Holy Fire and sacral kingship in post-conquest Jerusalem

ABSTRACT

In 1101 the Holy Fire failed to appear in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Holy Saturday, as tradition and liturgy dictated. Less a failure and more a deliberately precipitated crisis born of a political struggle of wills between Patriarch Daimbert and King Baldwin, the resolution of this event enabled the kings of Jerusalem to establish dominance over the ecclesiastical sphere for most of the kingdom’s history. A reading of the narrative sources against liturgical sources casts light on the intersection between liturgy and government and on how the simulation of miracles could be used to advance political causes.