Customer Reviews

Gateway to the Heavenly City: Crusader Jerusalem and the Catholic West (1099-1187) (Church, Faith, and Culture in the Medieval West)

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The late Ms Schein's book, though repetitive more often than it should be, is an admirable synopsis of the fluctuating imagery of Jerusalem in the Latin West's collective zeitgeist. From being an irrelevant distraction to the true Heavenly Jerusalem to come prior to the Crusader triumph of 1099 to a glorified repository of Christ's footsteps and life afterwards, the author describes how political forces shaped the perception of the city. Interestingly, monks showed hostility to the idea of the tonsured finding redemption in Jerusalem, while looking askance or with indifference to the layman's quest for absolution in their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. After Saladin's re-conquest in 1187, an event that traumatized the West, the earthly city gradually receded in escatological and soteriological importance, with its heavenly successor once again assuming the dominant role in European salvation culture. The story of the Crusader focus on the Temple Mount and the redemption of the Jews upon Christ's Second Coming makes interesting reading in light of the Christian fundamentalist movement in Israel today. This is a must read for anyone interested in medieval theology, the Crusading movement or the Holy Land.