550 Palestine
was at least as large as it was to be in the 18th century. It
consisted of the old Roman and Punic or Carthaginian
city and the newer Arabic quarters. It was also a garrison
town with some of the fortress and military aspects of
DAMASCUSand AL-QAYRAWAN. It had been taken by the
VANDALSin 440 and then by the forces of the German
chieftain ODOACERand the Ostrogoth THEODORIC. The
BYZANTINEScontrolled the city from 535 to 831.
ARRIVAL OF THE NORMANSThe Norman conquest in the 12th century did not
change the town significantly. Byzantine, Arabic, and
Latin culture coexisted. The new Norman conquerors
had a palace and a group of towers, as in Muslim archi-
tecture, on the highest point of the old town. These were
surrounded by a town enclosed with walls and gates,
including a cathedral,the palaces of the feudal aristocracy,
and numerous churches. Its population became even
more a mixture of Muslims, Arab and Greek Christians,
Arabic-speaking JEWS, and Latin immigrants. There was
an outlying quarter of gardens around reservoirs of water
for suburban palaces in an area called the Conca d’Oro or
Horn of Plenty.
This changed in 1161. The Muslims were transported
into a northern quarter, and many others deported. The
HOHENSTAUFENdynasty took over in 1194 with the coro-
nation of the emperor HENRYVI. His son, the emperor
FREDRICKII, deported more Muslims, causing harm to
trade and economic activity. Some quarters were aban-
doned to gardens, and by 1277 the population had
shrunk to no more than 50,000. Palermo became more
culturally unified as the Muslims left and more Christians
immigrated from ITALY. CHARLESI OFANJOUtook control
of the city and the island by defeating the Hohenstaufen
in the 1260s. In 1282, as a consequence of the SICILIAN
VESPERS, the occupying French were driven out. This led
to a long series of wars over Sicily and Palermo between
the Aragonese and the Angevins.
Slowly, under the victorious Aragonese, Palermo in
the early 14th century recovered its place as a political
capital and became a main trading market and clearing
house between the island and PISA,GENOA, and
BARCELONA. However, the government, from Aragon
and Barcelona, preferred to live elsewhere. From 1348
to 1392 Palermo was governed by the vice royal counts
of Chiaramonte. After 1412 the union between Sicily
and Aragon endured beyond the Middle Ages, until the
17th century.
See also MONREALE;NORMANS IN ITA LY;ROGER I;
ROGERII; WILLIAMI THEBAD OFSICILY.
Further reading:Ahmad Aziz, A History of Islamic
Sicily (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1975);
Giuseppe Bellafiore, The Cathedral of Palermo(Palermo:
S. F. Flaccovio, 1976); William Tronzo, The Cultures of His
Kingdom: Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997).
Palestine The Roman province of Palestine was
divided about 400 into three administrative districts.
One, centered at Caesarea, included Judea, Samaria,
and the coastal regions. The second, with its capital
at Scythopolis, was composed of Galilee, Golan, and
part of the Decapolis, an older area that included five
major towns. The third district encompassed southern
Palestine with its metropolis at PETRA. These Byzantine
administrative divisions lasted until 638 after the
Persian invasions (614) and the subsequent Arabs
takeover. There was also one of the main patriarchates
at JERUSALEM.
This region was never totally Christianized. There
were JEWS, the only dissident group who still preserved
their freedom of worship in the BYZANTINEEMPIRE. They
may have formed a majority of the population in some
areas such as Galilee, but had been forbidden to live in
Jerusalem from the time of the Roman emperor Hadrian
(r. 117–38) in the second century. The Byzantine emperor
HERAKLEIOSin 634 ordered that they be baptized under
pain of death. For this reason, the Arab conquest a few
years later offered them some hope of freedom to practice
their religion. Other peoples such as the Samaritans were
also considered unauthorized dissidents or heretics. They
rose up in revolt in 484 and in 529 and maintained a per-
sistent hostility to Byzantine power.PILGRIMAGE SITES
Despite the presence of a hostile locals, Palestine became
one of the goals of Christian PILGRIMAGE. From the early
fourth century, Christians traveled to Palestine to view
and worship at the sites of the New Testament and of the
Old Testament, also considered part of the history of sal-
vation. These sites were listed, enriched with sanctuaries
and churches, and, loaded with RELICS. They were more
and more often visited by pilgrims. Jerusalem was the
most important site, but others such as Bethlehem with
the basilica of the Nativity, Hebron, where the tomb of the
patriarchs was venerated, the Jordan Valley, site of Christ’s
baptism, temptation, and miracles, the DEADSEAwith the
salt statue of Lot’s wife, and Samaria, with Jacob’s well and
the tombs of the patriarch Joseph, John the Baptist, and
Eliza. In the north in Galilee were the places significant in
the life of Christ, including Cana, Tabor, Nazareth, the
mount of the Beatitudes, and Capernaum. In the region
south west of Jerusalem were tombs of Old Testament
prophets and martyrs of the Roman persecutions. Finally
there was a pilgrimage circuit south in the Sinai Penin-
sula. The emperors CONSTANTINEand JUSTINIANin partic-
ular oversaw the construction of numerous churches and
sanctuaries. In the fourth and fifth centuries coenobitic
and anchorite monasteries were founded.Islamic Conquest Until
After 638, when the Arabs took possession of the whole
country, and its non-Muslim inhabitants were subjected