MEGAN BOOMER SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDS HER DISSERTATION

MEGAN BOOMER SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDS HER DISSERTATION

“Landscapes of Salvation: Architecture and Memory in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem"

Committee: Renata Holod, Sarah Guerin, Robert Ousterhout

Friday, August, 23 2019 in Jaffe 113

Abstract:

The twelfth-century monuments of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem attracted pilgrims who came to see “the holy places in which the Lord lived as a man.” Landscapes of Salvation: Architecture and Memory in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem investigates how architecture, decoration, and liturgy structured this desired encounter between medieval viewer and biblical history.

The staging of natural rock and older architectural fragments in the Church at Abu Ghosh, Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Latin Church of the Holy Sepulchre provided worshippers with raw material that rendered the sacred past present. There was, however, a lack of consensus between patrons and viewers on the theological interpretation of the events marked by the loca sancta. Space, image, text, and ritual therefore became a means of negotiating sacred and secular power among viewing communities.

My study engages in a history of sacred space that considers how the twelfth-century structures responded to, and shaped, medieval understandings of sacred topography and time.