ABSTRACT
The destruction of many, perhaps most, of the churches of Jerusalem by Caliph al-Hâkim at the beginning of the eleventh century opened the way for a comprehensive programme of church-building, which constituted perhaps the most important architectural contribution of the Franks in Jerusalem. According to Pringle, about sixty churches and chapels are recorded in Crusader Jerusalem.1 The architectural variety among these buildings is considerable. For the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the Franks adapted the design of the Romanesque pilgrimage churches in Europe, the Church of the Ascension imitated the plan of the octagonal Templum Domini, the Church of the Tomb of the Virgin was a double (upper and lower) church with a cruciform crypt church containing the tomb and perhaps a basilica above it, the Church of St James was an eastern-type basilica with a central dome and the Church of St Anne was a basilica with an inscribed transept and a dome.
