ABSTRACT
The short anonymous text at the centre of this article was probably written in the first decades of the Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem, sometime after the conquest of Jerusalem by the first crusaders. It was written by a not particularly welleducated author, whose Latin is unrefined and whose grammar is often inadequate. It is probable that the text dates to the first half of the twelfth century, before the completion of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.1 It is possible, however, as I will argue later, to date its composition with greater accuracy. The text, which addresses the city of Jerusalem and other places in the Holy Land, has received scant mention in the literature on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and in the research on the Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem it has been largely overlooked.2 In what follows I will attempt to explore and explain this short text’s unique traits.
