ABSTRACT
Evidence for the presence of institutions of higher learning in Crusader Jerusalem isvery slim. There were obviously some such establishments in the city, but they may not have amounted to very much, especially when compared to contemporary institutions in the West. Centres of theological study were certainly to be found in the city, such as the cathedral school of the Holy Sepulchre where one of the masters, and possibly the head of the school, was the future cardinal John of Pisa. Under him studied perhaps the best-known intellectual of the kingdom, the future chronicler and archbishop William of Tyre. He was author of the most important of the contemporary histories of the Latin East, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Seas, and of a lost work on the history of oriental rulers, both written under the patronage of King Amaury. But even under such a distinguished personage as John, institutions of this type must have been of limited quality, cut off as they were from the intellectual scene in the West. Benjamin Kedar goes so far as to state that it was impossible to pursue higher learning in Jerusalem’s cathedral school, or elsewhere in the Frankish Levant.1 Probably, therefore, most local intellectuals, like William of Tyre, spent several years of study in institutions in the West. Amongst the few noted intellectuals of the Holy Land were clergy from Jerusalem, such as Rogero Fretel, who wrote a treatise on the Holy Places, and two Augustinian priors, Achard and Geoffroi, who wrote poems on the history of the Templum Domini.2
