EBAF THURSDAYS: From the Dome of the Rock to the Templum Domini: The Role of Epigraphy in the Latinisation of the Holy Places in the Twelfth Century”

On Thursday, 26 November 2026, the next “Jeudis de l’ÉBAF” lecture will take place. Estelle Ingrand-Varenne, Director of the French Research Centre in Jerusalem (CRFJ), will give a lecture entitled: “From the Dome of the Rock to the Templum Domini: The Role of Epigraphy in the Latinisation of the Holy Places in the Twelfth Century”.

After the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099, the Dome of the Rock, the Umayyad shrine built at the end of the seventh century on the esplanade, was turned into a church and renamed the Templum Domini, the “Temple of the Lord”. Like other holy places in the city, it was taken over by the Latins until Saladin recaptured Jerusalem in 1187.

Inscriptions played a leading part in this appropriation. Set on the walls and around the rock, Latin inscriptions proclaimed to pilgrims the building’s new Christian meaning. A specialist in medieval epigraphy and the inscriptions of the Latin East, Estelle Ingrand-Varenne will show how public writing contributed to the “Latinisation” of the holy places, and what these texts reveal about the way the Crusaders understood and inhabited Jerusalem.

The “Jeudis de l’ÉBAF” lectures are free and open to all. To help the École continue sharing biblical scholarship as widely as possible, in Jerusalem and online, you can support its work: every gift, however small, makes a difference.