Latin Christians who participated in the Crusades came from the counties and duchies of the Kingdom of France, Holy Roman Empire (Germany and surrounding countries), Kingdom of England, Norman Kingdom of Sicily (southern Italy), and other Western European polities. They were so named because they followed the rites of the Latin (Catholic) Church, which was pre-eminent in the above regions during the crusades era. They were therefore denominationally distinct from contemporaneous Eastern Orthodox Christian groups. Latin women participated in the crusades as combatants, leaders, religious figures, camp followers, and as part of family units. Others remained in the west, but contributed to the crusading movement through financial and military donations. Latin women who settled in the Levant after the First Crusade participated in life there as rulers, consorts, regents, abbesses, fief holders, workers, pilgrims and crusaders.
Latin Christendom during the Crusades
The below map shows Europe and the Mediterranean when Saladin’s Ayyubid Empire was at its height in the Levant, and the territories of the Latin East were much reduced. Crusades were called to the Levant, to the south east of the European continent, encompassing modern day Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine, to the Iberian Peninsula, to its south west, encompassing modern day Spain and Portugal, and to the Baltic region, to the north east, encompassing modern day northern Germany and Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The majority of crusaders and Latin settlers came from the Kingdoms of France and England, to the north west, the Holy Roman Empire, in central Europe and encompassing modern day Germany and surrounding states, the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, encompassing southern Italy, the kingdoms of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, to the north, and the Kingdom of Austria, in eastern central Europe, as well as surrounding polities.
Clockwise from top left: Roke, 2006. Europa en 1190. Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_mediterranean_1190.jpg. [Accessed 03/02/2023]; Cattette, 2022. Cities of Medieval Cyprus. Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medieval_Cyprus.png. [Accessed 03/02/2023]; Nicolas Eynaud, 2015. Partiment de l’Empèri Bizantin après la Quatrena Crosada (vèrs 1214). Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emp%C3%A8ri_Bizantin_-_Partiment_apr%C3%A8s_la_Quatrena_Crosada.png. [Accessed 03/02/2023]; Amitchell125, 2021. The Crusader States in 1135. Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Crusader_States_in_1135.svg. [Accessed 03/02/2023].
Questions
Look at the following medieval quotes and images which depict Latin Christian women during the Crusades. After you have done so, consider and discuss the following questions:
- What roles and positions are medieval Latin Christian women depicted as performing? How does this vary?
- How do Latin Christian women appear to have intersected with the Crusades?
- Who wrote about medieval Latin Christian women? How do you feel this affected how women were viewed and represented?
- How do representations of medieval Latin Christian women differ from medieval depictions of Eastern Christian women and women of other faiths?
- Are you surprised these depictions of medieval Latin Christian women? If so, why?
- Having read the medieval quotes, do you agree or disagree with the scholarly quotes?
Latin women during the Crusades: Quotes and Images
Scholarly Quotes
“[T]he stories of Margaret of Beverley and Catherine of Siena clearly show that gender roles within the crusade movement varied and changed according to context and that women’s contributions went far beyond their involvement in other medieval wars. Despite the fact that gender divisions did exist and gender roles were promoted to cement these divisions, the crusades were fought by men and women, not only because some women did participate in the military campaigns but because women’s involvement on the home front played a large part in making men’s crusades happen.“
-Christoph Maier
Christoph Maier is Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Zurich.
Maier, C.T., 2004. The roles of women in the crusade movement: a survey. Journal of Medieval History, 30 (1), pp.61-82.
“In contrast to the kingdoms of the West, the occurrence of female rulers was surprisingly frequent on the farthest eastern frontier of Latin Christendom. The first three rulers of the kingdom of Jerusalem were all men who had arrived with the First Crusade in 1099, but the second generation saw the first case of female succession in 1131 in the person of Queen Melisende, who ruled for over thirty years, first with her husband, then as sole monarch, and then jointly with her elder son until he excluded her from government… the death of Melisende’s infant great-grandson Baldwin V in 1186 was followed by a series of four ruling queens in three generations. Melisende’s granddaughters, the two half-sisters Sibyl (or Sibylla) and Isabella I, had a total of six husbands between them, four of whom served as ruling consorts.“
Alan Murray is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds.
-Alan Murray
Murray, A., 2015. Women in the Royal Succession of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291). Vorträge und Forschungen, 81, pp. 131-162.
Women and Warfare: Combatants in the Third Crusade
“During this seige [of Jerusalem, 1187], which lasted fifteen days, I carried out all of the functions of a soldier that I could. I wore a breastplate like a man; I came and went on the ramparts, with a cauldron on my head for a helmet. Though a woman, I seemed a warrior, I threw the weapon; though filled with fear, I learned to conceal my weakness. It was hot, and the fighters could have no rest. I was giving the soldiers at the wall water to drink, when a stone, like a millwheel fell near me; I was hit by one of its fragments; my blood ran. But my wound quickly healed, because someone immediately brought medicine, though the scar remains… An unlucky treaty took me in the Holy Places into the hands of the enemy. I was taken prisoner, but on paying some guineas, I was set free. I joined a group of others likewise redeemed.”
– Margaret of Beverley
Biography
Margaret of Beverley (born c. mid 1100s, died c. 1210), was an English pilgrim and crusader. Margaret was born to commoner English parents whilst they were on a pilgrimage in Jerusalem, and was raised in Yorkshire. Margaret went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem herself in the 1180s, and was present in the Latin East during Saladin’s invasion. She participated in the defence of Jerusalem when Saladin’s forces besieged the city, before being enslaved, freed, and later participating in a battle near Antioch. Margaret eventually retired to a nunnery in northern France. Margaret’s exploits were recorded by her brother Thomas, who had become a monk at a monastery in Picardy (France) in his book, Hodoeporicon et percale Margarite Iherosolimitane.
Text: Margaret of Beverley, in Thomas of Froidmont, 1986. Hodoeporicon et percale Margarite Iherosolimitane, in “Peregrinatio periculosa.” Thomas von Froidmont ü ber die Jerusalemfahrten seiner Schwester Margareta’, trans. by P. Schmidt, in Kontinuitä und Wandel. Lateinische Poesie von Naevius bis Baudelaire. Franco Munari zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by U. Stache, W. Maaz, and F. Wagner. Hildesheim.
In Jones, T. and Ereira, A., 1996. Crusades. Penguin.
Women and Warfare: Combatants during the First Crusade
“On that day [at the Siege of Antioch, during the First Crusade] the women were very necessary to the fighting men; they both offered water efficiently to those who were thirsty and encouraged those who were fighting by urging them on. The battlefield had become hot, for on both sides they were fighting with all their strength.“
Baldric of Bourgueil (b. c. 1050, d. 1130) was the abbot of Bourgueil and later the Archbishop of Dol in the Kingdom of France. Baldric attended the Council of Clermont in 1095. He did not accompany the First Crusade, but wrote his Historiae Hierosolymitanae (History of Jerusalem) based on others’ eyewitness testimonies.
-Baldric of Bourgueil
Baldric of Bourgueil, 2020. History of the Jerusalemites: A translation of the Historia Ierosolimitana. Trans. by Susan B. Edington. Boydell Press.
Women and Warfare: Other Combatants
“Most of the dead were Frankish knights, for the infantry had not caught up with them. Among the prisoners were three Frankish women, who had been fighting on horseback. After they had been captured and their armour thrown off, it was discovered that they were women.“
Ibn al-Athir (b. 1160, d. 1233). was an Arabic/Kurdish historian and biographer based in Mosul, who accompanied Saladin’s army to Latin territory during the 1180s. His Al-Kāmil fit-Tārīkh (Complete History) is an extensive, multi-volume text describing histories of much of Asia, Africa and Europe. This includes extensive descriptions of the Crusades and Latin settlement in the Levant from the First Crusade (1095-99) until his time of writing in the early 1230s
-Ibn al-Athir
Ibn al-Athir, 2007. The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta’rikh, Part II, The Years 541–589/1146–1193: The Age of Nur al-Din and Saladin. Ed. and trans. by D. Richards. Ashgate Publishing.
From Nicholson, H., 2022. Women on the Third Crusade. Medievalists.net. Available at: https://www.medievalists.net/2011/07/women-on-the-third-crusade/ [Accessed 26/06/22].
From Pangonis, K., 2021. Crusader queens: the formidable female rulers of Jerusalem’ History Today. Available at https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/queens-crusades-women-rulers-who-jerusalem/ [Accessed 23/09/22].
Women and Warfare: Victims of the First Crusade
“The Turks, therefore, rejoicing at the favourable outcome of their victory, slaughtered the wretched band of pilgrims, and they pursued them for a distance of three miles, to Peter’s encampment, to kill them. Going into the pilgrim camp they found those who were there, the feeble and crippled, clerics, monks, aged women, boys at the breast, and put them all to the sword, regardless of age. They took away only young girls and nuns, whose faces and figures seemed to be pleasing to their eyes, and beardless and attractive young men.“
-Albert of Aachen
Albert of Aachen (b. c. late 1000s, d. c. mid 1100s) was a canon (priest) of the church of Aachen, in the western Holy Roman Empire (Germany). Little is known about his life, other than that he remained in Aachen and did not accompany the First Crusade to Jerusalem. Albert wrote the Historia Hierosolymitanae Expeditionis (History of the Expedition to Jerusalem) using others’ first hand accounts of the crusade as source material.
Women and Property
“With the agreement of his wife Agnes, his sons Amaurisius, Galfridus, Albericus and Guido, and his daughters Maxenda and Ysabella, Robertus de Frandolio makes an eleemosynary grant to the leprosary of St Lazarus at Jerusalem, represented by Bartholomeus magister. Robert gives the community a vineyard situated in front of the leprosary and adjoining a vineyard belonging to St Lazarus.“
This excerpt is from a charter of the Order of St. Lazarus, dating to 1153. The Order of St Lazarus was a military order devoted to caring for a leper hospital in Jerusalem. Medieval charters such as this were written documents which recorded privileges and property and land ownership, transfers and inheritance. Such documents were well-preserved by churches and institutions to protect records of their possessions.
De Marsy, A., 1884. Fragment d’un cartulaire de l’Ordre de Saint Lazare, en Terre-Sainte. Archives de l’Orient latin, 2, pp. 149-56.
Elite Women
Elite Women: Melisende
Biography
Melisende of Jerusalem (1105-1161) was suo jure Queen of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1131-1153). The daughter of the Latin king, Baldwin II of Jerusalem, and an Armenian noblewoman, Morphia of Melitene, Melisende was raised as heir presumptive to the throne of Jerusalem. During her reign she was known as a competent steward of her kingdom, and unsuccessfully cautioned against the crusaders who participated in the Second Crusade attacking Damascus. Melisende was eventually forced to abdicate in favour of her son Baldwin III, though she acted as regent on his behalf and continued to rule Nablus in her own right.
Image: Melisende of Jerusalem. Acoma, 2010. Melisenda. Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Melisenda.jpg. [Accessed 23/01/23].
Melisende as Queen
“Melisende, the king’s mother, was a woman of great wisdom who had much experience in all kinds of secular matters. She had risen so far above the normal status of women that she dared to undertake important measures. It was her ambition to emulate the magnificence of the greatest and noblest princes and to show herself in no wise inferior to them. Since her son was as yet under age, she ruled the kingdom and administered the government with such skillful care that she may be said to truly to have equaled her ancestors in that respect. As long as her son was willing to be governed by her counsel, the people enjoyed a highly desirable state of tranquillity, and the affairs of the realm moved on prosperously.”
William of Tyre (b. 1130, d. 1186), was a Latin Christian chronicler and prelate. Born 30 years after the First Crusade, William lived and died in the Latin East, but travelled widely in Europe to study canon law and literature. William also served as ambassador to the Byzantine Empire under King Amalric, and tutored his son, the future Baldwin II. William died in 1186, just before the Kingdom of Jerusalem was invaded by the forces of Saladin. Though other works by William do not survive, his Historia Rerum in Partibus Transmarinis Gestarum (History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea) does, and describes the twelfth century history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
-William of Tyre
William of Tyre, 1986. Willelmi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon. Ed. by Robert Huygens. Brepols.
“During this time [the early 1160s] Queen Melisende, a woman of unusual wisdom and discretion, fell ill of an incurable disease for which there was no help except death. Her two sisters, the countess of Tripoli and the abbess of St. Lazarus of Bethany, watched over her with unremitting care; the most skillful physicians to be found were summoned, and such remedies as were judged best assiduously applied. For thirty years or more during the lifetime of her husband and the reign of her son, Melisende had governed the kingdoms with strength surpassing that of most women. Her rule had been wise and judicious.“
-William of Tyre
William of Tyre, 1986. Willelmi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon. Ed. by Robert Huygens. Brepols.
Advice to Melisende
“Receive a brief but useful word of advice from a distant land, as a small seed that will bear a great harvest in time. Receive advice from a friend who is seeking your honor and not his own ends. No one can give you more loyal advice then one who loves you and not your possessions. Now that your husband and king is dead, and the young king as yet unfit to discharge the affairs of state and fulfill the duty of a king, the eyes of all will be on you and the entire burden of the kingdom will fall on you alone. You must set your hand to great things and, although a woman you must act as a man by doing everything you have to do “in a spirit prudent and strong.” You must arrange all things prudently and discreetly so that all may judge you from your actions to be a king rather than a queen and so the Gentiles may have no occasion for saying, “Where is the king of Jerusalem?” But you will reply, “Such things are beyond my power: they are great matters which far exceed my strength and my knowledge; they are the duties of a man, and I am only a woman, weak in body, changeable of heart, not far-seeing in counsel nor accustomed to business . . .”
-Bernard of Clairvaux, to Queen Melisende of Jerusalem.
Bernard of Clairvaux (b. 1090, d. 1153) was a Burgundian abbot, member of the Cistercian Order, and co-founder of the Knights Templar. Bernard preached in favour of the Second Crusade to the Levant in both the Kingdom of France and Holy Roman Empire, as well as the Wendish Crusade against the Western Slavs at the River Elbe (north-west Germany).
Bernard of Clairvaux, 1979. Sancti Bernardi Opera. Ed. by J. LeClercq and H. Rochais. Eds. Cisterciennes.
Elite Women: Queen Sibylla
Biography
Sibylla of Jerusalem (1159-1190) was Queen of Jerusalem (1198-1190). The daughter of Amalric I and granddaughter of Melisende, Sibylla became heir presumptive to her brother, Baldwin IV. She inherited the throne of Jerusalem after Baldwin’s death in 1185, and that of her son Baldwin V in 1186. Sibylla crowned her husband Guy of Lusignan king of Jerusalem, and was present during Saladin’s invasion. She later died during her husband’s siege of Acre, and the throne went to her half sister, Isabella.
Image: Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem (1159-1190). Mhmrodrigues, 2015. Sibyla. Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sibyla.jpg. [Accessed 26/06/22].
Sibylla’s Plea for Help (Third Crusade)
“To her venerable and most illustrious lord Frederic, by the grace of God, most victorious emperor of Rome and most friendly champion of the Holy Cross, Sibylla, formerly queen of Jerusalem, his most humble servant, greatly humiliated in the name of the Lord. Spare the humble and conquer the proud. I, your most humble maid-servant–as I said above–am compelled to tell your highness and supreme excellency of the grief of the whole city and of the disgrace of the sacred Christians.
For the emperor of Constantinople, the persecutor of the church of God, has entered into a conspiracy with Saladin, the seducer and destroyer of the holy Name, against the name of our lord Jesus Christ. I tell this, which I am indeed not able to say without tears Saladin, the aforesaid enemy of Christ, has sent to the Grecian emperor and the persecutor of the holy Name many presents very pleasing to mortals, in order to make a compact and agreement.
And for the slaughter and destruction of the Christians wishing to exalt the name of God, he sent 600 measures of poisoned grain and added a very large vase of wine, filled with such a malignant poison, when he wanted to try its efficacy he called a man, who was killed by the odor alone when the vase was opened. Along with the rest I am compelled to tell my lord another thing: the aforesaid emperor, in order to increase our misfortunes and magnify the destruction of the Christians, does not permit wheat or other necessary victuals to be carried from his country to Jerusalem.
Wherefore, the wheat which might be sent by himself and others, is also shut up in the city of Constantinople. However, at the end of this tearful epistle, I tell you truthfully that you ought to believe the most faithful hearer of this letter. For he himself witnesses what he has seen with his own eyes and heard with his own ears. This is the reason that with my head bowed to the ground and with bent knees, I ask your Magnificence that inasmuch as you are the head of the world and the wall of the house of Israel, you should never believe the Grecian emperor.”
-Queen Sibylla
Sibylla (b. 1159, d. 1190), Queen of Jerusalem. Letter to Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor.
University of Pennsylvania Department of History and Munro, D.C., 1949. Translations and Reprints from the original sources of European History.
Elite Women: Eleanor of Aquitaine
Biography
Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) was Queen of France (1137-1152), Queen of England (1154-1189) and suo jure Duchess of Aquitaine (1137-1204). One of the most powerful and wealthy Latin women of the Middle Ages, Eleanor participated in the unsuccessful Second Crusade (1147-1150), which was called in response to the fall of the County of Edessa. Eleanor would later be imprisoned by her second husband, Henry II of England, for 16 years, after allegedly encouraging several of their sons to rebel against him. After Henry’s death, Eleanor exercised considerable influence over the governance of England whilst her son, Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart) participated in the Third Crusade in the Levant.
Eleanor: A Letter from Richard the Lionheart
“Richard, by the grace of God king of Angliae, etc. to his revered lady and dearest mother Eleanor, by that same grace queen of England, greeting and all the happiness that a devoted son can desire for his mother. First to God and then to your serenity, sweetest mother, we give thanks as we can, though we can not suffice to actions so worthy of thanks, for your loyalty to us and the faithful care and diligence you give to our lands for peace and defense so devotedly and effectively. Indeed we have learned a lot and partly we also know that through the mercy of God and your counsel and help the defense of our lands is and will be in great part provided. For your prudence and discretion is the greatest cause of our land remaining in a peaceful state until our arrival. Now, however, dearest mother, we transmit to your benevolence our dearest one, the venerable man Hubert bishop of Salisbury. He, as the whole world knows, gives such service to us and to all Christianity that it can in no way be recounted. He has also borne many labors and expenses in the Roman curia for our liberation and taken a very strenuous and dangerous journey to us in Germany. Dearest mother, with all possible entreaty of devotion, we beg you that as you love us you take care to hasten his promotion in the Canterbury church with all speed.”
-Richard the Lionheart
Richard I, also known as Richard the Lionheard, was the son of Eleanor of Aquitaine and her second husband, Henry II of England. He ruled as King of England, Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, and Lord of Cyprus. Richard spent much of his adult life in the Duchy of Aquitaine and very little time in England. He then, along with Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Empire and Philip Augustus, King of France, led the major forces of the Third Crusade (1189-1192) to Jerusalem. Richard was captured and held in captivity by Leopold of Austria enroute from the Holy Land, and died besieging a castle in Aquitaine.
Richard I, 1865. A letter from Richard I, king of England (1193). In Chronicles and Memorials of the Reign of Richard I, v.2, Epistolae Cantuarienses. Longman.
‘Bad’ Women: Elite Women
“But as soon as [King Baldwin II’s] daughter [Alice] learned of her husband’s death, and, in fact, before she was aware of her father’s intention to come to Antioch, an evil spirit led her to conceive a wicked plan. In order to make her position more secure and to carry her plan into effect, she sent messengers to a certain powerful Turkish chief, called Zangi. By his aid she hoped to acquire Antioch for herself in perpetuity, despite the opposition of her chief men and the entire people.
Biography
Alice of Antioch (b. c. 1110, d. c. 1151) was Princess Consort of the Principality of Antioch, by marriage to Bohemond II of Antioch. Her parents were King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and an Armenian noblewoman, Morphia of Melitene, and her sisters included Queen Melisende of Jerusalem. Alice was involved in a number of power struggles: after her husband was killed in battle with the Danishmends in 1130, Alice attempted to take the regency of the city for herself rather than letting it pass to her father. After Baldwin’s death, Alice, along with Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin II of Edessa, unsuccessfully attempted to prevent her brother-in-law Fulk of Anjou from controlling the regency. Alice was eventually set aside in favour of her daughter Constance, Princess of Antioch.
For Bohemond of happy memory had left an only daughter, who apparently did not stand high in the favor of her mother. Whether she remained a widow or remarried, Alice was determined to disinherit her daughter and keep the principality for herself in perpetuity… On learning of the unfortunate events which have just been related, the king hurried to Antioch. When he reached there, however, he was refused admission to the city by his daughter’s orders. The pangs of conscience had laid hold on her and she feared her father’s decision…..
When the king had thus arranged the affairs of Antioch, he entrusted it to the care of the principal men and returned to Jerusalem, where private matters called him. Before he left, however, he caused all, both great and small, to take the solemn oath that during his own time and thereafter they would faithfully keep Antioch and its dependencies for Constance, the minor daughter of Bohemond the Younger. For he feared the wicked malice of his own daughter, lest she should make a second attempt to disinherit her minor daughter.“
– William of Tyre
William of Tyre, 1986. Willelmi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon. Ed. by Robert Huygens. Brepols.
‘Bad’ Women: Latin Women on the First Crusade
“Then the Franks, having again consulted together, expelled the women from the army [of the First Crusade], the married as well as the unmarried, lest perhaps defiled by the sordidness of riotous living should displease the Lord. These women then sought shelter for themselves in neighboring towns.“
Fulcher of Chartres (b. approx 1059, d. 1127) was a Latin priest and chronicler who participated in the First Crusade. After its culmination he settled in the Latin East, where he spent his remaining years. His Gesta Francorum Iherusalem Peregrinantium (History of the Expedition to Jerusalem) concerns the Council of Clermont, First Crusade and early life in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
-Fulcher of Chartres
Fulcher of Chartres, 1913. Historia Hierosolymitana (1095-1127). Ed. by Heinrich Hagenmeyer. C. Winter.
“The same year, at the beginning of summer, after Peter and Gottschalk had led the way with the [Latin] army they had assembled [for the First Crusade], presently another such host was flocking together in bands from different kingdoms and lands, including, of course, France, England, Flanders, and Lotharingia, a great and countless host of Christians, burning with the fire of divine love and having taken the sign of the cross, carrying all their household utensils and worldly goods and articles of weaponry which they needed on the journey to Jerusalem. Crowds of them had been gathered into one from the different kingdoms and states, but as they did not in any way turn from fornication and unlawful relationships there was excessive revelling, continual delight with women and girls who had set out for the very purpose of frivolity, and boasting most rashly about the opportunity offered by this journey.”
Albert of Aachen, 2007. Albert of Aachen: Historia Ierosolimitana, History of the Journey to Jerusalem. Ed. by S. Edgington. Oxford University Press.
-Albert of Aachen
“[The crusaders] had removed the brothel and the prostitute entirely, far from their camp, and above all they debated matters of honourable behaviour. Nevertheless women did cohabit with men, but either in marriage or in lawful service. If anyone was convinced of someone’s disgraceful behaviour, he was either rebuked to his face for punishment, so that fear would be instilled in the rest, or punished severely for the offence. Every day, indeed, the bishops delivered sermons about self-control, and they banished all prostitutes and the men who used them from the midst of the camp.”
– Baldric of Bourgueil
Baldric of Bourgueil, 2020. History of the Jerusalemites: A translation of the Historia Ierosolimitana. Trans. by Susan B. Edington. Boydell Press.
Questions
Now that you have looked at the provided quotes and images depicting Latin women during the crusades, take another look at and discuss the questions at the top of the page.
Further reading: Individuals
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Broadhurst, K., 1996. Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine: Patrons of Literature in French? Viator. 27. 53–84.
Brown, E., 2021. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Parent, Queen, and Duchess. Eleanor of Aquitaine. University of Texas Press.
Brown, E., 2008. Eleanor of Aquitaine Reconsidered: The Woman and Her Seasons. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady. Ed. by B. Wheeler and J. Parsons, Palgrave Macmillan.
Brundage, J., 2008. The Canon Law of Divorce in the mid-Twelfth Century: Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady.
Bull, M., and Léglu, C. (eds.), 2005. The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries.
Cockerill, S., 2019. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France and England, Mother of Empires. Amberley Publishing.
DeAragon, R., 2003. Wife, Widow, and Mother: Some Comparisons between Eleanor of Aquitaine and Noblewomen of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin World. Eleanor of Aquitaine. Palgrave Macmillan.
Evans, M., 2014. Inventing Eleanor: the medieval and post-medieval image of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gilleir, A, and Defurne, A. (eds.), 2020. Strategic Imaginations: Women and the Gender of Sovereignty in European Culture. Leuven University Press.
Martindale, J., 2003. Epilogue: Eleanor of Aquitaine and a “Queenly Court”?. Eleanor of Aquitaine. Palgrave Macmillan.
McCoy, D., 2021. Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Short Biography. Spare Change Press.
Meade, M., 2015. Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Owen, D., 1993. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend. Blackwell.
Wheeler, B. and Parsons, J., 2008. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady. Palgrave Macmillan.
Weir, A., 2008. Eleanor of Aquitaine: by the wrath of God, Queen of England. Random House.
Melisende of Jerusalem
Folda, J., 1993. Images of Queen Melisende in Manuscripts of William of Tyre’s History of Outremer: 1250-1300. Gesta. 32(2). 97–112.
Mayer, H., 1972. Studies in the History of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem. Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 26. 93–182.
Folda, J., 2012. Melisende of Jerusalem: Queen and Patron of Art and Architecture in the Crusader Kingdom. Reassessing the Roles of Women as’ ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture. Brill.
Gaudette, H., 2005. The piety, power, and patronage of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’s Queen Melisende. City University of New York.
Gaudette, H., 2010. The Spending Power of a Crusader Queen: Melisende of Jerusalem. Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe. Ed. by T. Earenfight. Palgrave Macmillan.
Jordan, E., 2019. Corporate Monarchy in the Twelfth-Century Kingdom of Jerusalem. Royal Studies Journal. 6(1).
Koch, J., 2020. A comparative study of Urraca of León-Castilla (d. 1126), Melisende of Jerusalem (d. 1161), and Empress Matilda of England (d. 1167) as royal heiresses. Doctoral dissertation. University of Cambridge.
Lambert, S., 2012. Images of Queen Melisende. Authority and gender in medieval and Renaissance chronicles. Pp. 140-165.
Alice of Antioch
Almeida, A., 2008. Alice of Antioch and the Rebellion against Fulk of Anjou. Medievalista, 5 (2008).
Riley-Smith, J., Edbury, P., and Phillips, J., (Eds.), 2003. Alice of Antioch: A Case Study of Female Power in the Twelfth Century. The Experience of Crusading: Vol. 2: Defining the Crusader Kingdom.
Hodierna of Jerusalem
Lewis, K., 2013. Countess Hodierna of Tripoli: From Crusader Politician to ‘Princesse Lointaine’. Intersectional Perspectives: Identity, Culture, and Society, 3(1).
Constance of Antioch
Murray, A.V., 2016, June. Constance, Princess of Antioch (1130-1164): Ancestry, Marriages and Family. In Anglo-Norman Studies XXXVIII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2015. Boydell.
Sibylla of Jerusalem
Nicholson H., 2022. Sybil, Queen of Jerusalem, 1186–1190. Routledge.
Margaret of Beverley
Thomas of Froidmont, 1986. Hodoeporicon et percale Margarite Iherosolimitane, in “Peregrinatio periculosa.” Thomas von Froidmont ü ber die Jerusalemfahrten seiner Schwester Margareta’, trans. by P. Schmidt, in Kontinuitä und Wandel. Lateinische Poesie von Naevius bis Baudelaire. Franco Munari zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by U. Stache, W. Maaz, and F. Wagner. Hildesheim.
Maier, C., 2004. The roles of women in the crusade movement: a survey. Journal of Medieval History, 30(1), pp.64-66.
Lester, A., 2011. Creating Cistercian Nuns: The Women’s Religious Movement and Its Reform in Thirteenth-Century Champagne. Cornell University Press.
Eleanor of Castile
Hamilton, B., 1996. Eleanor of Castile and the Crusading Movement. Intercultural Contacts in the Medieval Mediterranean. Ed. by B. Arbel. Frank Cass.
Matilda of Tuscany
Bede735, 2013. Tomb of Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tomb_of_Countess_Matilda_of_Tuscany_by_Gian_Lorenzo_Bernini.JPG. [Accessed 03/10/22].
Donizo of Canossa, 2008. Vita der Mathilde von Canossa: entstanden 1115: Vat. lat. 4922. Belser.
Further Reading: Latin Women
Buck, A., 2019. William of Tyre, Femininity, and the Problem of the Antiochene Princesses. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 70(4), pp. 731-749.
Buck, A. 2020. Women in the Principality of Antioch: Power, Status, and Social Agency. Studies in Medieval History. Boydell & Brewer.
Christie, N., 2019. Fighting women in the crusading period through Muslim eyes: Transgressing expectations and facing realities?. In Crusading and Masculinities. Routledge. Pp. 183-195.
Friedman, Y. 1995. Women in Captivity and Their Ransom during the Crusader Period. Cross Cultural Convergences in the Crusader Period: Essays Presented to Aryeh Grabois on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Ed. by A. Graboïs, S. Menache, and S. Schein. Peter Lang.
Hamilton, B., 1978. Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem (1100-1190). Studies in Church History Subsidia, 1, pp. 143-174.
Hamilton, B., 2000. The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press.
Hodgson, N., 2005. Nobility, Women and Historical Narratives of the Crusades and the Latin East. Al-Masaq. 17(1). pp. 61–85.
Hodgson, N. Women and Crusade. The Crusades: An Encyclopedia. Ed. by A. Murray. ABC-CLIO.
Hodgson, N., 2007. Women, crusading and the Holy Land in historical narrative. Boydell Press.
Kostick, C., Women and the First Crusade. Studies on medieval and Early Modern women, 3, pp. 57-68.
Luttrell, A and Nicholson, H. 2007. Hospitaller Women in the Middle Ages. Edited by Anthony Luttrell and Helen J. Nicholson. Abingdon: Ashgate, 2017. http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=NottTrent&isbn=9781315253213.
Luttrell, A. and Nicholson, H.J., eds., 2006. Hospitaller women in the Middle Ages. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Maier, C., 2004. The roles of women in the crusade movement: a survey. Journal of Medieval History, 30(1), pp.61-82.
Mazeika, R. 1998. Nowhere Was the Fragility of Their Sex Apparent: Women Warriors in the Baltic Crusade Chronicles. From Clermont to Jerusalem: The Crusades and Crusader Societies, 1095-1500 : Selected Proceedings of the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 10-13 July 1995. Ed. by A. Murray. Brepols.
Mitchell, L., 1999. Women and Medieval Canon Law. Women in Medieval Western European Culture. Ed. by L. Mitchell. Garland.
Murray, A., 2012. Sex, Death and the Problem of Single Women in the Armies of the First Crusade. Shipping, Trade and Crusade in the Medieval Mediterranean: Studies in Honour of John Pryor: Ashgate.
Murray, A., 2015. Women in the Royal Succession of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291). Vorträge und Forschungen, 81, pp. 131-162.
Nicholson, H. 1991. Templar Attitudes towards Women. Medieval History, 1(3). 74–80.
Nicholson, H., 1997. Women on the Third Crusade. Journal of Medieval History. 23(4). 335–49.
Pangonis, K., 2021. Crusader queens: the formidable female rulers of Jerusalem. History Extra. Available at: https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/queens-crusades-women-rulers-who-jerusalem/. [Accessed 03/10/22]
Powell, J., 1992. The role of women in the fifth crusade. The Horns of Hattin. Pp. 294-301.
Purcell, M., 1979. Women Crusaders, a Temporary Canonical Aberration? Principalities, Powers and Estates. Ed. by L. Frappell. Adelaide University Union Press.
Shagrir, I., 2017. The ‘Holy Women’ in the Liturgy and Art of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Twelfth-Century Jerusalem. Brill.