The Difficult Thirteenth Century

A map of the thirteenth-century Mediterranean is almost impossible to draw, with an ever-shifting balance of power and an increasing number of players, as well as cultural interchanges across often hostile frontiers, and this may be reflected in the complexities in the architecture, with new forms developed from heterogeneous sources and cultural interchange between Byzantines, Crusaders, Seljuks, and Armenians. Complexity was not simply the result of cultural interchange or hybridity; rather, it seems to have been an aesthetic choice—one that resonated locally. While betraying larger concerns and associations of the period, the distinctive architectural forms had a special meaning to a regional audience.