ABSTRACT
The Anglo-Norman version relates how the Hospital was founded and benefitted from the gift that Judas Maccabeus had sent to Jerusalem. Zachary, the father of St John the Baptist, was instructed to govern the hospital, which, during the passion of Christ provided shelter to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles. The single nave church type was extensively adopted in Frankish settlements and in castles associated with the Military Orders. In most castles, brethren were segregated from the laity and there was no need for separation between the community and the secular congregation. But the churches of Beth Gibelin, Abu Ghosh and Acre served as pilgrimage centres, probably functioning as parish churches in addition to serving the Hospitaller community. At Abu-Ghosh, the congregants were presented with the Christ-centred narratives depicted on the church walls. According to early fourteenth-century maps, the Hospitaller compound comprised three parts: the hospitale, the ecclesia and the domus infirmorum..
