The Crusades, the Genoese and the Latin East - DSpace at ...

Unfortunately, Gibelet was not included in Denys Pringle's recent publication, The
Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Pringle does mention, however, the existence
of another church of St Mary in Gibelet that belonged to the monastery of St Theodosius. 417
Recently, Jaroslav Folda dedicated several pages to Gibelet in his book of The Art of the
Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098-1187. The castle of Gibelet, according to Folda, was `one of
the first major crusader fortification projects whose results, though heavily rebuilt, can still be
assessed. ' About Gibelet, in general, Folda wrote: `Beautifully sited on a rise overlooking the
projected harbour and anchoring the city wall, Gibelet is an example of elemental western ideas
in fortification brought Eastward. 418
Figure 7: Gibelet - an aerial photo with an indication of the excavated area and the location
of the medieval town419
N. W EDGE OF
THE
MEDIEVAL
TOWN
CAS III
LOCA IION OF
ANCIENT
BYBLOS AND
TI IF MODERN
EXCAVATION
AREA
`Civitas... est satis parva. ' This short description of Gibelet belongs to Burchard of
Mount Sion who visited the small town in 1283.420 Indeed, according to the archaeologist
Maurice Dunand, the medieval city was quite small. Gibelet had a quadrilateral shape of 275m by
417 Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1998), P. 272.
418 Jaroslav Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, p. 54
419 This photo is from the collection of GeoMaps online. However there is unfortunately no reference to the
height and direction from which it was taken.
420 Burchard of Mont Sion, Descriptio terrae sanctae, ed. Johann C. M. Laurent (ed. ), Peregrinatores medii
aevi quatour (Leipzig, 1864), p. 27.
N. E EDGE OF TO"
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