Muristan
The Muristan (
Christianity
The area just south of the
History
Roman period
In 130,
Byzantine period
The earliest historical mention of the location Muristan[
Early Muslim period
In 1009,
In
Crusader period
In the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem (1099), the Egyptian governor, Iftikhar ad Dawla, imprisoned Brother Gerard. When Jerusalem fell to Godfrey of Bouillon, he freed Brother Gerard, allowed him to resume his management of the Hospital for Men, and contributed resources to his work. Gerard adopted the policy of receiving all needy patients, irrespective of religion. While the Hospital for Women remained under the control of the Benedictines, Brother Gerard broke off from that Order, adopted the
The formal establishment of the Knights Hospitaller under Brother Gerard was confirmed by a
Over against the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the opposite side of the way towards the south, is a beautiful church built in honour of John the Baptist, annexed to which is a hospital, wherein in various rooms is collected together an enormous multitude of sick people. Both men and women. Who are tended and restored to health daily at very great expense. When I was there I learned that the whole number of these sick people amounted to two thousand, of whom sometimes in the course of one day and night more than fifty are carried out dead, while many other fresh ones keep continually arriving. What more can I say? The same house supplies as many people outside it with victuals as it does those inside, in addition to the boundless charity which it daily bestowed upon poor people who beg their bread from door to door and do not lodge in the house, so that the whole sum of its expenses can surely never be calculated even by the managers and stewards thereof. In addition to all these moneys expended upon the sick and upon other poor people, this same house also maintains in its various castles many persons trained to all kinds of military exercises for the defence of the land of the Christians against the invasion of the Saracens.[10]
Ayyubid period and later decay
After the Siege of Jerusalem in October 1187, all Christians were driven out of Jerusalem by Sultan Saladin. The Hospitallers were permitted to leave ten of their number in the city to care for the wounded until they were able to travel. Saladin turned the Hospitallers buildings over to the Mosque of Omar. His nephew in 1216 instituted a lunatic asylum in what had been the conventual church, and it was at this time that the area came to be referred to as the Muristan.[11] The hospital facilities continued to be used for the care of the sick and wounded. The site was deserted in the 16th century, and the magnificent structures eventually fell into ruin.
19th century
In 1868, the
In order to secure equal representation, in 1868 the Sultan assigned the western part of the Muristan to the
Archaeology
Excavations of the Muristan were conducted around the start of the 20th century, and showed that the Hospitaller complex occupied an approximately square area measuring 160 yards (east-west) and 143 yards (north-south). In the early decades of the twentieth century little was left of the original buildings. The remains included the Church of Mar Hanna, a series of arches on David Street, and the remains of the north door of the Hospitaller's church of St. Mary Latina, which were incorporated into the modern Church of the Redeemer. What remains of the hospital today is a modern memorial situated in a small recess barred from the street with an iron gate and an enclosed yard.
The "Durch die Zeiten" (lit. "Across Time") archaeological park opened in November 2012, located below the nave of the Church of the Redeemer offers the possibility to commit more than 2000 years of history of the city of Jerusalem by walking through it.[12]
References
31°46′39″N 35°13′47″E / 31.77750°N 35.22972°E
- Antiochus V. 2 Maccabees 10–11 In: The New Jerusalem Bible. standard ed. 1985, Darton, Longan & Todd, London, pp. 721–723, 740.
- ^ W. Caoursin: Stabilimenta Rhodiorum militum, Ulm, 1496. In: E.J. King: The Knights Hospitallers in the Holy Land. 1st ed. 1931, Methuen, London, pp. 4–5
- ^ Virgilio Corbo, The Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (1981)
- ^ E.J. King: op. cit., pp. 5–11.
- ^ Health and medicine in early medieval Southern Italy, Patricia Skinner, Brill Publishers, Leiden 1997.
- ^ Phyllis G. Jestice, Holy people of the world: a cross-cultural encyclopedia, Volume 3 (2004), p. 935.
- ^ Moréri, Grand dictionnaire historique, s.v. "Gerard, surnommé Thom", vol. 5 p. 159.
- ^ Asbridge, T: "The First Crusade", p. 285. Oxford, 2004.
- ^ E.E. Hume: op. cit., pp. 4–5; E.J. King: op. cit., pp. 11–14.
- Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society, London, 1896, vol.5, p. 44. In: E.E. Hume: Medical work of the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1940, p. 8,14–18; & E.J. King: op. cit., p. 67.
- ^ E.E. Hume: op. cit., p. 6.
- ^ excavator's website: [1] and church's website:[2]
External links
- The Muristan(aerial photograph)
- Old City of Jerusalem—Muristan area (picture tour with commentary)
- Entrance to the Muristan (photo)