‘Ululant more luporum’. Frank Perceptions of Other Christians’ Liturgies in Churches of the Holy Land

Abstract

In this essay I will discuss how Frank pilgrims perceived Christian rites different from their own in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries. Yet, it cannot escape us that the topic of relations between different creeds is much more complex than it seems, and is likewise highly relevant and strongly confrontational to this day, since still today many cultural stereotypes (often unknowingly) affect the interpretation of what is observed. To illustrate that point, I will borrow an example that may appear unrealistic but is instead a really occurred event: years ago, the US consul in Jerusalem received a call for help. An American woman, […] a devout Christian, called from a Palestinian village where her American church had sent her to help a parish. The poor woman was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. ‘I came to the Holy Land to help Christians!’ she shouted to the consul. As the diplomat didn’t seem to understand her distress, she continued more forcefully: ‘My church told me that I was going to work with Christians, and now instead I’m in a city of Arabs![1]’

[1] Lorieux (2001, I).