Focusing on Jerusalem under Frankish rule following the Crusader conquest of 1099, this book sheds light on the dynamic socio-economic factors that shaped Jerusalem's gradual urban transformation. In exploring the extensive corpus of medieval property records, it reveals that the growth of Jerusalem's monumental and symbolic landscape, as befitted its new status as the capital of the Latin Kingdom, was in tandem with more mundane facets of life in the city, such as growing residential settlement patterns, and the expansion of its rural hinterland. This places the history of Frankish Jerusalem in a broader theoretical framework by analyzing the socio-economic and institutional mechanisms – such as immigration and the formation of medieval trust – that shaped the cityscape during a particularly tumultuous period in its history, and places it against the backdrop of medieval urbanisation processes in other regions.

‘Gutgarts has aimed at providing a deeper and more nuanced vision of Jerusalem and its evolution under crusader rule. As new archaeological information comes to light, with this book in hand, the scholar has the means of gaining a better understanding than was previously possible of the twelfth-century city and the socioeconomic factors that shaped its development.’

Adrian J. Boas Source: Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies