Christmas was one of the major celebrations of the year, although it was less important than the other major Christian festival, Easter. Do we know what regular people did, what they ate, what games they played, what kind of decorations they had? Presumably they imported some Christmas customs from back home in Europe, although which ones? Crusaders came from so many different places in Europe, so did they all celebrate Christmas the same way? Unfortunately, we don’t really know. But I can tell you about some other ways that Christmas was observed in the crusader states.

First of all, most crusaders were probably amazed to be walking around in the places where Jesus was born and died, places they had only ever heard about in church or school. Some crusaders had probably been to Jerusalem before as pilgrims but for the most part, this was all new to them. After the First Crusade, and in fact after every other crusade as well, a crusader’s vow was considered to be incomplete until they had visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the site where Christians believe Christ was resurrected) and the other holy places in and around Jerusalem. When the crusaders captured Jerusalem in July 1099, most of them fulfilled their vow and then went back to Europe.

For the few who stayed, the question was what to do with their new territory. The most popular leader by this point was Godfrey of Bouillon, who was elected to govern Jerusalem, but not as king. He claimed he didn’t want to wear a crown in Jerusalem where Jesus had worn a crown of thorns. He may have simply called himself “duke” (his title back in Europe), or “advocate of the Holy Sepulchre.”

Back home the Holy Roman Emperor where Godfrey was duke of Lower Lorraine, an "advocate" was the secular representative of land that belonged to the church. Some crusaders did want Jerusalem to be given directly to the pope and ruled as a fief of the church. Is that what Godfrey intended? A church hierarchy was also established, with a Patriarch of Jerusalem at the top. In December of 1099, a few of the crusaders who had departed from the crusade in 1097-1098 and remained in the north finally travelled south to visit the Holy Sepulchre and fulfill their vows, including Godfrey’s brother Baldwin of Boulogne, who had established the crusader county of Edessa in northern Mesopotamia, and Bohemond of Taranto, who had stayed behind to govern Antioch. They were accompanied by the new papal legate, Daimbert of Pisa, who had recently arrived with a Pisan fleet. They arrived in Jerusalem around Christmas. Daimbert was chosen to be the new patriarch and Baldwin and Bohemond were officially recognized as the rulers of Edessa and Antioch. According to the chronicler Fulcher of Chartres, who was also present, they then continued on to Bethlehem and celebrated Christmas in the Church of the Nativity:

“When we had visited the Lord’s Sepulcher and His most glorious Temple and the other holy places, we went on the fourth day to Bethlehem to celebrate the Nativity of the Lord. We wanted to assist personally that night in the prayers at the manger where the revered Mother Mary gave birth to Jesus. After we had finished the appropriate devotions that night and had celebrated the third mass, we returned to Jerusalem in the third hour of the day.”

Baldwin and Bohemond returned to the north. Whatever Godfrey or Daimbert were planning to do with Jerusalem was interrupted when Godfrey died unexpectedly in July 1100. Godfrey’s supporters summoned his brother Baldwin, who arrived in November. Things could have gone differently and we could be talking about the coronation of Daimbert as some sort of prince-patriarch, but things didn’t turn out that way - instead, Baldwin had no hesitation calling himself king and wearing a crown in Jerusalem. Daimbert couldn’t do much about it, except he refused to allow Baldwin’s coronation to take place in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Instead they returned to Bethlehem and Baldwin was crowned in the Church of the Nativity on December 25, 1100.

Partly this was because of political expediency - everyone happened to be in the right place in November/December. But Bethlehem on Christmas Day was certainly not a coincidence. In the Bible, Bethlehem was also the site of King David’s birth and his own coronation, so the site was a symbolic connection to both the Old and New Testaments. In more recent history, Charlemagne had also been crowned as the new western emperor in Rome on Christmas Day in 800, something that western crusaders were certainly very aware of.

So that is a rather lengthy story to explain why December 25 was a very significant date for the early kings of Jerusalem, in addition to being Christmas Day. The next king was also crowned on Christmas. Baldwin I died in 1118 and was succeeded by Baldwin II, who may have been a cousin or some other distant relation of Godfrey and Baldwin I. He was consecrated as king right away, in a ceremony in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1118, but he waited over a year to be crowned, for various reasons - one of which may have been because they were waiting to see if Godfrey and Baldwin I’s other brother to show up and claim the throne, which he never did. So Baldwin II was also crowned on Christmas Day in 1119, in the Church of the Nativity.

By this time Bethlehem had been turned into a Latin diocese. It had never had a bishop before, it had always been a part of the diocese of Jerusalem, but this was one of the various changes the Latin crusaders made to the local church. The Church of the Nativity was also renovated as a joint project between the king of Jerusalem and the Byzantine emperor, with a new floor and roof and new mosaics and paintings. The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was also rebuilt and renovated during crusader rule. As they exist today, both churches are largely what the crusaders built there in the 12th century.

The Church of the Nativity was eventually replaced as the site of royal coronations by the more prestigious Holy Sepulchre, but sometimes they were still crowned on Christmas. When King Fulk died in 1143, he was succeeded by his widow Melisende and their son Baldwin III, who was still only 13 years old. Both were crowned in Jerusalem on December 25. After that they seem to have forgotten about Christmas coronations as well. Baldwin IV was crowned in 1174 on the anniversary of the capture of Jerusalem, July 15. After 1187 the crusaders lost both Jerusalem and Bethlehem so they couldn’t be crowned in the Holy Sepulchre or the Church of the Nativity and they didn’t bother waiting until Christmas. The only other king that I know for sure was crowned on Christmas was Hugh III of Cyprus, who was crowned in the cathedral in Nicosia in 1267.

Aside from coronations, Christmas was also an important date on the crusader calendar because it was, at least sometimes and in some contexts, the beginning of the new year. Medieval calendars could start on various dates - sometimes March 25 (the Annunciation or “Lady Day,” the traditional date when the angel announced to Mary that she was pregnant), sometimes Easter (which moved around in April or May, so each year would be a slightly different length), or January 1, the first day of the old Roman calendar, which was still used by the Latin church. The Greek church started the year on September 1, and the Jewish and Muslim calendars are lunar so the new year seems to move around on the Latin solar calendar. In Jerusalem and elsewhere the year began on Christmas, at least for documents produced in the royal chancery. Sometimes they also used Easter as the new year though so it can be confusing. For even more fun and confusion, documents are also often dated from the start of the king’s reign (which may or may not have been Christmas Day!)

Sometimes Christmas celebrations are mentioned apart from coronation days. A Venetian fleet arrived in December 1123 and the Venetians spent Christmas in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, before besieging and capturing the coastal city of Tyre in 1124. In December of 1182, King Baldwin IV spent Christmas in Tyre with the archbishop William, the court historian of the kingdom. But what was it like celebrating Christmas? What did they do? They don’t say so we don’t really know. A lot of fasting and praying, probably, at least among high-ranking clergy and kings. They were supposed to hear three mass that day. According to the Rules of the the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, their members were also supposed to fast and pray on Christmas Day.