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
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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
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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
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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