Between violent outbreaks and legal disputes: the contested cityscape of Frankish Jerusalem through the prism of institutional and socio-economic conflicts

Abstract

ABSTRACT Focusing on the case of Frankish Jerusalem, this article engages with recent advances in the study of medieval urban conflicts in order to shed new light on their role in socio-ethnically heterogeneous urban environments, such as those formed in the Latin East. It examines several episodes of conflict that occurred in Jerusalem between the 1130s and the 1150s, involving key figures in the city's institutions and population. I propose an analytical framework that places these episodes within a mutual municipal context, linking broader socio-economic mechanisms that were at play in each episode to the renegotiation and reshaping of contested and symbolically significant areas inside Jerusalem. This approach unveils strategies of urban transformation that oscillated between violent outbreaks and legal resolution of property disputes, and were affected by tensions between social, religious and institutional configurations.