The Middle Ages and the Middle East

For my avid readers, this post might be a little boring. For my Engl 291 class I wanted to show several pictures of how Christianity affected the life, and especially literature, of the Old English and Middle English period. So, with the danger of total-readership of my blog increasing from "one" to "more than one," I will proceed.

I've never been to Europe, but I did live in Israel, and throughout Israel are many churches built by the Crusaders and earlier groups of religious peoples. This means both that they had European influence, as well as influencing European architecture and ideals. Remember, many of the features in churches were made to represent places of interest in the Holy Land. At the very least it is a break from reading so much, right? :)

The following are pictures of some of those churches (they are all at least mostly Catholic--some also have Eastern Orthodox influence), demonstrating their architecture, the importance of iconic figures, as well as the influence of/beliefs about the Virgin Mary.


This is a monastary in Jericho, built into the cliff. Can you imagine the venerable Bede sitting in something like this writing his history?



Built by the crusaders in the Old City of Jerusalem, this is dedicated to St. Anne, the mother of Mary.


Here you can see some of the painting on the apse of the church, surviving from the Crusader period.



These two are from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (outside and inside), which houses the spot believed by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox to be the spot where Christ was crucified, as well as where he was laid in the tomb. Thousands (maybe millions?) of Christians make pilgrimages to this site every year.


First built in the early 4th century, this church was rebuilt by the Crusaders (and then destroyed and rebuilt again, but they tried to keep with original design). This is the Church of Pater Noster, or the Church of the Lord's Prayer.



Also first built in the early fourth century, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem marks the spot believed to be where Jesus was born. The Crusaders did some updates and rebuilding, as have many others since then in efforts to preserve it.

The next few pictures are from a church in Nazareth dedicated to the Virgin Mary. I think it shows a lot of interesting things about how Catholics in their respective countries visualize the Virgin Mary.




















And these last two are of St. George and the Dragon, which I talked about in a facebook post. Just thought it was a little interesting.



And finally, if you are really bored and were just hoping to see a visual representation of Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" and you don't mind Israeli/Palestinian conflict overtones, check out my other blog here. (It really is cool, by the way.)