The Crusader Rebranding of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount

John Giebfried

Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Volume44, 2013, pp. 77-94 (Article)

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Comitatus 44 (2013) 77–94.

THE CRUSADER REBRANDING OF JERUSALEM’S TEMPLE MOUNT

John Giebfried*

Abstract: This article explores the Temple Mount under crusader rule. It examines how the space was transformed physically and, more importantly, how it was spiritually re-branded to fit into the new sacred geography of crusader Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock was consecrated as a church, known as the Templum Domini and was associated primarily with the story of Jesus forgiving the adulteress about to be stoned. The site also became the place of confession for pilgrims. Therefore this site absorbed the original purpose of the Jewish Temple, the forgiveness of sins, but reworked to fit with Christian doctrine, namely the rite of confession. Likewise the Al-Aqsa mosque, which the Muslim sources before 1099 argued was Solomon’s Temple, was recast by the crusaders as Solo-mon’s house or palace shortly after the conquest. This happened because the mosque became the royal palace under Baldwin I. Keywords: Temple Mount, Templum Domini, Dome of the Rock, Temple of Solomon, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, pilgrimage, crusades, confession, Kingdom of Jerusalem.

INTRODUCTION The Temple Mount is a site which has changed hands and changed faiths many times. Yet perhaps the most dramatic transition occurred in the wake of the First Crusade. In the decades which followed the cap-ture of Jerusalem, the preexisting Islamic structures on the Temple Mount were transformed. In less than half a century, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque became important Christian sites, known as the Templum Domini and the Templum Salomonis, respec-tively. This article will document these physical and theological trans-formations through an examination of the writings of pilgrims who visited these sites. In both cases, the structures of the Temple Mount were linked to the Christian biblical past as a means to gradually re-brand them as an integral part of the new sacred geography of crusader Jerusalem.

With the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the crusaders inherited a wealth of historic sites which had been considered holy by Jews, Christians and Muslims across the centuries. Many of these sites were at one time Christian places of worship. However a few sites, such as the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque, had never before been Christian holy sites.1 Nevertheless the links between these sites and the

 *Department of History, Saint Louis University, jgiebfri@slu.edu. This article is based on research done at Queen Mary College, University of London and was presented at the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies. I express my sincere thanks to Dr. Thomas Asbridge, Dr. Thomas Madden, and all those who gave feedback during its presentation for their tremendous help in this process.

1 The other notable site new to Christianity after the crusader conquest was the monas-tery of St. Stephen, outside Jerusalem’s Lion’s Gate, however this site will not be dis-

78 JOHN GIEBFRIED biblical past quickly brought them to prominence throughout Christen-dom. Together they became part of what Iris Shagrir considers the equivalent of a medieval marketing campaign.2

The crusader’s kingdom and especially Jerusalem itself was a poor and peripheral part of Latin Christendom, with few natural resources from which to derive wealth. However, it did have an unmatched col-lection of pilgrimage destinations, which the first crusaders were keen to cultivate, “the holy places were accorded an important religious role, with economic and demographic ramifications. The marketing of the holy places was set in motion within the city itself, by living tour guides or by written guides, while around the Christian world it was carried by the stories of the travelers who had returned and the texts that described the land.”3 Thus in order to better understand these sites under crusader rule and the marketing campaign associated with them, historians must examine these accounts of pilgrims who travelled to Jerusalem to visit the Temple Mount.

THE IMPORTANCE AND USE OF PILGRIMAGE NARRATIVES

Scholars relying on traditional sources face several serious problems in reconstructing the history of the crusader Temple Mount. These struc-tures cannot be reconstructed using modern archaeology. Few archae-ological traces survive from the crusader structures, since the space was returned to its previous Islamic layout after Saladin retook Jerusalem in 1187. Therefore to understand the crusader Temple Mount, historians must turn to the accounts of eyewitnesses. The site itself is sometimes mentioned in chronicles, like the many narrative accounts of the First Crusade. These sources provide some evidence for the capture of the Temple Mount in 1099 and the immediate aftermath, but they can pro-vide few details about the development of the structures there. The most useful Christian narrative account of the period for this investiga-tion is that of William of Tyre, a native-born bishop of the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, who records the consecration of the Templum Domini as a Christian church. Unfortunately, William has little to say about the sites themselves. Likewise the Persian historian Imad ad-Din, who accompanied Saladin throughout his career, is an invaluable source as his account of the Muslim restorations of the Dome of the Rock describes what was removed from the site, suggesting its cru-

 cussed here. Joshua Prawer, The Crusaders’ Kingdom: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (New York 1972) 171.

2 Iris Shagrir, “The Guide of MS Beinecke 481.77 and the Intertwining of Christian, Jewish and Muslim Traditions in Twelfth Century Jerusalem,” Crusades 10 (2011) 22.

3 Ibid.

THE CRUSADER REBRANDING 79

sader-era contents.4 Yet narrative histories, because of their focus on broader history are normally not the most useful sources to discover the history of particular sites.

There is however one collection of sources that provides unparal-leled detail into the evolution of the crusader Temple Mount and Jeru-salem as a whole: pilgrimage narratives. Throughout its history, Jeru-salem has been a magnet for pilgrims from many faiths. As a result, accounts of travels by Jewish, Christian and Islamic pilgrims can pro-vide a great deal of information about the city of Jerusalem itself as well as its holy sites. Because of crusader rule in the Holy Land, the twelfth century saw a large influx of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, many of whom wrote pilgrimage guides. These guides served as both a guide for future pilgrims and as a means to explain the city and its spir-itual significance to the people who could not make the trip themselves. As a genre, these pilgrimage texts are a mix of theology and geography. They describe not only the sites themselves, but also explain the sites’ biblical history, associating it with the events that occurred there in the biblical past. These texts’ form also can provide useful information about how the authors understood space. For example, since these texts are written in chronological order, they can tell scholars not only where the pilgrims visited, but in which order they visited these sites. Com-paring these accounts against each other, they can show how pilgrim-age routes evolved during crusader rule in Jerusalem. Additionally, the repetition of certain biblical accounts among the different pilgrimage narratives can show exactly which stories were the mostly closely linked to which spaces.

More than twenty of these sources survive from the period of cru-sader rule in Jerusalem. The vast majority of these guides are written by Christians, but several Jewish and Islamic pilgrimage narratives survive as well. What is also interesting about these sources is the wide array of places pilgrims visited from, hailing from regions as far afield as Ice-land, Russia, England and Sicily. Because of its spiritual significance and prominent location, virtually all of these guides mention the Tem-ple Mount and a significant number discuss the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque in detail. Furthermore, because pilgrimage ac-counts survive from all periods of the crusader kingdom’s history, the guides allow historians to trace the development of the holy sites over the entire period of occupation. Generally speaking, the surviving texts can be divided into two groups (see table 1).

 4 Imad ad-Din, Conquête de la Syrie et de la Palestine par Saladin, trans. Henri Massé

(Paris 1972).

80 JOHN GIEBFRIED

The first group of accounts describes the Temple Mount’s develop-mental period, before the consecration of the Templum Domini in 1141 and the transformation of the Al-Aqsa mosque into a royal palace and later the headquarters of the Knights Templar. As the First Crusaders were themselves pilgrims to Jerusalem, it should come as no surprise that many of the surviving narrative accounts of the First Crusade either include pilgrimage guides within their texts or have guides as appen-dices. Fulcher of Chartres, who remained in the Kingdom of Jerusalem after the crusade ended, includes descriptions of Jerusalem within his history of the First Crusade.5 The First Guide is found in manuscripts after the text of the Gesta Francorum, and another guide, known as Qualiter, is appended to the text of First Crusade historian Baldric of Dol.6 The oldest surviving account written by a pilgrim arriving after the success of the First Crusade was written by Saewulf. Saewulf was an English pilgrim who visited the Levant between 1101 and 1103 as part of a larger journey to Italy and Constantinople.7 He provides the most detailed description of the Temple Mount from this earliest period of crusader rule. Another important pilgrimage narrative was written by the Russian Abbot Daniel about his trip to the Holy Land between 1106 and 1108. The account of this abbot, perhaps from Chernigov and likely on a diplomatic mission for several Russian princes, is not only one of the most detailed pilgrimage accounts, it is one of the most cop-ied Old Russian texts, surviving in 148 manuscripts.8 A few other ac-counts of named pilgrims survive, such as the account of the Icelandic abbot Nikulás of Þverá, but most of these earliest guides are anony-mously authored.

The most useful of these anonymous texts is the Guide of MS Beinecke 481.77. This manuscript was edited, translated, and exten-sively commented on by Iris Shagrir.9 In her study, Shagrir uses this guide in conjunction with other early pilgrimage texts to examine the religious traditions associated with several pilgrimage sites, such as the tomb of Joseph, the Well of the Star in Bethlehem and the Templum Domini.10 In this respect, Shagrir’s focus on the importance of pilgrim-age narratives and her conclusions on the early crusader Temple Mount

 5 Fulcher of Chartres, Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana (1095–1127),

ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer, (Heidelberg 1913). 6 John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099–1185 (London 1988) 4–6. All pilgrim-

age texts referred to in this article use the titles given to them by Wilkinson and all Eng-lish translations are taken from that text unless otherwise noted.

7 Ibid. 6–7. 8 Ibid. 9–10. 9 Shagrir, “The Guide of MS Beinecke 481.77” (n. 2 above) 1–22. 10 Ibid. 12–17.

THE CRUSADER REBRANDING 81

provide a strong basis for the research below. Yet, because she writes only on the earliest history of the crusader period, an exploration of additional pilgrimage narratives from later guides greatly expands upon her conclusions.

The second group of pilgrimage texts describes the later history of the crusader Temple Mount, when both the structures themselves, as well as their theological underpinnings had been firmly established. The two most extensive of these guides were written by German pil-grims who each visited Jerusalem around the year 1170. John of Wurzburg was a priest whose account provides a great deal of infor-mation on the decorative details of the buildings of Jerusalem. His ac-count is also notable for its nascent German nationalism and critiques of the kingdom’s Frankish natives.11 The second pilgrim, Theoderic, likewise travelled widely across the Holy Land, recording many im-portant details about the crusader Temple Mount. Theoderic seems to have used the text of John of Wurzburg for places which he did not visit himself to complete his guide.12 There are several other guides that survive from this period as well, such as the Byzantine soldier, John Phocas, the Iberian Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, and the Is-lamic geographer who worked at the court of King Roger II of Sicily, Mohammed Al-Idrisi.13 Likewise, several important anonymous ac-counts from this later period, such as the Second Guide and the Seventh Guide, provide important details as well. Together these sources make it possible to chart the development of the structures of the crusader Temple Mount.

CREATING THE CRUSADER TEMPLUM DOMINI

The Jewish Temple built by Herod was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD after the Jewish Revolt. Despite the many biblical events associated with the site, it was of little interest to most Christians before the cru-sades.14 In the period of Byzantine rule in Jerusalem, the Temple Mount was left desolate both to show that God had abandoned the Jewish people and to validate a prophecy made by Jesus that the temple would be destroyed and never rebuilt.15 This prophecy led some

 11 Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 21. 12 His text on the Temple Mount was his own. Ibid. 22. 13 Ibid. 19–20, 23. 14 C. H. Krinsky, “Representations of the Temple of Jerusalem before 1500,” Journal

of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970) 2. 15 The prophecy mentioned by Nibley refers to the following passage: “As Jesus came

out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the build-ings of the temple. Then he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’” Matthew 24.1–2

82 JOHN GIEBFRIED theologians, such as Theophylactus, to worry that if the Jewish Temple was ever rebuilt it would invalidate the belief in the infallibility of Je-sus.16 While this tradition had proved thorny for the Byzantines as it led the emperor Julian the Apostate, and later the Persians, to attempt to rebuild the Temple in order to disprove Jesus’s infallibility, the con-struction of the Dome of the Rock in the late seventh century made this interpretation distinctly unpalatable for the new crusader rulers of Jeru-salem.17

The eyewitness accounts of the capture of the city in 1099 clearly show that the site was linked in the author’s minds with the ancient Jewish Temple and was already being referred to as the Templum Domini.18 Thus, the existence of the Dome of the Rock, a structure con-sidered by the conquerors as a rebuilt Jewish Temple could be seen as a contradiction to the prophecy of Jesus and could no longer be seen as a monument to God’s abandonment of the Jews. For this reason, the cru-saders had to create a new vision for the Templum Domini.

Since its construction in the late seventh century, the Dome of the Rock has been one of the most recognizable Islamic religious structures in the world. Yet during the period of crusader occupation, this Islamic site was nevertheless able to remain at the heart of Jerusalem’s reli-gious life. The process by which the Dome of the Rock became the Christian Templum Domini is by no means clearly defined. Instead, it appears the process of developing a new Christian identity for the structure was gradual. The problems in documenting this transition start at the beginning of crusader rule. An understanding of how this site was viewed in the years after 1099 is difficult because most of the oldest crusader-era pilgrimage guides are very brief and provide few details about the place or its spiritual significance.19 The only extensive description of the Templum Domini from this earliest period was in the guide of Saewulf.20 Considered together, the early pilgrimage guides present disparate views on how the spiritual history of the Templum Domini was initially understood. The Russian abbot Daniel discusses the site in terms of its Old Testament history, excluding Jesus en-

 NRSV; Hugh Nibley, “Christian Envy of the Temple,” The Jewish Quarterly Review n.s. 50 (Jan. 1960) 235.

16 Ibid. 235–237. 17 Ibid. 18 Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolymitanorum, The deeds of the Franks and

other pilgrims to Jerusalem, ed. Rosalind Hill (London 1962) 94. 19 The First Guide in Gesta Francorum (n. 18 above) 99; The Guide perhaps by a Ger-

man author in Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum, ed. Sabino de Sandoli (Jerusa-lem 1978) 2.157; Qualiter, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum, 2.16.

20 Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 6–7.

THE CRUSADER REBRANDING 83

tirely.21 Some accounts mix Old and New Testament stories.22 Others barely mention the place at all.23 The Guide of MS Beinecke 481.77 and Saewulf even appropriate the Muslim tradition of linking the dream of Jacob to the Templum Domini, even though this link was previously unknown in the West.24 The MS Beinecke 481.77 also places an im-portance on the martyrdom of James the Less, who was then considered the first bishop of the Lord’s Temple.25 The resulting picture is of a holy site, trying to establish a place for itself within the sacred geogra-phy of crusader Jerusalem.

The clearest example of the ongoing search for purpose was the tra-dition of the Confessio apostolorum, referenced in MS Beinecke 481.77. Iris Shagrir attempts to understand this phrase which she sug-gests could either refer to the crypt or the confession of the apostles.26 The manuscript lists this Confessio apostolorum at the end of a list of things that were found in the Templum Domini, alongside the Ark of the Covenant and Aaron’s rod.27 The only other early pilgrim author to discuss this is Saewulf. In his account he speaks of a cave within the rock at the center of the Temple, where Jesus would go to rest after he “was tired of the mockery of the Jews” and “there is the place of con-fession where his disciples used to confess to him.”28 This unusual tradition, attested in only these two sources appears to have no biblical foundations, leaving Shagrir unable to offer any further analysis.29 However, while the Confessio apostolorum disappeared from later texts, the idea of a place of confession within the Templum Domini would come to define the structure during its later decades. This new impression of the site emerged after a period of substantial renovations transformed the Templum Domini and its place within crusader Jerusa-lem.

 21 Daniel references David, Solomon, the murder of Zachariah and Jacob’s ladder.

Daniel the Abbot in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 132. 22 For example: Guide in the Gesta Francorum Expugnantium Iherusalem, Recueil

des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux, 3.510–511; The Work on Geogra-phy in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 198–199.

23 Nikulas the Abbot in Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.218; Icelandic Guide in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 221.

24 Previous western accounts had associated this event with the area around Hebron. Shagrir, “The Guide of MS Beinecke 481.77” (n. 2 above) 17–18.

25 Shagrir, “The Guide of MS Beinecke 481.77” (n. 2 above) 19, 22. 26 Ibid. 20. 27 Ibid. 2. 28 “Ibi dominus noster ihesus christus conuitiis iudeorumn lassatus requiescere con-

sueuit. Ibi est locus confessionis ubi discipuli sui sibi confessi sunt.” Saewulf, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.16.

29 Shagrir, “The Guide of MS Beinecke 481.77” (n. 2 above) 20.

84 JOHN GIEBFRIED

While the renovations done to the Dome of the Rock in the mid-twelfth century were not as extensive as those done to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the changes were, nevertheless, considerable. Like at the Holy Sepulcher, Augustinian canons were installed in the building by Godfrey of Bouillon and a cloister was built for them on the Temple Mount.30 On the exterior, the gilded dome was replaced with a lead one; the gold crescent on top of the building was replaced with a gold cross; and just below the dome inscriptions of verses from the books of Ezekiel and Psalms were added.31 On the interior, the rock itself was covered over with marble and surrounded by an iron grille to stop pil-grims from taking home pieces of the rock as souvenirs.32 An altar was placed on the marble above the rock and this central space became the sanctuary of the church.33 Imad ad-Din’s account of the Muslim restorations of the site suggests that this altar was also crowned with a canopy, fronted by a chancel screen and decorated with ornamental designs of flowers and animals carved into the marble.34 The interior walls were decorated with frescos and inscriptions of biblical verses.35 Finally, an altar to St. Nicholas was added and the cave within the rock was opened up as a place of confession.36 The renovated structure was formally consecrated as a church by the patriarch of Jerusalem and a visiting papal legate shortly after Easter 1141 and was richly endowed after the death of Queen Melisende.37

This new church became a focal point of religious life in the King-dom of Jerusalem. The new church became a center for many religious processions. The celebrations of the purification of the Blessed Virgin, the presentation of the Lord at the Temple, Palm Sunday and the cru- 

30 Adrian Boas, Jerusalem in the Time of the Crusades (London 2001) 25; Adrian Boas, “Archaeological Sources for the History of Palestine: the Frankish Period: a Unique Medieval Society Emerges,” Near Eastern Archaeology 61 (Sept. 1998) 142. For a map of the renovated crusader Temple Mount see Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 42.

31 John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.242. 32 The Holy Sepulcher and the Tomb of the Virgin Mary outside Jerusalem were simi-

larly encased to prevent souvenir taking. Boas, “Archaeological Sources” (n. 30 above) 142.

33 Bernard Hamilton, “The Impact of Crusader Jerusalem on Western Christendom,” The Catholic Historical Review 80 (Oct. 1994) 700; Boas, “Archaeological Sources” (n. 30 above) 56–57.

34 Zehava Jacoby, “The Workshop of the Temple Area in Jerusalem in the Twelfth Century: Its Origin, Evolution and Impact,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 45 (1982) 380–381.

35 Boas, Jerusalem (n. 30 above) 109–110. 36 Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 43–44. 37 William of Tyre, Willemus Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon, ed. R. B. C. Huy-

gens, CCCM 37 (Turnholt 1986) 122; Jacoby, “The Workshop of the Temple Area” (n. 34 above) 381.

THE CRUSADER REBRANDING 85

sader capture of Jerusalem were celebrated by processions of candles, incense and crosses to the Templum Domini.38 The building’s role in the city is also expressed in surviving material culture. The Templum Domini was put on the coins of the kingdom of Jerusalem, along with the Holy Sepulcher.39 In addition, the Templum Domini was depicted in the Melisende Psalter.40

These new changes and its importance in rituals make the Templum Domini a unique site which is of significance to the Old and New Tes-taments and the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s own history. The later pil-grimage accounts make reference to the many Old Testament stories such as the sacrifice of Isaac, the dream of Jacob, the purchase of the temple lands by David, the construction of the temple under Solomon and the murder of the prophet Zacharias.41 Likewise, the accounts refer to New Testament stories such as the annunciation of John the Baptist, the presentation of Jesus and the young Jesus teaching at the temple.42 However, of all the stories told about the Templum Domini, the one that takes the central place is the one in which Jesus spares the adulteress from being stoned.43 This story is mentioned sporadically in the ac-counts of the Templum Domini prior to its official consecration in 1141.44 However, every pilgrimage account written after this consecra-tion, as well as the poem written by two Augustinian abbots of the Templum Domini, Arcadus and Gaufridus, provide a detailed retelling of the story and explains how it fit into the history of the church.45 These texts also explain how this event was believed to have taken place in the cave sanctuary located within the rock at the center of the

 38 Prawer, Crusader Kingdom (n. 1 above) 176–178; Boas, Jerusalem (n. 30 above)

30. 39 Prawer, Crusader Kingdom (n. 1 above) 38. 40 Ibid. 446. 41 Seventh Guide, Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae ex saeculo VIII. IX. XII. et XV, ed. Ti-

tus Tobler (Leipzig 1874) 101–102. 42 John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.236–

238; Seventh Guide, Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae (n. 41 above) 101–102. 43 John 8.2–11. 44 It is mentioned by Saewulf, De Situ and the Work on Geography, Saewulf, Itinera

Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.18; De Situ, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.18; Work on Geography, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 199.

45 Seventh Guide, Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae (n. 41 above) 102; The Second Guide, Theoderici Libellus de locis sanctis editus circa A.D. 1172, ed. Titus Tobler (St. Gallen 1865) 122–123; John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.238; Theoderic, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.342; Paul Lehmann, “Die mittellateinischen Dichtungen der Prioren des Tempels von Jerusalem Arcadus und Gaufridus,” MGH, Series Schiften 6 (Stuttgart 1941) 325–326.

86 JOHN GIEBFRIED church.46 This location, they believed, was also the Holy of Holies of the old Jewish Temple.47

This story was commemorated within the Templum Domini with a portrait of Christ on the lintel of the door leading down into the cave sanctuary accompanied by the inscription “All nations that their sins confess / I now absolve from wickedness.”48 This cave sanctuary was therefore referred to as the “place of confession” and in that place pil-grims confessed and received absolution for their sins.49 Thus a strong tradition emerged at the Templum Domini regarding this story.

This story explains why the building was called the Templum Domini and what the function of this church actually was. The name Templum Domini is relevant because, in effect, the function of the old Temple was kept, but was moved into line with Christian theology. The Jewish Temple was a structure primarily used for the offering and sac-rifice of grain, birds or cattle for the absolution of sins. These theologi-cal grounds for the forgiveness of sins had been abandoned by Christi-anity in favor of the rite of confession. But through the story of the adulteress, who was forgiven at the Temple, the crusaders could appro-priate the role of the old Jewish Temple within the new Christian Tem-plum Domini.

The evidence for this transformation lies in how the crusaders geo-graphically placed this event. The Jewish Temple was divided into a series of courts. The outermost courts were reserved for women and gentiles, the inner courts were reserved for Jewish men and priests re-spectively and the innermost sanctuary of the Temple itself was re-served for the high priest who would only enter it on Yom Kippur.50 The story told in the Gospel of John could not have taken place within the cave beneath the rock, which was reserved for the high priest; it could have only taken place in the court of the women or of the gen-tiles, because neither Jesus nor the woman could have gained entrance

 46 The prior’s poem reference to the location of the event is less clear than the other

sources, stating only that it occurred “intra templi spatia,” The Seventh Guide, Descrip-tiones Terrae Sanctae (n. 41 above) 102.; The Second Guide, Theoderici Libellus (n. 45 above) 123; John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.238; Theoderic, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.342. Leh-mann, “Arcadus und Gaufridus” (n. 45 above) 325.

47 “Absolvo gentes sua crimina corde fatentes,” Seventh Guide, Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae (n. 41 above) 102; John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.238.

48 “et vocatur confessio,” Second Guide, Theoderici Libellus (n. 45 above) 123; John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.238.

49 Second Guide, Theoderici Libellus (n. 45 above) 123; Theoderic, Itinera Hi-erosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.342.

50 Luke 1.5–17.

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into that part of the Temple. However, the spiritual architects of the Templum Domini chose to place the forgiving of the adulteress in the exact same place that the Jewish high priest annually asked for the for-giveness of the sins of the Jewish people, despite contradictory evi-dence of this placement in the Bible. This choice of locations strongly suggests a deliberate choice to associate these events. Moreover, by offering confessions at this same site, the Christian clergy were, in ef-fect, assuming the functions of the Jewish Temple within the Templum Domini.

However, there is a troublesome side note to this Christian appropri-ation of the Temple. This is the omission of a story from all but two crusade-era pilgrimage texts of the one event in Jesus’s ministry related to the temple that appears in every gospel, the throwing out of the ven-dors and money changers.51 This story would fit in well with the crusaders’ appropriation the Temple because it could be used to show that the Jewish way of running the temple was improper. Interestingly, although Jesus’s quote that “my House shall be called a house of prayer” was inscribed on the wall of the Templum Domini, no author chooses to point out that this was said as Jesus drove out the vendors and moneychangers from the site.52

The reasons for this can only be speculated on, but it is possible that the Augustinian canons who administered the site were, like the care-takers of the Jewish Temple, making a healthy profit from their work. While no financial records survive to corroborate this, a passage from John of Wurzburg suggests that donations were actively being sought. In this passage, he retells the parable of the giving widow and rein-forces that the poor who give from the little that they have will be greatly rewarded.53

Another possibility is that they did not wish to offend their neigh-bors on the Temple Mount, the Knights Templar, who made a great deal of their income as the bankers and moneychangers of Christen-dom. Nevertheless, it is likely that this new Christian Templum Domini inherited not only the functions of its Jewish predecessor, but also its method of making a profit from the pilgrimage trade and the for-giveness of sins.

 51 Mark 11.15–19, 11.27–33; Matthew 21.12–17, 21.23–27; Luke 19.45–48, 20.1–8;

John 2.12–25. Saewulf describes the event in detail and John of Wurzburg mentions it briefly in passing. Saewulf, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.18; John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.238.

52 Theoderic, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.338; John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.240; Matthew 21.13.

53 John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.240.

88 JOHN GIEBFRIED FROM TEMPLE TO PALACE: THE CRUSADER TRANSFORMATION OF THE

AL-AQSA MOSQUE The Al-Aqsa mosque also experienced a functional rebranding in the crusader period. This mosque dates from the early Umayyad period and marks the spot where Mohammed prayed before ascending to heaven on the Night Journey. During the capture of the city by the crusaders in 1099, the mosque was the site of the worst killings of Muslims by cru-saders.54 The royal residence of the kings of Jerusalem moved from the Tower of David to the Al-Aqsa mosque in 1104.55 However, the royal palace in the Al-Aqsa mosque was neglected by Baldwin I. When Baldwin died, Fulcher of Chartres reported that its roof was in danger of collapsing due to a lack of resources.56 Moreover, it appears, Bald-win was intentionally despoiling the building by taking lead from the roof to pay for the remodeling of the Holy Sepulcher and by taking capitals from the mosque for use in the construction of the chapel of St. Helena and in the new choir in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.57 In 1119, the Knights Templar took up residence in the mosque in what was then the southern wing of the royal palace.58 The Templars did not expand for the first nine years but the order grew rapidly after their papal recognition in 1128.59 After 1154, the order became the only resi-dent of the building after a new royal palace was completed by King Amalric.60 Despite this history, the Al-Aqsa mosque throughout the crusader period was associated not with the kings of Jerusalem, the Knights Templar or its Muslim builders, but instead with a king who lived more than two millennia earlier, Solomon.

In every western pilgrimage text that mentions the Al-Aqsa mosque, the building is linked with Solomon. In some accounts it is called his house, in others it is called his palace and in still others it is referred to as his temple, but in each case the structure is linked to Solomon.61 This

 54 Gesta Francorum (n. 18 above) 91; Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano

itinere, trans. John H. Hill and Laureta L. Hill (Philadelphia 1998) 247; Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem, trans. John H. Hill and Laureta L. Hill (Philadelphia 1968) 261.

55 Boas, Jerusalem (n. 30 above) 79. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 At first, only the master and the seneschal of the order lived in the building itself;

ibid. 27. 59 Ibid. 79–80. 60 The new palace was built to the south of the Tower of David. Very few, if any,

traces still survive of this palace. Ibid. 21, 80. 61 Saewulf, the First Guide and other early sources call it a temple, Daniel calls it a

house and many later sources including John of Wurzburg call it a palace. Saewulf, Iti-nera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.18; First Guide, Gesta Fran-

THE CRUSADER REBRANDING 89

link to Solomon is also made in the pilgrimage accounts of the Ortho-dox Christian abbot, Daniel of Russia, and the Sicilian Muslim traveler, Muhammad al-Idrisi.62 The contemporary accounts of the capture of Jerusalem show that the link of the Al-Asqa mosque to Solomon ex-isted at least as early the turn of the twelfth century. However, the linking of the Al-Aqsa mosque with Solomon predates the crusader occupation of Jerusalem.

The Byzantine accounts of the area make no links of the area with Solomon.63 The first account of the area under Muslim rule was made by a French bishop named Arculf around the year 670.64 He provides the first description of what would become the Al-Aqsa mosque:

But in that renowned place where once the Temple had been magnificently constructed, placed in the neighborhood of the wall from the east, the Sara-cens now frequent a four sided house of prayer, which they have built rudely, constructing in by raising boards and great beams on some remains. This house can, it is said, hold three thousand men at once.65

From this date onward, there are several references to the Al-Aqsa mosque in the pilgrimage sources. A ninth century monk named Ber-nard wrote that “To the north is the Temple of Solomon which contains a Saracen synagogue.”66 This is the earliest link between this site and Solomon. This link between the site and Solomon is repeated in Mus-lim texts such as the travels of the Persian Nasir Il-Khusrau.67 But the clearest connection is made by Muhammad al-Idrisi:

You come to the holy house built by Solomon, the son of David. This, in the time of the Jews, was a mosque to which pilgrimage was made, but it was taken out of their hands and they were driven from thence; but when the days of Islam came, under the kings of the Muslims, the spot came once more to be venerated, as the Masjid al Aksa.68

 corum (n. 18 above) 99; Daniel the Abbot, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 132; John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.244.

62 Daniel the Abbot, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 132; al-Idrisi, Jerusalem Pil-grimage (n. 6 above) 244.

63 Eusbius, Eusbius’ Life of Constantine, The Churches of Constantine: being trans-lated from Eusbius and other early Pilgrims, Palestine Pilgrims Texts Society, trans. J. H. Bernard (London 1887) 26; Antoninus Martyr, Of the Holy Places Visited by Antoninus Martyr, Palestine Pilgrims Texts Society, trans. A. Stewart (London 1896) 15.

64 John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades (Warminister 1977) 9–10. 65 Adamnan, The Pilgrimage of Arculfus in the Holy Land, Palestine Pilgrims Texts

Society, trans. J. R. MacPherson (London 1895) 4–5. 66 Bernard the Monk, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades (n. 64 above) 114. 67 Nasir Il-Khusrau, Diary of a Journey through Syria and Palestine, Palestine Pil-

grims Texts Society, trans. G. Le Strange (London 1983) 27. 68 Al-Idrisi, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 244.

90 JOHN GIEBFRIED Taken together these texts suggest that the Muslims saw the Al-Aqsa mosque as at least the continuation of the tradition of the temple of Solomon, if not the actual temple itself.

The Al-Aqsa mosque during the crusader period is thus an inheritor of the tradition of associating this structure with King Solomon. How-ever, throughout the period, how the building was linked to him changed. The eyewitness accounts refer to the Al-Asqa mosque as the Temple of Solomon at the time of the capture of Jerusalem in 1099.69 The non-eyewitness accounts of the conquest of Jerusalem written by western monastic authors also repeat this association.70 The earliest pilgrim accounts, those written before 1106, also refer to this building as the temple of Solomon.71 However in the account of Abbot Daniel, the building is referred to as the house of Solomon.72 In almost every subsequent other account, the structure is referred to as the palace of Solomon.73 Wilkinson argues that this is a change only in nomenclature as opposed to a change in name since the word templum can also mean palace.74 However the timing of this change in vocabulary is far too convenient to accept Wilkinson’s argument, since the wording changed just after the structure became the royal residence in 1104. This change from being listed as a temple and later a house and then a palace is most likely a result of the change in functions in the early history of crusader Jerusalem. Prior to the capture of the city it had been a place of worship and became a palace shortly thereafter. The change from a temple to a palace could also be attributed to the conversion of the Dome of the Rock, into the Templum Domini. Since the crusaders al-

 69 Gesta Francorum (n. 18 above) 91; Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano

itinere (n. 54 above) 247. Raymond of Aguilers refers to the place of the killing as “the temple and porch of Solomon”; Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem (n. 54 above) 261.

70 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta per Francos, ed. R. B .C. Huygens, CCCM 127A (Turnholt 1996) 130–131. Robert the Monk, Robert the Monk’s History of the First Cru-sade, trans. Carole Sweetenham (Aldershot 2005) 200. The outlier in this is Albert of Aachen, who called it the “Palace of Solomon.” This may be the result of a later compo-sition date. Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, ed. Susan Edgington (Oxford 2007) 429.

71 Saewulf, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.18; First Guide, Gesta Francorum (n. 18 above) 99; Qualiter, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.16; Ottobonian Guide, in Silvio G. Mercati, “Santuari e reliquie Costan-tinopolitane secondo il codice Ottoboniano latino 169 prima della conquista latina (1204),” Rendiconti della Ρontificia Accademia Romana di archeologia 12 (1936) 153–154; Guide (perhaps by German author), Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.156.

72 Daniel the Abbot, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 132. 73 The only outliers are the sources which are based on the guides written before 1106

and the Scandinavian sources. 74 Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 28.

THE CRUSADER REBRANDING 91

ready associated the Templum Domini with the Jewish Temple, origi-nally built by Solomon, the changing of a temple to a palace would avoid confusion on the part of pilgrims. Thus this changing of names coincides with a change in functions of the structure both for the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

Yet for the crusader kings of Jerusalem, this link with Solomon had important political ramifications. Linking the seat of the kingdom’s monarchy with the palace of Solomon allowed the kings and queens of Jerusalem to associate themselves with their biblical predecessors. This allowed them to present themselves as the rightful heirs of the ancient kings of Israel. Such a program has already been seen in other projects undertaken by the crusader kings of Jerusalem. One example is the Melisende psalter, commissioned by King Fulk for his wife Queen Melisende around 1135.75 On the psalter’s ivory cover are depictions of the life of King David, which can be read as a deliberate attempt to associate David with the crusader monarchy.76 Similarly, linking the seats of the two monarchies can be seen as a part of a larger program to legitimize and sacralize crusader rule. This appropriation also served the Knights Templar once they had taken over the site. The authority of knights was clearly reinforced by having the palace of the Temple’s first builder as their headquarters.

Another notable point about the Al-Asqa mosque under Christian rule was the lack of detail in the pilgrimage accounts about it. Most authors simply mention the building in passing, or not at all. The building itself was not closed to pilgrims, because Abbot Daniel, Peter the Deacon and John of Wurzburg provide a description of the build-ing’s interior.77 However, while these three authors comment on the building’s mosaics, columns and stables, none of them provide any detailed account of the structure.

Moreover, aside from the building being linked with the name of Solomon, there are no links to Solomon himself in the mosque. There is no mention of any events in Solomon’s life associated with this build-ing in any account, such as the greeting of the Queen of Sheba, nor are there any relics such as the sword with which he threatened to cut the baby in half to settle a dispute between the two mothers.78 This makes the site nearly unique in the city of Jerusalem for an important structure

 75 Christopher Tyerman, God’s War, A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, MA

2006) 210. 76 Ibid. 77 Daniel the Abbot, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 132–133; Peter the Deacon,

CCSL 175 (Turnhout 1965) 93–98; John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Cru-cesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.244.

78 1 Kings 10.10; 1 Kings 3.16–28.

92 JOHN GIEBFRIED to have no definite links to biblical stories. Even secular buildings like the Tower of David had biblical associations in pilgrim texts.79

This suggests that neither the kings of Jerusalem, nor the Knights Templar had any interest in turning the site into a point of pilgrimage. Perhaps this is because the building was a busy place crucial to the run-ning of the kingdom and the kings and later the Templars neither had the time nor the resources to regularly entertain pilgrims. This could have been changing because of the construction of a large church men-tioned by John of Wurzburg and Theoderic, but this construction was halted by Saladin’s recapture of the city and whatever the Templars’ ambitions for this church were have been lost to history.80

CONCLUSIONS

During the period of crusader rule in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque underwent fundamental but gradual transfor-mations to become the Templum Domini and the palace of Solomon. These transformations were more than just an architectural remodeling. They were a spiritual rebranding of these holy spaces. This rebranding, seen through the eyes of the pilgrims who visited these sites, demon-strates the crusaders’ profound historical and theological understanding of the place of the Temple Mount. Moreover, these transformations demonstrate a deliberate policy to alter and appropriate non-Christian traditions and fit them into a new Christian sacred geography of cru-sader Jerusalem.

The evolution of the Templum Domini started from the Byzantine era tradition of the site in which the place was a monument to God’s abandonment of the Jews. This idea was left behind and after a few decades of varying perspectives, including an extra-biblical under-standing of the site as the place where the apostles confessed to Christ, a new interpretation emerged. The Templum Domini became a place of confession and atonement and it represented a theological appropriation of the Jewish Temple. Likewise, the crusader palace of Solomon evolved from the Muslim tradition that it was the Temple of Solomon and took on a new function and name as a house or palace as the site became taken over by the kings of Jerusalem and later the Knights Templar. This process of turning non-Christian holy sites into Christian ones reveals how the crusaders understood their surroundings and how they sought to explain their sacred functions to the many pilgrims who

 79 Daniel the Abbot connects it with the story of David and Bathsheba. Daniel the Ab-

bot, Jerusalem Pilgrimage (n. 6 above) 131. 80 John of Wurzburg, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.244;

Theoderic, Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (n. 19 above) 2.344.

THE CRUSADER REBRANDING 93

visited Jerusalem. These pilgrimage records, therefore, offer a window into the crusaders’ mindset and a glimpse into the short history of the crusader Temple Mount.

94 JOHN GIEBFRIED TABLE 1. THIRTEENTH-CENTURY PILGRIMAGE TEXTS THAT MENTION

THE CRUSADER TEMPLE MOUNT81

 81 Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, (n. 6 above) 4–23; Shagrir, “The Guide of MS

Beinecke 481.77” (n. 2 above) 10.

Pilgrimage Texts before 1141

Approximate Date

Pilgrimage Texts after 1141

Approximate Date

The First Guide 1099–1103 The Icelandic Guide

~1150

Qualiter 1099–1103 Mohammad Al-Idrisi

1154

The Ottobonian Guide

1099–1103 The Seventh Guide

~1160

Saewulf 1101–1103 Benjamin of Tudela

1166–1171

The Guide Perhaps by a German Author

1102–1106 The Second Guide ~1170

Abbot Daniel 1106–1108 John of Wurzburg ~1170 Guide in the Gesta Francorum Expugnantium Iherusalem

After 1109 Theodoric 1167–1174

De Situ Before 1114 John Phocas 1185 The Guide of MS Beinecke 481.77

Before 1120

The Work on Geography

1128–1137

Peter the Deacon 1137 Nikulás of Þverá ~1140