The Breviary of Jerusalem (also called the Short Description of Jerusalem) is a short late antique Latin guidebook for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. [1]
The Breviary of Jerusalem (also called the Short Description of Jerusalem) is a short late antique Latin guidebook for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. [1]
The date of the Breviary is uncertain. Dates from as early as the late 4th century [2] or about 400 [3] to as late as the late 5th or early 6th century [1] [4] or about 530 [5] have been proposed.
The work is anonymous as it stands. Accepting a date from the time of Marcellinus Comes, who was still editing his chronicle in 534, Brian Croke has suggested that the Breviary could be a part of Marcellinus' lost work on Jerusalem. [6] This work is known from a remark in Cassiodorus' Institutions, written in the 550s, that Marcellinus "has described the city of Constantinople and the city of Jerusalem in four short books in considerable detail." [7]
The Breviary is preserved in three manuscripts representing two recensions. [2] These are, in chronological order:
Another copy of the Breviary was apparently in Iona Abbey in the 7th century, since it was one of the sources used by Adomnán in his De locis sanctis (698). [8] The version found in the Oxford and Milan manuscripts is longer than that in the St. Gallen copy, but both versions contain unique material. It is thus impossible to reconstruct the original text, since the pathway by which the two text forms came about is underdetermined. [2]
The Breviary has been printed several times. [9] In the most recent edition, the Oxford and Milan text is called forma a and that of St Gallen forma b. They are printed in parallel columns. [10] Brett Whalen has provided an English translation of the forma a. [11] Paul Riant was responsible for an earlier Latin edition, [12] which was translated by Aubrey Stewart for the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society. [13]
The title of the Breviary comes from the start of the A text: Incipit breuiarius quomodo Hierosolima constructa est [14] ('Here begins the brief description about how the city of Jerusalem is built'). [1] It is limited in scope to the city of Jerusalem and does not mention any other places in the Holy Land. [5]
The Breviary is similar textually to the slightly later pilgrimage accounts of Theodosius and the anonymous pilgrim of Piacenza and all three may have made use of an official guidebook. Where they differ, the Breviary is closer to that of Theodosius. [5] It begins with a description of the church of the Holy Sepulchre complex. [15] It differs in order from both the aforementioned guides, describing the three main buildings—the Constantinian Basilica, the shrine of Golgotha and the church of the Anastasis—from east to west, the order found in the earlier Epitome of Eucherius. A major change in Christian pilgrimage had taken place between the time of the Epitome and the Breviary. The former does not mention the public display of relics associated with Jesus, but in the latter they are prominent. [5]
The Breviary is the earliest source to mention the existence of a Church of the Holy Wisdom on the site of Pilate's praetorium. [16] Other churches mentioned are the Church of Zion and the Church of Saint Peter. [17]
The Holy Lance, also known as the Lance of Longinus, the Spear of Destiny, or the Holy Spear, is the lance that is alleged to have pierced the side of Jesus as he hung on the cross during his crucifixion. As with other instruments of the Passion, the lance is only briefly mentioned in the Christian Bible, but later became the subject of extrabiblical traditions in the medieval church. Relics purported to be the lance began to appear as early as the 6th century, originally in Jerusalem. By the Late Middle Ages, relics identified as the spearhead of the Holy Lance had been described throughout Europe. Several of these artifacts are still preserved to this day.
Calvary or Golgotha was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where, according to Christianity's four canonical gospels, Jesus was crucified.
According to the New Testament, a woven crown of thorns was placed on the head of Jesus during the events leading up to his crucifixion. It was one of the instruments of the Passion, employed by Jesus' captors both to cause him pain and to mock his claim of authority. It is mentioned in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, and is often alluded to by the early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen and others, along with being referenced in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter.
Egeria, Etheria, or Aetheria was a Hispano-Roman Christian woman, widely regarded to be the author of a detailed account of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land about 381/2–384. The long letter, dubbed Peregrinatio or Itinerarium Egeriae, is addressed to a circle of women at home. Historical details it contains set the journey in the early 380s, making it the earliest of its kind. It survives in fragmentary form in a later copy—lacking a title, date and attribution.
Church of the Sepulchre of Saint Mary, also Tomb of the Virgin Mary or the Church of the Assumption, is a Christian church built around an ancient Jewish rock-cut tomb in the Kidron Valley – at the foot of Mount of Olives, in Jerusalem – believed by Eastern Christians to be the burial place of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Status Quo, a 250-year old understanding between religious communities, applies to the site.
In Orthodox Christian belief, the Holy Fire is a ceremony that occurs every year at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Great Saturday, the day before Orthodox Easter.
Felix Fabri was a Swiss Dominican theologian. He left vivid and detailed descriptions of his pilgrimages to Palestine and also in 1489 authored a book on the history of Swabia, entitled Historia Suevorum.
Eucherius was a high-born and high-ranking ecclesiastic in the Christian church in Roman Gaul. He is remembered for his letters advocating extreme self-abnegation. From 439, he served as Archbishop of Lyon, and Henry Wace ranked him "the most distinguished occupant of that see" after Irenaeus. He is venerated as a saint within the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church.
Itinerarium Burdigalense, also known as Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum, is the oldest known Christian itinerarium. It was written by the "Pilgrim of Bordeaux", an anonymous pilgrim from the city of Burdigala in the Roman province of Gallia Aquitania.
A lampadarius, plural Lampadarii, from the Latin lampada, from Ancient Greek "lampas" λαμπάς (candle), was a slave who carried torches before consuls, emperors and other officials of high dignity both during the later Roman Republic and under the Empire. Lampadarios in the post-Byzantine period designates the leader of the second (left) choir of singers in the Eastern Orthodox church practice.
Jerusalem's role in first-century Christianity, during the ministry of Jesus and the Apostolic Age, as recorded in the New Testament, gives it great importance, both culturally and religiously, in Christianity. Jerusalem is generally considered the cradle of Christianity.
Bethany, locally called in Arabic Al-Eizariya or al-Aizariya, is a Palestinian town in the Jerusalem Governorate of Palestine, bordering East Jerusalem, in the West Bank. The name al-Eizariya refers to the New Testament figure Lazarus of Bethany, who according to the Gospel of John, was raised from the dead by Jesus in the town. The traditional site of the miracle, the Tomb of Lazarus, in the city is a place of pilgrimage.
The Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society (PPTS) was a text publication society based in London, which specialised in publishing editions and translations of medieval texts relevant to the history of pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Particular attention was given to accounts by pilgrims and other travellers containing geographical or topographical information, as well as those which discussed the manners and customs of the Holy Land. The original narratives were written in a variety of languages, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Old French, Russian, and German.
De locis sanctis was composed by the Irish monk Adomnán, a copy being presented to King Aldfrith of Northumbria in 698. It was based on an account by the Frankish monk Arculf of his travels to the Holy Land, from which Adomnán, with aid from some further sources, was able to produce a descriptive work in three books, dealing with Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other places in Palestine, and briefly with Alexandria and Constantinople. It aimed to give a faithful account of what Arculf actually saw during his journey. Many of the manuscripts contain the second earliest known map of Jerusalem
The anonymous pilgrim of Piacenza, sometimes simply called the Piacenza Pilgrim, was a sixth-century Christian pilgrim from Piacenza in northern Italy who travelled to the Holy Land at the height of Byzantine rule in the 570s and wrote a narrative of his pilgrimage. This anonymous pilgrim was erroneously identified as Antoninus of Piacenza or Antoninus Martyr out of confusion with Saint Antoninus of Piacenza, who died in 303 and is venerated as a martyr.
Daniel the Traveller, known also as Daniel the Pilgrim, Daniel of Kiev, or Abbot Daniel, was the first travel writer from the Kievan Rus. He is known for travelling to the Holy Land in the aftermath of the First Crusade and his descriptions are important records of the region during that time. Some have identified him with a certain Daniel, bishop of Yuryev between 1115 and 1122.
De situ terrae sanctae is a short 6th-century report of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Its author is identified in a 9th-century manuscript as a German archdeacon named Theodosius.
John of Würzburg was a German priest who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 1160s and wrote a book describing the Christian holy places, the Descriptio terrae sanctae.
The Libellus de locis sanctis is a 12th-century Latin guide book and travelogue of Palestine designed for the use of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Places. It "stands out" from the mass of medieval guide books "for its literary and informative qualities".
Historical sources of the Crusades: pilgrimages and exploration include those authors whose work describes pilgrimages to the Holy Land and other explorations to the Middle East and Asia that are relevant to Crusader history. In his seminal article in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Dominican friar and historian Bede Jarrett (1881–1934) wrote on the subject of Pilgrimage and identified that the "Crusades also naturally arose out of the idea of pilgrimages." This was reinforced by the Reverend Florentine Stanislaus Bechtel in his article Itineraria in the same encyclopedia. Pilgrims, missionaries, and other travelers to the Holy Land have documented their experiences through accounts of travel and even guides of sites to visit. Many of these have been recognized by historians, for example, the travels of ibn Jubayr and Marco Polo. Some of the more important travel accounts are listed here. Many of these are also of relevance to the study of historical geography and some can be found in the publications of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society (PPTS) and Corpus Scriptorum Eccesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL), particularly CSEL 39, Itinerarium Hierosolymitana. Much of this information is from the seminal work of 19th-century scholars including Edward Robinson, Titus Tobler and Reinhold Röhricht. Recently, the Independent Crusaders Project has been initiated by the Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies providing a database of Crusaders who traveled to the Holy Land independent of military expeditions.