Gary asked Sharon Kay Penman:

How did you visit to Israel impact on writing 'Lionheart' ?not many people know their were thriving Jewish communities in the Holy Land at the time of the crusade and the land always had a Jewish presence

Sharon Kay Penman I actually was not able to visit Israel while I was writing and researching Lionheart, Gary, and I felt the loss keenly. It is not truly necessary in the age of the Internet and YouTube for writers to see the places we write about, but that has always been my modus operandi. Lionheart was the first of my books in which I could not visit the important sites. I vowed that I would come to Israel for my next novel, The Land Beyond the Sea, which is set in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century. You are quite correct; there were Jewish communities in Outremer during the MA. They had been living in Jerusalem and they and the Muslim residents were slaughtered when the men of the First Crusade took the city in 1099. The crusaders refused to allow them to return to Jerusalem, although they were permitted to live in other cities now controlled by the Christians. IF you have not read The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, I recommend it; it was a travelogue of sorts written by a Spanish Rabbi of the 12th century who had a wanderlust and visited over 300 cities, including Jerusalem. It is filled with fascinating details--that there were 50 Jews living then in Beirut and 20 in Sidon. There was a much larger Jewish presence in Acre, over 200. After the kingdom fell to Saladin in 1187, he permitted the Jews to live in Jerusalem again. For anyone interested in reading of the Jews in the kingdom, there is a wonderful book written by a noted Israeli scholar, Joshua Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which covers the period from 1099 to 1291.

My visit to Israel was of great value to my current novel. It was amazing to walk the streets of the Old City, to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and to visit David's Tower, where the citizens took refuge when they feared an attack by Saladin in 1177. For me, the most memorable day was a visit to the battlefield at Hattin, where Saladin defeated the kingdom's army, their king having committed one of history's biggest military blunders. An Israeli friend kindly volunteered to drive us to the site, for it is off the beaten path and I am not sure we'd have found it on our own. Seeing that rough terrain for myself was a revelation and I think those memories will be a great help when I get ready to fight that battle.

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