PREFACE
Tis volume comprises translations of Professor Robert Huygens’ Latin editions of the pilgrimage narratives of three twelfh-century visitors to Jerusalem and the Holy Land – the Anglo-Saxon Saewulf (1102) and the Germans John of Würzburg (c. 1165) and Teoderic (1171/4) – accompanied by a new introduction and textual commentaries. Although the Latin edition appeared just too late for me to beneft from it when preparing the frst volume of Te Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1993), I have subsequently made – and continue to make – extensive use of the copy that Professor Huygens sent me on its publication in 1994, not least when completing the subsequent three volumes of Te Churches between 1998 and 2009. For this and for the encouragement that he has given me in undertaking the task of translating these texts I express my sincere thanks and gratitude, with the hope that the result manages in some way to refect the quality and scholarship of Professor Huygens’s edition while also making it more easily accessible to a wider readership.
Cardif, 9 January 2022
RDP
INTRODUCTION
A distinguishing feature of the three twelfh-century texts presented in this book is that, in contrast to some other medieval descriptions of the Holy Land that were intended more as practical guides for people setting out for the East or as devotional handbooks for those unable to do so, they all represent accounts written by named pilgrims, describing what they had seen and experienced on their travels. Like many travel writers even today, however, these three pilgrims did not rely solely on their own observations but also made use of existing texts to a greater or lesser extent. Not all of what they describe therefore is necessarily exactly what they saw. In addition to the Bible and classical authorities, many of the written sources on which they drew were the result of a developing tradition of pilgrimage literature that had evolved over some eight centuries, from the time in the early fourth century when, following Constantine’s conversion and the subsequent adoption of Christianity as the ofcial state religion in both the western and eastern parts of the Roman empire, Jerusalem was transformed into a Christian city and the geography of the Holy Land came to be viewed and written about in purely Christian terms.
Saewulf (Saewlfus)
Saewulf’s account of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1102–1103, entitled ‘A true account of the situation of Jerusalem’ (Certa re-
latio de situ Ierusalem), presents both a travelogue and a descriptive guide to the Holy City in its geographical and religious setting. Like the account written by the Russian Abbot Daniel some three to fve years later,1 it gives one of the fullest descriptions of Jerusalem to have survived from the decade afer fall of the city to the First Crusade in July 1099 and the establishment of Latin rule. Saewulf’s account of the city and its surroundings, however, is sandwiched between two sections of a more personal character, in which he relates his and his travelling companions’ experiences during the outward sea voyage from southern Italy to Jafa, the perilous ascent from there to Jerusalem and his subsequent return by sea from Jafa to Constantinople, though the text breaks of just before his ship reaches the city.
Te text on which all editions and translations of Saewulf’s Relatio have been based, including the edition by Robert Huygens, survives in a manuscript bound into a volume of assorted texts that formerly belonged to Matthew Parker (1504–1575), archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 onwards. Following Parker’s death, his library passed to his college, Corpus Christi (formerly St Benet’s) in Cambridge, where the volume is now preserved in the library named afer him. Te frst 132 pages of this 454-page volume represent the surviving parts of a cartulary (p. 55–132) and other documents associated with the Benedictine abbey of St Peter in Bath, all dating from between the eleventh and ffeenth centuries.2 Te Relatio is found on pages 37–46, within a group of texts (p. 29–52) written, apart from the fnal two pages, in a fne twelfh-century hand in double columns of 42 lines. It is preceded by a genealogy of the Anglo-Saxon kings extracted from the Chronicon ex chronicis attributed to Florence of Worcester (p. 29–36),3 accounts of the vision of Charles Martel (d. 741) sufering in hell for his plundering of church property as seen by Eucherius, bishop of Orléans (c. 687–743) and reported by Hincmar of Reims
1 Daniel , Zhitiye i knuzheniye.
2 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 111, fol. 37–46; cfr. James, Manuscripts: Corpus Christi College, vol. 1, p. 236–47; Kelly, Charters, p. 25–28.
3 Florence of Worcester , Chron., ed. Torpe, p. 258–76.
to the council of Quierzy in 858 (p. 36),4 the granting of the dignity of patrician to Charlemagne by Pope Hadrian I in 774 (p. 36), and notes on the solar years of Charlemagne’s reign and the locations of St Ninian’s Candida Casa and King Alfred’s island retreat on the island of Athelney in Somerset (p. 37). Afer Saewulf’s Relatio comes a collection of accounts of miracles (p. 46–51), including one concerning the passion of St Andrew and the translation of his body from Patras in Achaea to Constantinople (p. 49),5 to which Saewulf himself also alludes, and another, albeit in a diferent hand, concerning a Jewish boy who was baptized in Bath by Bishop Robert (1137) afer being freed from robbers by the intervention of the Virgin Mary (p. 51–52).
An edition of the Corpus Christi manuscript was published with an introduction by M. A. P. d’Azevac in Paris in 1838 on the basis of a transcription made by Tomas Wright.6 Tis edition was reprinted the following year by the Société de Géographie in its Recueil de Voyages et de Mémoires and also as a separate volume. Wright published his own English translation a decade later;7 and in 1892, the Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society issued a revised Latin text, representing a collation by A. Rogers of Wright’s text with the original manuscript. Tis was accompanied by a new English translation by the Rev. William Brownlow, a former Anglican curate who by this time had become a canon of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Plymouth. Rogers’ edition was subsequently reprinted with a parallel Italian translation by Sabino de Sandoli in 19808 and formed the basis for an English translation by John Wilkinson in 1988.9 As Huygens points out, a problem besetting all of these translations is that they are based on a less than perfect reading of the original text.10
4 Hartmann, Konzilien, p. 414–16.
5 Cfr. Acts of Andrew.
6 Details of the published editions and translations of Saewulf are given in the bibliography, s.v. Saewulf, Relatio.
7 Wright, Early Travels, p. 31–50.
8 IHC , 2, p. 1–31.
9 Wilkinson et al ., Jerusalem Pilgrimage p. 94–116.
10 Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 7, 13, 62.
Recently another manuscript of Saewulf’s Relatio has been identifed in the library of Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.11 It forms part of a fourteenthcentury text of some 160 folios, originally from St Augustine’s abbey in Canterbury, to which it was donated at an unknown date before the abbey’s dissolution in 1538 by one Tomas of Cirencester, ‘for the souls of his father and mother and all the departed.’12 Te text is incomplete, consisting merely of the central guidebook section beginning, Certa relatio de situ Ierusalem: Introitus civitatis Ierusalem est ad occidentem sub arce David regis, per portam que vocatur porta David …, and ending abruptly at the start of the fnal section just afer the mention of Jabala in the description of the Syrian coast: … Acras est civitas fortissima que Accaron vocatur. Deinde Sur et Sebete, que Tyrus et Sydon, et postea Iubelet. Deinde Barut et sic Tartusa, quam dux Reimundus possedit. Postea Gibel, ubi sunt montes Gelboe et cetera. Such as it is, the text appears to have been copied either from the manuscript now in the Parker Library or from one very like it.13
It is fortunate for anyone wanting to understand the historical context of Saewulf’s pilgrimage or attempting to identify who he was that he sets out clearly in his text the dates of his travels. He lef Monopoli, near Bari, on 13 July 1102 and afer being shipwrecked set of again in the same ship from Brindisi on 22 July, arriving in Corfu on 24 July, Kefalonia on 1 August and Corinth on 9 August. Afer proceeding overland from Livadhostron to Negroponte in Euboea, which he reached on 23 August, he took another ship and reached Jafa on 12 October. Tere he was lucky to disembark before the breaking of a great equinoctial storm, whose catastrophic efects were felt along the Syrian coast and were also recorded by Albert of Aachen.14 On the return journey, he embarked at Jafa on 17 May 1103 but three days later in the Bay of
11 Pringle , ‘Itineraria III’, p. 23–24 n. 70.
12 London, Lambeth Palace, MS 144, fol. 117–19; cfr. Todd, Manuscripts in Lambeth Palace, no. 144; James, Manuscripts: Lambeth Palace, no. 144.
13 A list of the textual diferences between the two texts is given in an Appendix at the end of this volume.
14 9.18, ed. Edgington, p. 658–61; cfr. Pryor, ‘Voyages’, p. 51 n. 25.
Acre his ship ran into a fotilla of vessels carrying Muslim troops on their way from Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli to relieve Fatimid-held Acre, then under siege by Baldwin I, events that Albert of Aachen also corroborates.15 Having escaped the Muslim feet, Saewulf’s ship reached Rhodes on 22 June, from where he embarked on a succession of diferent vessels, fnally reaching Rodosto in the Sea of Marmora on 29 September 1103.
Wright sought to identify Saewulf with a certain Sevulfus, who is mentioned by William of Malmsbury in his account of the life of Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester:
Sæwulf, a merchant, used to come to the bishop every year to remedy his soul’s ills by his counsel. Once, afer absolution, Wulfstan said to him: ‘You ofen repeat the sins you have confessed, because, as they say, opportunity makes a thief.’ Tat is why I advise you to become a monk. If you do, you will not have the opportunity to commit these sins.’ He retorted that he could not become a monk: the way of life was too strict. Te bishop was a little cross. ‘Go away’, he said; ‘you will become a monk whether you like it or not, but only when the accessories of vice have grown old within you.’ We saw this come true, for later, now broken down by old age, he became a monk in our monastery at the prompting of illness. But though he frequently felt regret for what he had done, he would stife his impulse and sofen his heart again as ofen as he was reminded of the bishop’s words.16
Since there is nothing in the pilgrim Saewulf’s account to indicate that he was a monk when he travelled to the East in 1102–1103, Wright argued that he would have entered Malmesbury sometime afer his return, when William would have got to know him.17 Such a chronology is theoretically feasible, given that William himself was born around 1090, entered Malmesbury during the abbacy of Abbot Godfrey (1087/1091–c. 1106) and wrote his Gesta Pontifcium between 1118 and 1126.18 In the meantime
15 9.19, ed. Edgington, p. 660–63; Pryor, ‘Voyages’, p. 51 n. 25.
16 Wm. of Malmesbury, Gest. Pon., 4.146, vol. 1, p. 434–37 (trans. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Tomson).
17 Wright, Early Travels, p. xix–xxi.
18 Thomson, ‘Malmesbury’; R. M. Tomson, M. Winterbottom in Wm. of Malmesbury, Gest. Pon., vol. 2, p. xix.
Bishop Wulfstan had died in January 1095.19 William could therefore have known Sevulfus from the early 1100s, when he was still a youth and the former merchant was already an old man. Even so, while on the one hand it seems improbable that Sevulfus could have undertaken the arduous journey to Jerusalem, Constantinople and back when already a monk at Malmesbury ‘broken down by old age’, it is equally hard to see how, if he was ft enough to make the journey to Jerusalem in 1102–1103, he could have aged so quickly before entering Malmesbury only a few years later.
Wright’s theory has been received by later scholars with varying degrees of enthusiasm and scepticism.20 One difculty in accepting it is that, despite the pilgrim Saewulf’s evident technical knowledge of matters to do with ships and shipping, which would not be inconsistent with a mercantile background, his command of Latin and familiarity with a range of classical and religious texts suggest that, like William of Malmesbury, he is more likely to have followed a scholastic – and doubtless monastic – career from an early age.21 Godric of Finchdale (c. 1070–1170), for example, another Anglo-Saxon merchant of this period, who undertook a number of pilgrimages, including two to Jerusalem, before fnally adopting a religious life as a hermit near Durham, had little or no formal education; but, although three surviving Middle English hymns have been attributed to him, no other writings of his are known of and we only know about his pilgrimages from the Vita written afer his death by Reginald of Durham.22 Te voyages described by Saewulf in the frst and fnal sections of his work, however, are presented in the frst person and could not have been written by anyone else. Indeed, it is clear from the frst sentence that he was taking notes from the very start of his journey.
19 Mason, ‘Wulfstan’.
20 Beazley, ‘Sæwulf’; Graboïs, ‘Anglo-Norman England’, p. 138–40; Damian-Grint, ‘Sæwulf’; Franzoni, Lonati, Tre Pellegrinaggi, p. 13–14; R. M. Tomson and M. Winterbottom, in Wm. of Malmesbury, Gest. Pont., vol. 2, p. 198–99; idem in Wm. of Malmesbury, Gest. Reg., vol. 2, p. 336.
21 For a fuller discussion, see Garnett, ‘Saewulf’, p. 4–16.
22 Reginald of Durham, Vita S. Godrici; Tudor , ‘ Godric of Finchdale’; Tyerman, England and the Crusades, p. 26–27.
Apart from the merchant Sevulfus mentioned by William of Malmesbury, the name Saewulf also appears in various forms in other late eleventh-century English sources. In addition to some 54 mentions in the Greater and Lesser Domesday Books, compiled in 1086, the Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England 23 also lists: a thegn, apparently of Hampshire, who appears in royal charters between 1070 and 1087; one of the bishop of Hereford’s men, who witnessed a charter in 1085; and a monk of Bath Abbey, who is listed with his fellow monks in a confraternity agreement between Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester and the abbots of the Benedictine sister houses of Evesham, Chertsey, Bath, Pershore and Winchcombe in 1077.24 Of all these Saewulfs, the last is potentially the most signifcant, since, as explained above, the manuscript containing the Certa Relatio de situ Ierusalem survives in a collection of material associated with Bath Abbey, including, it so happens, the sole surviving copy of Wulfstan’s confraternity agreement;25 however, while this coincidence may appear highly suggestive, there is no certainty that this Saewulf was indeed the author of our text.
As noted above, the pilgrim Saewulf’s description of Jerusalem and the Holy Places is set between accounts of his outward voyage from southern Italy to Jafa and his return on a succession of diferent vessels from Jafa to Constantinople. Although there is little doubt that he was the author of all three sections, a number of similarities may be noted between what he wrote and some other texts of the same period. An anonymous text attributable to the period 1104–c. 1120, for example, which survives in two German manuscripts in Wolfenbüttel and Zeitz respectively,26 follows very closely the same maritime course that Saewulf took between Jafa and Constantinople, albeit in reverse and with its point of
23 Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England, https://pase.ac.uk (accessed 14 Sept. 2021); cfr. Searle , Onomasticon, p. 408, 409, 415, 574.
24 Thorpe , Diplomatarium, p. 615–17; Kelly, Charters, p. 21.
25 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 111, p. 55–56; cfr. James, Manuscripts: Corpus Christi College, vol. 1, p. 238.
26 Wolfenbüttel, Herzogliche Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 131 Gudiani Latini, fol. 19r–20v; Zeitz, Cathedral Library, ed. Eccard, Corpus, vol. 2, p. 1345–48.
disembarkation in Acre rather than Jafa. Tis text presents the sea route between Constantinople and Acre as an alternative to the Asian section of the overland itinerary between the Austria–Hungary border and Jerusalem, which it also sets out, copying the details from an earlier itinerary dating from the 1050s–80s.27 Even if Saewulf knew about this or other existing maritime guides when writing his account, however, there is no particular reason to think that he made signifcant use of them. Indeed, it appears from what he relates that on both the outward and return voyages he was obliged to follow whatever route the available shipping was taking. By visiting Constantinople on the return journey, however, he was following the example of another English Benedictine, Joseph, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, who had travelled the same way only a decade or so earlier.28
Te central portion of Saewulf’s work, however, describing the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding area, gives some more obvious indications of having been infuenced by the long tradition of Holy Land pilgrimage literature to which reference has been made above. Tis probably explains his somewhat detached style of writing in the central section, contrasting with the more immediate and at times personal recounting of his experiences during the outward and return journeys. Tus, in his description of Jerusalem itself Saewulf says nothing of himself or his own experiences there, his only references to other living people being his mention of the Greek monks of the monastery of St Sabas and other more oblique allusions to the traditions of the ‘Syrians’ or native Arab Orthodox (Melchite) Christians. Tis raises the possibility that the central section might have simply been adopted from an existing source and personalized by having the two travel sections wrapped around it, in much the same way that sometime in the 1050s–80s another pilgrim, named Othmar, appears to have copied the same existing overland itinerary from Vienna to Jerusalem alluded to above (without the alternative route by sea)
27 For the texts and discussion of them, see Pringle , ‘Othmar’s Vision’, p. 283–84, 292. On Saewulf’s voyages, see Pryor , ‘Voyages’.
28 Haskins, ‘Canterbury Monk’.
and appended his own brief description of the Holy Places to it.29 In another case, a pilgrimage guide surviving in a late thirteenthcentury manuscript in Oxford has added to the end of it:
B(ernard), servant of God, visited all the holy places named above, as much by means of his own spirit and his father as by those of his relations and benefactors, with the help of God and the intercession of St Mary.
It is uncertain in this case, however, whether Bernard’s adoption of the text was made in the late thirteenth century or closer to the time when the text itself was composed, probably in the 1150s–1160s.30 If Saewulf had copied or adapted an existing guide when writing his central section, however, it is impossible to identify what that might have been, since the only other known version of it, the one in the Lambeth Palace manuscript, was clearly copied from a version of the Cambridge text, as it concludes with part of Saewulf’s return journey.
Some more general comparisons may nevertheless be made with a number of other short pilgrimage texts produced around the time of the First Crusade and in the decade following. One of the earliest of these is a short guide entitled Descriptio sanctorum locorum Hierusalem, also known as Innominatus I, which appeared within the frst fve years of the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and is ofen found associated with manuscripts of Peter Tudebode’s de Hierosolymitano itinere and the Gesta Francorum. 31 Tis is based quite closely on an earlier account by an unnamed pilgrim, who travelled from Bordeaux to Jerusalem in ad 333, passing through Constantinople on the outward journey and returning through Milan.32 Like the Bordeaux Itinerary, Innominatus I begins at the ruined Temple and proceeds to the site of Jesus’ trial and condemnation on Mount Sion and then to the place of his crucifxion, burial and resurrection at the complex of
29 Pringle , ‘Othmar’s Vision’.
30 Pringle , ‘Itineraria III’, p. 29, 58.
31 Keskiaho, ‘Transmission of Peter Tudebode’s De Hierosolimitano itinere ’; cfr. Pringle , ‘Itineraria III’, p. 12–14.
32 Itin. Burd.
buildings constructed under Constantine around the Holy Sepulchre. Although traces of the same model can by identifed in later guides, it was soon modifed as visitors began to take account of the changes that the city had undergone not only since the fourth century but also since the establishment of Latin rule. Tus, another guide, de Situ Urbis (1100–1105), begins like Saewulf’s at David’s Gate on the west but proceeds like the Bordeaux Pilgrim to the Temple before describing the Holy Sepulchre and its adjoining complex, including St Mary Latin and the Hospital; it then returns to tell the reader more about the Temple and Palace of Solomon (Aqṣā Mosque).33 In its overall plan, however, Saewulf’s description may be compared more closely with another family of short guides, referred to for convenience as Descriptio Ierusalem, which appeared and developed over the two decades immediately following the fall of the city.34 With the exception of a group of three manuscripts (group E) which mistakenly place David’s Gate on the east, these all begin: In occidentali parte est introitus Ierusalem iuxta turrem David (Group A), or Ab occidente est introitus Ierusalem per portam David (Groups B–D). Saewulf’s description of Jerusalem begins in a similar fashion: Introitus civitatis Ierusalem est ad occidentem sub arce David regis, per portam quae dicitur Porta David. It may also be noted that of the sixteen known manuscript versions of this guide twelve are English in origin or currently held in English libraries. Whatever models Saewulf may have had at his disposal when writing his guide, however, it is clear that he expanded on them considerably, adding precious details and information that is not found elsewhere.
John of Würzburg (Iohannes Wirziburgensis)
Almost nothing is known about John (Iohannes), the author of the ‘Description of Places of the Holy Land’, apart from what he states in the introductory dedication to his friend and colleague
33 Pringle , ‘Itineraria III’, p. 14–18, 32–35.
34 Pringle , ‘Itineraria III’, p. 23–31, 41–65.
Dietrich (Dietricus) or Teoderich, namely that he was a cleric of the church of Würzburg, who, while in Jerusalem on pilgrimage, had undertaken to note down his observations on the holy places and the events and inscriptions associated with them, so that if his friend should ever undertake a pilgrimage himself he would be well prepared and, if not, he would at least be able to derive some spiritual beneft through reading what John had written about them. Who Dietrich was is even less certain, though he seems unlikely to have been the later pilgrim Teoderic (see below), as has sometimes been suggested.
Te frst printed edition of John of Würzburg’s ‘Description’ was published in 1721 by Dom Roman Krinner in 1721 on the basis of a manuscript from the library of the Benedictine monastery of Tegernsee in Bavaria (T ).35 Although, as Huygens illustrates,36 Krinner’s edition leaves much to be desired, the manuscript itself appears to date from the late twelfh or thirteenth century and represents the earliest surviving text of John’s work. Krinner’s edition was subsequently reprinted by J.-P. Migne in 1854.37 In 1874, Titus Tobler produced a new edition, in which he made use of a further two manuscripts: an incomplete ffeenth-century text now in Munich (M ); and another of the same date but complete and more closely related to T, now in Berlin but formerly from Bologna (B).38 Unfortunately, despite utilizing a wider range of sources, Tobler’s edition was no more accurate than Krinner’s. Tis was largely due to his attempt to moderate and efectively suppress the somewhat idiosyncratic way in which John presents the Holy Places in terms of seven stages of the Saviour’s work of redemption, mirroring the imagery of the seven seals described in the book of Revelation (especially Rev 5–11). Tobler’s evident
35 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 19418 (T ). For bibliographical details of the editions and translations, see Bibliography, s.v. John of Würzburg, Descriptio
36 For discussion of the manuscripts and editions, see Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 9–12, 13–21.
37 Ed. J.-P. Migne (PL , 155), col. 1053–90.
38 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 8485 (M ); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS lat. Oct. 32 (B).
distaste for such imagery may possibly have refected his own religious background as the son of a Swiss Protestant pastor; but by rearranging and editing John’s material in a way that he considered more appropriate and writing additional linking passages between the parts he misled later scholars, many of whom will have remained unaware of the alterations before the appearance of Huygens’ edition in 1994. Indeed, Tobler’s edition was translated into English by Aubrey Stewart, with additional notes by Charles W. Wilson, in 1896, reprinted with an Italian translation by Sabino de Sandoli in 1980, and translated again into English in a truncated version by John Wilkinson in 1988. Huygens’ edition, which is the basis for the present translation, also makes use of a further manuscript (A) in the British Library dating from the fourteenth century.39 While none of the surviving manuscripts seems to have been copied directly from the lost original, the closest descendant appears to be T, with B branching from another frst-generation descendant, and A and M both from a subsequent one.
John explains in his introduction that much of his information about the sites that he describes was derived from a ‘reverend man’ who wrote ‘a long time ago, before present times’ and before the numerous destructions and rebuildings to which Jerusalem had been subjected in the intervening period. In fact, as will be explained below, roughly one-third of his text is copied verbatim from a description of the Holy Places that Rorgo Fretellus, archdeacon of Antioch, wrote and presented to Count Rodrigo of Toledo in 1137–1138. Since John could hardly have considered Fretellus as having written ‘a long time ago, before present times’, it seems more likely that the ‘reverend man’ that he had in mind was Jerome (c. 347–420), whose Liber locorum, a Latin revision of Eusebius’ Onomasticon (completed by 331), along with his other writings, letters and commentaries, informed much subsequent medieval writing about the Holy Places, including that of Bede (702–703), Peter the Deacon (1137) and notably Fretellus himself.
39 London, British Library, MS Add. 22349 (A ).
Rorgo Fretellus, or Frétel, appears to have come from the area of St-Georges d’Hesdin in Picardy and to have set out set for Palestine with his two elder brothers sometime afer 1111. While his brothers returned home afer completing their pilgrimage, Rorgo remained in the East and in February 1119 appears as chancellor of Galilee, applying the seal to a charter of Joscelin of Courtenay, prince of Galilee. Following Joscelin’s departure for Edessa, Fretellus may also be identifed in 1121 with a chaplain of the church of Nazareth (R. capellanus sancte Nazarene ecclesie), who is listed among the witnesses to a charter of Bernard, bishop of Nazareth.40 By 1137, however, when he completed the two principal versions of his description of the Holy Places, Fretellus was in Antioch occupying the position of archdeacon. In the version of his description made for Rodrigo Gonzalez, former count of Toledo, who between 1137 and 1138 was in the Holy Land attached to the Templars, he identifes himself in the dedication as Fretellus … archidiaconus Antiochie and in a verse colophon added to the end of some manuscripts as Archidiaconus Antiochenus Rorgo Fretellus. 41 Around the same time, Fretellus also prepared another version of his description, which he dedicated to Henry Sdyck, bishop of Olomouc (Olmütz) in Bohemia, who spent a year with the canons of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem between Easter 1137 and Easter 1138.42
John of Würzburg’s reliance on Fretellus has been noted by a number of scholars. One problem in identifying the extent of his borrowings has been the lack adequate editions of the relevant texts of Fretellus. An edition of the version for Henry Sdyck was published by P. C. Boeren in 1980.43 Huygens, using this edition, estimated that some 75% of Fretellus’ text (discounting a lengthy section on the stations of the Exodus) had been used by John and that nearly 45% of his text, excluding the introduction and
40 Delaborde , Chartes, p. 32–33, no. 7; 35–36, no. 9.
41 Hiestand, ‘Centre intellectuel’, p. 19–35; cfr. Boeren, Rorgo Fretellus, p. viii–xiii.
42 Boeren, Rorgo Fretellus, p. xiv–xvii.
43 Fretellus, HS.
conclusion, was taken directly from that source.44 It is clear from examination of the manuscripts, however, that the version of Fretellus’ description used by John was the one dedicated to Count Rodrigo, of which there is as yet no published edition other than a revised version of it that was prepared for Pope Innocent VI by Cardinal Nicolas Rossell OP in 1356–1362 and was subsequently edited by J. D. Mansi.45 For the purposes of this translation, it has therefore been necessary to rely on a twelfh-century manuscript version in Troyes, which corresponds very closely with parts of John of Würzburg’s text, supplemented where necessary by alternative readings from other manuscripts in Paris and Vienna.46 A rough calculation suggests that some 88% of the version of Fretellus’ description prepared for Count Rodrigo reappears verbatim in John’s text, although not always in the same order, and that the material that John copied directly makes up about a third of his work. In one copied passage, where Fretellus had addressed Count Rodrigo directly as ‘my lord’ (domine mi),47 John simply alters the text to ‘my dear friend’ (dilecte mi) in reference to his friend Dietrich (p. 87), contrasting with the corresponding passage in the version for Henry Sdyck, where Fretellus had written ‘to you, gracious bishop’ (tibi, pie antistes).48
As remarked above, John of Würzburg structures his Descriptio on the seven ‘seals’ or stages of redemption represented by the life and works of Christ, though it is only when he gets to the second of these that he fully explains this. Beginning in Nazareth, where the story begins with the angelic Annunciation to Mary (ch. 1, p. 120–21 ), he describes, mostly from Fretellus, the places between there and Jerusalem (ch. 1–2, p. 121–27). He then moves on to Bethlehem, where his description of the site of the Nativity and the places round about it is copied entirely from Fretellus,
44 Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 19.
45 Fretellus, Vat.; cfr. Boeren, Rorgo Fretellus, p. 80–83.
46 See Bibliography, s.v. Fretellus, CR. Tose parts of the translation that correspond with Fretellus’s text are printed in the translation in spaced text, with the relevant folio numbers from the Troyes manuscript indicated in the margin.
47 Fretellus, CR (T), fol. 161rb.
48 Fretellus, HS , 53, ed. Boeren, p. 32.
with the exception of his record of the mosaic inscription over the place of the Nativity itself (ch. 3, p. 128–30). Returning to Jerusalem, afer giving a brief history of the Temple from David until the coming of Islam, also copied from Fretellus (ch. 3–4.1, p. 130–32), he introduces the ‘third sacrament’, Jesus’ Presentation in the Temple. Only at this point does he explain that these three ‘sacraments’ represent the frst of the seven seals spoken of in Revelation 5–11, that is to say the Lord’s Incarnation, Baptism, Passion, Descent to Hell, Resurrection, Ascension, and appearance at the Last Judgement, the last of which had still to be accomplished in the valley of Jehoshaphat (ch. 4.2, p. 132–33).49 Afer this, there follows a long description of the Temple area detailing the New Testament events associated with it, some of them apocryphal. Tis section is mostly quite independent of Fretellus and incorporates descriptions of the buildings and the texts of the Latin inscriptions adorning them (ch. 5, p. 133–41). John then moves to the second ‘seal’, Jesus’ Baptism in the River Jordan (ch. 6.1, p. 141). Tis is followed by another lengthy section almost entirely copied from Fretellus, although not always in the same order. It begins with the sites around Jericho but then progresses to Mount Carmel, Jinīn, the Sea of Galilee, Caesarea Palaestina, Hebron, the Dead Sea, the Wādī ʿAraba, Sinai, Transjordan, Bosra, Damascus, Tyre, the Phoenician coast, the Sawād region south of Damascus, Lebanon, Antioch, Caesarea Philippi (Bāniyās), the River Jordan, the sea of Galilee and fnally some places around Jerusalem itself (ch. 6.2–11, p. 141–57). Only at the very end is there some original material: a description of the tomb of St James the Less in the valley of Jehoshaphat and the hermits’ caves around it (ch. 11, p. 157–58). Te remainder of John’s ‘Description’ is predominantly his own work, based on his own observations with relatively few interpolations from Fretellus. Te section on the third ‘seal’, Christ’s Passion, begins in Bethany at the house (or church) of Simon the Leper, but also includes an account of his conversation with the Syriac monks in Jerusalem, who asserted that their church of St Mary
49 Tis was all omitted by Tobler, except for a passage explaining that circumcision was no longer counted among the sacraments of the New Testament.
Magdalene was the actual site of Simon’s house. From Bethany John proceeds to Bethphage, the Mount of Olives, the site of the Last Supper in the church of Mount Sion, the place where Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, the scene of Jesus’ trial and condemnation in the Praetorium, marked by a chapel beside the church of Mount Sion, and from there the way to the prison and the place of Crucifxion inside the church of the Holy Sepulchre (ch. 12–16, p. 158–68). John associates the fourth and ffh ‘seals’, representing the Descent into Hell and the Resurrection, with the Tomb itself and with the ‘centre of the world’ marked out on the pavement of the choir of the same church, where tradition also located the preparation of Jesus’ body for burial and his post-Resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene. Afer a brief review of Jesus’ other post-Resurrection appearances, based on Fretellus, he goes on to give a detailed frst-hand description of the Tomb of Christ and the rest the church of the Holy Sepulchre, including part of the text of an inscription and other details relating to the consecration of the newly built choir and other chapels on 15 July 1149. Tis section ends with an extended polemic against the French for allegedly downplaying the part played by South Germans, like John himself, in the First Crusade (ch. 17–19, p. 169–75). John deals with the sixth ‘seal’, the Ascension, in only a few lines describing the church on the Mount of Olives (ch. 20, p. 175). Following this, however, afer describing the apse mosaic illustrating the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, he presents a particularly valuable account of the places inside the churches on Mount Sion and in the Valley of Jehoshaphat associated with the falling asleep (Dormition), burial and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, including detailed descriptions of the paintings that once covered their walls and their accompanying inscriptions (ch. 20, p. 175–79). Since, as John says, his seventh ‘seal’, the Day of Judgement, is still in the future, he devotes the fnal part of his ‘Description’ to the other churches built more recently inside the city’s walls, including: the church and Hospital of St John the Baptist; the churches of St Mary the Great, St Mary Latin, St Sabas, St James, St Mary of the Germans and St Peter in Fetters; the quarter of the Templars in and around the Aqṣā Mosque, in-
cluding their new church, as yet unfnished; and the churches of St Simeon, St Anne, St Mary Magdalene and St Chariton (ch. 21–24, p. 179–87). Te work concludes with two additional sections containing respectively the liturgies for the feasts of the Dedication of the church of the Holy Sepuchre, the Transfguration and the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, and further epigraphic texts from the churches of the Holy Sepulchre and the Nativity (ch. 25–26, p. 187–91).
John of Würzburg’s ‘Description’ therefore represents, as he implies in his preface, a combination of biblical geography derived from older sources, albeit largely fltered through Fretellus, and descriptions of sites and monuments based on his own observations. Tis is set out according to a somewhat contrived programme intended to trace the seven stages of Christ’s work of redemption, which becomes progressively less coherent as his account procedes before being abandoned before the end. Despite these problems of presentation, however, the ‘Description’ contains a wealth of important frst-hand information about the building works, including art and inscriptions, that had been undertaken since the return of Jerusalem to Christian control in 1099. Altogether John records some 43 inscriptions or fragments of inscriptions, half of which are otherwise unrecorded. In assessing the historical signifcance of this information, however, it is important to know when he made his pilgrimage and what places he actually visited himself.
Unlike Saewulf, John gives us no dates for his pilgrimage. Evidently it was later than 1137–1138, when Fretellus completed the account of the Holy Places dedicated to Count Rodrigo, which John quotes liberally. It must also have been later than the siege of Damascus by the Second Crusade in 1148 (ch. 22, p. 184) and afer consecration of the enlarged church of the Holy Sepulchre on 15 July 1149, since John copies part of the inscription recording it (ch. 19, p. 172). He appears also to have travelled shortly before Teoderic, since both describe the Templars’ new church beside the Temple of Solomon (Aqṣā Mosque) as being still under construction. Tis would place his pilgrimage before 1171–1174 (see below). Other references to building works, such as those at the
church of Jacob’s Well, are more problematical, since at least two separate twelfh-century building campaigns are recorded there, one in the 1130s and another in the 1160s,50 and although John implies that building work was in progress when he saw it (ch. 2, p. 126) he adapted the phrase ubi nunc aecclesia constituitur from Fretellus. In any case, building work on such projects could continue for many years. Te ‘new’ church of the Saviour that John saw in Gethsemane (ch. 14, p. 163), for example, was described as being still under construction when Teoderic visited it a few years later.51 Doubtless John would have been in Jerusalem for Easter and would have stayed as late as 25 July, the feast of St James the Great and St Anne (ch. 22, p. 185), or possibly 1 August, the feast of St Peter ad Vincula, if one inclines to T ’s version, ‘I celebrated mass’ (missam celebravi), as opposed to B ’s, ‘mass is celebrated’ (missa celebratur) (ch. 22, p. 183).52 Te year itself is more difcult to determine. Tobler suggested a date between 1160 and 1170, while Graboïs opted for one around 1165.53 Huygens favoured a date in the early 1160s so as to accommodate his suggested dating of Teoderic’s pilgrimage to 1169;54 but, since it now seems more probable that Teoderic travelled between 1171 and 1174, a date in the mid to late 1160s would seem more likely.
As for what John actually saw, like most pilgrims in this period he would probably have landed at and departed from Acre, rather than Jafa. As he makes specifc mention of having been in Nazareth (ch. 1, p. 121) as well as what appear to be personal observations about Nain (ch. 1, p. 123), the plain of Dothan near Jinīn (ch. 2, p. 124) and possibly al-Bīra (Maior Mahumeria) (ch. 5, p. 135), his overland journey from Acre to Jerusalem would probably have taken the inland route, mirroring the description that he reproduces from Fretellus, passing through Sepphoris, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, Nain, Jezreel, Jinīn and Nāblus. Apart
50 Pringle , Churches, 1, p. 258–64; 4, p. 267–69.
51 See below, Teoderic, ch. 24, p. 230. Cfr. Pringle , Churches, 4, p. 359.
52 Cfr. Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 25, 27.
53 Tobler , Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae, p. 416–17; Graboïs, ‘Le pèlerin occidental’, p. 369 n. 13.
54 Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 27–28.
from a passing reference to Caesarea of Palestine, taken from Fretellus (ch. 6.2, p. 143), he says nothing of the coastal route. Most of his time, however, appears to have been spent in Jerusalem and its immediate surroundings, including Bethlehem (ch. 3, p. 128), the Mount of Olives (ch. 20, p. 175), Bethphage (ch. 12, p. 161), Bethany (ch. 12, p. 158–61) and possibly Jericho.
Teoderic (Teodericus)
Te text of Teoderic’s Libellus de Locis Sanctis survives in two manuscripts, both from the ffeenth century. Te frst edition, however, published by Titus Tobler in 1865, made use of only one of these in the Österreichische Staatsbibliothek in Vienna (V ).55 Tobler’s edition was the basis for an English translation by Aubrey Stewart, frst published in 1896 and revised with a new introduction by Ronald G. Musto in 1986, as well as an Italian translation, published in parallel with a reprint of Tobler’s text in 1980.56
A new edition by Marie-Louise and Walther Bulst, based on the same manuscript and published in 1976, was used for a partial translation by John Wilkinson 1988. In 1985, however, François Dolbeau identifed a second manuscript (M ) in Minneapolis.57 Like the Vienna manuscript, this is also ffeenth century in date and German in origin, at one time having belonged to the library of the Charterhouse of St Barbara in Cologne. It was acquired by Sir Tomas Phillipps in 1834 and passed to the University of Minnesota 1953. Huygens’ edition is the frst to have made use of both manuscripts. As he explains, the two texts share a number of common errors and additions, which indicate that both are derived from the same source, albeit still at some remove from the twelfh-century original. While M is the more legible of the two,
55 Österreichische Staatsbibliothek, MS 3529, fol. 192–207; ed. T. Tobler, Teoderici Libellus de Locis Sanctis, editus circa A.D. 1172, St Gallen, Paris, 1865.
56 For fuller bibliographical details of these and later editions and translations, see the Bibliography, s.v Theoderic
57 Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, James Ford Bell Library, MS 1424/ Co; cfr. Dolbeau, ‘Teodericus’.
a copyist’s attempt to introduce some stylistic improvements into it led him to prefer V as the basis for his edition.58
Tobler placed Teoderic’s journey to Jerusalem between 1171 and 1173, but his dating was founded on two errors.59 First, the fall of Bāniyās to Nūr al-Dīn, which he used as a terminus post quem, occurred not in 1171, as both manuscripts allege (ch. 45, p. 254), but in October 1164.60 Tobler’s end date was also incorrect, though not as badly, since King Amalric, who was evidently still alive when Teoderic visited the Holy Sepulchre (ch. 11, p. 208), died not in 1173 but on 11 July 1174.61 Afer correcting Tobler’s mistakes, Huygens proposed narrowing the possible date range of 1164–1174 by observing that the ripened barley that Teoderic saw around Jericho on the day afer Palm Sunday (ch. 28, p. 235) could only have been sown ‘afer the rainy season,’ which he suggested would indicate a year in which Easter came late.62 Of the possible years with a late Easter falling within the range 1164–1174 and after John of Würzburg’s likely date of travel he identifed 1169 and 1172 (see Table below), of which 1169 appeared the more preferable of the two because it lay closer to the likely date of John’s pilgrimage. Tere are two problems with this argument. Te frst is that very little rain falls in Jericho, only some 2–6 inches (5–15 cm) annually and most of that between December and February.63 Even today, rain-watered barley is still sown there in the open from November and harvested in April.64 Te barley seen by Teoderic, however, was growing in the ‘Garden of Abraham’, so could possibly have beneftted from irrigation, allowing for earlier sowing and cropping. Te second consideration is that the date of the last of the three campaigns of building works in the Templum Domini
58 Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 22–23.
59 Tobler , Teoderici Libellus, p. 165–71; cfr. Stewart, Teoderich’s Description, p. vi–ix.
60 Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 26, 28.
61 Vogtherr , ‘Die Regierungsdaten’, p. 63–64.
62 Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 28.
63 Naval Intelligence Division, Palestine and Transjordan, p. 56–60, fgs 14–16.
64 Butterfield et al ., ‘Impacts of Water’, table 7; cfr. JICA, Jericho Regional Development Study Project, Annex 3, p. 4–5.
recorded by the inscriptions that were seen and copied by Teoderic (ch. 15, p. 218) is correctly re-interpreted by Huygens as 1171.65 On this basis, Teoderic’s pilgrimage could not have been in 1169 and would more likely have taken place sometime between 1171 and 1174. Tus, despite his faulty reasoning, Tobler’s proposed date range would appear afer all to have been mostly accurate. Te possible calendar dates for the days of the Christian year mentioned by Teoderic in his itinerary are set out in the Table below.
Akeldama (Golden Gate, Gethsemane, Bethphage, Bethany)
Table showing the possible dates of Teoderic’s pilgrimage (Places, with their page numbers, where Teoderic’s presence on a certain date can be assumed but is not explicitly stated are shown in brackets)
(196–97, 224–25, 230)
65 Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 26–27.
If Teoderic travelled in 1172, he and his party would have preceded by only three months the arrival of the main group of the large German pilgrimage led by Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria. According to Arnold of Lübeck, Henry’s party lef Brunswick in January and reached Constantinople in time for Easter.66 From there they proceeded by sea to Acre and thence by land with an accompanying party of Templars, Hospitallers and others to Jerusalem, where for three days the duke was entertained by King Amalric. While there, he made several large donations to the Holy Sepulchre and the military orders. He also visited the holy sites of the valley of Jehoshaphat, the Mount of Olives, Bethlehem, Nazareth and the Jordan Valley, where, like Teoderic, he and Abbot Henry of St Giles in Brunswick ascended Mount Quarantine, the latter not without some difculty. On his return to Jerusalem, the duke remained as a guest of the patriarch for two days before proceeding to Acre and taking ship for Antioch in mid July.67
While Teoderic’s dates of travel can be determined within a range of three years (1171–1174), his identity remains uncertain. Tat he was a Rhinelander and a monk seems to be implied by his mention of assisting in the burial of ‘one of our dead brothers, Adolf by name, a native of Cologne,’ at the burial vault of the church of St Mary in Akeldama on Palm Sunday (ch. 4, p. 198) and by his comparison of the rotunda of the church of the Holy Sepulchre to Charlemagne’s palatine chapel in Aachen (ch. 6, p. 202). Tobler reviews a long list of German clerics of the period who were named Teoderich or Dietrich, but none of them provides a convincing match.68 One question that has ofen been raised is whether Teoderic might have been the same person as Dietrich, to whom John of Würzburg dedicated his own work. John explains in his dedica-
66 Arnold of Lübeck , Chronica , 1, 2–4, MGH SS , 21, 116–19; trans. Loud, p. 41–46.
67 Arnold of Lübeck , Chronica , 1, 6–8, MGH SS , 21, p. 120–21; trans. Loud, p. 48–51.
68 Tobler , Teodericus, p. 141–46; Stewart, Teoderich, p. 3; cfr. Wilkinson, in Wilkinson et al., Jerusalem Pilgrimage, p. 22; Huygens, Peregrinationes Tres, p. 29.
