Entourage of

King Philip I (1060–1108) before the First Crusade’, Viator 39 (2008): 93–118, quote in n.

20. See also Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and

Mediaeval Worship (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1946), 72-75; Susan Twyman, Papal

Ceremonial at Rome in the Twelfth Century (London, 2002), 12-21; Matthew Gabriele, An

Empire of Memory: The Legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, and Jerusalem before the First

Crusade (Oxford, 2011), 45.

27

life and liturgical service of the chapter of the Holy Sepulchre has had a French model

-- more precisely, the consuetudines of such important reform centres as Reims, St.

Quentin and others -- and that the religious practices were "almost entirely in the

framework of the canonical reform movement of the late 11th and early twelfth

century".52

Recently, as already indicated, Dondi pointed to the influence of Chartres

in Jerusalem, which was probably mediated through the involvement of Fulcher of

Chartres, the disciple of one of the great reformers of the French church, Ivo of

Chartres. This observation can be supported by evidence from the Barletta codex,

which includes, alongside the full Ordinal, a fragment of another ordinal. This shorter

and fragmentary text (f. 25r-32v) precedes the full one and contains long passages

from Ivo of Chartres' canonical work, the Panormia, written in the last decade of the

eleventh century or the first decade of the twelfth. Its inclusion in the manuscript, with

an identical incipit to that of the full ordinal (both refer directly to the Church of the

Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem), is significant and unusual. Ivo (1040-1115) was a

leading church reformer, and a text of his canonical directives positioned next to the

order of services of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a momentous display of his

spiritual guidance in Jerusalem. Whether this text was sent to Jerusalem by the bishop

of Chartres himself or brought by another reform agent is unknown. But we have

evidence of Ivo's interest in and care for the newly established church of Jerusalem.

This is expressed in an affectionate letter, which is not widely referred to, that Ivo

52

Kaspar Elm, 'Kanoniker und Ritter vom Heiligen Grab : ein Beitrag zur Entstehung

und Frühgeschichte der palästinensischen Ritterorden', in Die geistlichen Ritterorden

Europas, ed. Josef Fleckenstein and Manfred Hellmann (Sigmaringen, 1980), 141-169, at

148.

28

wrote to Daibert, Patriarch of Jerusalem (d.1105),53

in which he expressed his joy that

the citizens of Jerusalem were now under Daibert's care and guidance.54

(In this letter,

Ivo also asks for a piece of the True Cross, which should be seen in the context of the

reforming popes’ interest in physical relics from the Holy Land.55

) Ivo's letter was

most likely brought to Jerusalem by the returning crusader, another Charterian,

Stephen of Blois.56

As has been suggested, the clear influence of Chartres on the canons of the

Holy Sepulchre could have been mediated through the historian and later canon of the

Holy Sepulchre, Fulcher of Chartres. Fulcher was a participant in the first crusade. He

took the cross as chaplain of Count Stephen of Blois and later became the chaplain of

Baldwin of Boulogne (the future King Baldwin I of Jerusalem). Fulcher's Historia

Hierosolymitana shows close familiarity with central texts of the reform movement

regarding church organization, including the canonical collections of Ivo of Chartres,

a copy of which, as mentioned earlier, was sent to the Chapter of the Holy

53

Daibert was consecrated as Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1099, suspended in 1101,

reinstated, and finally deposed in 1102. On Daibert, see Patricia Skinner, ‘From Pisa to the

Patriarchate: Chapters in the Life of (Arch)bishop Daibert’, in Challenging the Boundaries of

Medieval History: The Legacy of Timothy Reuter, ed. Patricia Skinner, (Brepols Turnhout,

2009), 155-172; Michael Matzke, Daibert von Pisa: Zwischen Pisa, Papst und erstem

Kreuzzug (Sigmaringen, 1998).

54 According to Matzke, Daibert von Pisa, 65, Daibert had close relations with Ivo of

Chartres and with Pope Urban II.

55 See Cowdrey, ‘The Reform Papacy and the Origin of the Crusades’, in Le concile de

Clermont de 1095 et l’appel à la croisade, Collection de l’école française de Rome 236

(Rome, 1997), 65–83.

56 Stephen of Blois was the original overlord of Fulcher of Chartres, who took the cross

as Stephen's chaplain. Stephen returned to Europe in 1098 during the First Crusade, but later

set out again for the East. He arrived in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (March 30) of 1102, and

died in May 1102 in the battle of Ramlah. Ivo's letters could thus have been delivered to

Daibert between March and May 1102.

29

Sepulchre.57

In her study of Fulcher of Chartres, Verena Epp collected much evidence

on Fulcher's affinity with the reform movement and even suggested that it was he who

imported the Augustinian canonical life to Jerusalem from Chartres. She also

provided evidence from the second recension of Fulcher's Historia,58

to argue that he

was not only a canon of the Holy Sepulchre but perhaps also its treasurer from about

1114 onward. Epp's evidence on this point is based specifically on his disposition

toward the relic of the cross. If the central role ascribed to Fulcher of Chartres as an

agent of the reform movement and the one who helped reform the religious life in

Jerusalem in the second decade of the twelfth century is accepted, then he may have

been involved in shaping the liturgy and designing the rituals.59

57

Verena Epp, Fulcher von Chartres: Studien zur Geschichtsschreibung des ersten

Kreuzzuges (Düsseldorf, 1990), 32-35. Fulcher's familiarity with the Decretals of pseudo-

Isidore, the tenth-century false Decretals used to support the eleventh century reformers'

arguments, was noted by H. Hagemeyer, in the context of the ecclesiastical status of Tyre

after its conquest by the Franks in 1124. See Fulcherius Carnotensis, Historia

Hierosolymitana, book III, 34, 8-11, 737-739.

58 Fulcher of Chartres produced two versions of his Historia Hierosolymitana, the first

ended in 1124 and the second in 1127, with substantial revisions. See Verena Epp, "Die

Entstehung eines 'Nationalbewusstseins' in den Kreuzfahrerstaaten", Deutsches Archiv 45

(1989): 596-604, esp. 597-601.

59 See also the discussion of Fulcher in Fassler, Virgin of Chartres, 150-151. It may also

be noted that parts of Fulcher's Historia were incorporated as lectiones de historia into the

Matins liturgy of the Liberation of Jerusalem; see Amnon Linder, ‘The Liturgy of the

Liberation of Jerusalem’, Medieval Studies 52 (1990), 110-131, esp. 115. One may query the

idea the liturgy may have incorporated parts of a chronicle, being a non-sacred text. But in the

case of the Liberation Feast this may not be unthinkable since it was a new celebration

commemorating a recent historical event, and the celebrants might have sought a 'ready-made'

eyewitness description of the victory for the purpose. It is worth mentioning in this context

that the sermon attributed to Fulcher of Chartres for the July 15 commemoration feast, and

preserved in a twelfth-century manuscript, shares quite a few sentences, historical data and

distinctive expressions with Fulcher's Historia. While the chronological relationship between

31

Returning to the rubric of the Palm Sunday procession, we are now reminded

that the text has the treasurer walking with the patriarch and with the relic of the Holy

Cross from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to Bethany, and re-entering the city

with him through the Golden Gate. The reference to the treasurer within a liturgical

text is uncommon but perhaps justified by the symbolic magnitude of the sacred relic.

However, this explanation is not completely adequate, since it is really for the

patriarch to carry the cross, as the text insists, 'with his own hands'. Significantly, the

treasurer is mentioned only a couple of times in the entire text of the Barletta

manuscript, all the instances being in the Pascal ceremonies.60

I would like to

speculate that this treasurer (thesaurario) in the text could have been Fulcher of

Chartres himself. If this were the reason for the unusual appearance of a 'treasurer' in

the text, it would be yet another indication of the close involvement of the cathedral of

the Sermon and the Historia is unclear, the sermon had a liturgical function and seems to have

been anchored early on in the religious ceremony; it contains also (non-verbatim) liturgical

strings such as 'per vicos Ierusalem in jubilo alleluia cantatur'. If it was Fulcher who

composed this sermon, it may serve as further evidence for his liturgical activity. See Charles

Kohler, “Un sermon commemorative de la prise de Jérusalem par les croisés attributé à

Foucher de Chartres”, Revue de l’Orient Latin 8 (1900-1), 158-164, quote on p. 161.

Furthermore, evidence on the use of narrative sources for liturgical purposes is provided from

the analysis of an account of the capture of Jerusalem, written probably in the first half of the

twelfth century and used as part of the liturgy of the Feast of the Liberation of Jerusalem. See

John France, 'An Unknown Account of the Capture of Jerusalem', English Historical Review

87 (1972), 771-783.

60 The manuscript reads: 'Domnus patriarcha cum thesauro ecclesie sancti sepulchre

lignum vivifice crucis secum deferente'. All previous scholars thought it to be a scribe's

mistake, and that it should be corrected to 'cum thesaurario', perhaps because the treasure

itself, lignum vivifice cruces, is mentioned separately. See Kohler, Revue de l'orient latin 8

(1900-1901), 412, Schönfelder, Die Prozessionen der Lateiner, 585; Hagenmeyer,

Fulcherius Carnotensis, Historia Hierosolymitana, 613. Reading thesuro as the ablative form

of thesaurus would admittedly weaken the argument for the dominant role of the treasurer in

the procession.

31

Chartres in the spiritual life and liturgy of the Church of Holy Sepulchre in early

twelfth century Jerusalem.

***

The historical nature of the Jerusalem ritual of Palm Sunday, from its very beginning

has been a matter of some controversy. It has been argued, convincingly in my view,

that this historicism was not achieved in the fourth century but rather, was a

prolonged process, and not the only one in operation.61

The Palm Sunday celebration

by the Latins in the twelfth century represents, I believe, a high point in this process.

Never before, or even after, was Palm Sunday re-enacted in a way so faithful to the

biblical narrative, including only sites visited by Jesus on his journey to the city and

within it,62

and leaving out locations and churches that had formed part of the

procession in previous centuries. The emphasis on the historical stations added to the

crusader procession the power of authenticity. The adventus structure of the Latin

ceremony in the twelfth century is a significant aspect of this historical importance.

Moreover, not only was the adventus in accord with Western tradition, it also

had the potential of representing the church and the state as one organ, of highlighting

the collaboration between the churches of Jerusalem, and of serving as a display of

power directed toward the Christian and non-Christian world. The clergy who

designed the liturgy of Jerusalem were clearly attempting to create an engaging and

61

Taft, ‘Historicism Revisited’, 47.

62 However the route interestingly does not include Bethphage, mentioned in Matt. 21:1,

Mark 11:1, and Luke 19:29. It seems that a chapel was built in Bethphage only later in the

twelfth century. In 1002 the pilgrim Saewulf indicated that the place was deserted, but John of

Wurzburg and Theoderic (c.1170) mention a chapel there; A (restored) twelfth-century fresco

describing Jesus' entry to Jerusalem can be seen in the church today. See Peregrinationes

Tres: Saewulf, John of Würzburg, Theodericus, ed. R.B.C Huygens CCCM 139 (Turnhout,

1994), 72, 113, 167.

32

highly performative public ceremony that would attract visitors and potential settlers

to the new kingdom.

The ways in which the new Latin rite related to the local tradition of Jerusalem

are less obvious. The inclusion of the entire ceremony within the morning service, the

procession's departure before sunrise and the monastic influence on the celebration

appear as continuities from pre-crusader times. That the Frankish liturgy adapted itself

to previous Jerusalemite ceremonies can be seen in other instances, such as the

celebration of the Holy Fire in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.63

But the Frankish

liturgy was also expressly innovative, and the manuscripts of Barletta and the

Templar ordinal clearly mark the occasions when a distinction was made between old

customs and new ones.64

Examination of the Palm Sunday ritual in Frankish Jerusalem makes possible

an understanding of the motivations of the liturgy's creators, of their adaptability and

ingenuity in creating such an important aspect of their life in Outremer. Through this

annual ceremony, the people of Jerusalem, lay and religious, were able to

commemorate the Christian triumph of both past and present.

63

Shagrir, ‘Visitatio Sepulchri’, 74.

64 Sebastian E. Salvadó, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre and the Templar Rite, 46.

33

Latin text from the Ordinal of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem,

Barletta, Archivio della Chiesa del Santo Sepolcro, ms. s.n.

[f. 69va] Dominica in ramis palmarum. Ad Matutinas, Invitatorium Ipsi vero non

cognoverunt. Hymnus, Ant., Vers., ut supra. Lectio III de Iheremia. Lectio III, de

sermone < ... >65

Lectio III de evangelio < … >66

Sine gloria reiteretur < ... >.67

[f.

69vb] Per ebdomadam dicantur hac Resp. viri impii dixerunt, vers. hec cogita Resp.

Viri impii dixerunt Vers. Hec cogita<verunt>. Resp. Dixerunt impii. Vers. Viri impii.

Resp. Insurrexerunt. Vers. Et dederunt. Resp. Deus Israel propter. Vers.

Improperiam. Resp. Contumelias. Vers. Vidisti <domine> vel Omnes inimici. Resp.

Vide quia tribu<lor>. Vers. Libera me. Resp. Sinagog<a> popululorum. Vers. Tu

autem Sacerdos. Vers. De ore leonis. In Laudibus, Ant. Dominus deus auxiliator.

Ant. Circumdantes circumdederunt. Ant. Judica Causam meam. Ant. Cum angelis et

pueris. Ant. Confundantur. Capitulum. Dominus deus aperuit michi. Hymnus

Lustra sex qui iam. Vers. Eripe me. Ant. Turba multa que con<venerant>. Oratio.

Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui humano generi. Ad primam. Ant. Occurrunt turbe

cum floribus.

65

Missing text completed from the Jerusalem ordinal, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana

(BAV), Lat. 659: "Psalmi vicesimi primi", ed. Salvadó, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre

and the Templar Rite, 576.

66 Missing text is completed from the Jerusalem ordinal, BAV Lat. 659: "Cum

appropinquasset Resp. In die qua invocavi Vers. In die tribulationis Resp. Fratres mei

elongaverunt Vers. Amici mei Resp. Adtende domine Vers. Homo pacis Resp. Conclusit vias

Vers. Factus sum Resp. Salvum me fac Vers. Intende Resp. Noli esse mihi Vers.

Confundantur omnes Resp. Ingrediente domino Vers. Cum audisset Resp. Dominus mecum

est Vers. Et vim faciebant Resp. Circumdederunt me Vers. Quoniam tribulatio"; ed. Salvadó,

The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre and the Templar Rite, 576.

67 Missing text is completed from the Jerusalem ordinal, BAV Lat. 659: "Resp.

Circumdederunt"; ed. Salvadó, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre and the Templar Rite, 576.

34

Post resurrectionem Lazari ante sex dies pasche, dominus veniens Ierusalem,

premisit duos ex discipulis suis, ut adducerent ei asinam et pullum < … >.68

Domnus patriarcha cum thesaur<ari>o ecclesie sancti sepulchri lignum vivifice crucis

secum deferente cum priore ecclesie Montis Syon et Montis Oliveti [f. 70ra] et abbate

Sancte Marie de Iosaphat, et congregationibus earum. Post matutinas ante sole ortum

vadit in Bethaniam, ubi dominus resuscitavit Lazarum. Inde ipse facta oratione et qui

cum eo sunt induti sollempnibus vestibus dominicis vestigiis Ierusalem revertuntur,

et patriarcha crucem dominicam propriis manibus portans. Hymnos et antiphonas

sollempnitati congruentes, tam ipse quam alii decantant.

Qui in Ierusalem remanent, videlicet conventus Dominici Sepulchri et Sancti Iohanis

Hospitalis et Sancte Marie Latine et Montis Syon ad Templum Domini conveniunt

cum omni populo. Ibi unus ex episcopis, et, sinon fuerit episcopus, prior predicti

Sepulcri vel subprior, aut unus ex maioribus, vel ebdomadarius quia illa ebdomada

comunis est, et altera sequens similiter comunis, et de Penthecostes comunis et de

Nativitate similiter comunis. Super flores palmarum et ramos olivarum facit

benedictionem. Facta benedictione inde omnes procedunt. Occurrentes Crucis

dominice in Valle Iosaphat. Postquam omnes hinc et illinc conveniunt ordinatis

processionibus electis sociis quatuor, aut quinque aliquintulum ante alios

<procedens. Cant>or incipit antiphonam <Ave rex noster> et postea ipse et sociis eius

et omnes pariter flectentes [f.70rb] genua contra dominicam crucem, et contra

patriarcham prosteriuntur. Surgentes iterum incipiunt Ant. Ave rex noster et iterum

tercio.

68

Missing text is completed from the Jerusalem ordinal, BAV Lat. 659: "Tunc pueri

processerunt ei obviam cum floribus, palmarum et olivarum ramis, ad cuius processionis

memoriam et imitationem nos processionem nostram ita facimus"; ed. Salvadó, The Liturgy of

the Holy Sepulchre and the Templar Rite, 576.

35

Similiter ex alia parte quatuor aut quinque electi, contra Sepulchrum, et contra

Templum cantant Ant. Ave rex noster. Ceterique flectunt genua. Tunc omnes simul

cantant Fili David et sic finita Antiphona. Qua finita cantor et socii eius cantant ant.

Pueri hebreorum et dum istam cantant ant<iphonam>, omnes qui sunt ex alia parte

flectunt genua. Quibus erectis illi quatuor aut quinque ex illa qui sunt parte patriarche,

cantant eandem ant<iphonam> Pueri hebreorum, hanc antiphonam ter cantata, aliam

antiphonam Pueri hebreorum vestimenta ter cantabunt alternatim cantantes, et

alternatim genua flectentes. Iterum < … >69

[f. 70va] –tas aureas, antiphonas

cantando de sollempnitate. Ant. Ceperunt omnes turbe Ant. Cum appropinquaret ,

Cum audisset populus et ceteras. Et cantor incipit Ant. de sollempnitate Ant. Ante sex

dies pasche Tunc subcentor et magistris scole et pueri cum ipsis ascendunt super

portam per quam Dominus Ihesus adveniens intravit, et ibi expectant donec ingressi

congregentur. Quibus congregatis, solus cantor incipit hanc Ant. Gloria laus et honor,

et chorus inferius respondent Rex Christe et soli pueri cantant versum Israel es tu et

ceteros versibus finitis: pueri incipiunt, vel patriarcha Resp. Ingrediente. Mox

ordinata processione ingredientes atrium Templi Domini, descendunt per gradus

contra Templum Salomonis et per alios gradus ascendunt contra Templum Domini ad

meridianam portam: ibique ordinata processione faciunt stationem, et cantor incipit

Ant. Collegerunt. Finita ant., Vers. Unus autem et cantabitur ant. A iiii vel v electis a

69

The Barletta manuscript here is unfortunately covered with a dark stain. A few words are

vaguely legible, and this allows to determine with high degree of certainty that the text is the

same as in BAV Lat. 659. The missing lines are: "diachonos et subdiachonos parati accepta

benedictione. Ascendunt in alto ubi ab onminbus possint videri. Post eos, ascendunt

patriarcha, et rex, et persone. Finitis autem, cantor solus incipit Ant. Occurrunt turbe Qua

finita: Legitur evangelium Cum appropinquaret, et postea patriarcha facit sermonem ad

populum. Deinde recedunt et vadunt usque ad por-." ed. Salvadó, The Liturgy of the Holy

Sepulchre and the Templar Rite, 577.

36

quibus iussum fuerit. Resp. Ne forte His finitis: cantor incipit Resp. Circumdederunt

me. Deinde [f. 70vb] unaqueque congregatio divertitur, ad locum suum.

Ad III, Hymnus Nunc sancte nobis spiritus Ant. Pueri hebreorum tollentes.

Capitulum Faciem meam non averti Resp. Fratres mei Vers. Amici vers. Intende.

Oratio Omnipotens sempiterne.

Ad missam sacerdos, diachonus, subdiachonus casulis coccineis iunduuntur. Domine

ne el<onge>/ Ps. Deus deus meus respice Oratio Omnipotens sempiterne. Epistola ad

Philipenses Hoc sentite in vobis quod. Resp. Tenuisti ma<num>. Vers. Quam

bo<nus>. Deus deus meus respice. Secundum Matheum. Scitis quia post biduum. In

omnibus passionibus non dicitur Dominus vobiscum nec Gloria tibi domine. Sic

incipit diaconus Passio Domini. Credo in unum deum Offertorio. In perpetuum cum

suis versibus. Communio Pater si non potest. Ad vi, hymnus Rector potens veraax.

Ant. Pueri hebreorum ves<timenta>. Capitulum. Tu autem domine sabaoth. Resp.

Salvum me. Vers. Intende. Vers. Ne <perdas>. Oratio. Omnipotens sempiterne. Ad ix,

hymnus, Rerum deus tenax vigor. Ant. Osanna filio David. Capitulum. Judicasti

domine causam. Resp. Noli esse. Vers. Confudantur. Vers. Eripe. Omnipotens

sempiterne. Ad Vesperas. Dominus deus. Cum epistola. [f. 71ra] Dominus deus

aperuit alia capitulum. Corpus meum dedi percuti<entibus>. Resp. Ingrediente

Domino Hymnus. Vexilla regis prodeunt. Vers. Dederunt in escam. Antiphona

Ceperut omnes turbe. Oratio Da misericors deus ut quod.