Jerusalem Explored, Volume 1—Text: Being a Description of the Ancient and Modern City, with Numerous Illustrations Consisting of Views, Ground Plans and SectionsPierotti, Ermete
History
Jerusalem Explored, Volume 1—Text: Being a Description of the Ancient and Modern City, with Numerous Illustrations Consisting of Views, Ground Plans and Sections
Pierotti, Ermete
Jerusalem -- Antiquities; Jerusalem -- Description and travel
Let us now look for the position of the Hospital, which is well
defined[456]. It occupied a piece of land bounded on the north by the
court in front of the door of the Holy Sepulchre and by Palmers
Street[457], formerly the Tan-yard Street; on the west by Patriarch
Street, or the Christian bazaar; and on the east and south by a small
street which, beginning from Palmers Street, opposite to the Sepulchre,
ran southward between the convent of S. Mary the Great and the Hospital,
and turning to the west led into Patriarch Street[458]. The principal
buildings, with the church, were erected between A.D. 1130 and 1140,
under the superintendence of Raymond of Puy, Grand Master of the
Hospital. William of Tyre relates that they were so large, especially
those opposite to the door of the Church of the Sepulchre, that they
surpassed it in magnificence; besides which they had a large peal of
bells, whose sound drowned the voice of the Patriarch when he was
preaching on the Calvary. No part of these splendid buildings now
remains perfect; all are a mass of ruins, or covered with earth and Arab
cottages. Sir John Maundeville, who visited Jerusalem A.D. 1322, found
the hospital still standing, and states that it was supported by 124
columns of stone and 54 pilasters built into the wall[459]. I was
therefore very anxious to examine the ground in the hope of finding some
remains of these. I carried on excavations for many days in various
directions: I forced my way with great difficulty from vault to vault;
but found neither fragments of columns nor capitals, only very many
pilasters. I discovered a large crypt by chance; for the ground gave way
under my feet, and I fell into it; but it was so filled with earth that
I could not explore it. When the Greeks remove the ruins in order to
build upon this site, it may be possible to discover some remains of the
ancient walls, and perhaps to make out something about its arrangement.
FOOTNOTES:
[372] Note I.
[373] S. John xix. 20.
[374] S. Luke xxiii. 27.
[375] S. John xix. 31.
[376] S. John xix. 14.
[377] S. Matt. xxvii. 45, 46.
[378] Mischna, 4th part, _Bava-bathra_, c. II., § 8.
[379] Page 30.
[380] S. John xix. 41.
[381] S. Matt. xxvii. 60, 61; S. Luke xxiii. 55; S. John xix. 38, 39,
41, 42.
[382] S. Matt. xxvii. 62-64.
[383] S. Matt. xxvii. 66; xxviii. 4.
[384] Treatise Sanhedrim, fol. 43 (Venet. edit.).
[385] Ant. XX. 9, § 1.
[386] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. III. 5.
[387] Ibid. IV. 6.
[388] Note II.
[389] Euseb. Vita Constant. III. 26, 28.
[390] Note III.
[391] Histoire de l'État présent de Jer. ch. IV.
[392] Note IV.
[393] Eutychius, Ann. Tom. II. pp. 421-423.
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