Church of the Sepulchre

 The church of the Sepulchre is one of the holiest spots in Christendom.  This church, located in the old city of Jerusalem, originally built in the fourth century and added to over the centuries, is built over what is believed to have been Jesus's tomb, from which He rose.  It was naturally a holy spot for medieval Europeans, and many churches in the west adopted elements of its style in deliberate imitation.

The church is noted for having a rotunda, with a dome over it, rather than adopting the standard basilica pattern of most early churches, a long central aisle with side aisles on either side, and a crossing perpendicular to the aisles toward the end opposite the main entrance.  The rotunda encircles the site of the tomb.  This circular style was adopted by Charlemagne's palace chapel at Aachen and in the crypts of many other churches.  For example, the early eleventh-century crypt of St.-Bénigne of Dijon has a circular chapel, as seen here.

 There is a real mix of architectural styles in Jerusalem, even before you get into the modern city which is now Israel's capital.  There are buildings whose roots go back to the Hebrew kings, though mostly those have been built over.  There are plenty of structures from when the Holy Land was part of the Hellenistic world (after Alexander the Great had conquered the area), then  buildings dating from the Roman empire, then Byzantine buildings, then Muslim structures built from the seventh century on, then Crusader structures from the twelfth century, and finally Turkish architecture.  The church complex has been influenced by all of these.

Christians from Europe made pilgrimages to the church of the Sepulchre from the time it was built.  Even when Jerusalem was under Muslim control, it was usually possible to visit the Christian holy sites.  Such a trip would be a trip of a lifetime, with the Sepulchre itself the high point, though all of the Holy Land was thick with places mentioned in the Bible.  It was not a trip to be undertaken lightly, as it would probably take a couple of months just to get there, but some went there several times, usually to try to get out of a particularly bad situation, where volunteering to go on pilgrimage would forestall plans to put one to death for one's crimes.

Originally the area had been a stone quarry back under the Hebrew kings, then, once no longer in use as a quarry, it was used as a cemetery, with burials in little caves cut into the quarry walls.  The emperor Hadrian thought it a great place for a Roman temple.  But when the emperor Constantine made Christianity legitimate in the fourth century, he had this temple torn down.  The local Christian community told him that Jesus's (temporary) burial place had been there, and while tearing down the temple a cave tomb was discovered which has been identified as Jesus's ever since.

The circular rotunda was built over the spot.  Further rebuildings were done in the eleventh century, after the church was partially destroyed by the caliph during a period in which the Muslim rulers of the area decided to get rid of both Christian and Jewish holy sites.  Twelfth-century Crusaders rebuilt again, but the present structure has not been radically changed since.

As one of Christendom's most holy sites, all major Christian groups have claims on the church.  It is currently divided up between Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox denominations.  Part of the difficulty of during further renovations is that everyone has to agree.  There is a ladder against one of the upper windows that has been there for three centuries, because the ladder belongs to one group yet is on the part of the church controlled by another, and they cannot agree on moving it.  (Interestingly, it was briefly moved at one point recently, probably by a workman cleaning windows or the like.  Everyone pretended it hadn't happened.)

The church and its complex stand on a site over an acre in size, including numerous other chapels and buildings.  Archaeologists working at the site are discovering much of the site's history.  The spring 2021 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review summarizes recent findings.

© C. Dale Brittain 2021
For more on medieval religion and pilgrimage, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.  Also available in paperback.

Christians and Muslims

Medieval Christians, as a group, had a very distorted view of Islam.  North of the Mediterranean, most had never seen a Muslim.  Epics like the Song of Roland depicted Muslims as essentially pagans, worshipping the Roman gods Jupiter and Apollo, and probably as gigantic monsters as well.  There was a (completely false) story that Mohammed had originally been a Christian but had turned to heresy.

But along the Mediterranean there were enough Muslims that mutual understanding was at least slightly better.  This did not mean that they were friendly--Muslim pirates were a constant concern for Christian shippers.  But the lines were not as sharply drawn.

In Spain, which in the early Middle Ages was a patchwork of Muslim and Christian principalities, the two religions had to get along at some level.  Muslim rulers often took Christian princesses as their wives, in the hopes that this would make it easier for them to govern their Christian subjects.  The semi-mythic hero El Cid fought at different times both for Christian and for Muslim princes.  The Christian conquest of the Spanish peninsula, the Reconquista, proceeded in fits and starts and was not complete until 1492.

When the first Crusade was launched in 1095, of course, it was based on the assumption that the Holy Land, "the land that Christ's feet trod" as it was characterized at the time, was polluted by being ruled by Muslims.  Christian knights enthusiastically set out to kill Muslims, believing that the warrior skills which would send them to hell if used against other Christians could in fact save their souls if used against Muslims.

But once the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded in 1100, the conquerors had to settle down and live with a predominantly Muslim population.  Many, not surprisingly, adopted much of the local culture, including the food and clothing, if not the religion.  Some took Muslim girls as concubines, even wives.  The motif of a Muslim woman being converted to Christianity and marrying a knight was common in the epics back home in the west, even if in practice not much conversion may have taken place.  Those newly arrived from Europe were often shocked to see this "going native."

Some western theologians were genuinely interested in learning more about Islam, the real religion, not the worshippers-of-Apollo version.  Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny in the middle of the twelfth century (and thus someone with unquestionable Christian credentials), commissioned a translation of the whole Koran from Arabic into Latin.  He took as his starting assumption that it was completely wrong, but he thought the best way to refute its "errors" would be through reason and argumentation, and it would be much easier to argue against it if one knew what it actually said.

Peter is a good example of the twelfth century's happy belief that one could persuade through reason, that a good, logical argument would win the day.  In the twenty-first century we've abandoned this.  (And Peter didn't win any converts himself that way.)

Incidentally, because Christians, Muslims, and Jews all worship the same God and all trace their roots back to the patriarch Abraham, they are "infidels" to each other, not heretics.

© C. Dale Brittain 2016