Sharing the Holy Land: Perceptions of Shared Sacred Space in the Medieval and Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean, The Warburg Institute, June 12–13, 2015
This symposium seeks to address how both Western pilgrims and the indigenous Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Levantine population perceived the sharing of religious shrines with other faiths. In particular, scholars will look at how this sharing is described and explained in contemporary accounts and how this influenced the knowledge of other faiths among the Semitic religions. The symposium will focus on the period from c.1100 to c.1600, addressing the changing political context in the Levant and its influence on the sharing of sacred space.
Registration closes June 10, 2015.
Panels & Papers:
Keynote 1
The Various Meanings of “Shared Sacred Space”
Prof. Benjamin Z. Kedar (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Keynote 2
The Mount Sinai Monastery: A Successful Example of Shared Holy Space
Prof. Bernard Hamilton (University of Nottingham)
Session 1 - Pilgrimage I: Emotions of Sharing
Bathing in the Boundaries of the Holy Land: Latin Perspectives on Christian Devotion at the Jordan, c.1099-1291
Phil Booth (University of Lancaster)
Mount Joy: Pilgrimage and Emotional Landscape in Late Medieval Palestine
Prof. Anthony Bale (Birkbeck College, Univ. of London)
Islam and Muslims in Franciscan Descriptions of the Holy Land: The Role of the Convent of Mount Zion, c. 1330-1530
Dr Michele Campopiano (University of York)
Session 2 - Art & Material Culture
From the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem to the Church of St Theodore at Behdaidat: Art, Politics and Communities in Sacred spaces in the Levant between the 12th-13th Centuries
Prof. Lucy-Anne Hunt (Manchester Metropolitan University)
The Western And Byzantine Elements of the Mural Cycle of the Church of the Resurrection at Abu Gosh: A Manifestation of a Shared Sacred Space
Dr Gil Fishhof (Tel Aviv University)
Understanding Absence: The Church Façades of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
Dr Lisa Mahoney (DePaul University)
Session 3 – Non-Christian Perspectives
Permeability and Mutual Congruence as Categories in the Study of Shared Sacred Space: The Case of 12th/13th-Century Jazīra
Dr Georg Leube (Marburg University)
Mingling at the Sites: Shared Sacred Space in Benjamin of Tudela's Book of Travels
Marci Freedman (University of Manchester)
Worth Their Weight in Gold: The Imprints at the Dome of the Rock between Islam and Christianity
Dr Lucy Donkin (University of Bristol)
Session 4 - Latins alongside Eastern Christians
Sharing the Holy Places, Unifiying Christianity
Dr Camille Rouxpetel (École Française de Rome)
”Ululant more luporum”: Frankish Perceptions of Other Christians’ Liturgies in Churches of the Holy Land
Dr Beatrice Saletti (Università degli Studi di Udine)
Sharing New Rome: Papal Directives to Pera in Constantinople during the Fourteenth Century
James Hill (University of Leeds)
Dr Yuri Stoyanov (SOAS) - Title TBC
Keynote 3
Preserving the Memory of St. John the Baptist/Prophet Yahia's Tomb in Sabastiya by Christian and Muslim Communities
Prof. Osama Hamdan (Al-Quds University, Jerusalem)
Session 5 - Constantinople and the Greek Islands
Sharing on the Way to the Holy Land: The Shrine of Our Lady of Cassiope on the Island of Corfu
Dr Nickiphoros Tsougarakis (Edge Hill University)
Shared Worship at Filerimos on Rhodes: 1306-1420
Anthony Luttrell
Session 6 - Pilgrimage II
Illa famosa granaria. The Pyramids in the Eyes of the Western Pilgrims
Dr Giuseppe Perta (Centro di Ricerca sulle Relazioni Mediterranee)
Knowledge of the Other and Understanding Shared Sacred Space, c. 1150-1250
Jan Vandeburie (Warburg Institute)
Sharing Sacred Space in Late Fifteenth-Century Travel Narratives
Alexia Lagast (University of Antwerp)
Session 7 - Sharing Space and the Crusades
The Distribution of Communities in Jerusalem in the Period 1099-1187
Dr Alan V. Murray (University of Leeds)
Did the First Crusade Initiate a “Clash of Civilizations” between Christianity and Islam?
Dr Nicholas Morton (Nottingham Trent University)
Session 8 - Sharing Texts and Libraries
Libraries as Loci of Intellectual Encounter
Dr Merav Mack (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Benjamin Balint
Vespasian's Sword and Crown: Reading Josephus in the Latin East
Dr Julian Yolles (Harvard University)
The Itinera ad Loca Sancta Collection in the Franciscan Libraries in Jerusalem
Alessandro Tedesco (Catholic University of Milan)