ABSTRACT
Christian control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land during the earlier part of the twelfth century, had given a huge impetus to the development of Christian pilgrimage to Palestine, not only from Western Europe but also from Byzantium, Russia, Armenia and Georgia. On 2 October, Jerusalem itself capitulated and, after some eight decades in Christian hands, the Holy Places of Christendom returned once again to Muslim control. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem was boosted after 1229, when Sultan al-Kamil of Egypt ceded the city, apart from the Haram al-Sharif, to Frederick II, along with Bethlehem, some surrounding villages and a corridor of land linking them to the coast. Tiberias and Ascalon were lost to the Ayyubids in 1247, but during the period from May 1250 to April 1254 when King Louis IX of France was in the Holy Land the coast between Jaffa and Beirut remained in Frankish hands, as did Beaufort, Safad and Nazareth in Galilee.
