Analysis
The Stone of the Santon: An Accusation in Jerusalem, 1635
By L'équipe Levantine Lives ·
In Jerusalem, the keeping of the Holy Sepulchre belonged to a Muslim notable whom the Franciscans of the convent simply called "the Santon." What is known of his dispute with the friars in 1635 comes from a single witness: Pietro Verniero di Montepeloso, procurator of the Holy Land, who kept the convent’s chronicle at the time and often wrote in the first person. His text, the Croniche ovvero Annali di Terra Santa, has since been published in a critical edition.
In the early months of 1635, the Santon asked the Franciscans for a "courtesy" toward the repair of the sanctuary’s dome. The Father Guardian refused and chose to pay the Cadi rather than undertake the work. The chronicler notes that the man kept the affront to himself, and himself announces, on that same page, the revenge that is to come:
non volle il P. Guardiano per questa volta darli cosa veruna […] qual conservando questa ingiuria nel suo petto, ne fe' ben la vendetta fra doi mesi, come appresso si dirà.
the Father Guardian would not, this time, give him anything (...); he, keeping this injury in his breast, took his revenge for it well two months later, as will be told further on.
Two months pass. On the last day of March, a Saturday of Palms, the Santon has a large stone chiselled out of the crack in the dome and set safely on the ground, harming no one. That same day, he summons fra Pietro Maronita, the convent’s dragoman, to show him a woman of his household, held in slavery, whom he presents as dying:
Fe' tra tanto levar a forza di scarpello una gran pietra di quella fissura, e fattala mettere salva in terra senza offesa di niuno, richiamò il medesimo giorno detto P. torcimanno, a cui disse, ch'essendo cascata quella pietra dalla fissura della cupola, haveva malamente percossa una sua schiava (qual fe' venire alla sua presenza dove stava la pietra, dicendo conforme era stata instrutta) che già se ne moriva per quella percossa.
Meanwhile he had a large stone chiselled out of that crack, and, having had it set safely on the ground without harming anyone, he called for the said Father dragoman that same day, and told him that, this stone having fallen from the crack in the dome, it had badly struck one of his enslaved women, whom he had brought before him, where the stone lay, saying what she had been taught to say, and that she was already dying of the blow.
The dragoman looks at the scene and is not fooled:
vista e ben considerata il torcimanno l'impossibilità del fatto … che già mai quella pietra era da per sè cascata, nè la vecchia era stata ferita, come lui diceva, ma era sua inventione, per haver qualche cortesia.
the dragoman, having seen and well considered the impossibility of the matter, understood that the stone had never fallen by itself, nor had the old woman been injured, as he claimed, but that it was his own invention, to obtain some favour.
The next morning, the matter changes shape. The Santon reports that the enslaved woman has died, and demands the blood price according to the custom of the country, on top of her value:
gli disse ch'essendo la schiava già morta (diabolica inventione, et espressa bugia, perchè ancor vive), voleva se gli fusse pagato il sangue conforme l'uso del paese, et il valor della schiava […] n'harebbe fatto fare un cogetto nell'archivio del Cadi per eterna memoria, acciò ogni nuovo Cadi havesse havuta occasione di molestare i frati a suo bel agio.
he told him that, the enslaved woman now being dead (a diabolical invention, and an outright lie, for she is still alive), he wanted the blood price paid to him according to the custom of the country, and the value of the enslaved woman (...) otherwise he would have a record drawn up in the Cadi’s archive, for eternal memory, so that every new Cadi would have occasion to trouble the friars at his pleasure.
It is the chronicler himself who lets slip, in a parenthetical aside, that the woman is still alive as he writes. The friars negotiate:
si fe' intendere che si sarebbe con 1000 piastre quietato ; alla fine dopo molte repliche, si quietò con 600 piastre.
he made it known that he would be satisfied with 1,000 piastres; in the end, after many exchanges, he settled for 600 piastres.
The account says nothing more about this woman: not her name, nor what becomes of her after serving, under duress, as evidence for an accusation she did not bring herself. The chronicler, a friar of the convent, judges his adversary in the Italian of the seventeenth century, and makes no secret of it. It is his voice, not a judgment of this site on anyone else: what the record gives to read is, first of all, a procedure, a staged claim, a price.
The same man reappears elsewhere in that year’s chronicle, in the opposite role: he mediates between the new Cadi and the convents’ dragomans, bringing a demand down from 800 to 400 piastres. The relationship between the Santon of the Holy Sepulchre and the Franciscans was thus not that of a permanent enemy: it was a relationship maintained at a price, settled by negotiation, in either direction.
Cited sources
- VERN3-p234-h
- VERN3-p234-p
- VERN3-p234-q
Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project, "The Stone of the Santon: An Accusation in Jerusalem, 1635," accessed 30 August 2026, https://levantinelives.org/en/carnets/pierre-du-santon-jerusalem-1635/. Version cited: snapshot from 30 August 2026, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b.
Cite this record.
Reference (Chicago style).
Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project, "The Stone of the Santon: An Accusation in Jerusalem, 1635," accessed 30 August 2026, https://levantinelives.org/en/carnets/pierre-du-santon-jerusalem-1635/. Version cited: snapshot from 30 August 2026, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b.
See the BibTeX and RIS formats
@misc{levantine_pierre_du_santon_jerusalem_1635,
title = {The Stone of the Santon: An Accusation in Jerusalem, 1635},
author = {{Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {https://levantinelives.org/en/carnets/pierre-du-santon-jerusalem-1635/},
note = {Snapshot 2026-08-30, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b, id pierre-du-santon-jerusalem-1635},
urldate = {2026-08-30}
}TY - DATA TI - The Stone of the Santon: An Accusation in Jerusalem, 1635 AU - Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project DA - 2026/08/30 PY - 2026 UR - https://levantinelives.org/en/carnets/pierre-du-santon-jerusalem-1635/ ID - pierre-du-santon-jerusalem-1635 N1 - Snapshot 2026-08-30, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b Y2 - 2026-08-30 ER -