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Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 1–14 TWELFTH-CENTURY PILGRIMAGE ART IN BETHLEHEM AND JERUSALEM: POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN EUROPE AND THE CRUSADER KINGDOM Jaroslav Folda During the 12th century the three most important sites in the Holy Land were in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth. While these sites were controlled by the Crusaders (c. 1099– 1187), the numbers of pilgrims from the West increased, and the churches at each of the sites were gradually renovated and decorated. While they were cathedral churches for their respective Latin bishop, archbishop, or patriarch, nonetheless their greatest function was as centres of Christian pilgrimage. The artistic patronage of these pilgrims to the Holy Land in the 12th century provides ample evidence for the diversity of European visitors to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. In this regard, I propose that it was the church at Bethlehem that included the largest programme of pilgrim-sponsored art from the 12th century. Pilgrims to Bethlehem engaged local painters to provide icons that would commemorate their patron saints, linking the holy place of the birth of Christ with their European homeland. These large icons, which decorate columns of the nave and aisles of the Church of the Nativity, include a surprisingly diverse array of saintly figures that include cult images of the Virgin and Child, along with the images of apostles, bishops, deacons, ascetics, soldier-saints, holy kings and important female saints. On rare occasions the images of the pilgrims who may have commissioned the column paintings were also represented. Furthermore, in one independent instance there is a small devotional icon which links patron saints associated with the three great Christian pilgrimage sites at the time — Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela — ordered by an anonymous pilgrim who appears to have visited all three sites. During the 12th century the three most important dominical sites in the Holy Land were located in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth. The church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was believed to incorporate the rock-cut tomb in which Jesus was buried and where he rose from the dead. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was the place where Jesus was born and laid in a manger, and where the Magi came to worship him. The church of the Annunciation in Nazareth was the place where Mary was told she would be the mother of God, and where the Incarnation took place. During the period when these sites were controlled by the Crusaders, from 1099 to 1187, the numbers of pilgrims from the West increased, and each of the sites was gradually renovated and decorated. We are all familiar to some extent with the artistic programmes that were commissioned during the © British Archaeological Association 2015 period of Crusader control. Each programme was designed to distinguish its site from the others and to proclaim its special importance to the pilgrims who came there, and proclaim a distinctive visual message through various media. These artistic programmes were also designed to relate to the other ecclesiastical and political functions that these churches served, and those functions differed significantly. Whereas the church of the Holy Sepulchre was a major focus of pilgrimage, it was also the cathedral church of the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, and the coronation and burial church of the Latin kings of Jerusalem.1 By contrast, the church at Bethlehem played no role as a state church for the kingdom after 1118, and the church at Nazareth (far to the north of Jerusalem) had no state function. While all were cathedral churches for their respective Latin bishop or archbishop, their greatest function was as centres of Christian 1   pilgrimage is indicated by the fact that some of these images are accompanied by ‘portraits’ of kneeling donors who appear to be pilgrims, and it was they who apparently commissioned an individual icon. In this regard, it is notable that all of the extant donor/ pilgrims depicted (there are three sets) are apparently from the West. Third: the very earliest icon presents the holy image of the full-length Virgin and Child, Glykophilousa, enthroned in the cave grotto of Bethlehem itself, a celebration of the birth of Jesus and Mary’s child in this holy place. It is dated by an inscription to 1130, and is the only one of these icons to be dated. Stylistic analysis, however, makes it clear that these thirty icons were painted by different artists at different times between 1130 and 1187, most likely on commission. Therefore it is worth looking at a selection of examples to see which saints are honoured, reflecting the devotion of pilgrims from various parts of the Christian world, and what specific links can be established between Bethlehem and western Europe. As already mentioned, the earliest extant encaustic painting features an icon of the Virgin and Child, Glykophilousa, enthroned in the cave grotto in Bethlehem, on the west side of the fifth column in the south aisle of the church.5 It is a well-known Byzantine iconographic type, the Virgin of Tenderness, but the image is given a distinctly western formal and emotional flavour by an Italo-byzantine Crusader painter. It is also notable that the icon deploys inscriptions in Latin: there are two epigrammatic prayers: one below on the red border, ‘O Heavenly Virgin, grant solace to the needy’; and one above on the upper part of the image, ‘To the son, the true God, be merciful to these distressed ones’. The halo is then flanked by the inscription ‘Sca Maria, with a damaged inscription below this which appears to give a date of 1130.6 Mary holds the baby close to her with both arms; his head is nestled against her cheek and his arms reach around her neck. In style, this artist is generally comparable to the two Byzantinizing painters in the Melisende Psalter (London, British Library, Egerton MS 1139), but here it seems likely the icon painter could be a first generation Crusader painter who may originally be from southern Italy. Although the date of the Psalter is slightly later, c. 1135, both the icon and the Psalter exhibit very strong Byzantine influence in these significant early examples of Crusader painting.7 In addition to the two figures inside the red border of the icon, there are three figures outside (Fig. 2). At the lower left, directly beneath the vertical red strip of the border, is a kneeling bearded male figure whose body is in profile. He wears a grey tunic and a luxurious red cloak with a rabbit or squirrel fur lining. His head is in three-quarter view, while his dress and the large kite-shaped shield before him make clear that he is western European, although he is not otherwise identified. To the right are two kneeling women with long blonde hair, also in profile: the older figure behind is in white, with the younger woman dressed in red in pilgrimage. In this regard, it is notable that the largest extant 12th-century programme of pilgrim-sponsored art among these three sites was that of the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. BETHLEHEM I make my case for the importance of pilgrimsponsored art in the Church of the Nativity and its role as a pilgrimage church on the basis of a special feature of its artistic decoration not found in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem nor in the church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Each of these three great Holy Land churches had their own principal artistic programme achieved in specific campaigns: prior to 1149 at the church of the Holy Sepulchre, between 1167 and 1169 at the Church of the Nativity, and in the late 1170s at the church of the Annunciation.2 The Church of the Nativity is unique in having works of art commissioned by pilgrims painted on its columns from as early as 1130, that were then added to more or less continuously until shortly before 1187. I am referring here to a series of large icons, typically c. 1.50–1.75 m high and c. 500–800 mm wide, executed in encaustic, a wax technique, on the columns of the south aisle and nave. Altogether thirty of these icons survive in whole or in part.3 The icons deploy a traditional Byzantine format, that is, they are frontal images, with mostly standing figures full-length framed by red borders. They are all more or less the same large size, but even though in sequence they were painted somewhat randomly in the nave and south aisle between 1130 and the 1180s, by c. 1187 all twenty-two columns of the main nave had received an icon, along with six columns of the south aisle (Fig. 1).4 I suggest that these are direct reflections of the experience of pilgrimage to Bethlehem during the 12th century, and that some of these icons act as a link between the art of western Europe and that of the eastern Mediterranean. What is the specific evidence? First: the figures on these icons include a variety of images of saints worshipped in different, indeed far-flung parts of the Christian world, not just in the Crusader and Byzantine East. They include Old and New Testament figures, male and female martyrs, female virgins and male confessors, kings, bishops, warriors, deacons and devout ascetics from the East and the West. Some are universal saints known to Christians everywhere; other saints are known only in specific localized regions and were most likely commissioned by pilgrims from those areas; a number of these saints come from western Europe. Notable examples include St Leonard, born in France and founder of the monastery of Noblat near Limoges, St Catald, born in Ireland and who later became the bishop of Taranto, St Knute, king of the Danes, St Olaf, king of Norway, and St Fusca, from Torcello. Second: their direct link to the phenomenon of 2 -       F 1 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: Diagram of the locations of images, with their likely dates of execution listed below: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. James the Greater, with pilgrims (c. 1170s/early 1180s) Bartholomew (c. 1167–69) Virgin Glykophilousa, with pilgrims (1130) Brasius (c. early 1130s) Anne Nikopoia (c. 1140s–52) Leo (c. 1167–69) Marina/Margaret II (c. 1167–69) Virgin Hodegetria (c. 1130–87) Theodosius (c. 1167–69) Sabas (c. 1167–69) Stephen (c. 1140s–52) Knute (c. 1150s) Olaf, with pilgrim (c. 1150s) Vincent (c. 1140s–52) John the Baptist (c. 1150s) 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Elijah (c. mid-1130s) Onuphrius (c. 1140s–52) Fusca (c. 1167–69) Marina/Margaret I (c. 1167–69) Macarius (c. 1140s–52) Anthony (c. 1167–69) Euthymius (c. 1167–69) George (c. 1150s) Leonard (c. 1167–69) Cosmas (c. 1167–69) Damian (c. 1167–69) Catald (c. 1140s–52) Virgin Galaktotrophousa (c. mid-1130s) John the Evangelist (c. 1167–69) Crucifixion (c. 1130–87) From J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge 1995) (Courtesy of Cambridge University Press) 3   F 2 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: male and female pilgrims associated with the icon of the Virgin and Child Glykophilousa (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin). See also Plate IA in print edition the foreground. They too wear western dresses. These three figures, presumably a man with his wife and daughter, seem likely to be western pilgrims in Bethlehem in 1130, types of 12th-century Magi in effect come to worship the Child in the arms of his mother in the cave grotto. The fact that the letter ‘W’ appears over the head of the kneeling man and the letter ‘A’ appears over the head of the older kneeling woman on the red border of the icon suggests that, if these are abbreviations for their names, they are most likely to be from northern Europe.8 Although the figures are small in scale compared to the Virgin and Child, they are nonetheless boldly positioned with direct access to the cult figures, the heads of the man and the older woman overlapping the icon’s lower border. Indeed, they are most likely the donors, and this is their devotional icon. Even if we do not know their names or where exactly they came from, it is significant that the earliest datable icon on the columns of the Church of the Nativity is what appears to be a pilgrim’s icon. This demonstrates both the presence and importance of western pilgrims, as well as the significance of pilgrimage for the artistic embellishment of this holy site. This image of the Virgin Glykophilousa is one of four column-based icons that focus on the image of the Virgin, three of which appear in the south aisle, testifying to an entirely appropriate devotion to Mary, mother of Jesus, at this holy site.9 Elsewhere, icons were apparently commissioned by pilgrims from a variety of different places with different subjects in mind. Seven of these icons represent specifically western saints, while twelve represent saints revered equally by Christians in the East and the West, and a number contain specifically Byzantine saints. Because of their damaged condition, not all of the images on these icons are easily visible, but I have chosen examples from each of these three categories, with an emphasis on saints from the West, so as to discuss both what can be seen and to provide evidence for the importance of Christian pilgrimage to Bethlehem, as a 12th-century phenomenon that links East to the West. We can look first at the other two icons which are accompanied by pilgrims/donors. As a result of Scandinavian pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the 1150s, we find icons celebrating two prominent northern saintly kings. There is Olaf, king of Norway (col. 5/south side, main nave) (Fig. 3), and Knute IV, king of the Danes (col. 4/south side, main nave).10 One of these icons, that of King Olaf, is accompanied by a kneeling donor or pilgrim. There is also an inscription, ‘Scs’, to the left of his halo, and on the right side ‘Olauus Rex: Norwagie:’ in Latin only. Note that, when the icon of Olaf was painted during the 1150s, fewer than fourteen icons had then been added to the columns at Bethlehem, all of which seem to have been randomly placed in the nave or south aisle.11 Olaf II Haraldsson (995–1030), baptized in Rouen in 1014, ruled for fifteen years. He twice planned to go on 4 -       F 3 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: St Olaf icon seen from left and right (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin) 5   presumably Norwegian, was a member of some aristocratic family, perhaps even the royal family, and was responsible for commissioning the image. It is not perhaps surprising that the third saint to be depicted in an icon at Bethlehem associated with a pilgrim/donor is none other than St James the Greater. He is shown on the first column of the south aisle, facing west, and is the work of another Crusader artist with Italian ancestry (Fig. 4). This icon has an inscription in Latin only, ‘Sanctus Iacobus’ (Feast day: 25 July).15 It is interesting, moreover, that the icon of St James the Greater at Bethlehem is one of the last icons to have been created, c. 1180, that is, after the main mosaic project of 1167–69.16 Furthermore, this icon is accompanied by two kneeling pilgrims: a male pilgrim to the lower left, and a female pilgrim to the lower right.17 The figure of St James is quite badly damaged and most of the lower portion of the figure is lost. However, we can make him out as a robust, tall, bearded figure with a large book. The two pilgrims/ donors kneel outside the frame at the same level as the ground line on which he is standing. These two figures are interesting as not only do they wear western dress, but they are also identified as pilgrims in a manner not seen with the others, namely they both pilgrimage, and though he never reached the Holy Land himself he was known in Norway as Jorsalafarir, ‘Jerusalem pilgrim’, because of his avowed intention. Olaf’s cult as the most popular saint in Norway began to develop immediately on his death in 1030. His icon in Bethlehem was probably commissioned during a period of intense Norwegian pilgrimage to the Holy Land led by men such as Sigurd Mauclerc or Baron Roegnwaldr III, between 1130 and the 1150s.12 What is notable about the imagery of both of these kings is that for them the iconography of imperial Byzantine rulers is combined with that of western royalty — with western crowns, fur-lined garments and elaborate western shields, which linked them also to the icons of Byzantine warrior saints, such as that of St George, which was also painted at this time on the north side of the nave.13 Equally notable is that a praying female pilgrim or donor is depicted kneeling in a three-quarter pose on the same ground line as King Olaf. Her face is nearly frontal and her costume is very similar to that of the king with a tunic and cloak. She also has a dark head-dress covering her hair.14 She could represent one of the many Scandinavian pilgrims who came to Bethlehem around 1150. Indeed, it is even possible that this solitary female pilgrim, F 4 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: St James icon (head and torso) and male pilgrim with scallop shell on his scrip (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin). See also Plate IB in print edition 6 -       exclusively confined to the West.23 Cataldus is also given a bilingual inscription, which may be taken in this case to be a means of identifying an unfamiliar saint for the benefit of more local audiences. The image of Cataldus is badly damaged, so it is difficult to say much about the style of this figure other than that he is represented in a liturgical costume comparable to other western bishops at Bethlehem, that is, in Latin episcopal garments. The legend of Cataldus was that he was born in Ireland, but after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the mid- or late 7th century, he took up residence in Taranto, where he became bishop. His cult flourished after the rediscovery of his tomb by Drogo, the newly appointed Norman archbishop of Taranto, while excavating the new crypt of Taranto Cathedral in 1071, and became more widely celebrated across southern Italy in the course of the 12th century, particularly around Taranto and the Salentine peninsula. It is at the period when the cult was beginning to become more popular that perhaps a NormanApulian pilgrim commissioned this icon for the column in Bethlehem. We have already noted the 1150s icons of two Scandinavian kings, Knute IV and Olaf, suggesting that pilgrimage from the West was flourishing after the Second Crusade. There is also an icon of St George (col. 4/north side, main nave: bilingual inscription) depicted as a warrior standing frontally.24 We might comment that of all the soldier-saints found in Crusader and Byzantine icons in the Crusader period, George was the most popular, a saintly warrior patron for both the Byzantine and Crusader armies. In the Bethlehem representation, the basic iconography is largely Byzantine: a youthful man with curly hair, he stands frontally dressed in a tunic, with armour and mantle, holding a spear and round shield. Certain important features, however, suggest that he was painted by a Crusader painter well acquainted with the Byzantine tradition. The most visible of these features is the shield, on which the decoration consists of stylized lilies intertwined in a running pattern, a pattern otherwise unknown in Byzantine imagery of St George.25 There is no indication of who might have sponsored this icon at Bethlehem; it could have been a Crusader, or a Byzantine soldier, or even the relative of an English Crusader on pilgrimage. Later icons, particularly those of the 13th century, offer possible examples of this type of donor.26 Most importantly, St George appears as a stately warrior in a painting that was probably slightly later than the saintly warrior kings from Scandinavia, Olaf and Knute. And George was a saint obviously revered in both the East and the West, but with a very special cult location found inside the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, at Lydda/Lod, the traditional place of his martyrdom in the early 4th century.27 By the end of the 1150s, approximately fourteen icons had been painted on the columns, all but two on wear a scrip on which the scallop shell is prominent, identifying them as pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela now come to Bethlehem. One other point to be made about these pilgrims is that the two kneeling figures here, along with those for the icons of St Olaf and the Virgin and Child Glykophilousa, commissioned icons on which there are only Latin inscriptions, reinforcing the likelihood that they were pilgrims from the West. We will comment on other implications of this below. None of the other column icons at Bethlehem support surviving pilgrim/donor figures, though I take this to reflect a deliberate choice on the part of the donors/patrons not to have commissioned such an image, either because of cost or because of other limiting or cultural circumstances. It seems reasonable nonetheless to suggest that these other icons were the result of similar patronage and were intended to commemorate a special saint here at this holy site. With that in mind, we can consider some other western saints that are likely to have been the choice of a western pilgrim or a Crusader, along with a number of images that were very likely commissioned by local Christians. Among the earliest group of icons, produced shortly after 1130, is the only Old Testament figure; the prophet Elijah (col. 8/south side, main nave). He appears with an inscription in Greek and Latin (Feast day: 20 July).18 In this case, a strongly Byzantinizing Crusader artist appears to work in a strap fold style somewhat similar to the headpiece painter in the Melisende Psalter (c. 1135).19 Given his links to Sinai and his devout asceticism, Elijah probably reflects the interests of local Christians. Like the 1130 Virgin, Glykophilousa, he is represented seated, but here the setting is a landscape, and we see him being fed by ravens in the mountainous wilderness (I Kings 17: 1–6). His significance here is mainly as the Old Testament-ancestor of St Anthony, a saint known as the ‘Second Elijah’.20 In this Palestinian region Elijah came to be regarded as a founder patron of the Carmelites, which order was begun on Mount Carmel at the end of the 12th century. In the following decade, the 1140s, we find six more icons among which there are saints associated with the Holy Land, including the deacon St Stephen with a bilingual inscription (col. 3/south side, main nave).21 Another deacon, though one associated with the West, is St Vincent, who was also given a bilingual inscription and who is represented in a similar way to Stephen.22 It is likely that his image and that of Stephen were both done here by a Crusader artist of Italian background. However, in many ways the most remarkable of this group of 1140s icons is that dedicated to the 7th-century bishop of Taranto, St Cataldus (col. 8/north side, main nave). He is a saint whose cult was important in Apulia and Sicily, but which is otherwise highly localized and almost 7   columns in the main nave,28 so that when the main project to renovate and expand the mosaic programme of the church was initiated by King Amalrich I, Emperor Manuel I, and Ralph, bishop of Bethlehem in 1167, as documented by the bilingual inscription in the bema, serious attention was seemingly also given to adding further icons to the nave columns. At least twelve new icons appeared in or after 1167.29 The effect was to nearly double the number of icons, and to fill gaps in the nave where many columns had previously remained blank. Some of these icons may have been associated with the mosaic programme, in the sense that we find a series of eastern saints, that is to say Byzantine monks and ascetics, such as St Sabas (col. 2/south side of the main nave; bilingual inscription), St Anthony (col. 2/north side, main nave; bilingual inscription) and St Euthymios (col. 3/north side, main nave; inscription in Greek only).30 Both St Sabas (439–532) and St Anthony (251–356) are celebrated figures in the early monastic movement in the Near East, who are known also in the West. Anthony was widely considered to be one of the founding figures of monasticism, and Sabas was the disciple of St Euthymios, who founded the important monastery now known as Mar Saba, one of the oldest continuously inhabited Orthodox monasteries in the world. Both Anthony and Sabas are given bilingual inscriptions attesting to their recognition in both the Latin and Greek-speaking worlds. St Euthymios, by contrast, is an eastern ascetic little known in the West, whose identifying inscription here is given only in Greek. All three ascetics are represented with canonically correct Byzantine iconography in Byzantine garments (among which those of St Anthony are the best preserved), reflecting the strong Byzantine contribution to the embellishment of Bethlehem’s nave in the 1160s, in that these icons were exactly contemporary with the mosaics of 1167–69. At the same time, there were important western contributions to the new series of icons, two of which are remarkable: St Fusca (col. 10/on the south side of the main nave; bilingual inscription) from the Veneto (Fig. 5) and St Leo (col. 6/in the south aisle facing east) (Fig. 6). St Leo is of course the 5th-century pope (440– 61; Feast days: (west) 11 April and 28 June, and (east) 18 February) who was universally recognized in the East and the West.31 But at Bethlehem he is clearly represented in Latin ecclesiastical garments, mysteriously without the pallium or the papal tiara, and has been given an inscription in Latin only, thereby emphasizing his western significance and the probable western origin of the donor/pilgrim who may have commissioned this image. Leo’s heroic confrontations with Attila and Genseric, the Vandal king, and his attempts to save Rome from destruction, no doubt endeared him to the Crusaders who looked for similar leadership in the dangerous situation they faced against the Muslims. His image was probably painted by a local Crusader artist under Byzantine influence. Few female saints appear among the icons other than the Virgin Mary, and the female martyr, St Fusca.32 This last is arguably the most unexpected saint of the entire group, and is important for the Bethlehem programme in three particular ways. First, her cult was located in northern Italy, centred on her shrine church at Torcello, and she was little known in the east. So along with the Venetian mosaicist, Zan, who signed the mosaics in the south transept at Bethlehem, she reflects a Venetian presence in Bethlehem in the late 1160s or perhaps 1170s.33 For the benefit of eastern pilgrims her inscription is bilingual, Latin and Greek, but exceptionally brief. Secondly, an Arabic inscription in black ink is visible at shoulder level to the left of her image.34 This inscription is presumably the work of an Arab visitor who came to Bethlehem in June 1192, after Jerusalem and Bethlehem had fallen into Muslim hands. As such this inscription provides a terminus ante quem for the icon, and in effect the entire series of icons extant in the nave and south aisle of the church, meaning the whole series was done between 1130 and, in all likelihood, the fall of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in 1187, but certainly before 1192. Finally, the St Fusca icon is unique in that it faces west. Unlike the other twenty-one nave icons, St Fusca does not face across the nave on a north–south axis, but westwards like the icons on the columns of the south aisle, for example, St James the Greater, St Batholomew, the Virgin Glykophilousa, St Anne Nikopoia, St Margaret/Marina II and the Virgin Hodegetria. This suggests that the artist wished to associate the icon of St Fusca with the images of the south aisle and not those of the main nave on the columns, suggesting in turn that it may have been painted just before mosaics were laid in the nave.35 It is also further evidence for the loose supervision of the nave icons in the sense that the wishes of the patron who commissioned the icon of St Fusca superseded the existing arrangement for the other twenty-one icons of the nave. Following this phase of intense artistic activity at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, only a few icons were painted in the 1170s and 1180s. The latest is likely to have been the image of St James the Greater. This is interesting with regard to one more piece of evidence in regard to pilgrimage art in the Holy Land. THE SIX-FIGURE ICON FROM ST CATHERINE, MOUNT SINAI This is a small icon of six saints for which the imagery, though clearly western, relates more to Jerusalem than to Bethlehem (Fig. 7). It is a small devotional icon dating to c. 1180 from the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, one of only two extant 12th centuryCrusader icons yet identified. First published by Kurt Weitzmann in 1966, it represents six saints in a twotier arrangement with the central figure on the upper 8 -       F 5 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: icons of St Fusca and St Marina/Margaret (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin) 9   level identified by inscription as ‘Sanctus Jacobus Magnus’, St James the Greater.36 As compared to the image on the column, here James holds a scroll and blesses, whereas on the column he holds a large book with both hands, like an evangelist, but both feature full-length, frontal standing figures. When the icon was first published emphasis was placed on identifying the Crusader characteristics of the painting, encompassing the choice and western influenced iconography of the saints, and their connection to Jerusalem and the Crusades. The icon was also dated in the late 12th century, prior to 1187, primarily on stylistic parallels with Crusader monumental painting and manuscript illumination. Although we do not know the identity of the patron who ordered this icon, as with most of the column icons, we can be confident that he or she was Frankish. Beside the deacon Lawrence, two western French saints are depicted, St Leonard of Noblac and St Martin of Tours, all three in the lower tier. All six saints are also identified with a Latin inscription only. It seems most likely that the icon was ordered in Jerusalem, based on the choice of saints and the unByzantine organization and format of the panel. The double-decker format of this icon does not follow characteristic Byzantine types, such as the iconostasis beam icons with the Dodekaorta, the intercolumnar iconostasis icons with the Deësis images, the title-saint icons with scenes of the saint’s life and miracles, and the calendar icons with as many as six to ten tiers of saints.37 This is clearly a devotional icon made for a Frankish patron for which the format might have been inspired by the full-page miniatures of the four evangelists found in Crusader and Byzantine gospel books.38 The poses of the six saints in our icon appear to reflect the frontal images of the Bethlehem column type images, however, rather than the three-quarter poses of the evangelists in the codices. In fact, the image of St James in the top tier central position of the icon clearly seems to be modelled on an image of Jesus, frontal and blessing. The choice of James for this icon is significant because he appears here in the place of honour instead of Christ, as first bishop of Jerusalem who was martyred there. Furthermore he is accompanied by Stephen, the first martyr in Jerusalem, and Paul, who normally appears next to Christ accompanied by Peter. This remarkable grouping can only make sense in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The pose of St James above is echoed by St Martin of Tours below, as a concrete manifestation of the episcopal spiritual authority which flowed from Peter to James to later bishops such as Martin in the West. St Leonard as the patron of prisoners joins James and Martin and the deacon Lawrence as unusual if not unique in this mix of saints from East and West. If we can recognize this Crusader icon as the product of a Frankish pilgrim’s patronage in Jerusalem, we can see new meaning in its imagery. While the upper F 6 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: St Leo (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin) 10 -       F 7 Icon of Six Saints, Monastery of St Catherine, Mt Sinai (Courtesy of Cambridge University Press) 11   tier of saints still anchors the icon to Jerusalem, the lower tier of saints has important links to the two major pilgrimage routes in the west to Santiago de Compostela and to Rome. The figure of St James the Greater in the upper tier of course also indicates the importance of Compostela, but the figures of St Martin of Tours and Noblac (St-Léonard-de-Noblat) in the Limousin strongly reinforce this importance, as the shrine churches of both saints were celebrated in the 12th-century Pilgrim’s Guide and identified as significant centres on the camino to Santiago. Rome, the third major holy site, is represented here by St Lawrence, one of the seven deacons of ancient Rome, who was martyred during the persecution of Valerian in 258. While there can be no doubt that Lawrence was one of the most famous saints of the Roman church, the choice of St Lawrence rather than St Peter might be accounted for by the personal specifications of the patron. The six saints on the Sinai icon include four found on the columns at Bethlehem, and two, St Paul and St Martin, who are not. There is nothing about this devotional icon which specifically links it to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.39 The point is that, collectively, the saints represented on the Sinai icon will have been painted between 1170 and 1187 and can be seen to refer to the three great pilgrimages of the 12th century, those to Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela. I would also suggest that they are seen from the uniquely Crusader point of view in Jerusalem. The strong possibility exists that the icon was commissioned in Jerusalem by a pilgrim who had visited all three major 12th-century pilgrimage sites. If one accepts this, we can see here concrete evidence in the figural art of the Crusader East at Jerusalem for an idea advanced by Arthur Kingsley Porter in 1923 in regard to Romanesque architecture and sculpture, namely, that there was a ‘circular pilgrimage which should include the Holy Land and Italy as well as Galicia’.40 It is an idea which of course has also been taken up more recently by Manuel Castiñeiras.41 this period that Latin pilgrims began coming to Bethlehem in increasing numbers. While we know very little about who the European pilgrims to Bethlehem were before 1130, what is not in doubt is that the Latin clergy of the Church of the Nativity welcomed a large icon of the Virgin and Child, Glykophilousa, enthroned with three worshipping western pilgrims below on each side as an indication in 1130 of the central importance of pilgrimage to this unique holy site. It was to be the first of thirty such icons. Although the Bethlehem icons were painted at differing times by a variety of artists, they are presented in a broadly similar format. This format is characteristic of Byzantine and Crusader icons, and as such is comparable to the smaller Six Saints icon from Mount Sinai. Most of the saints represented on these columns are full-length, frontal, standing, approximately lifesized figures, seen together with a few variations for full-length seated figures. This very fact suggests that there was some kind of loose overall supervision of what amounts to an artistic expression of pilgrimage made available to pilgrims by the Latin clergy of the Church of the Nativity. It is, however, also clear that the variations found in these icons with regard to size, and to their inscriptions, some in Latin or Greek only, some bilingual, indicate that a standard format was not rigorously enforced. Although their placement seems random, the gradual plan to fill the nave with icons was eventually achieved. The icons in the south aisle, along with the many blank columns both there and elsewhere, attests to the likelihood that more icons might have been created had the Crusaders had been able to hold on to Bethlehem after the end of the 12th century. It is also evident from even the partial selection of saints at Bethlehem that a remarkable ensemble was eventually put together. This was largely unsystematic, generated by, in effect, the random personal choices of visiting pilgrims from both the West and the East. That it featured some little-known saints at the expense of better-known figures makes it all the more likely that the choices were made by pilgrims of means for whom personal and local backgrounds were important. And clearly some of the saints found represented here are quite different from those we might find honoured and commemorated along the camino to Santiago de Compostela or the Via Francigena to Rome. Finally, the icons on the columns in Bethlehem are clearly one of the most important extant artistic statements of the importance of pilgrimage within the Holy Land as well as providing evidence of direct links between the Holy Land and western Europe in the 12th century. Furthermore, the icon of St James the Greater with two pilgrim donors at Bethlehem and the Six Saints Icon from Mount Sinai indicate how active some pilgrims were during the 12th century, visiting not only the Holy Land, but also Rome and/or Santiago de Compostela. CONCLUSION Having discussed the selection of icons on the columns at Bethlehem, and the small devotional icon now in the Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai, we can conclude with the following observations. After the Crusaders arrived in Bethlehem in 1099, the large and venerable Church of the Nativity and the importance of the holy site attracted the attention of King Baldwin I, who wished to make the church a cathedral. By 1110 the papal legate, Gibelin, had appointed, with royal approval, Aschetinus to be the new Latin bishop of Bethlehem.42 In the meantime, the Church of the Nativity had served as the coronation church of King Baldwin I in 1100, and would serve again for the crowning of King Baldwin II in 1118. It was during 12 -       of the pilgrim woman might have been done sometime after, but only shortly after the icon itself? See Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 317. 15 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 40–43, pl. XIII; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 456–57. 16 See note 3 for the dating. 17 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), pl. XIII and fig. 30. 18 Ibid., 32–36; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 163–65. The Greek inscription only gives his name and identifies him as a prophet. The Latin inscription provides his identification as the prophet Elijah and refers to the story of his being fed in the wilderness by a raven. 19 See, e.g., the headpiece images of St John the Evangelist, St Stephen, St Nicholas, St Mary Magdalene, and St Agnes in the Melisende Psalter: Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 151–52. 20 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 34. Antony is called a ‘Second Elijah’ in a hymn read on 17 January. See T. Spasky, ‘Le culte du prophète Elie et sa figure dans la tradition orientale’, Études carmélitaines (1956), f. 222. 21 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 64–69, pl. XX; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 283–84. 22 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 69–72, pl. XIX; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 283–84. 23 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 62–64, pl. XIX; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2) 283–84. 24 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 72–77, pls XXII–XXIII; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 315–17. 25 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 76, also refers to the glove St George wears on his left hand as a western, non-Byzantine element. 26 See, e.g., the icon of St Sergios with a female donor: J. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 1187–1291, from the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291 (Cambridge and New York 2005), 339–42. 27 Robin Cormack discusses this site for St George in his article with S. Mihalarios, ‘A Crusader Painting of St George: “maniera greca,” or “lingua franca”?’, Burlington Magazine, 126 (1984), 132–41, with further comments in idem, ‘191 Icon of St George and the Youth of Mytilene’, Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture from British Collections, ed. D. Buckton (London 1994), 176–77. 28 Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 365; fig. 10 illustrates which columns had icons prior to 1160. 29 Ibid., 347 and 350, for the Latin and Greek versions of this text in the bema. 30 There is a special Greek inscription on his scroll: ‘The Father-Superior Anthony has said that obedience and asceticism can subdue the Satans’; Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 86–92; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 366–69. 31 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 60–62; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 368–70. 32 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 102–05; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 368–70. 33 Ibid., (as n. 2), 358, 364, 370. 34 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3),102, pls XXX, XXXI. 35 It seems unlikely that with the strong focus on the nave walls above by the mosaicists in 1167–69 an independent Crusader/ Venetian painter might have left the nave side of his column blank in order to paint his image on the west side of the column. Furthermore, it seems too far-fetched to imagine that this icon painter wanted somehow to position his work parallel to the work of the Venetian mosaicist Zan in the south transept. Visually, someone in the south aisle looking at the St Fusca icon on the nave column would have linked it to the Virgin Hodegetria at the end of the south aisle, but why that might have been intended we do not know. 36 K. Weitzmann, ‘Icon Painting in the Latin Kingdom’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 20 (1966), 54–56, by the same author The Icon (New York 1982), 208–09 (colour plate), and Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 461–62, and col. pl. 41. See also my comments in the forthcoming volume of studies published for the VIII International Congress of Jacobean Studies in Santiago de Compostela. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to thank the officers and organizing committee of the British Archaeological Association for the invitation to participate in the 2012 Palermo conference, and for the opportunity to publish this paper in its transactions. My special thanks go to John McNeill for his careful reading of, penetrating questions about and skilful suggestions for revising the text of my article. Special thanks also go to Rosa Bacile for her assistance during the conference and for her excellent work as editor for this volume. My warm thanks also to my colleague, Manuel Castiñeiras, for his ongoing interest in addressing the problems of East–West interchange in the medieval Mediterranean world. NOTES 1 The Church of the Nativity served as the coronation church for kings Baldwin I and Baldwin II, but thereafter the coronation took place in the church of the Holy Sepulchre until 1187. 2 J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge and New York 1995), 177–245, 347–78, 414–41, I make my case for the dating at 177; I make my case for the dating of the marriage of Amalrich to the Byzantine Princess Maria in 1167 from the date given in the bi-lingual inscription, 1169, at 347; I make my case for the dating after the earthquake of 1170 at 414. See also D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, 3 (Cambridge and New York 2007), 6–72; D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, 1 (Cambridge and New York 1993), 137–56; and D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, 2 (Cambridge and New York 1998), 116–40. 3 See G. Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’, Frankfurter Forschungen zur Kunst, 14 (Berlin 1988), 1–147, for basic information and the best colour reproductions; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 91–7, 163–66, 283–5, 315–8, 364–71, 457–63, for the discussion of dating the paintings and some issues of iconography. 4 Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 93, fig. 2, shows the location of these icons on the columns by 1192. 5 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 15–22; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 91–97. 6 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 17–19; see also the discussion of these inscriptions in Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 94–95, and Pringle, Churches, Corpus, 1 (as n. 2) 154. 7 Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 137–59; and J. Folda, Crusader Art: The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1099–1291 (Aldershot, Burlington 2008), 34, for two colour illustrations. 8 These letters appear with similar abbreviation marks above them. The use of the letter ‘W’ relates to usage in northern Europe. The letters can clearly be seen in the reproductions in Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), pl. VI. 9 Ibid., 22–32; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 96, 163–65. 10 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 112–25; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 315–17. 11 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as in n. 3), pls XXXIV–XXXV. 12 Ibid., 117–18. 13 This fur is ‘vair’, that is, squirrel or rabbit fur, not ermine as is sometimes claimed. 14 Her image is faint and barely visible in the photo published by Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), pl. XXXV, fig. 59, at the lower left. The fact that she is represented alongside of the icon, not below, and that she does not touch Olaf’s image with her supplicating hands or her head has raised the question of whether the image 13   40 37 A. K. Porter, Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads, 1 (Boston 1923), 177. 41 The merits of Porter’s ideas are discussed most recently by Manuel Castiñeiras in ‘Compostela, Bari y Jerusalén: tras las huellas de una cultura figurative en los Caminos de Peregrinación’, Ad Limina, 1 (2010), 16–17. 42 B. Hamilton, The Latin Church in the Crusader States (London 1980), 59; D. Pringle, Churches Corpus, 1 (as n. 2), 138. K. Weitzmann, ‘Icon Programs of the 12th and 13th Centuries at Sinai’, Deltion of the Christian Archaeological Society, 12 (Athens 1986), 63–116. 38 H. Buchthal, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford 1957), 26–27. 39 See Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 461–62, for more discussion comparing the Six Saints icon with the column paintings at Bethlehem. 14