In the absence of reliable statistics it is difficult to establish whether any particular region was populated by Christians or Muslims during the Middle Ages. One cannot, in general, rely on the accounts of the chronicles and on itineraries which were most probably influenced by ideological considerations and personal preferences, and no other data is available. Kedar's hypothesis that there was a large Christian community around Jerusalem during the Frankish period, and that in Samaria there was a Muslim population, is based both on the evidence of chroniclers and on other unconnected documents.

In the following pages I shall bring evidence about the religion of specific inhabitants who lived in villages north of Jerusalem during the Frankish period. This list should provide corroboration of two additional claims: (a) that the border between the medieval Muslim and Christian communities passed through the Sinjil–'Abud line and was, therefore, identical with the northern border of Frankish settlement; and (b) that in the region of Nablus, where there were Christian communities during the same period, there were also Frankish settlements.

The list includes villages whose residents were, to the best of our knowledge, either Christians or Muslims, and references to isolated individuals in some of the villages. This fragmented evidence is of limited value per se, but existence of a Muslim or Christian community in a certain village can have regional significance if it can be shown that in neighboring villages there were similar communities.