An Account of the Churches of Bethlehem and Jerusalem by the Priest Iachintus

Abstract

Iachintus is the author of a short description of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. His account survives as one leaf of Leon, Archivo de la Catedral de Leon, MS 14. The text is incomplete and was likely once part of a more detailed account of his pilgrimage. Scholars have been reluctant to rely on Iachintus’s details because of the fragmentary nature of the text and also because of the uncertainty as to the date of his travels, scholarly speculations for which have ranged from the middle of the seventh century to the end of the eleventh. Using a combination of paleographical, literary, and historical analysis, however, it becomes clear that Iachintus most likely visited the Holy Land in the first few years of the twelfth century or, if not then, in the middle of the eleventh century. Questions remain in the text as we have it, and much is still unknown, but it does provide us with the earliest detailed description of the second Edicule, the structur...