. The term “crusader art” refers to works produced in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem during the Frankish colonial period from 1099 to 1291. Due to the assimilation and interpretation of artistic elements by westerners within the Latin Kingdom, along with the fragmentary state of some works of art and architecture, much crusader art escapes stylistic definition and attribution to workshop and patron. Early approaches to crusader art involved polarized categories of “eastern” and “western,” which reduced multicultural works to products of one homogeneous group. Recognition of the many groups in the Frankish kingdom and inquiries into definitions of ethnicity have recently contributed to more careful approaches to assessment of the artistic practices and products in the Latin Kingdom.
This article will raise the questions that must be posed in order to gain an understanding of the complicated field. To start, the complex composition of the crusader environment and its chronological bounds must be acknowledged. What characteristics make a work of art a work of crusader art? How does crusader art change? Crucial questions center on definitions of crusader art, characteristics of these works, and their place of production. Such definitions must involve careful consideration of format, iconography, and technique. Inquiries into the roles played by western groups and Byzantium, the locations of major centers (the Holy Land or Constantinople), and the differences between artistic production and artistic centers in the 12th and 13th centuries must also be considered.
The Holy Land and the Mediterranean had long been an environment shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Within the Christian population alone, distinct cultures were found in the variety of Christian sects, such as Orthodox Christians, Maronites, Jacobites, Melchites, Nestorians, Coptic Christians, Armenians, and Syrian Christians. Likewise, the Islamic world was unified politically only in the 12th century under Saladin. Even the westerners represented a variety of ethnicities, from Normans to Icelanders to southern Italians. In Sicily and Cyprus, colonization under the Normans in the 11th century had already instigated the meeting of Arab, Byzantine, and Norman cultures, artistic techniques, and products.
Crusaders called this variegated world Outremer (“Overseas”), a term used in reference to controlled states, especially the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, that included Lesser Armenia, the County of Edessa, the County of Tripoli, and the Principality of Antioch. The formal initiation of the Latin Kingdom began in 1099 with the capture of Jerusalem and the slaughter of all those non-Westerners who sought refuge within the walls of the Temple of Jerusalem. As for artistic activity, scholarship supports a later date for the formation and establishment of workshops and interest in patronage. Thus, artistic activity of the crusaders falls within two periods: from the early 12th century until the taking of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, and from 1191, when Acre became the new capital of the kingdom, until 1291, when Acre fell.
In the 19th century, scholarship of the French colonial mindset used selective stylistic or iconographic characteristics to polarize works of crusader art into ill-defined categories of “East” and “West.” Such approaches have been overturned. A work of crusader art must be produced during the period of the Latin Kingdom, and its artistic production must involve at least one westerner. In many cases, a western or Byzantine donor can be identified or suggested due to sufficient documentation. A decisive application of ethnic labels must, however, be used with care, especially when labeling artist or workshop and locating the region of production. Careful investigation into iconographic elements problematic for the Orthodox church but part of western formal vocabulary may also contribute to the attribution of work to a regional workshop.
Due to westerners’ lack of familiarity with new materials, many works of architecture and sculpture incorporate techniques native to the Latin Kingdom and suggest the cooperative efforts of local workshops. Other works, such as manuscript illuminations, icons, wall paintings, mosaics, and ivories, can be ascribed either to one particular culture (or in some cases to one workshop) on the basis of technique or use of iconographic elements, or to a melange of workers of diverse ethnic backgrounds. In these media, Latin or Greek inscriptions offer clues to the circumstances of production.
In Jerusalem, the architecture of the Holy Sepulcher exemplifies the complex interchanges between cultures. For the crusaders, the building came to symbolize Jerusalem and the Latin Kingdom, as the number of holy sites grew and pilgrims assigned new meanings to sites within and outside the Sepulcher. Since the construction of the first building under the emperor Constantine, the Holy Sepulcher marked the site of Christ’s burial, and subsequent destruction initiated the rebuilding financed by Constantine IX Monomachus. The domed structure was characteristic of Byzantine architecture, with a polygonal apse and three separate spaces for small chapels. Through alteration, the crusaders attempted to transform the building into a Benedictine pilgrimage church, changing the orientation of the altar from west to east and adding radiating chapels. Such alterations conform to western requirements for churches, but the building techniques come from a variety of sources. Rib vaulting is native to the crusader kingdom, the horizontal masonry is French, the flat roofs of the transepts resemble Palestinian buildings, and a tall Aquitinian dome surmounts the structure. The building also gained an additional function, when it served as a place of coronation and celebration of the anniversary of the taking of Jerusalem in 1099.
Another 12th-century monument that defies attribution to a single cultural group is the Melisende Psalter (B.L., Egerton 1139; ca. 1131–43). Its elaborately carved ivory cover studded with enamels, twenty-four full-page introductory miniatures, and eight illuminated initials suggest that a number of artists contributed to the psalter, which illustrates the high level of opulence in luxury goods desired by members of the aristocracy associated with crusader society. Though the psalter was initially attributed to the patronage of Queen Melisende (r. 1131–61), lack of evidence and the number of cultural elements point toward the probability of another patron. Such features as the Latin signature of the artist Basilius, the text of the calendar with English saints, the Byzantine dress of the character in the roundels of the ivory cover, and western iconographic elements may not easily offer a name or label for artists and patron, but they do suggest that the agents of production were many and mixed.
Joint patronage produced works that reflect the fusion of cultures and also their distinctiveness. In 1169, King Amalric I and the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus commissioned mosaics that featured a variety of subjects with Byzantine and western elements in the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. In the nave, the representation of the seven ecumenical councils on the south wall and the six provincial councils on the north wall are Greek in origin, relating to a profession of faith to bring out the condemnation of heresies. Greek inscriptions name the figures representing each council. Beneath these mosaics were the ancestors of Christ with Latin inscriptions that led to the west wall, which held a Tree of Jesse, a typically western iconographic element.
Also at Bethlehem, arcade columns in the nave carry paintings by a number of artists. A thickly painted holy figure graces each column. Saints from diverse geographic areas include Macarius, Anthony Abbot and Euthymius (hermit saints), George (English), Cosmas and Damian (Syrian), Canute and Olaf (Scandinavian), Fusca (Venetian), and St. Margaret of Antioch. One column bears an entire group, identified with Greek inscriptions: Mary the mother of James, Salome, Mary Magdalene, and the Virgin Mary. Another column holds both St. Leo and St. Anne. Kneeling donors underline the function of the columns as votive paintings. Named in Latin, Greek, or both, these figures most immediately illustrate the significance and interdependence of religious and cultural roots for natives as well as for many foreigners and at the same time attest to the communal representation of these roots in crusader society.
During the first period of the Latin Kingdom, the Haram in Jerusalem had been transformed into the Templar headquarters and the site of an Augustinian house. After the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, many of the Christian buildings in the Haram were dismantled and the fragments were reused in the Aqsa mosque, the Dome of the Rock, the entrance to Bab as-Silsilah, and many other Islamic structures. The carving of these pieces are all of high quality, ranging from twisted columns to “wet leaf” acanthus capitals with the sinuous delicate leaf forms carved in relief. Due to the fragmentary nature of the material, however, the composition of the “Temple” workshop remains a matter for speculation, although scholars trace the subsequent migration of artists to southern Italy. In addition to the Temple Workshop, the figural capitals intended for the church of the Annunciation at Nazareth and two lintels over the main entrance to the Holy Sepulcher remain important works in a corpus of crusader sculpture.
When the capital moved to Acre in 1191, artistic activity lapsed until ca. 1250. The crusade of Louis IX and his presence at Acre (1252–54) brought greater support for the Latin Kingdom and motivated patronage, which may account for the greater number of surviving manuscripts and icons from this period. One of Louis IX’s commissions for an Old French Bible, the Arsenal Bible (Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal 5211), shares features with frescoes in Constantinople. Louis IX also initiated investment in increased fortifications of such major sites as Caesarea, Jaffa, Sidon, and later in the century the capital of Acre.
A number of 13th-century icons have been characterized as the product of western artists because of certain unorthodox representations of Byzantine dress and the inclusion of western emblems. Due in part to the scanty remains of comparative material, such as monumental painting, and to the stylistic variety of local workshops, firm attributions of groups of icons to one location are not always possible. Applications of simple “eastern” or “western” labels do not take into consideration local commercial workshops that produced marketable icons for one ethnic group or another.
The Latin Kingdom was not the monolithic culture that westerners have wished to project. The diverse ethnic fabric demanded variety in patronage, eclectic artistic activity, and a broad range of artistic products. Distinct differences between the crusader world in the 12th and 13th centuries may hamper the search for continuity of workshops and patrons but at the same time underline the necessity of acknowledging the complex social, political, and economic circumstances surrounding the production of crusader art.
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