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Chapter 6 The Price of Unity: Ecumenical Negotiations and the End of Rough Tolerance In 1169, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem received on its nave, transepts, and bema a new cycle of wall mosaics. The church was one of the oldest still standing in the Holy Land; built under Justinian, it escaped destruction during the invasions and persecutions that destroyed other Christian shrines. As the birthplace of Jesus, it was holy to Christians and Muslims alike, but its thick Roman walls enclosed a host of other tombs and sacred associations: the remains of the irascible church father Jerome lay in its crypt alongside those of his lifelong companion, the Roman noblewoman Paula, as well as her daughter Eustochium. Although only five miles from Jerusalem, the church was the center of its own constellation of holy places, such as the Shepherds’ Field and the monastery of Mar Saba.Yet the new mosaics did not draw on any of these venerable associations. Instead, they depicted early councils of the church; on the south wall are the seven ecumenical councils, while the north wall shows six provincial councils, events central to the theological definition of the Christian community, but with little connection to Bethlehem.1 Beneath the councils were images of Christ’s ancestors, which did have a specific meaning, given that Bethlehem was the birthplace of both Jesus and his most illustrious ancestor, King David. The mosaics were the gift, not of any member of the Frankish elite of the kingdom of Jerusalem, but of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1145–80), a fact prominently announced by a dedicatory inscription included with the mosaics and by an imperial portrait in the sanctuary of the church.2 The mosaic program proclaimed to pilgrim and local alike the unity of the Church, grounded in the ecumenical councils under the authority of the emperors—a particularly Byzantine vision of ecumenism. Even the text of the creed accompanying the Second Council of Constantinople (553) was written to Byzantine specifications, that is, without the “filioque” clause of the Latin credo. Nor was Bethlehem the only church under Frankish control that benefited from the generosity of the emperor. Manuel also donated gold to cover the stone slab within the Holy Sepulcher on which Jesus’ body had lain, thus establishing himself as patron of the holiest shrine in Christendom and the coronation church of the Frankish kings.3 As in the days of Constantine and Helena, the Christian shrines of the Holy Land were once again liberally bedecked with Byzantine gold. Manuel’s patronage was in some ways a continuation of traditional imperial concern for the Holy Places, but the emperor could no longer claim a special role as guardian as Constantine IX Monomachos had done in the eleventh century,4 for in the twelfth century the Frankish kings of Jerusalem claimed that honor. Yet in the 1160s, Manuel I Komnenos reclaimed it with an ecumenical twist. It is surprising that the Franks let such a pious, ancient, and politically advantageous role slip back into the emperor’s hands. Not only was Manuel the monarch of a neighboring, and often rival, state, but the emperor was also, from a Latin perspective, a schismatic. The basilica of the Nativity (like the even more important Church of the Holy Sepulcher) was like Times Square and the Lincoln Memorial rolled into one—a place of high traffic, prestige, and sacrality. Why then did Amalric the king and Ralph, the bishop of Bethlehem, give Manuel this unparalleled opportunity? Manuel I Komnenos and the Mediterranean World The answer arises from the political situation of the mid-twelfth century. The accumulation of power and territory by Nur al-Din (1146–74), ruler of Mosul, Aleppo, and Damascus, threatened the security of the Frankish principalities . Whereas their neighbors were once a number of competing Muslim and Christian warlords, the Franks by 1155 were effectively surrounded by just three powers: the Byzantines to the north (who had temporarily subordinated the Armenians of Cilicia), the Turks to the east led by Nur al-Din, and the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt to the south. The failure of the Second Crusade to effectively stem Nur al-Din’s growing power led the Franks to believe that crusades from Latin Europe were unlikely to hold back the Turks.5 Instead, it was Manuel, heir of the great Byzantine emperors of the past, wealthiest of all monarchs, and leader of one of the largest armies in the Mid158 Chapter...

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