Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1 Frankish rural sites in Palestine
- PART I PRESENTATION OF THE PROBLEM
- PART II THE “CASTRUM,” THE BURGUS, AND THE VILLAGE
- 3 Castellum Regis
- 4 Evidence about the existence of Frankish settlements
- 5 The rights and duties of the Frankish settlers in Casale Imbert and Nova Villa
- 6 The settlers: places of origin and occupations
- 7 The geographic layout of a Frankish village: the example of Parva Mahomeria
- 8 The neighborhood of a Frankish castrum: the fields and the role played by the castellan
- 9 A church as the nucleus of a settlement
- 10 Mixed Frankish and local Christian settlements
- 11 Frankish settlements and the collection of tithes
- PART III THE ISOLATED DWELLINGS
- PART IV THE SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF FRANKISH SETTLEMENT
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Evidence about the existence of Frankish settlements
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1 Frankish rural sites in Palestine
- PART I PRESENTATION OF THE PROBLEM
- PART II THE “CASTRUM,” THE BURGUS, AND THE VILLAGE
- 3 Castellum Regis
- 4 Evidence about the existence of Frankish settlements
- 5 The rights and duties of the Frankish settlers in Casale Imbert and Nova Villa
- 6 The settlers: places of origin and occupations
- 7 The geographic layout of a Frankish village: the example of Parva Mahomeria
- 8 The neighborhood of a Frankish castrum: the fields and the role played by the castellan
- 9 A church as the nucleus of a settlement
- 10 Mixed Frankish and local Christian settlements
- 11 Frankish settlements and the collection of tithes
- PART III THE ISOLATED DWELLINGS
- PART IV THE SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF FRANKISH SETTLEMENT
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Detailed documents such as the one dealing with Miʿilya are very rare, and it is difficult, therefore, to depend only on direct evidence of this nature in order to reconstruct the network of Frankish settlement. There are, however, many less detailed descriptions from which one can learn about the character and dispersal of Frankish settlements.
Direct historical evidence
This type of evidence includes explicit references to Frankish settlers, rights vested in settlers, fields planted and worked by them, or houses built by the settlers themselves in non-urban areas. Such evidence, unambiguous and irrefutable in nature, was used by Prawer and Pringle in their study of settlements in places like Darom, Bethgibelin, Gaza, Blanchegarde, Magna Mahomeria, Parva Mahomeria, Calansue, Caco, Le Grand Gerin, Palmaria, Casale Imbert, and Buria. In the course of my study, I shall attempt to show that there is other such direct evidence which has not yet been utilized.
Secondly, the vesting of parochial rights testifies to the existence of a Christian community. There would be no point in granting baptism and burial rights in an area in which all the residents are Muslims, and the only Christians are the Frankish lords who arrive only for the harvest or the vintage. Parochial rights are granted only in a Christian environment. From the very fact that such rights were granted to a Latin ecclesiastical institution in any particular village, we can learn that either a Latin Christian community, or a local Christian community subject to the Latin church, existed there.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998