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- [00:01]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [00:03]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega and we're.
- [00:05]
Matt Lewis
Just popping up here to tell you some insider info.
- [00:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
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Matt Lewis
History Hit with the History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries such as my new.
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Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Series on everyone's favorite conquerors, the Normans.
- [00:25]
Matt Lewis
Or my recent exploration of the castles that made Britain.
- [00:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There's a new release to enjoy every week.
- [00:32]
Matt Lewis
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe or find the link in the show Notes for this episode.
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Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
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Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
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- [02:09]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to Popes to the Crusades, we cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders to find the stories that tell us how we got here, find out who we really were. With Gone Medieval Imagine walking where those who are central to all of your religious beliefs have walked people across the medieval Period traveled hundreds of miles to do just that. Each one, I imagine, got the same shiver along their spine. They went to a city that loomed large over the story of the medieval west and Near East. At least its influence and impact are almost immeasurable. Yet it's an unlikely center of the medieval world. That city is Jerusalem, and there's so much to cover, it's hard to know where to start. But we're going to dive in. To help me navigate this immense and complex subject, I'm delighted to be joined by historian and archaeologist Jody Magness, author of Jerusalem through the Ages, From Its Beginnings to the Crusades. Welcome to God Medieval. Jodie, it's fantastic to have you with us.
- [03:50]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Thank you for having me.
- [03:51]
Matt Lewis
And I think listeners to the Ancients podcast with Tristan will be familiar with you. And you're coming at this as an ancient historian who is sort of moving forward into the medieval period a little bit. So it's fantastic that we get to borrow you from the ancients for a while.
- [04:04]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Thank you. Yes. Yeah. Exciting for me, too.
- [04:07]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. I wanted to start off by just querying whether it's too much to say that Jerusalem is the most important city in the medieval world. I mean, if we look at maps, you know, they will often have Jerusalem at the center of the world. Is it just the most important place?
- [04:25]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, since I work in Jerusalem, I think it is the most important city. But of course, what you think is most important is going to be based on your perspective. But I do think that certainly for the European world, Jerusalem was very important, if not the most important city. Certainly from a religious point of view, it was extremely important. And that really is what sparked the Crusades. Right. We wouldn't have had Crusades if it wasn't for Jerusalem. Without Crusades, we wouldn't have much to talk about in medieval history anyway. So I don't know. Well, that's not exactly. But anyway, so I don't know if it's the most important, but certainly an extremely important city, which is a little bit surprising when you consider the fact that Jerusalem is not one of the great cities of the ancient or medieval world. It's not like in Athens or Rome or Istanbul or, you know, whatever. It's a relatively remote, relatively poor mountain town, and it was certainly a relatively poor city and relatively small compared to some of the other major cities, even in the Middle Ages. So it's rather surprising what an important place Jerusalem occupies throughout history.
- [05:33]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Punching above its weight.
- [05:35]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes.
- [05:35]
Matt Lewis
We're going to discuss Jerusalem in kind of three stages of its medieval life as a Byzantine city, as an Islamic city, and then as a Crusader city. But before we even get to that initial Byzantine period in its history that we're going to talk about, Jerusalem already had this long and storied history, didn't it? Is there a potted version of that that you can give us to catch us up to where Jerusalem was at the beginning of the medieval period?
- [06:01]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Wow, that's a.
- [06:04]
Matt Lewis
That's a really unfair question, isn't it? Jodie, I'm being mean to you.
- [06:07]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
You know, Jerusalem's history goes back at least 5,000 years, right? The earliest settlement in Jerusalem goes back to about 3000 BC, so the beginning of the Bronze Age, possibly even earlier. So to give you a potted version, well, I'll just give headlines. Right, so the earliest inhabitants were a pre Israelite people or pre Israelite peoples. By the time the Israelites arrive with King David, the inhabitants of the city are a people called the Jebusites by the biblical writers. King David conquers the city from them, brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and apparently plants it on what later becomes the Temple Mount. He's succeeded by Solomon, who then builds the first temple dedicated to the God of Israel on the Temple Mount. Then that Jerusalem serves as the capital of the kingdom of David and Solomon, and then afterwards the capital of the southern half of the kingdom until the Babylonians come in and conquer that kingdom and send the inhabitants into exile. Eventually we get a series of different empires ruling, beginning with the Persians and then Alexander the Great and his successors. After that, Jerusalem again becomes the capital of a kingdom, this time an independent Jewish kingdom called the Hasmonean Kingdom, the successors of the Maccabees. Then we get the Romans coming in and taking over, and under them the reign of Herod the Great, who rebuilds the Second Temple. I should have mentioned the Second Temple was rebuilt about 500 years before the time of Herod. And then in 70 AD, the city is destroyed by the Romans because of a Jewish revolt. So at the time of Jewish revolt, and then the city lies in ruins for a while and is rebuilt about 65 years later by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a pagan Roman city called Aelia Capitolina. And eventually that pagan Roman city becomes a Christian city as the Roman Empire becomes a Christian empire. And it's in that period then that we begin to get the construction of churches throughout the city, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is one of the earliest churches ever built, was built by Constantine in the early 4th century AD and is, you know, revered as the spot where Jesus was crucified and buried. Revered by many Christians as the spot where Jesus was crucified and buried. So I just took you up to early Christianity. So just to say, terminology for these periods differs depending on which academic circles you're moving in and where those academic circles are located. Right? So among scholars working in, let's say Israel or, you know, the broader area of Palestine, Syria, Palestine, the area of, let's say, Jordan, Israel today, the Palestinian territory, conventionally, the period beginning with Constantine's legalization of Christianity or beginning actually with the rule of Constantine in the 4th century, that period in that part of the world is referred to by many scholars and archaeologists as beginning the Byzantine period. Whereas typically among scholars working in other parts of the Mediterranean, this period is still late Roman. And technically what becomes called the Byzantine period doesn't start in other parts of the Mediterranean or isn't called as starting in other parts of the Mediterranean. The Byzantine period doesn't really start until you get to the 6th or 7th centuries A.D. and so the terminology is a little bit confusing if you're not an academic. Another level of confusion is that the period beginning with Constantine, the fourth, fifth, six centuries, this period when we see the rise and spread of Christianity and the Roman Empire becoming a Christian empire, that period is also often referred to as late antiquity. Now you just referred to the beginning of the medieval period. And so exactly when does the medieval period start in our conversation? You're going to start it with what is called by my colleagues working in the area of Palestine, the Byzantine period.
- [10:11]
Matt Lewis
And where does the name Byzantium come from?
- [10:14]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I actually refer to it still as the late Roman period because it really is still Roman. In a minute, I'm going to explain for your listeners what Byzantine actually is, but the Byzantines themselves, and as we go on in time, people who really were Byzantines, they didn't refer to themselves as Byzantines. They still thought of themselves as Romans. So there's no break, there's no sharp break. And therefore the terminology is confusing because everybody uses different terminology to refer to, you know, this long, what you might view as a long transitional period. Now, the term Byzantine, which is what you want to start with, you want to start with the so called Byzantine period. And I explain this in my book, right? This problem of where the Byzantine period starts or when it starts. So the word Byzantine comes from Byzantium. Byzantium was Constantinople. That was the original name of modern Constantinople was Byzantium. And then it becomes Constantinople, when Constantine makes it the capital of the Roman Empire. And then eventually, after the time of Constantine, the Roman Empire split into two halves, and that city, Constantinople, became the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire, what had been the Roman Empire. And that eastern half eventually becomes known as Byzantium, or the Byzantine Empire, after Byzantium, its capital. Eventually, much later, that city, Constantinople, which originally was Byzantium, becomes known as Istanbul. So Byzantium is Constantinople is Istanbul, that original name of the city, Byzantium, is what gave its name eventually to what we call the eastern half of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire. And since the area of ancient Palestine with Jerusalem is located in that area, therefore we were part of the quote, unquote, Byzantine Empire. So in my book, I actually start the Byzantine period with Constantine, following sort of the tradition of the use of my colleagues, with my colleagues in the area use it. I myself, again, still refer to this period as the Late Roman period, but I wanted to sort of make things clear and kind of break things cleanly for readers of the book.
- [12:25]
Matt Lewis
So if we go back to the beginning of our medieval discussion, which sounds like it's very much near the end of your book's discussion of Jerusalem, actually, but from our point of view, it's the beginning of where we're going to talk about Jerusalem. How is it that Jerusalem kind of falls into the sphere of influence of the Byzantine Empire? Is it simply that this is a continuation of what was Roman rule, which is now represented by Byzantine rule?
- [12:47]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, sure, sure. So again, the confusion of the terminology of Byzantine, but yes, absolutely. So what happens is, is that there were several periods in the latter part of the Roman Empire, when we begin to see the Empire kind of splitting apart. But the final split between east and west occurred more or less. The final split, with one exception, occurred in 395 AD, when the empire split into two halves, east and West. And from that point, the western half remained with its capital at Rome, and it undergoes its own history. It actually begins to disintegrate pretty soon afterwards. The eastern half continued to have its capital at ancient Byzantium, which was now Constantinople, which today is Istanbul and Syria, Palestine. The area we're talking about with Jerusalem was part of that territory. So you have that split in the empire. Jerusalem then automatically. Yes. Is part of what is the eastern half of the Roman Empire, what we call the Byzantine Empire?
- [13:47]
Matt Lewis
How much do we know about what Jerusalem looks like during that period? How big a city is it?
- [13:51]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
This is my period of specialization. My dissertation was on this period. And actually on Jerusalem in this period. And so I'm a little bit biased, but. But the fact is, is that the Byzantine period, so again we're talking basically 4th, 5th, 6th centuries AD up to the Muslim conquest in the 7th century. This period overall in Palestine was a period of exceptional prosperity and an extraordinary number of settlements. I mean, my colleagues who don't specialize in the Byzantine period are always grumbling about the fact that no matter where you dig throughout the country, you're going to find Byzantine remains because it just exploded. And the reason it exploded really was because partly of Jerusalem, Jerusalem's importance, partly Jerusalem became the seat of the Patriarchate during the Byzantine period. And there were only five patriarchate cities all throughout the area of the Roman world, all throughout the Mediterranean. So Jerusalem is elevated to that status during this period and because of the biblical associations of the, you know, sites throughout the country, but also in Jerusalem itself, where Jesus of course, lived his final days on earth. And so because of all of this, there's a huge influx of people into the country. Pilgrims visiting the holy sites, clergy and monks who settle imperial patronage, emperors starting with Constantine, but going on from there, emperors and empresses who fund the construction of churches and monasteries and convents and hospitals and all sorts of other establishments like that all throughout the country, but especially in Jerusalem. And so the city of Jerusalem actually reaches one of the peaks of its size and prosperity all throughout history there. I think we could, if we wanted to single out prior to the 20th century, let's say the latter part of the 20th century, when again Jerusalem expands in size. But if we want to single out periods in history when Jerusalem was the largest in size and had the most buildings and monumental buildings, there would be two of those periods and one would be the so called, what I call in my book, the Herodian period, which is the period from the, the reign of Herod the Great until the destruction of the city by the Romans in 70 AD and the other period is the Byzantine period. The city is jam packed with remains both inside what were at the time the walls of the city. And by the way, the size of the city within the walls increased also during the Byzantine period, but also outside the walls. The city was ringed by monasteries, by churches, by settlements. So it really is, it's an extraordinarily interesting period to study because we have such a wealth of information.
- [16:35]
Matt Lewis
And what does the archaeology of the city tell us about what is going on there? What types of buildings, what kind of activities are going on around the city?
- [16:43]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Right. So you know, of course, the kinds of buildings that leave the most easily recognizable traces in the archaeological record and also that tend to get more attention in our ancient literary sources, are monumental buildings. So things like churches and monasteries and stuff like that. And we also, I should mention, have a very important source of information on the appearance of Byzantine Jerusalem in the form of an ancient map called the Madaba map, which is actually a mosaic floor decorating a church in Jordan in a town called Ma'am in Jordan today. The congregation of this church, in around the year 600 A.D. decorated the floor with a mosaic that is a map of the Holy Land at that time. So around the year 600. And although parts of the floor have not been preserved, the part that shows Jerusalem is preserved very prominently and in great detail. So we can also see Jerusalem's appearance somewhat idealized, but still represented in that map. And what we can see in that map, and we also have archeological remains of, are churches, church buildings in the forms of basilicas, a very large depiction of the church of the Holy Sepulchre very prominent in the center of the map. And we can also see, by the way, other features of the city, the walls of the city. We can see some of the colonnaded streets, which actually go back to the previous period to the time of the Emperor Hadrian. So we do have a lot of information. So, you know, most of our remains and most of the literary information that we have concern those kinds of buildings. But I should also mention that we have as well, domestic buildings, meaning houses, and a very significant residential quarter, much of which has been excavated in the area to the south of the Temple Mountain. People can actually go and visit those houses today.
- [18:28]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, fascinating. And above ground, how much do we know about what kind of culture was thriving in the city during this period? I guess we're dividing up what we're talking about in terms of who has control of the city. So there's an element of dispute there. But to what extent are there disparate communities living together in relative peace in the city of Jerusalem at this time?
- [18:49]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, okay. So at this point, we're under, you know, we're basically under early Christian rule, the Byzantine rule. So again, going back to the previous period, when the Emperor Hadrian rebuilt the city as a pagan Roman city called Aelia capitolina in the second century A.D. one of the things that he did, and this. There's a whole story behind this, he prohibited Jews from living in that city in Aelia Capitolina. This was a punishment for a Jewish revolt against him. And so from that point on, basically, we don't have Jews living in the city of Jerusalem. Now. There is no agreement among scholars about how long Hadrian's Prohibition was in effect. So did it continue to be in effect for centuries until, let's say, after the Muslim conquest? Or at some point did it lapse and were, you know, small numbers of Jews allowed back into the city? You know, there's also a problem with our sources. The. The sources that we have from this period, from the Byzantine period, which are Christian, tend to be very hostile towards Jews and tend to present history in a way that shows that, you know, Christianity superseded Judaism as the true Israel, and therefore the Jews punished, right? And so on and so forth. And so therefore, they also tend to downplay Jewish presence. That said, we don't really have, to my knowledge, clear evidence, archaeological evidence of Jewish presence in Jerusalem, any sustained Jewish presence, meaning Jews actually living in the city during the Byzantine period. So if there were Jews living in the city, it must have been a very small number. There may have been Jewish pilgrims. We have references to small numbers of Jewish pilgrims coming to visit, but we can pretty much rule out, you know, Jewish presence. And therefore, what we're talking about in this period is a Christian population.
- [20:26]
Matt Lewis
How did the Latin Christians change the fabric of Jerusalem?
- [20:30]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
The Christian population was very diverse because we have Christians who are coming from all over the ancient world, around the Mediterranean and around what is today the Middle east, the near east, to visit the city and occasionally to settle in the city. And this is reflected not just in our literary sources, but also in inscriptions from Jerusalem, from archeological remains. And we can see, for example, significant numbers of monasteries, especially, for example, to the north of the city, somewhat to the west, also to the east, to the Mount of Olives, monasteries that belong to, for example, Armenian groups of Armenians or Georgians, meaning from the area of Georgia, not the state of Georgia, but the country of Georgia. And so we know that there were. We have pilgrims, accounts of pilgrims who came from all of. From as far as Spain, the area of Spain, to visit Jerusalem. So the Christian population was very diverse, but it was a Christian population. One of the things that people might not realize is that in addition to these sort of geographical distinctions, there were distinctions among what we might call denominations of Christians, meaning that in this period, there were divisions among Christians surrounding things like the nature of Jesus Christ. Was he fully divine? Was he half divine, half human? Was he fully human? These sorts of, you know, sort of doctrinal debates divided Christians and created all sorts of different groups. That really fought with each other. And we also know that different members of those groups were present among the Christians in Jerusalem.
- [21:59]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And you've mentioned that this is one of the periods at which Jerusalem was at one of its big heights in its history. How did Byzantine Jerusalem differ from its ancient iterations? What were the significant things that made it stand out from previous versions of Jerusalem?
- [22:17]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, well, that's great. And I think actually one of the main things that distinguishes Jerusalem in this period from earlier periods is that the Temple Mount is deserted. In fact, the Mataba map, which I mentioned before, doesn't even show the Temple Mount on it because there was nothing on it. There was no reason to show it. This is again, due to this sort of message of Christian supersessionism, which the Mataba map is also broadcasting. So what happens is, is that in the previous period, the time of Hadrian, the time of eleochaptic Capitolina, apparently, and this is the subject of a huge amount of debate, but I agree with these scholars. Apparently there was a temple or shrine dedicated to Capitoline Jupiter on the Temple Mount. But when we get to the period when Jerusalem becomes Christian, that temple or shrine, whatever was up there had been removed. And under Byzantine Christian rule, the Temple Mount was deliberately left lying in ruins, abandoned and lying in ruins as a sort of a visual fulfillment of Jesus's prophecy that one day the Temple would be destroyed. So, again, this kind of message of Christian supersessionism. So, of course, the Temple Mount has always been sort of the dominant feature ever since the time of Solomon. Right. The dominant feature of Jerusalem. And that is something that. That is missing from Byzantine Jerusalem. Instead, what happens is, is that for Christians, the focal point moves to about. Well, I guess it's about a third of a mile away, so not very far away to the west, the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which, as I mentioned, was first built by Constantine in the 4th century and which is believed to enshrine the spots where Jesus was crucified and buried. So that becomes, for Christians, the focal point of the city. And it is represented again very prominently and in the center of the Mataba map, sort of broadcasting that very same message.
- [24:04]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. It's a very interesting shift. And so if we think about the movement into the Islamic control of Jerusalem, when are we talking about, when does the city become an Islamic city?
- [24:16]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, well, I mean, technically, if you were talking politically. Right. So the city comes under the rule of the Muslims. In the 7th century AD, Jerusalem actually surrendered peacefully to the Muslims. There's a debate again, it's not clear exactly in what year Jerusalem surrendered to the Muslims. I'm gonna go, just for the sake of convenience, with 638. But it might have been a year or two earlier than that. And because it was a peaceful surrender, a peaceful negotiation, that transition was not accompanied by immediate changes, by wave of destructions or anything like that. Instead, it's just kind of a transition. And so what happens over the course of the next several decades is that gradually you begin to get the establishment of a Muslim population in the city, either people who came and settled, who had already converted to Islam, plus the conversion of some of the existing inhabitants to Islam. But the fact is, is that there still remained a very significant Christian population in the city. The Muslims were quite tolerant of other religions. And if you weren't Muslim, you had to pay kind of an extra tax, basically. But otherwise, you know, they were quite tolerant of other religions. And one of the things that we do see happening then under Muslim rule is the return of Jews to Jerusalem to settle permanently in Jerusalem. And that's something that also continues over the course of time. So the population of Jerusalem under Muslim rule would have been much more diverse in the sense that it would have included various categories of Christians plus Muslims plus, you know, Jews and different denominations, by the way, of Jews or different kinds of Jews or whatever. And the continued use of many of the churches that, you know, were still used in the Byzantine period. So in many ways, the city remained very much the same, looking very much the same, and having, in many ways, some of the same population for quite a long time. But as you go on. So it's not like a sharp division. Now, one of the things that does happen is that. So I mentioned again, 638, let's say, is the year that Jerusalem surrendered to the Muslims. Is that in the latter part of that century, in either 691 or 692, one of the early Islamic rulers, one of the early Islamic caliphs, whose name was Abd al Malik, built a couple of monuments. Well, actually built a monument on the Temple Mount. And then the second monument was either built by him or by his son. These two monuments are the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque, which still stand today and, of course, are sort of iconic of the city of Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock is the building in the center of the Temple Mount that has a gold dome, and it enshrines a rocky outcropping in the Temple Mount. In the center of the Temple Mount, which comes to be called the foundation stone, and the construction of that structure and the building at the southern end of the Temple Mount, which is Al Aqsa Mosque, which has a silver dome that really then transformed in many ways the city of Jerusalem by bringing attention back to the Temple Mount, by making it sort of the centerpiece of. When you look at Jerusalem. Right, that's what still stands out to you today. And so in that way, they kind of transformed the appearance of Jerusalem. But again, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was still there. It was still functioning. Other churches around the city were still being used. So it's not a sharp break, but rather a transformation over the course of time.
- [27:37]
Matt Lewis
So should we be thinking about this sort of transfer of power in Jerusalem as a relatively peaceful affair? We're not necessarily seeing reprisals against the Christian population. We're not seeing churches being shut down, but we're seeing Islamic mosques being built sort of alongside the existing Christian infrastructure. But how much is really changing?
- [27:57]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, well, I mean, there was change, but it was incremental. In other words, it's not a sharp break. It's not like what happens in Jerusalem when the Romans destroy the city in 70 and it's lying in ruins and then, you know, 65 years later or so, it's rebuilt completely by Hadrian on a completely different, you know, layout. It's nothing like that. It's instead a changes incrementally over the course of time as some of the local population convert to Islam. You get some newcomers arriving who newly converted Muslims who come and settle in the city. Some of the Christian population may be convert. Some of them maybe leave the city. There's, you know, so there are changes. You got Jews arriving and resettling in the city. So it's changes, but it's not a sharp break. Now, about the churches. So some churches do go out of use over the course of time, but it's not necessarily due to the Muslim rulers shutting them down or, you know, persecuting Christians or anything like that. Actually, some of the churches. I didn't want to go into this, but we'll go into it. So not too long before the Muslim conquest in the year 614 AD, so the Muslims come in and the city surrenders in, let's say, 638. In 614 AD, when the city was still under Byzantine rule, a people called the Sassanid Persians invaded the country and they took the city of Jerusalem and slaughtered, according to our accounts, slaughtered many of the Christian inhabitants, clergy, monks and so on, and apparently destroyed some of the churches and monasteries, and some of those apparently never recovered. And then the Byzantines eventually come in and take the city back, and then the Muslims come in and the city surrenders to them. So some churches and monasteries had either been damaged or destroyed at the time of the Sassanid Persian invasion, and some of those never recovered, some of those never were rebuilt. So when we talk about sort of a decline in the number of churches and monasteries or some of them going out of use, it's not again, because of the Muslims coming in and destroying them in any way, it's because of them never recovering from the secended Persian invasion which had occurred, you know, not too long before the surrender of the city to the Muslims, if that makes sense. So I'm not sure that answered your question. But anyway, that's.
- [30:14]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, it sounds like you say there's not that hard break and not all that much really changes. You get the arrival of Islam, but without necessarily pushing anything else out of.
- [30:23]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
The city, there were changes. You can't say it's a particular year, it's a particular decade. So if you take Jerusalem as it looked, let's say, at the time of the surrender to the Muslims, the time of the Muslim conquest in 638, let's say, and compare it to how the city looked a couple of centuries later, still under Muslim rule, it would look very different right by then. And the material culture changed over time too. The local pottery types, which my period, my field of specialization, but things like the local pottery types changed as well, but again, not overnight. So that's what I'm trying to emphasize. It's not that there was no change, it's just that it's not a sharp break, it's just changes, for example, in the types of pottery. What we see, and this happens in general under Muslim rule in the Eastern Mediterranean, is a sort of reorientation away from the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean basin had been sort of the focus of the Roman Empire. Right. The Roman Empire was entered on the Mediterranean trade going across the Mediterranean Sea. So the culture around the Mediterranean was kind of a unified culture in the sense that you get many of the same pottery types being exported in that area, influencing pottery types in countries around the Mediterranean. And what happens under Muslim rule is that the focus shifts from the Mediterranean to. To the east, to the ancient near east, to China, and you begin to get the influence of pottery types, but also, by the way, all sorts of other things. But pottery types from that part of the world influencing the local pottery types and also being imported. And so if you, for example, compare what the local pottery types used at the time of the Muslim conquest with the local pottery types used 100 or 200 years later, they look completely different. But this again, it wasn't like overnight that change happened.
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- [33:57]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to Mario's Bistro.
- [34:01]
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The special tonight is the Beef Carpaccio.
- [34:04]
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- [34:40]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. And probably just to go back to the beginning of discussing this part as well, why was Jerusalem important to Muslims? We've talked a bit about why it was important to Christians in the early Christian period. Why is it an important place for Muslims?
- [34:53]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, that's actually a really interesting thing. So it wasn't that Jerusalem necessarily was. I don't think it's fair to say that Jerusalem was itself a target. You know, like, oh, yes, we have to go and take Jerusalem. It's part of a territory that the Muslims conquered. And of course, eventually the Muslims established the first Muslim dynasty. The Umayyads established an empire that stretched all the way to Spain. So, you know, through North Africa and Spain. So, you know, Jerusalem just becomes a part of this, you know, much larger early Islamic fear. The first Muslim dynasty, the Umayyads. And one of the Umayyad rulers, Abd al Malik, is the one who built the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. Their capital was at Damascus. And Damascus in Syria is not very far from Jerusalem. And so Jerusalem, and if you're thinking again of this huge, this vast empire that stretches all the way through the area of the modern Middle east and up to, you know, North Africa in Spain, Jerusalem, then is geographically proximate, quite close to the capital of the empire. And therefore Jerusalem in many ways benefited from its proximity, its geographical proximity. It was under the next Muslim dynasty, the Abbasids, that the capital of the empire was shifted further to the east to Baghdad. And Jerusalem becomes, therefore, farther away from the imperial capital and becomes more of a, let's say, backwater or, you know, it's less centrally located relative to where the capital was located. So under this first Muslim dynasty, Jerusalem benefits, number one, from its location. But what happens then? And this is also connected with the construction of the Dome of the Rock. And it's such a complicated story, but what happens is that, you know, early Islam, the earliest Islam, and this is already even before, let's say, the Umayyads established their dynasty, the Umayyad dynasty is established in the middle of the seventh century, around 660 AD, so the earliest period of Islam, when they first take the Holy Land, when they first take Palestine with it, and with it, Jerusalem, one of the challenges that they faced, especially in Jerusalem, was competing as a new religion with not only a very well established religion, Christianity, but a very wealthy religion. So Jerusalem, at this Point was filled with these large churches with very expensive decoration and very well endowed and, you know, lots of clergy and monks and pilgrims. And the Muslims were kind of the new boys in town, so to speak, and had to establish their legitimacy, had to compete in a way for converts with this very well established, prominent religion. And so in some ways, I don't want to say that, don't want to oversimplify this, but in some ways the Dome of the Rock is making a statement. They take the most prominent spot in Jerusalem, which at this point is basically a garbage dump, but which was known to have those connections going back to the time of Solomon, David and Solomon. And they clear it and they build a building which becomes, ever since then, the most prominent building in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock. And that building broadcast a lot of different messages. So you can look at that building and you can understand it in many different ways, but it broadcasts many different messages. And one of the main messages was our ruler. Here we are re establishing the ancient Temple of Solomon as sort of the legitimate heirs of David and Solomon, and therefore sort of pointing the way back, connecting ourselves to Jerusalem's past to the ancient biblical past, but also pointing forward to the future. Because the restoration of, let's say, the quote, unquote, Temple of Solomon, which by the way, is how some early Islamic sources refer to it. The restoration of this quote, unquote, Temple of Solomon also therefore points to the future as sort of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and the heralding of the beginning of the end of days, which is the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. Right. The ultimate goal in these sort of eschatological or apocalyptic views is that what will happen at the end of days is that you will have a utopia established on earth, which is God's kingdom on earth. Right. So that is the ultimate message. And so the. So the message is that, you know, it's not Christianity that has done this. We are the ones who have brought this to fulfillment. And in many ways, that's kind of the message that is broadcast. The Dome of the Rock itself, it's extremely complex. The layout, the decoration, there's an important dedicatory, long dedicatory inscription on the inside. And all of these give us multiple messages about the significance of this building.
- [39:28]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, fascinating. And I guess then having placed so much importance on Jerusalem early on, the Umayyad caliphate, when that's overthrown, kind of middle of the 8th century by the Abbasids, and as you said, the capitalists moved to Baghdad and Jerusalem becomes more remote from the centre of power. What impact does that have on Jerusalem? Does it become a less significant site?
- [39:48]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting question. Now, before I go on, I will say we have other monuments and remains of the early Islamic period and the Umayyad period in Jerusalem outside of the Temple Mount. And one of the most important set of remains is located just to the south and west of the Temple Mount, where excavations by Israeli archaeologists. Actually, this was so unexpected back in the late 1960s and 70s, brought to light a series of gigantic, lavishly decorated buildings that literally surround the southern and western sides of the Temple Mount. There's been a lot of debate among scholars about exactly what these buildings were used for. Were they administrative buildings? Were they palaces? Were they both? Were they something else? But again, fitting in with a clear agenda of constructing major construction in Jerusalem under the Umayyads now. So the, The. It's an interesting question about the transition to Abbasid rule, because traditionally, based on this notion that, you know, Palestine comes to be kind of a backwater under the Abbasids and afterwards, many archaeologists, therefore, have had this view that the city kind of isn't as important. We don't have as many buildings, the city maybe declines a bit, that kind of thing. I actually don't think that that's necessarily the case. I think what that has done has driven the misdating of some remains in Jerusalem. In other words, I think that there remains in Jerusalem that do date to the Abbasid period and later that have not been correctly dated because of the assumption that in this period, you know, Jerusalem declined. I don't think we see the wealth of new monumental construction under the Abbasids that we saw under the Umayyads. But I do think that we have good evidence of continuity into the Abbasid period. Now, again, there are also changes. For example, in the year 1033 AD, there was a severe earthquake that apparently affected Jerusalem, damaged some of the buildings. And at this point, it appears that some of the buildings were so damaged that they then go out of use and they're not repaired. And so we do get some changes. It also appears that as a result of that earthquake, the city wall was damaged and the city wall, when it's finally rebuilt afterwards, is built along a smaller area, enclose smaller area, because the population had decreased by that point. So we do see some changes, but I don't think that we see a sharp break again between the Umayyad period and the Abbasid period. Rather, we see just changes that occur over the course of time.
- [42:12]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, it's really interesting, and I'm conscious we've talked a lot about what the archaeology tells us about these big monumental buildings. Does the archaeology give us a sense of anything smaller in the Islamic period? For example, do we have finds of coins and things like that that tell us a bit more about everyday life?
- [42:26]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Sure, and I'll be happy to talk about coins. But, you know, my field of specialization is pottery. My dissertation actually included the pottery of the early Islamic period from Jerusalem. And the reason is because before I wrote my dissertation, which was now a long time ago, but before I wrote my dissertation, those Islamic early Islamic pottery types had traditionally been dated by archaeologists to the Byzantine period. This is very interesting. Why? Because there was this notion that the Muslim conquest was followed by a sharp break and decline. And as I said, there's no evidence of anything like that. But that notion led to. Led archaeologists before I wrote my dissertation to date pottery types that are actually early Islamic to the Byzantine period. Because, you know, the idea was after the Muslim conquest, we don't really have anything. So we have a lot of pottery types of the early Islamic period. And over the course of time, we can see some very interesting changes. As I mentioned, influence from. You begin to get. For example, you know, you think of Chinese porcelain, right? So during the Islamic period, we begin to see pottery that is covered with these colorful glazes, green and. And yellow and so on turquoise. And that is definitely coming. That's influence that's coming from further to the east. We see introductions of kinds of pottery that reflect traditions coming from the area of ancient Mesopotamia, the area of modern Iraq. This beautiful pottery with very thin walls fired to an almost white color. Eggshell white ware. It's beautiful buff ware. So we have a lot of evidence actually around Jerusalem of pottery of. And by the way, also interesting, the continuation of Byzantine types which then continue into the early Islamic period, but develop in various ways that are decorated a little differently or have slightly different shapes. So both continuity and change, as I've been. As I've been trying to stress. Now, yes, we do have coins, and the coins are very interesting. And here I'm not talking specifically necessarily about coins that were minted in Jerusalem, although maybe some of them were, but just in general, the coins of this period, the earliest Islamic coins that we have, sort of reflect this general lack of change that we see immediately following the Muslim conquest, which is that the earliest Islamic coins basically imitate Byzantine coins. They look like Byzantine coins, except that they do things like take off the crosses and stuff like that. Right. And they put the name of their ruler on instead. But they're designed to look like Byzantine coins. But soon after that, under the Umayyads, we begin to get coins that do look different. And instead of looking like Byzantine coins, you see this kind of coin that's called the standing Caliph type of coin, where on one side of the coin, it shows the caliph, the ruler, standing, and he's surrounded by an Arabic inscription, which is the shahada, the profession of faith, which is, you know, there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger. Right, Is his prophet. So we begin to get that. And then later, towards the end of the 7th century, under Abd al Malik, the same guy who built the Dome of the Rock, we get a complete overhaul, a complete reform of early Islamic coinage. And all figured images are removed from coins. There are no more figured images, no more standing Caliph or anything like that. And instead just writing on the coins. So you get the profession of faith, you get a verse from the Quran, and that now replaces the images that previously had decorated coins. So, yeah, and there were also changes made to the denominations of coins, to the weights of coins. That's a whole nother thing.
- [46:13]
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- [47:29]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, no. Fascinating. I guess we need to move on to bringing this to what, for the purposes of our conversation, is kind of the culmination. We have a city that is central to the Christian religion in terms of being the site of some of Jesus's mission and his crucifixion. We have a site that is central to the Islamic faith, too, Maybe the third most important city in the Islamic tradition where Muhammad made his miraculous ascent to heaven kind of thing. It's important. The two biggest faiths emerging in the region at the time. This will come to head towards the end of the 11th century, when we go into a period that we remember as the Crusades, which will center on control of Jerusalem and moving it between Islam and Christianity. How does that differ from other changes? Because it seems like before, we've dealt with slow periods of change of authority that haven't, as you've often said, we haven't had this hard cut. But it feels like we're moving into a period now where we get several hard cuts in the control of Jerusalem that are much more violent. What kind of scars does that leave on the city? What can we see in the archaeology about those more violent transfers of power?
- [48:41]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Right. And as you were talking, I realized that I omitted when we were talking about the Dome of the Rock because you had asked about the importance of Jerusalem to Islam. Right. Of course, the Temple Mount, which in, in Arabic is called Al Haram, al Sharif, which means the sacred enclosure or noble enclosure, or sometimes the entire esplanade is called Al Aqsa, which means the farthest spot, because that spot, that location comes to be identified, as you said, with eventually with Muhammad's night journey and his ascent to heaven. Right. So. And, you know, Al Aqsa becomes identified with the Temple Mount. And I want to also emphasize that, you know, sometimes people refer to Jerusalem as being sort of the third most important or holy site for Islam. And that's not actually correct. I mean, it's more correct just to say that it is a. An important holy site for Islam and not to sort of rank it in that way. So I apologize. I should have. I got bogged down in talking about the devil, the Rock, but the significance of Jerusalem to Islam and also making clear that, you know, for Muslims, that, that that large paved esplanade which many of us call the Temple Mount has its own names and its own significance. So what happens is the little. The little bit of background to this is there were. There were changes in rule over the course of time. Over the course of the Islamic period, there were changes in rule. Right. There were different Muslim rulers and dynasties that controlled Jerusalem over the course of the centuries, and there's a lot of different ones with different names. And I, you know, I don't want to go back back and forth with them. But basically, during much of the period that preceded the Crusades, Jerusalem was under the rule of a dynasty based in Egypt called the Fatimid Dynasty. And the sort of seminal turning point for us is in the year 1009 AD, when a Fatimid caliph in Egypt, whose name was Al Hakim, ordered the dismantling of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. And not this isn't the Church of the Holy. This was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that had been standing at that time. So originally Constantine saw church which had been rebuilt in some ways over the course of time. But he ordered that church systematically dismantled from top to bottom in 1009. Now, before we go on, let me mention that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher under Constantine and even until today, but was an enormous complex that included the actual church, meaning a congregational hall for prayer and worship, which was a basilica. But the complex also included other parts that enshrined sacred sites. And among the sites enshrined within the complex was a rocky outcrop which is called Golgotha or Calvary, venerated as the spot where the rocky outcrop on which Jesus was crucified. And then nearby, a rock cut tomb into which Jesus body is believed to have been laid after he was removed, taken down from the cross. So all of that is enshrined within this big complex. The tomb was separate from the basilica, from the hall of worship. It was adjacent to it, but separate from it. And it was enshrined going all the way back to the time of Constantine, within a circular domed structure called the Rotunda. Originally it was called the Anastasis, which is Greek for resurrection, but we call it the Rotunda. And what happens under Al Hakim is that Al Hakim orders the church dismantled, the rotunda with the tomb, the dome structure encircling the tomb that was still standing. But the church was dismantled and destroyed under Al Hakim. And that actually was the excuse, sort of, that provoked the Crusades, right? It was the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which sort of ignited the Crusader quest to take the Holy Land and most importantly, to retake Jerusalem and rebuild the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which of course was venerated as considered to be the most important church in all of Christendom, right? Where Jesus had died and been laid to rest. How did they rebuild the Holy Sepulcher in 1048 AD? So the church is dismantled in 1009, in 1048, the Byzantines who no longer are in Palestine. Right at this point, the Byzantine Empire still exists, but it's limited to the area of what is today basically Turkey and Greece. The Byzantine emperor at that time got permission from the Muslim ruler at that time to rebuild the church on a very small scale. And the church was rebuilt with a small chapel and a sort of a peristyle courtyard, a courtyard with columns adjacent to the rotunda. When the Crusaders come in and retake Jerusalem, which was in the year 1009 AD, that was what they found. And they then, after retaking Jerusalem, rebuilt the church. And by church, I mean that the rotunda was still standing. But they then replaced the small Byzantine chapel with a church that is butting up against that. Butts up against the rotunda. And that church, the Crusader church, was built pretty much along Romanesque architectural lines, in the sort of architectural style of their homeland in Europe. And that is the church that still stands until today. It's a church that is really interesting because it's very different in appearance and in layout from the original Church of Constantine, which was built as a sort of early Christian basilica in its style. So the Crusaders come in in 1009, they take the city of Jerusalem, they rebuild the Church of the Holy sepulchre. It's consecrated 50 years after they take the city. And when the Crusaders come in, you asked about a sharp transition. This really was a sharp transition. So a small number of members of the local population, local Muslims and Jews, were granted, you know, surrendered and were granted safe passage out of the city. But the rest of the city's population was basically massacred. Women, children, men, everybody was pretty much massacred by the Crusaders. It was apparently one of the greatest massacres in the history of the city of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem, unfortunately, has seen a lot of violence over the course of centuries. But this is certainly one of the worst episodes. And there were, you know, piles of corpses lying all over. There's about a half a year later, a pilgrim, a Christian pilgrim to Jerusalem, reports that you could still smell rotting flesh when he visited the city a half a year later. And what the Crusaders then did was to banish anybody who was not Christian from the city. So meaning Jews and Muslims were banished from the city. So the local population is slaughtered, and then they're not allowed to resettle in the city. And Jerusalem now becomes, again, sort of like unto the Byzantines in a way, but it becomes a Christian city. The original population immediately after the Crusader conquest was mostly, you know, Latins, right? Franks from Western Europe. And there weren't too many of them. A lot of them went home after Jerusalem or, you know, went somewhere else after Jerusalem was taken. So not a whole lot of them stuck around. But then over the course of the decades, you know, you get more people who arrive, more Christians who arrive, and that includes also some Eastern Christians. So by the time we get to like the middle of the 12th century, Jerusalem's population has recovered and now is quite diverse again, but only Christians. So we get different kinds or different denominations of Eastern Christians and Latin Christians and, you know, all different kinds of denominations in the city. And so that is in fact, a very sharp break. In other words, that transition once Jerusalem falls to the Crusaders is one of these very sharp breaks in the history of the city. And what we see then after the Crusader conquest is not just the rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but the transformation of the city into really a city that looks very medieval European in many ways. The installation of European style fortifications with gates that are fortified in a. In a sort of medieval style barbicans, right outside gates, things like that. So you have to. You turn when you enter, so you're unshielded, right? Walls that were built, that were rebuilt. The walls actually were there, but the walls were rebuilt in some places by the Crusaders inside the area of the walled city, which by this point had shrunk after the earthquake of it had shrunk to more or less the current size of the old city today. Inside that we get the installation of sort of these covered streets and markets that are very characteristic of European, medieval Europe, where you get these groin vaults, stone groin vaults covering the markets. There's a wonderful example, I talk about it in the book, of a sort of a triple market in kind of the middle of the city, not too far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where there were three streets, three main market streets, and each one had a different name. And one of them was a market where. And their names in French actually, or sort of French. And one of them is like a market where they sold herbs and spices and stuff like that. And one of them was a market where they. A covered market where they sold cloth. But the third street, it's my favorite, it's the street of bad cooking. And that was where pilgrims could, and I guess local residents could buy prepared food because there was a shortage of wood in the area. The area had become quite deforested by then. There's a shortage of wood, hence the groin volume vaults, the stone vaults covering Things and used for building. But there was a shortage of wood. So it was much easier, more economical. Instead of trying to find firewood so that you could cook, it was easier and more economical to, you know, cook large batches of food and sell it to people in bulk. Right? And so you have this street, it's literally, literally called the street of Bad Cooking. So, you know, the appearance of the city was transformed. There were other churches and monasteries and convents that were also built around the city. So, yes, it is the Crusader period. Even though it only lasts for less than 100 years, it really did significantly transform the appearance of the city.
- [58:19]
Matt Lewis
And given that hard break and the shock change from a fairly multicultural place to being almost solely Christian with everybody else being driven out, how is it that buildings like the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa have survived to us today? Are they repurposed in some ways?
- [58:35]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes, yes, exactly. So. So that's exactly what the Crusaders did, right? So in many cases, what they did was they took these buildings that, you know, existed and repurposed them. And this is maybe, as you mentioned, best illustrated in the case of what we see on the Temple Mount where they took the Dome of the Rock, right, and converted it into a church, which they called the Temple of the Lord. And referring, by the way, back to Solomon's Temple. You see, everybody is from. Everybody is. Is tracing themselves back to David and Solomon. So the Dome of the Rock becomes. They call it the Temple of the Lord. And we already saw this early Christian tradition connecting that spot to Solomon's Temple, right? That tradition goes all the way back. And then they took Al Aqsa Mosque and used it as their administrative center. So, yes, so they repurposed these buildings, and then later, when Jerusalem is retaken by Muslims, right, the buildings are put back to their, you know, to their original use. But yes, that's right. So we do see those buildings survive. And one of the things I just mentioned afterwards, the Muslims take the city, and in 1187, the city falls to Salahdin, who established the Ayyubid dynasty. And that, by the way, that was not accompanied by the wave of massacres that we saw with the Crusader conquest of the city. But at any rate, what happens after that is that many of those buildings that were used, either used or built by the Crusaders, continued to be used by the Muslims under Muslim rule, but in many cases, again, repurposed. And that's another reason why, when you go to the Old City of Jerusalem today, a lot of the appearance is medieval because the buildings have survived, either sometimes still serving their original functions or having been repurposed but still standing and being used today.
- [60:25]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have to confess that Jerusalem is probably the very, very top of my list of places that I would absolutely love to visit. I've never had the opportunity to go, but I would absolutely love. What do you think the medieval history of Jerusalem tells us about the city's significance, its importance to people and different religions and different cultures throughout history. And how has that medieval history impacted the later story of Jerusalem?
- [60:54]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, the first part of the question I'm not sure that I can actually really answer. I mean, obviously Jerusalem is significant far beyond what it should be. And that is pretty much a religious thing. And it depends on what your, you know, religious beliefs are and your religious perspective in the context of the Crusader world. Obviously Jerusalem was an important rallying point. I think sometimes these sorts of places occupy, they come to be more symbolic than real. In other words, the, you know, Jerusalem really shouldn't be that important in many ways, but it becomes important.
- [61:33]
Matt Lewis
And so, yeah, I think that's maybe what I was trying to get to that it almost becomes. Jerusalem becomes more of an idea than the fabric of the place.
- [61:42]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
That's exactly right. And in fact, this semester I'm co teaching with, with two other colleagues here at unc, a course for first year students that's titled Jerusalem Real and Imagined. That's exactly the point, right? That there is a real Jerusalem, but also the city has assumed an importance far beyond what it should have anyway. Yeah, so that's like a, that's a huge question to unpack. The Crusades themselves had a long lasting impact on the city. And I conclude my book with a short epilogue of General Allenby's entry into the city in 1917, where, you know, his entry into Jerusalem was apparently viewed by a lot of the British public as sort of the culmination of the Crusader quest to retake Jerusalem. Because once the Crusaders lost Jerusalem in 1187, they never really got it back for any sustained period of time. And so there were, there were apparently all sorts of stories and newspaper reports and all sorts of stuff like that published at around the time of Allenby's, you know, entry into Jerusalem that heralded this as kind of, you know, a continuation of or a fulfillment of the Crusader quest to retake the city. Apparently the British public at around that time was just fascinated with the Crusades. Maybe they still are. And so we see this sort of, this sort of impact of Crusader rule on Jerusalem. Continuing again in the imagination of the public, in this case for centuries afterwards.
- [63:11]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, I do think it's interesting how that city has meant so much over the centuries and continues to mean so much and the ways in which that's become almost detached from the geography of it, you know, where it is in the world and what is there and is more replaced by ideas. And how difficult it is for us as human beings to sometimes disconnect ourselves from those ideas that can be centuries, millennia old. We still want to feel connected to those for some reason, just speaks to something very human in us. I think that we still don't shake those off even after all this time. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Jodi. It's been fascinating to try and get to know Jerusalem a little bit better across the centuries of its medieval history. It's been absolutely fascinating. Thank you for leading us through that.
- [63:58]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Thank you for having me.
- [64:00]
Matt Lewis
Thank you. It's been a pleasure. You can grab Jody's book Jerusalem through the Ages, from Its Beginnings to the Crusades now and find several episodes in our back catalogue all about the Crusades too. There are new installments of God Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back and join Elena and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and all of History Hit's podcasts ad free. Head over now to historyhit.com subscribe well, what are you waiting for? Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval. With History Hits.
- [65:10]
Holly Fry
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