Wisdom’s House, Heaven’s Gate

Wisdom’s House, Heaven’s Gate (Palgrave Macmillan) is a cultural history of the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate, two major powers in the Mediterranean during the Central Middle Ages. Shawcross shows how the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was a pivotal moment in a century marked by increasing war, trade, and pilgrimage. Christians and Muslims migrated and were exposed to new forms of religious and artistic expression. Athens was reinvented as a New Jerusalem, and the Parthenon was cast as a New Temple. The Acropolis also changed into a place of ritual, supported by contested ownership over philosophical tradition. Although this was created by male thinkers, female patrons and worshippers also had an impact.