Il Templum Domini e le sue tradizioni secondo le fonti scritte in epoca crociata

This article presents the history and traditions of the sacred building known as the Templum Domini. Its history is connected to that of the Crusades and of the Pauperes commilitones Christi templique Salomonis, commonly known as the Templars. On the 15th of July 1099, Godfrey of Bouillon, together with his troops and with the help of war machines provided by the city of Genoa, finally succeeded in opening a breach in the walls of Jerusalem thus conquering the city at the end of a long siege. The Temple Mount was consistently the last part of the city to be conquered, as had already happened in the past, for example, during the siege of the Roman army of Pompeii and Titus.

Most probably two distinct religious realities shared the area when the Temple Mount was first built: a Benedictine Abbey or the Rectory of a Church that was called Templum Domini and the King’s Palace, later inhabited by the Templars, the Templum Salomoni. From a certain time on it seems, at least according to written scources, that the latter had control of the former.