British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 895

CHAPTER XXII.

power. The last Patriarch so to do was Athanasius V who died in 1845. The Latin Patriarchs, on the other hand, transferred their residence to Acre on the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin : the Patriarch Nicolas de Hanapes, who was killed a't the fall of Acre in 1291, was the last Latin Patriarch to reside in Palestine until the restoration of the Latin Patriarchate by Pope Pius L'C in 1847.

38. Once established in the Holy Land, the Crusaders began forthwith to restore or reconstruct the churches which had suffered so many vicissitudes, and to erect new churches, as well as monasteries, castles, hospitals and hostels throughout the country. Space forbids a description of the extent and magnificence• of the architectural glories which Palestine owes to the Crusades, but mention must be made of the reconstruction of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, which was so rebuilt as to include in one Church (as today) the Church of the Anastasia, which had• been restored in 1048 under the Byzantine Emperor Constantine X, and the Church of the Martyrium. The new Basilica* , which (subject to a reconstruction and certain internal rearrangements in 1810) is substantially that which exists today, was consecrated on the 15th July, 1149, the fiftieth anniversary of the capture of Jerusalem. The Crusaders converted the Dome of the Rock into a Christian Church, and the Mosque of el Aksa into the palace of King Baldwin I.

39. But the days of the Latin Kingdom were numbered, for on the 5th July, 1187, the Caliph Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, overthrew Guy de Lusignan at the battle of Hattin (near Tiberias) and on the 21st September laid siege to Jerusalem, which capitulated on the 2nd October. Saladin spared the lives of the inhabitants and guaranteed their liberty on condition of the payment of a ransom within forty days. Such of the nonPalestinian Christians as could not pay the ransom by the prescribed date (some 14,000) were deported to Egypt; those who paid were permitted to depart and take refuge in the territory still possessed by the Christians in Syria. The majority of the Palestinian Christians were permitted to remain in Jerusalerm subject to the payment of a poll tax over and above the price which they had paid for their ransom. As was but natural, Saladin at once restored to Moslem use the great Mosques of Omar and El Aksa : at the same time he requisitioned certain of the Christian churches, but spared the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, which was soon to provide a fruitful source of revenue for the
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* Unfortunately the restoration in 1810 has sadly defaced the Crusaders’ work, of which but little can now be recognised.

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