more careful approaches to assessment of the artistic practices and products in the Latin
Kingdom.
This article will raise the questions that must be posed in order to gain an
understanding of the complicated field. To start, the complex composition of the crusader
environment and its chronological bounds must be acknowledged. What characteristics
make a work of art a work of crusader art? How does crusader art change? Crucial
questions center on definitions of crusader art, characteristics of these works, and their
place of production. Such definitions must involve careful consideration of format,
iconography, and technique. Inquiries into the roles played by western groups and
Byzantium, the locations of major centers (the Holy Land or Constantinople), and the
differences between artistic production and artistic centers in the 12th and 13th centuries
must also be considered.
The Holy Land and the Mediterranean had long been an environment shared by Jews,
Christians, and Muslims. Within the Christian population alone, distinct cultures were
found in the variety of Christian sects, such as Orthodox Christians, Maronites, Jacobites,
Melchites, Nestorians, Coptic Christians, Armenians, and Syrian Christians. Likewise,
the Islamic world was unified politically only in the 12th century under Saladin. Even the
westerners represented a variety of ethnicities, from Normans to Icelanders to southern
Italians. In Sicily and Cyprus, colonization under the Normans in the 11th century had
already instigated the meeting of Arab, Byzantine, and Norman cultures, artistic
techniques, and products.
Crusaders called this variegated world Outremer (“Overseas”), a term used in
reference to controlled states, especially the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, that included
Lesser Armenia, the County of Edessa, the County of Tripoli, and the Principality of
Antioch. The formal initiation of the Latin Kingdom began in 1099 with the capture of
Jerusalem and the slaughter of all those non-Westerners who sought refuge within the
walls of the Temple of Jerusalem. As for artistic activity, scholarship supports a later date
for the formation and establishment of workshops and interest in patronage. Thus, artistic
activity of the crusaders falls within two periods: from the early 12th century until the
taking of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, and from 1191, when Acre became the new
capital of the kingdom, until 1291, when Acre fell.
In the 19th century, scholarship of the French colonial mindset used selective stylistic
or iconographic characteristics to polarize works of crusader art into ill-defined
categories of “East” and “West.” Such approaches have been overturned. A work of
crusader art must be produced during the period of the Latin Kingdom, and its artistic
production must involve at least one westerner. In many cases, a western or Byzantine
donor can be identified or suggested due to sufficient documentation. A decisive
application of ethnic labels must, however, be used with care, especially when labeling
artist or workshop and locating the region of production. Careful investigation into
iconographic elements problematic for the Orthodox church but part of western formal
vocabulary may also contribute to the attribution of work to a regional workshop.
Due to westerners’ lack of familiarity with new materials, many works of architecture
and sculpture incorporate techniques native to the Latin Kingdom and suggest the
cooperative efforts of local workshops. Other works, such as manuscript illuminations,
icons, wall paintings, mosaics, and ivories, can be ascribed either to one particular culture
(or in some cases to one workshop) on the basis of technique or use of iconographic
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