Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/429

Rh those mentioned, within the enclosure of the mosque at Hebron. If this was a work of the Crusaders it must have been built before 1187, since the Christians never had access to the place after their defeat at Tiberias. If not erected by them, we are forced to assume that the Moslems, after recovering possession of the sepulchres of the Patriarchs, employed some Christian renegades or slaves to erect a mosque on the spot, in their own style of architecture. This is, however, by no means improbable, since it is the only Christian church (if it be one) in Palestine which has no apse, though there would have been no difficulty in introducing three apses in the same manner as at Abii Gosh (Woodcut No. 837), had it been so desired. It should also be remarked that the three aisles point southward towards Mecca, and that, except in style, it has all the appearance of a mosque. Both Christian and Mahomedan tradition are silent as to its erection, so that the determination or the question must depend on a more careful examination than has yet been possible. Whichever way it may be decided, it is a curious question. It is either a Christian building, without the arrangement elsewhere universally indispensable, or it is a Moslem mosque in a Christian style of architecture. If the former, the complete development of the Italian pointed style of architecture in the East must be fixed at not less than half a century anterior to that in the West.