ABSTRACT
Once the Franks had assumed political control of the Holy Land it was inevitable that they should direct religious life. In the immediate aftermath of the capture of Jerusalem (1099) the conquerors purged non-Christians from the city, although this would be relaxed in later years to allow Muslim pilgrims to visit. Prior to the First Crusade the Holy Sepulchre had been under the custody of the Greek Orthodox community and although the Catholics assumed guardianship of the site, the Eastern Christians were permitted to remain and have freedom of worship. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself was a rather unimpressive collection of buildings that had grown up on the site since the time of Constantine in the fourth century. In the early 1130s the Franks decided to erect a new church complex that incorporated sites such as the Holy Sepulchre itself, Calvary and the Hill of Golgotha and they built the much larger and more splendid structure that remains to this day. On 15 July 1149 the new church of the Holy Sepulchre
was inaugurated. It brought many key locations under one roof to enable pilgrims to process around the site and in doing so it followed the trend found in the principal shrine churches of the West, such as St James of Compostela (north-western Spain) and Saint Denis near Paris. The main apse was decorated with a depiction of Christ’s descent into hell (the Anastasis) and, as Kühnel has observed, quoting the Gesta Francorum, ‘The scene expressed the most ambitious of the crusaders who considered themselves “the followers of Christ by whom they had been redeemed from the power
13. Church of the Holy Sepulchre
of hell” ’ (Kühnel, 1994: 50). Elsewhere in Jerusalem, Muslim religious buildings, such as the Dome of the Rock, were re-dedicated as the Templum Domini and many other churches and institutions were founded by the Franks, including religious houses (the Orthodox church of St Lazarus in Bethany became a convent for Benedictine nuns during Melisende’s reign), hospitals for pilgrims and, as we saw earlier, the military orders.
