Fundamental to understanding the significant contribution of women to the history of the crusader states is recognising that human development is not linear. Because women in later ages suffered significant curtailments to their independence, enfranchisement and status, it is all too often assumed that women in the Middle Ages were even more restricted. The contrary is true. As French feminist historian Regine Pernoud noted, ‘From the tenth to the thirteenth century … women incontestably exercised an influence that the lovely rebels of the seventeenth century or the severe anarchists of the nineteenth century were not able to achieve’.96
The deterioration in the status of women in more recent centuries can be traced to what we know as the Renaissance – the European rediscovery of all things Roman. Whatever benefits the Renaissance may have brought, the reintroduction of aspects of Roman Law resulted in women being denied the status of a legal entity, thereby making them subject to a male guardian. Women were effectively disenfranchised, losing the power, status and freedoms they had enjoyed in the feudal period.
The Latin kingdoms in the Levant were feudal states par excellence. Established at a time when feudalism was already an established and well-developed form of government, the crusader states of Outremer recognised the right of female inheritance from their inception. Women derived their status as overlords and vassals from that fundamental right. The right of women to own and run feudal fiefs, businesses and enterprises, from trading empires to workshops and market stands, followed logically. Women learned and exercised trades and professions, participating actively in a wide range of economic activities, many of which are nowadays more commonly associated with men.
Furthermore, women could vote. They voted in secular bodies such as professional guilds and the High Court. They also voted in the chapters of religious houses, where they could be elected to executive and leadership positions.
As a result, contemporary accounts describing the fate of Outremer is full of colourful examples of women, both prominent and humble, who contributed materially to the successes and failures of the crusader states. From Queen Melisende effectively thwarting her husband’s attempt to sideline her to Queen Sibylla’s crowning of her unpopular husband Guy, Jerusalem’s reigning queens shaped the fortunes of the Holy Land. Yet, the nameless native women who married crusaders and integrated them into local families and communities, enabling them to survive and prosper in an alien environment, were just as crucial to forging the crusader states. The latter unnamed women made it possible for the transient crusaders to become settlers, enabled the settlements to become prosperous, and in so doing, secured the viability of the Frankish states for two centuries. It was the native wives of crusaders and pilgrims that created a multilingual second generation of Franks adept at navigating the shifting rivalries and alliances among the Muslim princes. Ultimately, the mixing of Frankish settlers with locals created the hybrid society that gave the Frankish states their unique character.
Daily life in the crusader states was fashioned as much by women as men. Women made up at least half the population and could be found in every walk of life. Unlike their sisters in the Muslim states around them, the women of Outremer did not live locked behind the walls of their guardians’ homes but instead enlivened the streets by their presence as shopkeepers and customers, tradespeople and homemakers, pilgrims, nuns and patrons of the arts. Their public presence both scandalised and intrigued Muslim visitors such as the poet Ibn al-Qaysarani, who was enraptured by Frankish women and wrote effusive poems praising their beauty, or Ibn Jabayr, who, after feasting his eyes on the sight of unveiled women, felt the need to ‘take refuge with God from the temptation of the sight!’97
The extent to which their presence was more pronounced than in contemporary Western societies is not the subject of this book and a conclusion in that regard must be deferred to scholars with a greater comparative perspective. It has been suggested that ‘women were integrated into all aspects of the crusades, from preserving the home to participation in business and agriculture, from care of the sick and wounded to logistical support in wars, and from their role in religious life to active political leadership.’98 If so, this may imply that the era of the crusades generally – or specifically – was conducive to female empowerment, irrespective of geography. This thesis rests on the notion that the extraordinary logistical, financial and military mobilisation necessary to carry out these massive campaigns over thousands of miles of territory was similar to a modern world war. As such, the societies involved in the pervasive struggle elevated the status of women out of the need to harness all available human resources. Yet, such a theory fails to explain why women’s status as heiresses, reigning queens and guild masters, etc., was not confined to periods of conflict.
Rather than attempting to prove or disprove any particular theory, the objective of this work was to reveal the surprising number of famous and anonymous women who left a mark on the history of Outremer. The focus of the book has been on what women did as opposed to what others have said about them. The women are present in primary sources, but too often, they have been obscured by the subjective commentary of chroniclers or ignored by subsequent generations focused on the action and the heroes associated with military campaigns.
Therefore, it is vital to separate the subjective commentary of historians from the facts. A classic example is the ‘abduction of Isabella’ in Western European chronicles of the thirteenth century. Because Alice de Champagne, Queen Isabella’s daughter by Henri de Champagne, laid claim to the County of Champagne, French chroniclers sought to discredit this ‘foreign’ woman who threatened the status and wealth of one of their most generous local patrons. They did so by alleging that Alice was the product of a bigamous marriage and, therefore, a bastard. To that end, they needed to prove that her mother, Queen Isabella I, had not been legally separated from Humphrey de Toron. The chroniclers outdid themselves in voicing outrage and employing melodramatic language. A committee of leading prelates deliberating on the validity of Isabella’s marriage while keeping her sequestered in their protection becomes in their accounts an act ‘more disgraceful than the rape of Helen’. Maria Comnena, a princess of the imperial Byzantine family, is described as ‘steeped in Greek filth’, ‘godless’ and ‘fraudulent’. The man who offered himself as a hostage to Saladin to secure the release of 8,000 paupers is called ‘cruel’ and ‘faithless’. The subjective opinions of the chroniclers originated decades after the events and were fabricated in France by people who had never met the subjects. Yet the core of the story reveals two strong-willed women, Isabella and her mother Maria, who together saved the crown of Jerusalem from Lusignan.
Similarly, the historian Philip de Novare was inclined to attribute base or contemptible motives to female characters. His Eschiva de Montbéliard, therefore, is in ‘so great fear’ that she leaves the security offered by the Knights Hospitaller and disguises herself as a man to go alone across twenty miles of territory controlled by notoriously brutal imperial mercenaries to provision a royal castle at risk of falling to the king’s enemies. Moreover, to be sure his readers understood how reprehensible Eschiva’s actions were, he invents children she did not have whom she allegedly left behind and talks of her ‘abandoning her fiefs’ at a time when the emperor’s men had already confiscated them.
As these illustrations demonstrate, writers of history are subjective, and their opinions colour the historical record. It is necessary, therefore, to look more closely at what the women of Outremer did rather than what others say about them to find the real women beneath the sometimes disfiguring commentary. Although I have tried to do just that, I have also let the most eloquent contemporary historians speak because their voices also tell us much about the age and society that is the subject of this book. If nothing else, the praise for women we find in the pages of contemporary documents, while no less subjective than the insults, shows us this era was not consistently misogynous. William, Archbishop of Tyre, is a wonderful example of a cleric who reveals no consistent bias against women. He is equally quick to praise women such as Melisende or Beatrice of Edessa as he is to criticise other women such as Alice of Antioch.
Ultimately, all we have are fragments of a mosaic badly damaged by time. We have no comprehensive or systematic description of the society in which these women lived, much less their full contribution to it. Hopefully, this book has blown away some of the sand that hides the complete picture underneath, but there is still much to discover and reveal. The women who lived, worked and reigned in the crusader states deserve to be brought into the light and remembered.