5.6 Analysis: Caesarea’s Frankish Walls
5.6.1 Griffins and the Church of Saint Lawrence
In 1101, King Baldwin I’s army along with the Genoese fleet captured Caesarea. In exchange for their part in the siege, King Baldwin I granted the Genoese one third of the city (William of Tyre 1976 I: 437). Three days after the siege a small church, likely a former mosque, was rededicated to Saint Lawrence, the patron saint of the Genoese (Pringle 1993:
180). In January 2003, part of a sculpture was discovered during conservation work in the northeast corner of the city’s medieval wall (Porath 2004) (see section 5.4.2). I propose that this sculpture was part of a pair of griffins that sat atop two spoliated columns, flanking either a side entrance or the window of the Church of Saint Lawrence. This church would have abutted or at least sat very close to Caesarea’s eastern wall. To begin, I shall describe the architectural remains of the northeast corner tower in greater detail. In the discussion that follows in section 5.6.2 I shall explain why I believe that the northeast corner tower contains the remains of the lost Church of Saint Lawrence. Moreover, I will analyse the
apotropaic functions that the griffins and the church played in relation to Caesarea’s city wall.
Located within King Louis IX’s northeast corner tower are the remains of the Church of Saint Lawrence, which were later incorporated into King John de Brienne’s fortifications.
Portions of two of the church’s rooms survive (referred to here as the eastern and western rooms) (see figures 5.70 and 5.71). The church’s eastern room has two arched doorways, one to the north and one to the east. I suggest that these were posterns, added during King John de Brienne’s refortification, and were later blocked by the rubble fill of King Louis IX’s walls and glaỗis (see figures 5.72 and 5.74). The church’s northern wall,
spanning the length of both rooms, is comprised of small, nicely tooled ashlars. This wall is twelve courses high on the eastern side of the northern postern, but would have been higher given the two surviving put-logs (holes used for wooden scaffolding during construction). To the west of the northern postern, only six courses of these ashlars survive. The rest of this wall is comprised of different sized stones which have been stacked in a slapdash manner. I believe that this section of wall was damaged during al- Mu‘azzam ‘Isā destruction in 1219–1220 and that the wall was crudely rebuilt sometime between the 1228–1252 refortification with the stones, readily available from the recent destruction, to provide stability for the rubble core of the new city wall. The church’s, or possibly the later tower’s, floor was paved using ashlar stones. In the church’s western room, three spoliated Roman marble blocks, one of which is a cornice with CI and CII type decorative elements (Turnheim and Ovadiah 1996: 285–290), were incorporated into the northern edge of the floor (see figure 5.73).
Figure 5.70: Schematic plan of the northeast corner tower. Drawing not to scale (A. Charland and T. Christian)
Figure 5.71: General view of the northeast corner tower, northeast (A. Charland)
Located in between the church’s northern wall and the 1251–1252 rubble fill, and flanking the northern postern, are two stone sculptures sitting atop spoliated carved capitals which in turn have been placed on top of two grey granite Roman columns (see figure 5.74).
These sculptures were discovered in January 2003 during conservation work carried out on the medieval wall. They were found on top of the capitals, which were exposed during Levine and Netzer’s excavations in 1975–1976 (Levine 1986b: 182; Levine and Netzer 1978:
73; Porath 2004) (see figure 5.75). It is evident from the initial excavation as well as from Porath’s photographs that the western sculpture has since been rotated so that it currently stands facing the inside of the tower. According to Porath (2004), the sculptures are characteristic of Romanesque art, dating from the end of the tenth century to the second half of the twelfth century. They share many similarities with Italian sculptures of the same date (see section 5.6.2).
Figure 5.72: Postern located in the northeast corner tower, possibly dating to King John de Brienne’s 1217’s refortification, facing east (A. Charland)
Figure 5.73: Floor of the western room of the twelfth century church with three spoliated Roman architectural elements. The one located on the far left is a cornice, facing north
(A. Charland)
The base of each sculpture survives, but only the western sculpture has retained part of its decoration. It depicts a sitting creature with two front and two back paws and a long curving tail with feathers coming out of its end (see figure 5.76 and 5.77). Porath (2004) generically describes this creature as a “demon” but it could be a number of Romanesque creatures such as a lion, a winged-lion, a monkey, a sphinx, or a senmurv, which is a winged quadruped with bird’s feathers for tails (Bliss 1987: 136). Above all these, it seems most likely that it was a griffin, a mythological creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion, as this would explain the creature’s paws and feathers. It would have been paired with either another griffin, a lion, or possibly a winged-lion as these are often seen together, examples of which can be seen at the churches of Saint Giovanni and Saint Nicola in Bari, Italy (Garton 1984: 245, Plate 34; 259, Plate 54b).
Unfortunately, a more definite identification cannot be made until the rest of the sculpture, or its twin, is discovered.
Figure 5.74: Two stone sculptures sitting atop spoliated carved capitals which in turn have been placed on top of two grey granite Roman columns, located in the northeast corner
tower, facing north (A. Charland)
Figure 5.75: Photograph taken during 1975–1976 excavations in the northeast corner tower showing the position of the two sculptures, facing north (Levine 1986b: 182)
According to Porath (2004), the griffins would have faced outward from the church’s northern faỗade and the city wall would have been located further north than King Louis IX’s wall. I believe that the griffins would have flanked either one of the church’s
windows or secondary entrances rather than its main portal as this would have had an east-west orientation (see figure 5.78).
Originally it was thought that the griffins’ columns formed part of a monumental gate erected during the Byzantine period and was later incorporated into the city wall built during the Early Islamic Period (Levine and Netzer 1978: 73), and more recently that these columns were part of a Byzantine colonnaded street, following the cardo maximus, a Roman street which ran the length of King Louis IX’s eastern wall (Pringle 2012: pers.
comm., 24 July 2012; Patrich 2011: 102). There are two large columns standing upright and buried deep located along the eastern wall, just south of the northeast tower, which the recent French expedition attributes to the cardo maximus (see figure 5.79) (Mesqui et al.
2010: 14; Mesqui et al. 2008: 5). However, Porath (2004) believes that these columns, along with the Romanesque sculptures, adorned the northern faỗade of a building built during the Frankish period, but prior to King Louis IX’s refortification. Given that the northeast tower’s columns are smaller in diameter and do not align with the larger upright
columns, I believe that Porath’s conclusion is the most likely and that these columns were
probably spoliated either from the colonnaded street or elsewhere on the site for the purpose of adorning the twelfth century Frankish church.
Figure 5.76: Close-up of the surviving griffin from the northeast corner tower, facing north (A. Charland)
Figure 5.77: Drawing of the Romanesque griffin (Porath 2004)
Figure 5.78: Schematic plan of the location of the church and city walls before the 1217 refortification by Kind John de Brienne. Drawing not to scale (A. Charland and T.
Christian)
Figure 5.79: Two columns located along the eastern wall. They may have belonged to the ancient cardo maximus, facing north (A. Charland)
The northeast tower’s ashlar flooring continues beyond the reused church through a doorway leading south. Just south of this doorway there is another wider doorway. The walls flanking this entrance follow the inner line of the tower which joins the city’s eastern wall. It is three courses high and is built on top of a three-course batter. This wall continues west of the doorway where it meets another wall, the most intact of the tower’s inner walls, running along the western side of the tower and joining King Louis IX’s northern wall. In this western wall section are the remains of a structure built from very large stones, possibly Roman or Byzantine in origin. The tower’s ashlar flooring continues beyond its inner walls and there is a small section of wall that continues south of the tower’s western wall (see figure 5.70), however more excavations are necessary to ascertain the full extent of the ashlar flooring and this wall section.
During the construction of King Louis IX’s walls, the remains of King John de Brienne’s tower were filled in with earth and the griffins and columns were incorporated into the new wall’s rubble core (Porath 2004), thus accounting for the griffins’ good state of preservation. This would also explain why this portion of the northeast tower survived the later, partial destructions in 1265 and 1291. By filling in the tower, the floor level would have been raised significantly. Therefore, when King Louis IX’s walls – targeted by Baibars and again by Sultan al-Ashraf Khalīl as much for their military strength as for their Frankish character (see section 5.7) – were torn down to the lip of the glaỗis it would appear that the entire tower would have been destroyed. However, the 1265 and 1291 partial demolitions left King John de Brienne’s remaining walls relatively intact and the griffin sculptures relatively in situ below floor level.