The Latin Liturgy of Jerusalem: a mixture of old and new, Occidental and Oriental

“The 12th century liturgy of Jerusalem was immensely important in the newly created socio-cultural and sacral landscape. Unique rites were established and formed part of a large project aimed at transforming the post-Byzantine Muslim city of Jerusalem into the Latin capital of their Kingdom and a spiritual centre of the Christian world. How was this accomplished?

Following the First Crusade, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Jerusalem patriarchate were appropriated by the new Latin ecclesiastical hierarchy, while the Greek-Orthodox clergy was relegated to a secondary position in the services at the church. In 1114 the secular canons residing at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were reformed and became regular canons following the rule of Saint Augustine.

The other important shrine churches of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were also occupied by regular canons and most likely followed the practice of Jerusalem, as did the Hospitallers, the Templars and later the Carmelites. The new practices established in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were thus widely influential. After the reform of 1114, the Church of Jerusalem  was, furthermore, an instrument for propagating the policies and ideas of the reform papacy in the Holy Land.

The liturgy of Jerusalem (…) had initially depended on the random availability of liturgical books of diverse European origin. These combined to establish the Jerusalem practice, which naturally remained fundamentally Western European in character but nonetheless adopted local traditions. The challenges of devising the liturgical program (included, TN) (…) constructing a new liturgical language from the various usages in the West; choosing local Eastern traditions to be adopted and continued within the programme; Finding a balance between their enthusiasm for the terrestrial city of which they were finally in possession, and its emblematic image as the celestial city.

The establishment of a Latin liturgy in Jerusalem was thus a process of recreating and reformulating familiar texts and rituals, as has been shown in a number of recent studies of the Latin liturgy of Jerusalem. They illustrate ever more clearly the ritual resources of the religious, cultural and devotional milieu of Frankish Jerusalem.

That the texts and practices imported from the West were not the only source of inspiration informing the liturgy is evident in several ways. Local Byzantine cultic dispositions were reflected in the names of locally venerated saints preserved in the Latin Calendars of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Frankish liturgy adopted some pre-crusade Eastern ceremonies, the most prominent being the celebration of the miracle of the Holy Fire, which continued to be celebrated but in a new Latin garb and drew a massive audience, as it still does today.

The process of liturgical development was to evolve alongside continued interaction with the local Oriental traditions and their representatives. It has been demonstrated that the local Oriental clergy operated alongside the Latin one in Jerusalem’s holiest shrines. This continuity was manifest especially on major feasts, but it can also be seen in places of shared veneration, for which we have growing evidence.(…)

Other examples of liturgical adjustment and awareness of innovation that have been noted are: the liturgical manuscripts from Jerusalem that clearly mark the occasions on which a distinction was made between what they call ‘old rituals’ and what they call new ones. The effort and thought that the clergy invested in elaborating their liturgy is not least reflected in their deliberations on whether and how to celebrate major events – as seen, for example, in the performance of the Visitatio Sepulchri  on Easter morning – which are documented in the Ordinal of Barletta and other liturgical texts. They also faced the need to devise entirely new celebrations – famously, the Liberation Ceremony for 15 July – and solemn practices connected with the relic of the True Cross. These examples portray the religious ritual as a critical junction of tradition and change.

It thus seems fair to say that the Jerusalem liturgy established a conscious dialogue with the past, building on Western traditions as well as traditions inherited from the pre-crusade centuries, which posited ritual resources credited with the religious authority of the Early Christian origins.“

This blog quotes, with some minor adaptations, from “The ‘Holy Women’ in the Liturgy and Art of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Twelfth-Century  Jerusalem” by Iris Shagrir (2017, in: The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources, ed. E. Lapina and N. Morton (Brill, 2017), pp. 455-475), source academia.edu. Illustration Church of the Holy Sepulchre cropped to approximately the area of the original church, photo Gerd Eichmann, source Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

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The Templar compound on Temple Mount Jerusalem

“Shortly after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the Al-Aqsa Mosque became the residence of the Frankish kings of Jerusalem. But the kings were not able to maintain the building in the condition in which they had found it.” Perhaps that is what inspired king Baldwin II to lend the site to the young Templar Order. A reconstruction.

“Foucher of Chartres (1059- after 1128), the chaplain of King Baldwin I of Jerusalem, writes (in his Chronicle Gesta Francorum Iherusalem Peregrinantium, started about 1101 and finished around 1128, TN) that because of lack of money the king was unable to repair the building’s roof, and when lead fell from it, he would sell it to merchants. Indeed he would even order the lead to be stripped, and then sell it. Later, in the second redaction of his chronicle, Foucher describes the building (probably mainly the building’s eastern part, TN) as already largely ruined.

In about 1120 King Baldwin II assented to lend for some time the Temple or Palace of Solomon to the young Templar Order. Its Primitive Rule (after 1129, TN) implies that the palace, after having come into Templar hands, would have comprised a refectory, a church, a chapter house, and an infirmary. Usāma ibn Munqidh (1095-1188) relates that beside the Aqsa Mosque stood a small mosque that the Franks turned into a church. Al-Idrīsī (1100-1166), the Muslim geographer who worked at the Norman court in Palermo, wrote around 1154 that the Templars converted the Aqsa Mosque into chambers in which their companies were lodged.

Yet, even as the Templars adjusted the building to their needs, the kings of Jerusalem continued to regard it as their property. To demonstrate that the Templars were holding it merely on loan, they would host there a festive dinner immediately upon their coronation. (…) Nevertheless the Templars engaged in extensive building activities near the erstwhile
mosque. Johann of Würzburg, whose pilgrimage has been dated to 1160-1170, relates that the Templars have near the Palace of Solomon many large and spacious edifices and that they are erecting there a large new church that has not yet been completed.

Theoderich, who visited Jerusalem probably in 1169, describes the Templar buildings in
greater detail.” His description is the subject of a another blog.

This blog quotes extensively, with minor edits from the paper “Vestiges of Templar presence in the Aqsa Mosque” by Benjamin Z. Kedar, from: The Templars and their Sources, Edited By Karl Borchardt, Karoline Döring, Philippe Josserand, Helen Nicholson (2017, Routledge). The illustration shows Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif today, with the Al-Aqsa mosque situated at the Southern end (the square building with the small dome). picture Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Jerusalem – Templar purpose and alibi in Bernard's "De laude novae militiae"

 “De laude novae militiae, the famous eulogy written by Bernard of Clairvaux during the stay of Hugues de Payns in Europe in 1127 or 1128, contains several thoughts about the functions of the new Templar chivalry and the battles that the Templars are waging in the East. What details about the headquarters of the order exist and what the conception of Jerusalem prevailed in the clerical consciousness of the first half of the 12th century? (…)

Bernard’s demonstration is quite simple. As Jerusalem is the City of the King of Kings, a contingent of Christian knights must defend its walls without hesitation. The city being sacred, a religious order rather than a secular community is called to fulfill this role. According to Bernard, a Templar is a minister of God dedicated to punishing the evildoers and praising the good. If he kills an evil Saracen, he is in no way a murderer but a hero of Christianity. Thanks to this metaphor, Bernard created the concept of malicidium which would be used to justify strings of massacres in the Late Middle Ages. (…)

From the Templars, he gathered several pieces of information on the organization of their headquarters in Jerusalem. His description of the building is as realistic as it is idealized when he states: “In the exact Temple in Jerusalem they have their base. It is not as splendid and grandiose as the revered Temple of Solomon, but no less glorious. (…) All the beauty and the magnificent and charming decoration of the current Temple embody the fervor of their occupants, as well as their attitude marked by discipline. Bernard of Clairvaux defends the simplicity of the Templars who want to decorate the House of God only with holiness according to a Solomonic Psalm (Ps XCII;5). The Templars replaced the liturgical objects of the ancient Temple with saddles, bits and spears because of their membership in chivalry. (…)

One of the goals of De laude novae militiae was to overcome objections against the brothers, emphasizing their participation in the defense of Jerusalem. The end of the treaty invites the population of Jerusalem to celebrate this military involvement. (…) To convince his audience, Bernard of  Clairvaux describes the sanctuaries controlled by the Latins on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It highlights the primacy of the Holy Sepulcher and the fact that pilgrims feel safe and comfortable when entering Jerusalem, after having faced a plethora of dangers on sea and land. Their exultation is linked to the military activity of the Templars who are the natural defenders of the City.  “

This blog quotes sections, translated from French by TN and with minor adaptions, of La place de Jérusalem dans la pensée templière by Claverie, P-V,  (2023) in Cadernos Culturais Nabantinos, III (2023), pp. 37-50, published on academia.edu. The illustration shows the fresco of a Templar in Cressac chappel, source,

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