Chapter 2 investigates growing competition between the Franciscan (Latin) and Greek Orthodox community over the legal and material possession of altars to understand these as vessels of political and spiritual legitimacy.

The focus of this chapter is on Orthodox monasteries as spiritual centres. The nature of Orthodox monastic spirituality in the Holy Land is examined from hagiographical and theological writing. The theme of the chapter is the continuity of early monastic traditions and the adherence of the monasteries to ideals and practices that had their roots in the early Christian ‘golden age’ of monasticism.

A Latin monastic presence was part of the landscape of the Holy Land as early as the fourth century. Although the Latin presence waned after the Arab Conquest of the seventh century, interest and involvement in the monastic presence of the Holy Land continued, notably in the reign of Charlemagne in the early ninth century. The eleventh century saw increased knowledge of conditions for Christians in the Holy Land as pilgrimage from the West became more widespread. By the eve of the First Crusade in 1095, the Latin and Greek Orthodox Churches had drifted apart in observance of religious customs, but they remained in communion. The purpose of the Crusade was to revive and strengthen the Christian presence in the Holy Land.

A major, but largely neglected source of evidence for understanding Orthodox monasticism in the Crusader East is the body of writing produced in the monasteries themselves. Over a hundred manuscripts from the major monasteries survive, containing as well as original compositions, many copies of early devotional, hagiographical and liturgical works. The reasons for copying certain works and the uses made of them, and the nature of the original compositions – hagiographical, theological, liturgical and polemical –are the focus of this chapter.

The surviving evidence for Orthodox monasteries does not permit the same type of analysis of the place of monasteries within political and land-holding society as is possible for the Latin monasteries. The aim of this chapter is, instead, to provide an anatomy of Orthodox monasteries as institutions, using a variety of evidence including accounts by visitors and pilgrims and foundation documents. The emphasis is on giving as comprehensive as possible an analysis of how the Orthodox monasteries in the Holy Land functioned in terms of internal governance and discipline and relations with the state and external drivers.

Greek-rite monasticism in the Holy Land and Syria experienced difficulties arising from external conditions in the first millennium, including invasion and conquest, poverty and loss of contact with the political centre of the Byzantine Empire. Nevertheless, monasticism continued to function in some important centres. Before the time of the First Crusade, a revival had already begun, especially in northern Syria and Cyprus. The establishment of the Latin Church as a result of the First Crusade both enhanced and challenged this revival, in ways that are exploredin this survey chapter of Orthodox monasteries in the Crusader States.

The concluding chapter draws together the results of the research by giving an overview of the parallel ‘lives’ of Latin and Orthodox monasteries in the eastern regions that came under western control in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and drawing inferences about the nature of their intersection with each other and with the society of which they formed a part.