Full Description
From the late eleventh to the late thirteenth century, during the existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader states, Latin Christians did not only frequently encounter Muslims on the battlefield, but also engaged in unprecedented commercial and cultural exchanges with the Muslim, Eastern Christian, and Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East. Through a focused analysis of fifty objects, this volume examines what material culture can tell us about interpersonal, interfaith, cross-cultural, and trans-regional encounters during this period.
This richly illustrated volume explores a variety of Latin Christian, Eastern Christian, Muslim, and Jewish objects, including sculpture, glassware, metalware, manuscripts, textiles, painting, coins, and seals. Addressing the themes of Belief, Conflict, Exchange, Power, and Memory, the essays examine the conception of these objects and the uses to which they were put throughout their history. As a result, there emerges a picture of the Middle East as a place of profound cultural diversity and of multiplicity of encounters between different communities.
The book stands as a valuable resource for students and scholars of the medieval crusades, the medieval Middle East and Europe, as well as all those interested in archaeology, art history, global history, and religious studies more broadly.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
I.Belief
Cross
Yeshiva capital
Icon of St. Sergius and female donor
Qur'an of Nur al-Din
Painted fragment of an angel from Gethsemane
Reliquary of St. Marina
Altar from 'Atlit Castle
Candlesticks from Church of the Nativity
Icon of the Nativity and Adoration of the Magi
Syriac lectionary
II. Conflict
Aleppo Codex
Slab with Coats of arms over a Fatimid inscription
Cairo Genizah fragment
Jerusalem pilaster
Sword
D'Arenberg Basin
Game board
Gospels of T'oros Roslin
Templar seal
Bell from Acre
III. Exchange
Imitation dinar
Sugar mold
Panel of a Holy Sepulcher reliquary
Buttons
Dagger with scabbard
Drinking cup
Albarello
Arsenal Old Testament
Windowpane fragment
Freer Canteen
IV. Power
Front cover of Psalter of Queen Melisende
Map of Jerusalem
Seal cast of Hospitaller master
Carved head of a knight
Denier from Amalric I
Miter of James of Vitry
Stone matrix
Jamb capital
Legal document
Heraldic shield relief
V. Memory
Cadouin shroud
Pilgrim's flask
Minbar of Nur al-Din/Saladin
Tomb of Baldwin V fragment
Seal matrix of Nachmanides
Pair of glass beakers
Histoire d'Outremer (History of Deeds done Beyond the Sea)
Epitaph stone of Isabel de Hana
Grandson Antependium
View of Acre from the Cocharelli Codex
Index
