A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey? Agrarian Environments in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

In their accounts of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, medieval authors consciously identified the region as the “land flowing with milk and honey.” But, it is often difficult to know if this landscape of abundance described by pilgrims and chroniclers reflected contemporary experiences or simply echoed scripture, as medieval geographies of the Latin East are couched in language of the biblical past. This chapter will engage with twelfth- and thirteenth-century narratives and strive to reconcile the descriptions of medieval authors with archaeological findings and charters recording agricultural products. By engaging with a wide selection of evidence, the chapter will investigate whether chronicles or pilgrimage accounts, despite their biblical language, can potentially reflect the cultivated landscape. Specific attention will be focused on olive groves and vineyards, two agricultural products that are especially visible in several different types of surviving records, as well as the writings of Burchard of Mount Sion, whose descriptions of cultivated areas were particularly extensive. Linking medieval accounts of the landscape with other sources of data can expand our knowledge about the physical environment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and perhaps hint at approaches for dealing with important agricultural commodities like cereals, which are highly documented in medieval writings but less visible in archaeological or paleoenvironmental records.