Archaeology and the Local Elites of the Mediaeval Coastlands of the Northern Levant: Some Remarks

The period of the Crusades has drawn a considerable amount of scholarly attention and many aspects of this period have been studied thoroughly, but, certain subjects, like the place of the natives in the society of the Latin states received less attention. This is even more true about the Syrian coastal region, where not only academic research, but also the surviving sources are extremely scarce. Supplementing them with results of recent archaeological fieldwork, however, can hint at the possibility of the existence of a local elite that even might have been wealthy enough to sponsor the decoration of churches.