In the time of the Latin kingdom a monastery was erected close to the church for the monks who officiated therein. This is frequently mentioned by the historians of the time of the Crusades, in the Cartulary of the Holy Sepulchre, and by Sebastian Pauli, who gives the names of the different Abbots, with dates. One of them, Julduinus, in 1126, was a witness to a deed of gift from Hugo Lord of Joppa (Jaffa) to the Hospital of S. John, in which he is called Abbot of S. Mary's in the Valley of Jehoshaphat[569]. When Saladin took Jerusalem, A.D. 1187, the Saracens utterly destroyed the convent, and used the stones to repair the city-walls[570]; but they spared the church, owing to the reverence with which the Mohammedans (especially the women) regarded the mother of Isa (Jesus). The church then from the time of the Crusades, up to the present day, has not been altered; as is proved by the descriptions of Willibrand, Brocardus[571], Marinus Sanutus, and others, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, who all agree on this point. Sanutus[572] states that it was only lighted by an aperture in the vaulted roof, on the side of the Mount (of Olives), and by the staircase; as all the other openings were closed up. Therefore for the last five centuries it has remained in its present condition. After A.D. 1187, the church was for a long time abandoned; and the Christian pilgrims, who desired to visit it, were obliged to obtain the keys from its Mohammedan owners; but, in the year A.D. 1363, it was ceded to the Friars Minors of the Observance[573] by the Sultan of Egypt, at the request of Joan, Queen of Naples. At the same time they obtained permission to rebuild a convent; which is a strong proof that the convent of the monks of Cluny no longer existed. This design, however, was not carried into execution for want of funds. Owing to various difficulties the Franciscans were unable to take possession of their sanctuary before the 30th of March, 1392. The only effect of this concession was to give them the right of performing service in the church, for the Mohammedans were still its owners. This privilege excited the jealousy of the Eastern Christians, who strove by intrigues, backed by large bribes to the authorities in Constantinople, to deprive the Latins of the sanctuary; to whom it rightly belonged, not only by the treaty of 1362, but also as it had been built by the Crusaders. Eventually all the Eastern Christian sects obtained the right of using the place; the Latins, however, retaining the exclusive privilege of performing service in the tomb itself. This also was abrogated by the artifices of the Greeks in 1740; but afterwards the Sultan restored it by a firman to its former owners. Thereupon their enemies, by the aid of calumnies and bribes to the ministers of the Sublime Porte, not only succeeded in retaining possession of the tomb, but also in obtaining the keys of the whole building; which they now hold, enduring with