On 25 March 2020 the custodians of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem closed the building’s doors indefinitely, thus preventing pilgrims from worshipping at the sacred sites contained within for the first time in hundreds of years. The experience of being unable to visit the church in person would have been familiar to... Read more »

by Matthieu Isbell Matthieu Isbell is an undergraduate student of Ancient and Medieval History and Culture at Trinity College Dublin, entering his final academic year. He has an especial interest in the Crusades. He has been volunteering at the Museum of the Order St John over the summer, researching and writing about kings of Latin... Read more »

In the latest guest essay for the Bearers of the Cross project blog, Dr Mike Horswell (Royal Holloway, University of London) explores the history and material culture of the Order of St John’s 1926 pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On the morning of 4 March 1926 over a hundred men and women – many members of the Order... Read more »

by Matthieu Isbell Matthieu Isbell is an undergraduate student of Ancient and Medieval History and Culture at Trinity College Dublin, entering his final academic year. He has an especial interest in the Crusades. He has been volunteering at the Museum of the Order St John over the summer, researching and writing about kings of Latin... Read more »

by Matthieu Isbell Matthieu Isbell is an undergraduate student of Ancient and Medieval History and Culture at Trinity College Dublin, entering his final academic year. He has an especial interest in the Crusades. He has been volunteering at the Museum of the Order St John over the summer, researching and writing about kings of Latin... Read more »

In the second guest essay for the Bearers of the Cross project blog, Dr Kevin Lewis (University of Oxford) presents an overview of the history of the county of Tripoli. The county was one of four ‘crusader states’ established in the Near East in the wake of the First Crusade, and was the source for many of the coins now held within... Read more »

The film of the lecture on crusader body-marking from our last public event is now available via the Museum of the Order of St John’s YouTube channel. You can also watch it here: To view other films associated with the project, please visit Bearers of the Cross TV, where they are now collected together on one page. The... Read more »

Earlier this month various news organisations, websites and social media platforms were reporting an exciting discovery in rural Shropshire: an underground network of tunnels and caves, supposedly constructed in the Middle Ages by members of the Order of the Temple, better known as the Knights Templar. Many medievalists were sceptical about a direct association between this admittedly... Read more »

In the first guest essay for the Bearers of the Cross project blog, Dr Andrew Buck (Queen Mary University of London) presents an overview of the history of the principality of Antioch. The principality was one of four ‘crusader states’ established in the Near East in the wake of the First Crusade, and was the source... Read more »

Henry Walter Fincham FSA (1860 – 1952) was central in shaping and developing the Museum of the Order of St John’s collection, in particular the excavated stone and associated records that form a significant part of the AHRC Bearers of the Cross project’s database.  Not only a keen photographer and antiquarian, but also an athlete... Read more »