Having now finished the description of the interior of the church, I proceed to make some remarks upon the monks of the different communities who dwell there, and upon the pilgrims (especially the Orientals) who visit it. The monks of the Greek, Latin, Armenian, Coptic, Abyssinian, and Syrian communities have different chambers in the church, in which they live in order that they may keep constant watch over the Holy Places, and offer up continual prayer and praise to God. Though the space belonging to the Latins is roomy, it is nevertheless unhealthy from the constant damp, caused by the rain-water falling through the ruinous terrace-roofs above, which they cannot repair, as these do not belong to them, but to some Mohammedans. The owners are very jealous of their property, which brings them in an easy and ample revenue from the sums paid by the Latin and Greek convents, in the hope of abating the nuisance of the water. The Greeks and Armenians are better housed in their upper chambers, as the terrace-roofs above them do not belong to Mohammedans, and can therefore be easily repaired; but in their lower rooms they suffer with the Latins. The three poorer communities are exposed to constant damp, both from the bad repair of the dome, and from the situation of the church itself, which stands on low ground, commanded on all sides by higher buildings. All this, however, does not hinder the monks from being very eager to enter the place, and from leaving it with great reluctance when they are succeeded by others; and the pilgrims eagerly seek permission to remain, if only for one or two nights. The Latins give a chamber and bed to each visitor inside their convent, but the same comforts cannot be obtained among the other communities, both from the numbers that throng together, their station in life, and also the Eastern custom, which allows men and women to be crowded together in the same place without distinction of sex. Hence it comes to pass that from the end of October to Easter the galleries round the great dome belonging to the different sects (with the exception of the Latins), though close to the Holy Sepulchre, are crowded, almost every night, with pilgrims, who, after fervent prayer, eat, drink, sleep, smoke, and make coffee there, as they would do in an inn; nay, impelled by deep ignorance and blind fanaticism, carry into effect certain vows, which I cannot more particularly describe without offending my readers' modesty. In this way the Eastern pilgrims behave, and would do still worse, did not their father confessors and the monks in charge of the place, who are furnished with sticks and whips, make frequent use of them to maintain order. It is a well-established fact, and one of daily recurrence, that the rude Eastern pilgrim prays in the interior of each Holy Place, and then when he has gone away a few yards, forgets the sanctity of the building, and acts as he pleases. He may therefore often be seen in any part of the church, talking and discussing his private affairs with his friends; especially if it be a rainy day, and he can enter without payment. But this is nothing, absolutely nothing, in comparison with the scenes at the services before and during the Easter festival; especially when all the religious communities coincide in keeping it on the same day. The noise, the clamour, and the confusion are inconceivable; in one corner they are praying, in another walking about, laughing, and jesting. Sometimes it happens that the Latins are performing a noiseless service around the Sepulchre, and the Armenians are yelling like madmen, as they sing in their chapels; while the nasal tones of the Greeks ring through the building, and the frantic howls of the Copts and Abyssinians split the ears. If a procession takes place, it rather resembles a riot; the banners rise and fall, the tapers bespatter the spectators, the Turkish soldiers with fixed bayonets clear a way for the officiating Priests, the attendants belabour the noisier bystanders with sticks; some struggle for places and tumble over upon those below them; and all is a scene of pushing, struggling, and tumult, so that it is a lucky thing when quarrels do not ensue. Sometimes the jealousy of the rival sects breaks out around the very Sepulchre of Christ, and then occurs every frantic act that a senseless and barbarous people can commit. In times past it was not uncommon that lives were lost; either by suffocation in the dense crowd as it pressed to go out by the only door, at the conclusion of the services, or even by blows received in the fights. The clergy of Jerusalem know this by sad experience, and yet take no steps to put a stop to it, though it would not be difficult. The Greeks and Armenians will not abandon the ceremony of the Holy Fire[433] on Easter Eve, through fear that the number of pilgrims would decrease; since the greater part of them come to the city simply and solely to witness this so-called annual miracle. The Latins still continue to represent on the evening of every Good-Friday the descent from the Cross, and the interment of the Saviour's body; though, in Jerusalem, from the number and nature of the spectators of different religious sects, the scene is almost comic; when it is not rendered tragic by furious and sometimes fatal quarrels[434]. Whoever has visited the place at the Easter season will I am sure forgive me this description; and I venture to give the following advice to any one who has not, that if he is going there from a religious motive, he had better keep away at that time; but that if he is actuated simply by curiosity, he should not omit to go there; in which case he will admit the truth of my information. If during the last few years the services have gone off more quietly, and the quarrels been less violent, it is due to the careful oversight of Surraya Pasha, and the energy he has displayed in quelling the rising tumults. It is a thing much to be desired, that in this nineteenth century, the causes which excite the scandals and strifes around the sublimest of monuments, the Tomb of Christ, should be at last abolished.
I conclude this subject by pointing out what are the most frequent causes of these furious disputes between the monks who occupy the Sepulchre. Since the church is divided among the different communities, each guards his rights with the utmost jealousy, and quarrels about the smallest trifle. A nail driven a little too much on the one side or the other of the boundary line, a slight repair of a wall or pavement without the consent of all the parties interested, a candlestick knocked down or taken away from a Sanctuary, a sweeper trespassing with his broom on the property of another sect, and dusting where he has no business, excites long and bitter recriminations, which are only put a stop to by the interference of the local authorities, and sometimes of the governments that protect the different religious bodies.
After this somewhat long digression we will go on to consider the neighbourhood of the Church of the Resurrection. On the east is the terrace-roof above the Church of S. Helena, the exclusive property of the Abyssinians; to the west of this are some houses belonging to the monks, who also possess some wretched dens on the south, abutting on an old wall, in which is an arcade of five arches, supported by four pillars with plain capitals; over this runs a cornice, above which are five pointed windows of the time of the Crusades. From some notices in Greek manuscripts preserved in the convent of S. Saba, it appears that a church was erected on this spot by S. Helena, in honour of the Holy Cross; but this present building, if standing at that time, could not have escaped the ravages of Chosroes II. of Persia and of Hakem; and we must therefore refer it to a later date. Accordingly I perfectly agree with the opinion expressed by M. de Vogüé in his chapter on the Hospital. This author thinks that the Church of S. Mary Latin occupied this position, a building with a single nave; and this is strongly corroborated by a passage in the Gesta Francorum[435], which asserts distinctly that the first Crusaders found it at the south of the Church of the Invention of the Cross, and a stone's throw from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He therefore considers these ruins to belong to a building erected in the middle of the twelfth century, on the site of a church built by the merchants of Amalfi in the eleventh century; when it was found necessary to establish a church, with a convent and hospice to receive all the women who came as pilgrims, in order to keep them separate from the Hospice of S. Mary the Great, presided over by monks, at the south of this, which I shall presently notice[436].
The plot of land on which are the ruins of S. Mary Latin was acquired by the Russians in 1858. In 1860 they began to clear away a quantity of rubbish and earth, the accumulation of centuries, in order to lay the foundations of a house for the Consulate; and, in the course of the removal, fragments of walls and buildings were found of an earlier date than the Crusades. History informs us that some houses were erected on this spot by native labourers for the Amalfi merchants; and in accordance with this we do not find in these remains that precision and perfectness of execution which characterizes work executed with European aid. I endeavoured to connect the walls with the mutilated building; but I found it impossible to restore them sufficiently to draw out a plan of any sort; the ruin wrought by time and man is too complete. I have already mentioned that some remains of an ancient Jewish wall were found during the excavations in this same plot of land, and now add that, below it, near to the street on the east, there seems to have been a portico, some fragments of columns of black granite having been found there. M. de Vogüé, who arrived at Jerusalem after my departure, and during the progress of the excavations, will no doubt have made further discoveries; and it is to be hoped that before long we shall have them described by so able and learned an explorer.
The 'House of the Prince' is a house to the north of S. Mary Latin, shewing on the exterior architectural features of a period before the Crusades; these, however, have all disappeared from the interior, where now nothing is to be seen but some party-walls of Arab workmanship, built at different periods, most of them not long ago, in order to divide it into small separate tenements. It belongs to the Franciscan convent, which gives free lodging there to the poorest of their nation. How and when it obtained its name I have not been able to ascertain: there is, however, a tradition that Godfrey of Bouillon occupied it during his short reign; this is not improbable in itself, but is unconfirmed by history; and William of Tyre[437] states that the palace of the Latin king was near the Temple on the south side; meaning by the Temple the present area of the Haram es-Sherîf. In a manuscript belonging to the Franciscans (preserved in the Convent of S. Saviour) we find that "from the House of the Prince to the Sepulchre was a subterranean passage, through which they went to the Church of the Sepulchre." From this I was led to examine the spot, and found, on the west side of the house, an aperture level with the ground leading into a subterranean passage, bearing the appearance of antiquity; but it was so filled up with rubbish that I was unable to examine it thoroughly; nevertheless I believe that it communicated with the Chapel of S. Helena, just at the doorway now walled up, and that its entrance is covered by the altar nearest to the north-east corner. On the west of the House of the Prince is a Coptic convent, built upon a part of the land formerly occupied by the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre; its chapel is worth a visit; it is of the twelfth century, and no doubt was originally either the refectory or the dormitory of the ecclesiastics. From the interior of this convent the open court in front of the Church of the Resurrection can be reached, by passing through a chapel at its north-west corner.
Returning through the entrance gate into the street (which I call Prince's Street) we come to the so-called cistern of S. Helena, on the left hand. We enter a chamber serving as a refuge to some poor Abyssinian families; the inner walls are ancient, together with the small doorway on the north, by which we begin to descend a dark and most ruinous staircase, that 'craves wary walking;' however, after going down thirty very awkward steps, we enter the vault, and the staircase at once becomes perfectly regular, so much so as to appear more like the way into a comfortable house than into a cistern; for each step is 5 feet long, 1-1/2 wide, and about 8 inches deep. The staircase (including its vaulted roof) and the whole reservoir are excavated in the rock. The latter is about 86 feet long, 72 wide, and 52 high. I was able to examine it thoroughly in September, 1858, when it was dry. Holes are made in the vaulted roof and walls, through which it is supplied by rain-water from the terrace-roofs of the neighbouring houses and from the street to the north. This I ascertained by descending into it during a time of heavy rain. There are some small openings on the south-east to carry off superfluous water. The construction of this is attributed to S. Helena (like everything else in Palestine); but its magnitude induces me to consider it Jewish work of an earlier period. Besides, what motive could she have had for making it? It could not be for want of a reservoir; there were plenty of them at Jerusalem then as now; and it is not likely that she would have wasted money to no purpose, when there were so many works of benevolence and greater utility, on which she knew well how to spend it.
In the north-west corner of the Plan[438] is the mosque of Ibrahim, situated in the interior of the Kanki, called the Hospice of Saladin; because he richly endowed it to enable it to entertain the Mohammedan pilgrims to the Holy City; and at the same time erected the minaret, which is still standing, and restored the entrance-gate. During the time of the Crusaders it was the palace of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, whence the adjoining street is called Patriarch's Street. The lower parts of its walls on the north and west are ancient and strongly built; but the upper as well as the interior of the building, have greatly suffered from wretched Arab alterations, so that it is difficult to form any idea of its former internal plan. In the Christian bazaar on the west the wall throughout its whole height and the pilasters are unquestionably of the date of the Crusades, together with the chambers within on the ground-floor and story above; as is proved by their pointed arches, with the columns and capitals supporting them. They are now used as storehouses for the grain received by the governor: and as the Hospice has no longer any revenues, it will before long become the property of one of the Christian communities. The staircase inside at the north entrance is the only part of the building that retains its former grandeur uninjured.
Let us now turn our attention to the Hospital. The visitor, on quitting the court in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by the door at the south-east corner, enters a small street[439], and passing along this to the east, comes, after a few yards, to a great doorway with a semicircular arch, standing on the south side of the way, and adorned with figures representing the twelve months of the year; above the arch some traces of a lamb, the emblem of the Hospitalers of Jerusalem, can still be distinguished[440]. This gateway is now walled up, and very much hidden by the accumulated earth; and before the year 1858 it was impossible for any one to go along that way without suffering from nausea, besides wetting his feet with the foul mire, and encountering a pack of savage hungry dogs that haunted the place—nuisances caused by a tannery. The court within and the buildings round it were as bad as the street; so that the place was hardly fit to be visited, being covered with carcases of animals and the most abominable filth. The inhabitants of Jerusalem are indebted to Surraya Pasha for the removal of this pestiferous evil; and the Christians above all, who have thus obtained a decent approach to their principal Sanctuary; and can visit, not the prison of S. Peter, as the ignorant guides call it, but the remains of the time of the Amalfi merchants and the Knights Hospitaler of S. John; of which I will now give a brief account.
The amicable relations between Harûn er-Rashîd, Khalif of Bagdad, and Charlemagne, were of the utmost advantage to the Christians at Jerusalem, and induced the French Monarch to send large gifts thither, A.D. 810, in order to restore the churches, to build hospices, and purchase lands for their endowment. The monk Bernard, who visited Jerusalem in the year 870 A.D., writes as follows[441]: "On our arrival at Jerusalem we were entertained at the hospice of the glorious Emperor Charles, where all are welcomed who visit the place from a devout motive and speak the Latin language. To it is attached a church in honour of S. Mary, with a noble library, due to the care of the same Emperor, with twelve houses, fields, vineyards, and a garden in the valley of Jehoshaphat. In front of the hospice is the market, &c." This establishment was inhabited by Benedictine monks. In the year 1010 A.D., Hakem, Khalif of Egypt, destroyed this building, as it was near the Church of the Resurrection; but when it was rebuilt, another hospice, together with the Church of S. Mary, was also founded. William of Tyre states[442] that "certain merchants of Amalfi, who had obtained the favour of the Governors of the cities of Syria by importing useful and needful goods and by their quiet and peaceable conduct, obtained permission from Belfagar (Abu-'l-Giafar?), Sultan of Egypt, to rebuild a monastery in the Christian quarter to receive pilgrims, minister to the sick, and practise every kind of charity." To this building and the church, which they dedicated to the Virgin Mary, they attached offices for the inmates, together with a public market, in which any one could establish a shop on paying a rent of two pieces of gold to the Patriarch and his clergy. This was opposite to the Church of the Resurrection, and a stone's throw to the south of the Church of the Invention of the Cross, as I have already said[443]. When the buildings were finished these merchants placed in them an Abbot with his attendant monks, and as these performed the service in Latin, while the rest of the clergy in the place followed the rites of the Greek Church, their church obtained the name of S. Mary Latin[444]. Afterwards the monks assigned to an order of nuns a convent which they had founded outside their property to the north, and dedicated to S. Mary Magdalene; giving it the name of S. Mary Latin the Less; but these institutions always bore the name of 'Latin[445].' In course of time the number of pilgrims became larger, so that the monks were obliged to increase their accommodation, and built a hospital and another church to the west, which they dedicated to S. John, Patriarch of Alexandria, called 'the Almsgiver,' from the noble liberality with which he had succoured the Christians who had taken refuge in Egypt, when Palestine was invaded by Chosroes II. This new foundation was supported by abundant alms, collected in Italy by the help of the Amalfi merchants. When the Crusaders made their triumphant and bloody entry into Jerusalem, they found the convents of S. Mary Latin in the above situation, and quite uninjured[446]. The hospital at that time was presided over by a monk named Gerald, and the nunnery by a noble Roman lady named Agnes[447]. When the Latin kingdom was established, Gerald found fellow-labourers in his works of benevolence; who, together with him, were distinguished by a black dress, relieved by a white cross on the breast, and devoted themselves to the relief of the sick, the poor, and the pilgrims. Such was the origin of the Fraternity of S. John. Agnes adopted the same rules, so far as concerned the ministrations among the poor, and the two communities chose S. John the Baptist as their joint protector[448]. So long as the brothers were poor and few in number, they remained under the rule of the Abbot; but when they found means, and had obtained powerful protectors on account of the eminent services they had rendered, they spurned his jurisdiction (about A.D. 1113), and between the years 1118 and 1159 formed themselves into an organized body, respected for their prowess in arms as champions of the Faith; and their white and black flag, an emblem of the faith they professed and the death they menaced to its enemies, waved over many a glorious field in Syria. The knights, being compelled to quit Jerusalem after its capture by Saladin, removed to Margat, then to S. Jean d'Acre, between the years 1187 and 1192; afterwards they remained about twenty years in the city of Limasol in Cyprus; thence they went to Rhodes (A.D. 1309-1522); and being driven from that island by the conquests of the Turks, they established themselves at Malta, and took the name of the country they had adopted.
During the earlier part of my stay in Jerusalem (1855-6), a certain member of the order, a man of a chivalrous and philanthropic spirit, was desirous of re-establishing it upon its primitive footing; but the obstacles in the way of his project appeared so great, that the attempt was soon abandoned. His intention was to obtain possession of the property that had formerly belonged to the knights; a matter itself of the greatest difficulty, as the land was divided among several owners (the Greek convent having the largest part), who would not give up a foot without the fullest compensation.