Theoderich: Guide to the Holy Land (Historical Travel Series)

The German monk Theoderich wrote the Guide to the Holy Land around 1172. It is a complete guide to Jerusalem's sacred sights as well as places of popular legends and historical interest of the entire crusader state. This guide was written four years before Saladin captured most of the kingdom. Theoderich gathers most of his information from his own pilgrimage (the introduction points out which places he went to and routes he took) but when the de describes places he did not visit (border regions), his sources are hearsay and verge into the legendary and fanciful. To the medieval Christian the Holy Land was not only important because of it's associations with the Bible but also because it was perceived to have deep legendary and mythical meaning as the Navel of the world. This is illustrated by medieval T-Maps (also in the volume) whose very center is Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of Theoderich's day had around 30,000 men. Many of the sites Theoderich describes in the Holy Land especially in Jerusalem are so accurately drawn that he is a major source for medieval knowledge of the region, Jerusalem's Topography, the history of art and archeology etc... Even his fanciful descriptions of the border regions (the Dead Sea throws up every year the ruins of Sodom and Gomorra and a pillar of salt that was Lot's wife) are important to historians since they show us the geographic lore and sacred geography of the time. The guide is completely oblivious to the political geography of the time either in the Crusader state or outside since the readers were pilgrims who had taken up the most difficult and most important pilgrimages mostly for religious reasons. The guide's widespread readership also illustrates an invigorated popular religion influenced in part by the Twelfth Century Renaissance's renewed interest in the Early Church. The illustrations of the edition are gathered from other Medieval sources. THe introduction is a wonderful addition to the Guide and sets the background for the work and it's importance to medieval historians.