Bringing the Holy Land Home

The Crusades, Chertsey Abbey, and the Reconstruction of a Medieval Masterpiece

Edited by Amanda Luyster

Book cover: Bringing the Holy Land Home

Extent: 376 pages

Publisher: Harvey Miller

Subjects: Art & Art History, Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, Medieval Studies

Series: Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History

Series volume number: 3

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(November 2022)

ISBN: 9781912554942

Price: $125.00

In stock

This volume reveals the impact that art objects manufactured in the Islamic and Byzantine Mediterranean had on the medieval visual culture of England. It also addresses the complex phenomenon of the Crusades, in which both violence and dynamic cultural interaction coexisted. The 2024 Monica H. Green Prize for Distinguished Medie


A carefully-integrated group of studies begins with the so-called “Chertsey” ceramic tiles, depicting combat between King Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. Found at Chertsey Abbey not far outside London and admired since the nineteenth century, we present here a new reconstruction of both the tiles and their previously-undeciphered Latin texts. The reconstruction demonstrates not only that the theme of the entire mosaic is the Crusades, but also that the overall appearance of the tiles, when laid as a floor, draws from the composition and iconography of imported Islamic and Byzantine silks. Essays illuminate specific material contexts that similarly witness western Europe’s, and particularly England’s, engagement with the material culture of the eastern Mediterranean, including ceramics, textiles, relics and reliquaries, metalwork, coins, sculpture, and ivories.

  • Edited by Amanda Luyster