Moore traces and re-interprets the significance of the architecture of the Christian Holy Land within changing religious and political contexts.

Explores the Holy Land as a critical site where Catholics sought spiritual and political legitimacy during a period of profound change.

The Near East in the era of the Crusades was home to diverse populations Orthodox and Latin Christians, Shia and Sunni Muslims, Jews and Samaritans. It was the meeting-point for Arab, Turkish, Byzantine and Frankish culture, the latter itself a mixture of Western traditions adapted to circumstances in the crusader states by the Europeans who had settled in the Holy Land. While the Crusades have become a synonym for brutality and bigotry, the crusader states represented a positive example of harmonious coexistence across two centuries. Likewise, while scholars from a wide range of disciplines including archaeology, art history, and medicine have shed light on diverse aspects of the crusader states, to date there is no single introductory source that provides a comprehensive overview of these unique states as a starting point for the uninitiated. The Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades aims to fill this gap while correcting common misconceptions by bringing together recent scholarly research on a range of topics to create a comprehensive description. It covers the history, demography, state institutions, foreign policy, economy, art, architecture, and lifestyle of the people who lived in the crusader states in the period from 1100 to 1300. It is organized in two main parts: a chronological historical overview, and a topical discussion of key features of these unique kingdoms. An additional, final chapter describes the rise and fall of the House of Ibelin to give the entire history a human face. The Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades would make an ideal textbook for undergraduates while offering hobby historians an introduction to the crusader states with tips for further research.

In the 88 years between its establishment by the victorious armies of the First Crusade and its collapse following the disastrous defeat at Hattin, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was the site of vibrant artistic and architectural activity. As the crusaders rebuilt some of Christendom's most sacred churches, or embellished others with murals and mosaics, a unique and highly original art was created. Focusing on the sculptural, mosaic, and mural cycles adorning some of the most important shrines in the Kingdom (such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, The Basilica of the Annunciation, and the Church of the Nativity), this book offers a broad perspective of Crusader art and architecture. Among the many aspects discussed are competition among pilgrimage sites, crusader manipulation of biblical models, the image of the Muslim, and others. Building on recent developments in the fields of patronage studies and reception theory, the book offers a study of the complex ways in which Crusader art addressed its diverse audiences (Franks, indigenous eastern Christians, pilgrims) while serving the intentions of its patrons. Of particular interest to scholars and students of the Crusades and of Crusader art, as well as scholars and students of medieval art in general, this book will appeal to all those engaging with intercultural encounters, acculturation, Christian-Muslim relations, pilgrimage, the Holy Land, medieval devotion and theology, Byzantine art, reception theory and medieval patronage.

Icons of Space: Advances in Hierotopy brings together important scholars of Byzantine religion, art, and architecture, to honour the work of renowned art historian Alexei Lidov. As well as his numerous publications, Lidov is well known for developing the concept of hierotopy, an innovative approach for studying the creation of sacred spaces. Hierotopy and the related concepts of ‘spatial icons’ and ‘image-paradigms’ emphasize fundamental questions about icons, including what defines them as structures, spaces, and experiences. Chapters in this volume engage with the overarching theme of icons of space by employing, contrasting, and complementing methods of hierotopy with more traditional approaches such as iconography. Examinations of icons have traditionally been positioned within strictly historical, theological, socio-economic, political, and art history domains, but this volume poses epistemological questions about the creation of sacred spaces that are instead inclusive of multi-layered iconic ideas and the lived experiences of the creators and beholders of such spaces. This book contributes to image theory and theories of architecture and sacred space. Simultaneously, it moves beyond colonial studies that predominantly focus on questions of religion and politics as expressions of privileged knowledge and power. This book will appeal to scholars and students of Byzantine history, as well as those interested in hierotopy and art history.

With the aim to write the history of Christianity in Scandinavia with Jerusalem as a lens, this book investigates the image – or rather the imagination – of Jerusalem in the religious, political, and artistic cultures of Scandinavia through most of the second millennium. Jerusalem is conceived as a code to Christian cultures in Scandinavia. The first volume is dealing with the different notions of Jerusalem in the Middle Ages. Tracing the Jerusalem Code in three volumes Volume 1: The Holy City Christian Cultures in Medieval Scandinavia (ca. 1100–1536) Volume 2: The Chosen People Christian Cultures in Early Modern Scandinavia (1536–ca. 1750) Volume 3: The Promised Land Christian Cultures in Modern Scandinavia (ca. 1750–ca. 1920)

Though the subject of classical reception in early modern Europe is a familiar one, modern scholarship has tended to assume the dominance of Greece and Rome in engagements with the classical world during that period. The essays in this volume aim to challenge this prevailing view by arguing for the significance and familiarity of the ancient near east to early modern Europe, establishing the diversity and expansiveness of the classical world known to authors like Shakespeare and Montaigne in what we now call the 'global Renaissance'. However, global Renaissance studies has tended to look away from classical reception, exacerbating the blind spot around the significance of the ancient near east for early modern Europe. Yet this wider classical world supported new modes of humanist thought and unprecedented cross-cultural encounters, as well as informing new forms of writing, such as travel writing and antiquarian treatises; in many cases, and befitting its Herodotean origins, the ancient near east raises questions of travel, empire, religious diversity, cultural relativism, and the history of European culture itself in ways that prompted detailed, engaging, and functional responses by early modern readers and writers. Bringing together a range of approaches from across the fields of classical studies, history, and comparative literature, this volume seeks both to emphasize the transnational, interdisciplinary, and interrogative nature of classical reception, and to make a compelling case for the continued relevance of the texts, concepts, and materials of the ancient near east, specifically, to early modern culture and scholarship.

Publisher Description

Views of Jerusalem and the Holy Land is an essential and unique guide to the significant sites of Jewish, Christian and Muslim pilgrimage, such as the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock, and the Stations of the Cross. Its richly informed text, over 180 photographs and detailed captions make this book an invaluable reference as well as a meticulously crafted photographic record of late-twentieth-century Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Steven Brooke is an internationally recognized leader in the photography of architecture, landscape and design. Winner of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and a faculty member of the University of Miami School of Architecture, he has photographed over 40 books on architecture and design.

An indispensable resource for readers investigating how religion has influenced societies and cultures, this three-volume encyclopedia assesses and synthesizes the many ways in which religious faith has shaped societies from the ancient world to today. Each volume of the set focuses on a different era of world history, ranging through the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. Every volume is filled with essays that focus on religious themes from different geographical regions. For example, volume one includes essays considering religion in ancient Rome, while volume three features essays focused on religion in modern Africa. This accessible layout makes it easy for readers to learn more about the ways that religion and society have intersected over the centuries, as well as specific religious trends, events, and milestones in a particular era and place in world history. Taken as a a whole, this ambitious and wide-ranging work gathers more than 500 essays from more than 150 scholars who share their expertise and knowledge about religious faiths, tenets, people, places, and events that have influenced the development of civilization over the course of recorded human history.