Hierosolyma,
as the Latins call it, is at the heart of pope Urban II.'s call to liberate
the holy places from the "infidels." In response, Frank (French) nobles take
up the cross in form of the sword. When they finally arrive at the Holy City,
the crusaders slaughter its non-Christian populations. The Dome of the Rock
is now the templum domini, the Al-aqsa mosque the templum
salomonis, its subterranean colonades become the "stables of Solomon,"
and the city is a virtual ghost town baptized in blood.
What begins in this inauspicious manner is, however, more than an interlude. Next to crusader architecture, notably in the thoroughly reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it is the crusading institutions, some of which exist until today, that continue to express the sense of the Latin West to have been called upon by Christ to protect the Holy City.