John of Würzburg (LatinJohannes Herbipolensis) was aGerman priest who made apilgrimage to theHoly Land in the 1160s and wrote a book describing theChristian holy places, theDescriptio terrae sanctae (Description of the Holy Land).[2]
All that is known of John's life is what he records in hisDescriptio. He says that he was a priest of thechurch of Würzburg and he dedicated his work to a friend named Dietrich (Theoderic). The Tegernsee manuscript calls John thebishop of Würzburg, but there was no bishop named John. Possibly the copyist or whoever added the description of John to the Tegernsee manuscript confused him with his friend, who is sometimes identified withDietrich of Hohenburg, who was bishop of Würzburg in 1223–24. This identification is not certain.[2] Nor is the identification of Dietrich with the man of the same name who went on a pilgrimage around 1172 and wrote his own account of it, theLibellus de locis sanctis.[3]
John's pilgrimage took place while the holy places belonged to the ChristianKingdom of Jerusalem, but before the major renovation of theChurch of the Holy Sepulchre. He may have written hisDescriptio several decades after the pilgrimage, possibly after 1200.[4] His account is not entirely based on what he himself saw, he admits that he made use of eyewitness reports and in some cases borrowed from other travel guides (especiallyFretellus[5]). He probably landed atAcre, when he travelled toNazareth,Jenin,Nablus,Jerusalem,Bethlehem andJaffa, where he took ship home. His description of these places is mostly that of an eyewitness.[2]
TheDescriptio is known from fourmanuscripts. The earliest and longest, now Clm. 19418 in theBayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, dates to the late 12th or early 13th century and comes fromTegernsee Abbey.[5]
John's Latin is educated but ordinary.[2]
John's purpose in writing was to update the 7th-century description of the Holy Land,De locis sanctis, which he knew from the version edited byBede, based on the construction projects that had taken place since theFirst Crusade.[5]
The text is structured around thelife of Jesus and divided into seven sections highlighting hisbirth,baptism,passion,descent into Hell,resurrection,ascension andjudgement. This structure was considered irrational byTitus Tobler, who rearranged the text for his edition.[5]
TheDescriptio is the earliest western source to contain information about the different Christian denominations in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.[5][6] It has also aroused interest for its early indications of the rise of national feeling in Europe. John was a German patriot who laments the lack of credit given to the German crusaders.[3] In his thirteenth chapter, he writes:
Three days afterwards is the anniversary of nobleDuke Godfrey [of Bouillon] of happy memory, the chief and leader ofthat holy expedition, who was born of a German family. His anniversary is solemnly observed by the city with plenteous giving of alms inthe great church, according as he himself arranged while yet alive. But although he is there honoured in this way for himself, yet the taking of the city is not credited to him with his Germans, who bore no small share in the toils of that expedition, but is attributed to the French alone.[7]
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