Folio. Volume I: Assises et Bons Usages du Royaume de Jerusalem: [10], [6], 292 pp., tables / Volume II: 514 pp., glossary, contemporary full calf, slightly rubbed, marbled endpaper, new spine, front fly leaf loose, scattered spotting throughout, browning to leaves, previous owner’s book plate verso front endpaper, traces of few worm holes on endpapers not affecting text, Imprimé à Bourges, & se vend, en la Boutique de L. Billaine, Chez Jacques Morel, Paris, 1690.

Synopsis

This work describes the laws that regulated the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the period of the Crusaders. The Assises of Jerusalem, known also by the name of the “Letters of the Holy Sepulchre”, because they were kept in a chest in the church of St. Sepulchre; when there arose a dispute about any of the articles of these laws, these medieval legal treatises were brought out in the presence of the King, or of his delegate, the Patriarch, or in his absence, the Prior of the Sepulchre, two canons and the viscount.
The title of Assises de Jerusalem comprises the laws, statues, usage and customs, given to the Kingdom of Jerusalem by Geoffrey, Duke of Bologne, in 1099.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded by the Crusaders, who were chiefly French but of whom a great number belonged also to other Christian countries.