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Our Lady of Saidnaiya: an Orthodox Shrine Revered by Muslims and Knights Templar at the Time of the Crusades

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Bernard Hamilton
Bernard Hamilton*
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Extract

The fortified convent of Saidnaiya (often called Sardeney by medieval Western writers) is situated on a rocky outcrop some twelve miles to the north of Damascus. It claims to have been founded by Justinian, but it is not mentioned in the De aedificiis of Procopius, and its origins are uncertain. The earliest surviving description of it may be that given by Burchard of Strasbourg, the ambassador of Frederick Barbarossa to the court of Saladin, who visited Saidnaiya in c. 1175:

in this church twelve virgin nuns and eight monks devoutly serve God and the Blessed Virgin. In this church I saw a wooden panel … placed behind the altar in an embrasure in the wall of the sanctuary guarded by an iron grille. On this panel a likeness of the Blessed Virgin had once been painted, but now, wondrous to relate, the picture on wood has become incarnate and oil, smelling sweeter than balsam, unceasingly flows from it. By which oil many Christians, Saracens and Jews are often cured of ailments. … To this place on the feast of the Assumption of the glorious Virgin and on that of her Nativity all the Saracens of that province flock to pray together with the Christians, and the Saracens perform their devotions there with great reverence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 36: The Holy Land, Holy Lands, and Christian History , 2000 , pp. 207 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2000

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References

1 Pringle, Denys, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom. A Corpus, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1993-8), 2, pp. 219–21.Google Scholar

2 Burchard of Strasbourg, De statu Egypti vel Babylonie, e. vi, in Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (saec. XII-XIII), ed. S. de Sandoli, 4 vols (Jerusalem, 1978-84), 2, p. 406 [hereafter Itinera]. There is some doubt about the extent to which Burchard’s text may have been interpolated before 1207 (when Arnold of Lübeck died, after having incorporated it in his Chronicle). The relation between this passage and other Western descriptions of Saidnaiya is discussed by P. Peeters, ‘La légende de Saϊdnaia’, AnBoll, 25 (1906), pp. 137-57.

3 Baraz, D., ‘The incarnated icon of Saidnaya goes West’, Le Muséon, 108 (1995), pp. 181–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Devos, P., ‘Les premières versions occidentales de la légende de Saϊdnaia’, AnBoll, 65 (1947), pp. 245–78.Google Scholar

5 Peeters, ‘Légende’, p. 157 n. 1, cites this text in Latin from Itinerarium Guilielmi de Boldensele, ed. C. L. Grotefend, Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen (1852), pp. 284-5.

6 Hunt, Lucy-Anne, ‘A woman’s prayer to St Sergios in Latin Syria: interpreting a thirteenth-century icon at Mount Sinai’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 15 (1991), pp. 117–19 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but see below at nn.24, 25.

7 Adamnani de locis Sanctis libri tres, ed. L. Bieler, III, v, in Itineraria et alia geographica, CChr.SL, 175 (Turnholt, 1965), pp. 233-4. I am indebted to Thomas O’Loughlin for drawing my attention to this passage.

8 Devos, ‘Les premières versions’, pp. 270-2.

9 Baraz cites the homily of 1183 about ‘the icon of Our Lady which was incarnated in the monastery of Saidnaya’ found in the Mount Sinai manuscript Ar.585, fol. 5or, but argues that this terminoloy was exceptional in Eastern Christian writings about the shrine: ‘The incarnated icon’, p. 184. Certainly the Russian archimandrite Grethenios, who visited Saidaiya in c. 1400, describes the miracle with no reference to incarnation: ‘[C’est] une image de la très Pure qui fait couler le sainte huile’: ‘Pèlerinage de l’archimandrite Gréthenios du couvent de la Sainte Vierge (c.1400)’, c. xxiii, ed. B. de Khitrowo, Itinéraires russes en Orient, Publications de la Société de l’Orient Latin, sér. géographique, 5 (Geneva, 1889), p. 191.

10 Abu al-Makarim, Ta’rikh al-kana’is. This passage is cited in Arabie with an English translation by Baraz, ‘The incarnated icon’, p. 189. Western writers did not distinguish between the various kinds of Eastern Christians who frequented the shrine.

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14 E.g. Sura 3, 30-40 of the Koran; see also Wensinck, A. J., ‘Maryam’, Encyclopedia of Islam, new edn, 6 (Leiden, 1991), pp. 628–32 Google Scholar; el-Jalil, Abd, Marie et l’Islam (Paris, 1950).Google Scholar

15 ‘Le Miracle de Sainte Marie de Sardenai’, ll. 373-432, ed. G. Raynaud, ‘Le Miracle de Sardenai’, Romania, 11 (1882), pp. 536-7.

16 The Aulne-sur-Sambre manuscript is a copy of an original from Altavaux, now lost. ‘Relatio Guidonis Chat de Miraculo B.V.M. in Sardena e. cod Brux. 11, 1064’, ed. Devos, ‘Les premières versions’, pp. 272-3. The passage from the ‘Inventaire des reliques du prieuré d’Altavaux’, ed. A. Leroux, Documents historiques bas-latins, provençaux et français concernant principalement la Marche et le Limousin, 2 vols (Limoges, 1883), 1, pp. 83-7, is cited by Devos, pp. 275-6.

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18 ‘Le Miracle de Sainte Marie de Sardenai’, ll. 349-54, ed. Raynaud, p. 536.

19 E.g. ‘Les pelerinaiges por aler en Iherusalem’, c. xxi; Philippe Mousket, ‘Description rimée des Saints-Lieux’; ‘Itinéraire de Londres à Jérusalem attribué à Matthieu Paris’ (found only in MS C, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, xxvi); Rothelin Continuation of William of Tyre; ‘Les chemins et les pelerinages de la terre Sainte’, in H. Michelant and G. Raynaud, eds, Itinéraires à Jérusalem et descriptions de la Terre Sainte rédigés en français aux xie, xiie et xiiie siècles, Publications de la Société de l’Orient Latin, sér. géographique, 3 (Paris, 1882), pp. 103, 120, 131-2, 173-4, 188.

20 R. B. C. Huygens, ed., De constructione castri Saphet: construction et functions d’un château fort franc en Terre Sainte, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen Afdeling Letterkunde, verhandelingen Nieuwe Reeks, 111 (Amsterdam, 1981), pp. 35-6; English translation, Kennedy, H., Crusader Castles (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 191–2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to Hugh Kennedy for discussing this matter with me.

21 E.g. Pope John XXII in 1328 granted an indulgence to all those who visited the Sinai monastery or contributed towards the restoration of its fabric, Acta Johannis XXII, ed. A. L. Tautu, Pontificia Commissio ad redigendum Codicem Iuris Canonici Orientalis, Fontes, ser. 3, vol. 7/ii (Vatican City, 1952), nos. 97-103, 144, pp. 190-7, 267-8.

22 Italics mine. James of Verona, Liber peregrinationis, ed. R. Röhricht, ROL, 3 (1893), pp. 294-5.

23 The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. The Version of the Cotton Manuscript in Modem Spelling, ed. A. W. Pollard (London, 1900), p. 82.

24 Luttrell, Anthony, ‘Rhodes and Jerusalem: 1291-1411’, in Byzance - Italic Mélanges réunis en l’honneur de M. Freddy Thiriet, Byzantinische Forschungen, 12 (1987), pp. 193–8, 201–7 Google Scholar (edition of the draft treaty); Manz, Beatrice Forbes, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge, 1989), p. 73.Google Scholar

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26 Kalendarium ac caeremoniale, B. 11, C.XXIX, xiv: Valletta, National Library of Malta, Archives of the Order of Malta, MS 1952, fo. 311. This was written in the Mastership of Manuel Pinto da Fonseca (1741-73) and the last dated entry is for 1758.

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