Thechurch of Saint Mary of the Latins (Latin:Sancta Maria Latina) was achurch building in theOld City of Jerusalem in the CrusaderKingdom of Jerusalem.
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In around the middle of the 11th century,Amalfitan traders obtained permission from theCaliph to build the church of Sainte Marie-Latine next to theChurch of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, as well as a hospice for the accommodation of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. The hospice-hospital was run byBenedictine monks.[1]
Prior to theFirst Crusade (1096–1099) and thecapture of Jerusalem in 1099 by theLatins, this firstFrankish hospice-hospital only functioned as such. It was later considered a Hospitaller church, but initially had no connection to anymilitary order, and theKnights Hospitaller was only founded in the following century. In the 12th century, Crusader historianWilliam of Tyre writes about the existence of a monastery, belonging to the people of Amalfi, which took charge of the hospital and its chapel. The latter had been dedicated to the patriarch of Alexandria,John the Almoner (610–616).
The "great" church[dubious –discuss] was allegedly sacked bySaladin after thefall of Jerusalem.
Confusingly, there were two Crusader-era Churches of St Mary in close proximity to each other in the Hospitallers' Quarter. Medieval sources are using three different names when they are addressing the two churches: St Mary of the Latins, St Mary Minor (dedicated c. 1060), and St Mary Major (dedicated 1080).[2] Various researchers have identified them differently, butConrad Schick and most modern researchers see St Mary of the Latins as being one and the same as St Mary Minor,[2] its ruins now built over by theGerman ProtestantChurch of the Redeemer. The remains of St Mary Major have completely disappeared under the 1901 GreekAftimos Market.[3]
