Yet the emergence of secular men of letters did not (yet) displace women from the realm of learning. Instead, they co-existed with them. The mediaeval theologian and logician Peter Abelard famously was attracted to Heloise, later Abbess of Paraclete, because of her learning; she, too, was and is still viewed as a philosopher. Other examples of learned women in the crusader era include Abbess Hrosvitha of Gandersheim (c.935–973), Mechthild of Magdeburg (c.1207–c.1282), Abbess Herrad of Landsberg (twelfth century), and, of course, St Hildegard, Abbess von Bingen (1098–1179). There were many, many others, and their position in society is documented by the books they wrote and the correspondence they maintained with emperors, kings, popes and saints.4

The Impact of Feudalism

In addition to the influence of Christianity, women in the crusader era benefitted from the rise of feudalism. Feudalism elevated the status of women by recognising their right to inherit. Simplified, in feudalism, bloodlines took precedence over gender. This means that although the hierarchy elevated the firstborn son over his brothers and sons before daughters, it nevertheless gave daughters precedence over illegitimate sons, uncles and cousins, much less individuals without a blood relationship to the hereditary lord. Bonds of marriage, furthermore, were considered ‘blood-ties’, meaning that wives shared status with their husbands and deputised for them. With marriage, a woman effectively obtained control over the vassals, tenants, servants and serfs that went with the titles and properties of her husband whenever he was absent or incapacitated.

In practice, the focus on blood ties and feudal hierarchy meant the closest female relative exercised the same authority in the absence of a male, temporarily or permanently. In other words, class trumped gender. Thus, while women, to a degree, were subject to men of their own class and rank, they had a higher standing and more power than men of any lower class or subordinate position.

At the pinnacle of feudal society, queens were anointed and crowned because they were expected to exercise authority over the entire kingdom; consequently, God’s blessings were deemed essential. Their power was neither nominal nor ceremonial. When a king died, leaving a minor child as his heir, it was customary for the child’s mother to act as regent. In France, the custom goes back at least to 1060, when, at the death of Henry I, his wife Anna became regent for their son Philip I. Even when a king was not dead, circumstances might hand power to his wife. For example, Eleanor of Aquitaine served as regent in England while her son Richard I left his realm to fight in the Holy Land in 1190–1192. Likewise, when Louis IX of France crusaded from 1249 to 1254, he left his mother as his regent – a function she had fulfilled during his minority as well. Indeed, when Louis IX was taken captive by the Saracens, he negotiated a ransom with the caveat that his queen must confirm the terms of the agreement. This was because, as his consort she automatically reigned in his stead and could command the resources of the kingdom (including those entrusted to his mother who had been left behind as regent in France) during his captivity.

In the crusading era, the right of women to rule as sovereigns – in their own right – was recognised in England, Portugal, Castile, Aragon, Jerusalem and France. The latter may surprise readers familiar with the Hundred Years War. However, it was not until after the crusading era in the early fourteenth century that French jurists invented the so-called ‘Salic Law’ that excluded women from succession in France. This was a legal ploy to prevent an English king from being crowned king of France, and the invented law was in blatant conflict with legal precedent, namely the Edict of Neustria (c.580). The latter had ruled that daughters could succeed to the hereditary domain (including the kingdom itself) if there were no sons. Notably, the same edict ruled that all other property (acquired by purchase or marriage) must be equally divided between all heirs regardless of gender.

At the next level down, women across Europe could serve as barons because they could give and receive feudal oaths. The importance of this cannot be overstated: feudal oaths were the mortar of feudal society and represented the social contract that made feudalism function. The recognition of a woman as a vassal and lord – not in her capacity as a man’s mother or wife – entailed recognising her as a fully independent legal entity. This was unthinkable under Roman or Athenian law and, sadly, was not the case in France, England or the United States from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, either.

Famous examples of independent female barons in the crusader era are Mathilda of Tuscany and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Mathilda of Tuscany was a significant supporter of the papal reform movement and also sponsored a raid against the base of Muslim pirates terrorising the Mediterranean from North Africa. In her own right, Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, retained control of this rich and powerful territory, taking it into both of her successive marriages. She personally led her barons and their knights on the Second Crusade. Yet these two examples represent only the tip of the iceberg; there were many others. An in-depth study of the lordships of Troyes in Champagne, for example, shows that women held 58 of the 160 direct fiefs.5 In other words, women inherited at a rate of better than one out of three. This is unlikely to have been exceptional, although the exact numbers will vary based on local laws and customs.

When women held feudal titles, they controlled the lands and commanded the men and women that went with them. For example, the Constable of Lincoln in 1217 was Nichola de la Haye, who defended the castle of Lincoln against forces attempting to put the king of France on England’s throne during the minority of Henry III. She withstood multiple assaults while commanding the men of the garrison in person. There are countless cases of women holding and defending castles against siege and storm in the story of Outremer.

Not all of feudalism’s benefits went to members of the ruling feudal elite. The right of women to be barons and vassals was derived from the principle of female inheritance. This applied not only to the apex of society but also to the bottom. Peasant women could also inherit and transmit hereditary rights, whether for land or buildings like a mill or shop. Because mediaeval women of any class could hold property, they could accumulate and dispose of wealth. Few things empower a person more than money.

Significantly, it was not only heiresses that enjoyed property and the benefits thereof. On the contrary, it was customary for all women to receive property from their husband’s estate at marriage; this property was called a ‘dower’. A dower is not to be confused with a dowry. A dowry was property a maiden took with her into marriage. Royal brides brought entire lordships into their marriage. Lesser lords might bestow a manor or two, while the daughters of merchants brought ships, houses, jewellery, furnishings, etc.; even peasant girls might call a pasture, orchard or some livestock their dowry. The main thing to remember about dowries, however, is that they were not the property of the bride. They passed from her guardian to her husband.

Dowers, on the other hand, were women’s property. In the early Middle Ages, dowers were inalienable land bestowed on a wife at the time of her marriage. A woman owned and controlled her dower property, and she retained complete control of this property after her husband’s death, even if her husband were attainted for treason. Thus, while a man might be convicted of treason and forfeit his life, land and titles, his widow would not lose her dower.

Whatever the source of a woman’s wealth, in mediaeval France, England and Outremer, women did not need their husband’s permission or consent to dispose of their property. Thousands of mediaeval deeds provide evidence of this simple fact. While it was common to include spouses and children in deeds, this was a courtesy that increased the deed’s value rather than a necessity. Thus, many deeds issued by kings and lords included wives and children as witnesses to demonstrate that the grant or sale was known to their co-owners/heirs.

Middle-class women could inherit whole businesses, and as widows, they ran these businesses and represented them in the respective guilds. Indeed, most wives were active in their husband’s business while he was still alive. More importantly, however, women could learn and engage in trades and business independently. They could do so as widows, unmarried women (femme sole) or married women, running a business separate from their husband’s. Furthermore, if qualified in a trade, women took part in the administration of their respective profession, both as guild members and on industrial tribunals that investigated allegations of fraud, malpractice and the like.

The diversity of professions and trades open to mediaeval women was surprisingly large. A survey of registered trades in Frankfurt from 1320 to 1500 (admittedly a little after the era covered by this book) shows that of 154 trades, 35 were reserved for women, and the remainder were practised by both men and women, although men dominated in 81 of these.6

The Impact of Chivalry

Finally, the era of the crusades was also the age of chivalry. This immensely powerful secular ethos or code of conduct transformed man’s understanding of love and set off a revolution in sexual relations.

Chivalry introduced the notion that a man could become more worthy and ‘noble’ through love for a lady. Love for a lady became a central – if not the central – feature of chivalry, particularly in literature. Other characteristics, as defined in contemporary handbooks on the topic, were nobility of spirit, loyalty, honour, righteousness, prowess (courage), courtesy, diligence, cleanliness, generosity, sobriety and perseverance. Wolfram von Eschenbach in Parzifal stresses a strong sense of right and wrong, compassion for the unfortunate, generosity, kindness, humility, mercy, courtesy (particularly to ladies) and cleanliness. In essence, chivalry entailed upholding justice by protecting the weak, particularly widows, orphans and the Church. Yet, regardless of the exact definition, the inspiration for knights striving to fulfil the ideals of chivalry was love for a lady.

Critically, chivalrous love had to be mutual, voluntary and exclusive on both sides. It could occur between husband and wife, and many romances, such as Erec et Enide and Yvain or the Knight with the Lion (both by Chrétien de Troyes) or Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, revolve around the love of a married couple. The popular notion that courtly love or the love vaunted by the troubadours was always adulterous is a fallacy. Nevertheless, mediaeval romance put love for another man’s wife on par with love for one’s own – provided the lady returned the sentiment. The most famous of all adulterous lovers in the age of chivalry were, of course, Lancelot and Guinevere, closely followed by Tristan and Isolde.

Strikingly, in an otherwise excessively hierarchical and class-conscious world, the ideal chivalrous lovers took no note of status and wealth and loved one another for their virtues alone. A lady was supposed to be loved and respected for her beauty, graces, kindness, and wisdom regardless of her status, and a knight was ideally loved for his manly virtues rather than his lands or titles.

Even more important is that regardless of which of the partners was the social superior, the lady always took the role and status of ‘lord’ to her lover. In the tradition of chivalry, the term that a lover used to address his lady was ‘mi dons’ – literally, ‘my lord’. The term denoted the knight’s subservience to his lady, his position as her ‘man’ – vassal, subject, servant. In art, knights are frequently shown kneeling before their lady and placing their hands in hers, the gesture of a vassal taking the feudal oath to his lord.

Lastly, courtly or chivalrous love was not a device to obtain sexual favours. For lovers who had the luck to be married, it included physical love, and in many adulterous romances, consummation was sometimes achieved. Yet sexual conquest was not the objective of courtly love. The goal was to become a better person – more courageous, courteous, generous and noble; in short, more chivalrous than before. In this sense, courtly love echoed or reflected religious love because it was first and foremost love of the spirit and character rather than the body. These features set courtly or chivalrous love apart from the erotic love of the ancients and the modern age. These features elevated women above the status of a sexual object and reproductive organ.

In summary, the Catholic Church recognised women in the crusades era as rational and spiritual beings, equal in spirit (if not in body) to men. As rational beings, they were encouraged to seek wisdom through education. Throughout this era, women of the middle and upper classes were largely literate, and exceptionally well-educated women were highly regarded. Furthermore, the Church preached chastity as the ideal for men as well as women, and chaste women, whether virgins or widows, enjoyed respect and even veneration. For those of either sex who chose not to remain chaste, the alternative was a monogamous, indissoluble marriage to which both partners consented freely and forsook all other sexual partners. Sexual relations outside of marriage, for men as well as women, were condemned as sinful. Secular laws in the Middle Ages acknowledged the right of women to inherit, hold and dispose of property and viewed adult women as legal persons without the need for guardians or representatives. Likewise, mediaeval society recognised the right of women to learn trades and engage in business. Chivalry raised women of the upper class to the position of lord over their lovers and enshrined the concept that all love must be free and mutual to be true. Ideally, each partner loved the other for their spirit and character rather than their body, a clear echo of Christianity.

Women in the Muslim World

Like Christianity, Islam views reason as God’s most precious gift to man and the key feature that distinguishes humans from beasts. Unlike Christianity, however, mediaeval Islam did not credit women with being capable of reason. This inherently relegated women to the realm of animals. Leading Islamic scholars of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, such as Imam Ghazali (1050– 1111), considered women not only outside humanity but a threat to it. Based on Mohammed’s writings and experience, Ghazali argued that women’s sexuality threatened to distract men from God.

At the same time, Islam placed no value on male chastity. On the contrary, male chastity was considered unhealthy, and men were encouraged to indulge their animal nature after a tiring day in God’s service. The key to reconciling these apparent contradictions was the complete control, segregation and imprisonment of women so they would not distract men while they pursued God’s business but could service men’s ‘natural’ animal urges when men felt it was time to take a break.

Muslim Professor of Sociology and modern Islamic feminist Fatima Mernisse argues: ‘The entire Muslim social structure can be seen as an attack on, and a defence against, the disruptive power of female sexuality’.7 In consequence, as other scholars point out, an entire century before the first crusaders arrived in the Muslim world, Arab women had ‘lost the greater part of their freedom and dignity … [and] the system of total segregation of the sexes and stringent seclusion of women had become general’.8

Just as the Christian theory of sexless souls and complete spiritual equality profoundly impacted Christian society, the Islamic notion of women as incapable of reason and more animal than human shaped all aspects of their place in society. Since women were not reasonable beings, there was no point in educating them. Since they were not spiritual beings, their only role was sexual and reproductive. Women in mediaeval Islam were not legal persons; like Athenian and Roman women, they lived perpetually under the guardianship of a man, even if that man was a male child decades younger.

Islamic women had no say over whom they married nor any role in the wedding ceremony, which did not require any form of consent on the bride’s part. Women had no right to divorce their husbands, but men could discard wives without cause simply by saying, ‘I divorce you’ three times. Furthermore, Islam recognised polygamy. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Mernisse argues that: ‘Polygamy … is a way for the man to humiliate the woman’, quoting a Moroccan saying: ‘Debase a woman by bringing in another one in [to the house]’.9 Nor did the humiliation end with polygamy. Since Islam only recognised four legal wives, Islamic elites of the crusader era generally maintained large numbers of concubines as well.

Under the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Muslims were offended by the Christian reverence of female saints, particularly the Virgin Mary. Indeed, many Muslims of this period ridiculed Christianity precisely because of the role given to women. The Bar al-Fava’id, written between 1159 and 1162, remarks:

[The Christians] believe in this iniquity, that their God came forth from the privates of a woman and was created in a woman’s womb, and that a woman was made pregnant by their God and gave birth to him … Anyone who believes that God came out of a woman’s privates is quite mad; he should not be spoken to, and he has neither intelligence nor faith.10

Then again, Muslims of the era generally had a low opinion of Franks. The geographer Ali ibn al-Husayn al Mas’udi described the Slavs and Franks (in this case, the inhabits of France and Germany) as follows: ‘Their bodies have become enormous, their humour dry, their morals crude, their intellect stupid and their tongue sluggish’.11

Women in Outremer – A Unique Status?

The crusader states established in the wake of the crusades were inhabited by a diverse population adhering to various faiths. Although most of the population was Christian, both Orthodox and Latin, there was a sizable Muslim minority divided between Sunni and Shia, and there were also Jewish and Samaritan communities. The rulers of the states established in the Levant avoided widespread interference in the social and religious lives of the various ethnic and religious groups living inside their territories. On the contrary, Muslims were allowed to live in accordance with Sharia Law, Jews and Samaritans followed their respective traditions, and the various Christian Orthodox groups continued to conduct their lives as they had always done. Only to settle conflicts between religious groups or regulate relations between the subjects and the crown did the Franks seek to introduce new laws and courts. The Franks wisely recognised that meddling in customs governing marriage and women’s social status and roles would only cause resentment, alienation and rebellion. Thus, nothing much changed for many women in the crusader states, particularly Muslim, Jewish and Samaritan women.

However, an estimated 140,000 Latin Christians emigrated from Western Europe to the crusader states in the twelfth century. They intermarried with the local Christian population and, together with their offspring, represented a significant portion of the population. They were, by and large, the subjects of the unique laws and customs that came to characterise the crusader states. It is the status of these Frankish women that represent the focus of this book.

All Frankish women were either Western European in origin or the descendants of Europeans on at least one side of their family tree. That is, the traditions of the Catholic Church, feudalism and chivalry had shaped them or their forefathers. Yet, as a minority in an Eastern environment, surrounded by states that denigrated and segregated women, one might have expected Frankish women to undergo a reduction in status once they were settled in the Near East. This was not the case.

Historian Sylvia Schein argues that Frankish women ‘enjoyed more legal rights, held more important positions and carried out more functions than their contemporaries in the West … [they had] more freedom of action within both state and society than in the West, for instance in England and France’.12 Historian Sarah Lambert, furthermore, draws attention to the fact that the comprehensive account of the crusades written by a leading cleric of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, William Archbishop of Tyre, lacks the misogyny common among clerical chroniclers of this period writing in the West. According to Lambert, Tyre ‘seemed to approve of the involvement of women in the First Crusade … [and] not to share the horror of active sexuality during pilgrimage … characteristic of [other] First Crusade chronicles’.13

In short, not only were women more powerful and active in Outremer, but Frankish men, including clerics, apparently accepted women on these more equal terms without approbation. In the chapters that follow, this volume seeks to highlight and explain this unique situation.

Chapter 2

The First Crusade and the Establishment of the Crusader States

Casus Belli: Jerusalem

In 326 AD, Empress Helena, the mother of the ruling Roman Emperor Constantine I, made a pilgrimage to the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina in the Roman province of Judaea. She had converted to Christianity roughly fifteen years earlier and, in 313, had convinced her son to issue the Edict of Milan that ended the religious persecution of Christians. Thereafter, she sponsored the construction of many churches, but now she was looking for something more spiritual as she approached 80 years of age.

It was 293 years since Christ had been crucified, 256 years since the destruction of the Second Temple, and 190 years since the expulsion of the Jewish and Christian population from the city that had formerly been called Jerusalem. Although expelled and persecuted, she knew that Christians had never completely abandoned Jerusalem. There were still Christians living in Aelia Capitolina whose grandparents’ grandparents had lived in Jerusalem in the time of Christ. She knew or suspected these Christians maintained traditions about the sacred venues associated with Jesus. Furthermore, even if knowledge had not been passed down over the generations, Helena knew the Romans had built a temple to Venus on the site where Christ had been crucified and buried. The Romans had intended to humiliate the Christians by burying the most important physical reminder of their messiah under a temple to the pagan goddess of love. The effect had been to mark with marble the location of Christ’s execution and resurrection.

In consultation with the local Christian community and their bishop Marcarius, Helena ordered excavations under the porch of the Roman temple. These revealed ancient quarries or tombs, which according to Rufinius (writing less than a century later), brought to light three crosses lying in one of the chambers. Helena and Marcarius brought pieces of each cross to a sick woman, who recovered miraculously on contact with the third. Thereafter, that cross was revered as the cross on which Christ had been crucified, and the place where it was found was identified as the tomb of Christ.

To mark the site of Christ’s tomb and commemorate his sacrifice and resurrection, Emperor Constantine the Great ordered and financed the construction of a great church over the grave discovered by his later sainted mother, Helena. This church was constructed in the style of a monumental Greek basilica, 150 by 75 metres, covering almost precisely the same area as the temple to Venus. Furthermore, the church incorporated both the site of Christ’s crucifixion and his grave. The latter could be reached by stairs leading underground. From its consecration onwards, this church became the holiest site in Christendom, more sacred than Agia Sophia in Constantinople or St Peter’s in Rome. It was known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and instantly became the destination of countless pilgrims across Christendom as Christianity spread across Europe.

For almost 300 years, the Holy Sepulchre sat securely in Jerusalem, surrounded by Christian inhabitants and protected by a mighty Christian empire ruled from Constantinople. Yet slowly the power of Constantinople eroded, and in 614 AD, a Persian army swept across Judea. The Persians captured and sacked Jerusalem, killing an estimated 26,500 men and enslaving roughly 35,000 women and children. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was burned to the ground. It took fourteen years before armies under Emperor Herakleios expelled the Persians in 628.

Although the reconstruction of a church over the tomb of Christ was undertaken immediately, the population and economic losses of the war with Persia inhibited spending. Only a modest structure replaced Constantine’s great basilica. The building was probably temporary, with expectations of later expansion. Instead, just nine years later, Jerusalem was again under siege. This time the enemy at the gates was the Muslim Caliph Umar. After a year-long siege, Jerusalem could no longer resist and fell under Muslim domination.

Under Sharia law, the public practice of any religion other than Islam was prohibited, condemning the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to fall gradually into disrepair. Meanwhile, contrary to popular modern myths, the Christian population was subjected to an annual tribute, extra taxes, forced labour, and land expropriation, as well as systematic persecution and humiliation punctuated by sporadic violent attacks entailing plunder, rape and slaughter.14 All churches and monasteries suffered during the ensuing centuries of Muslim rule. Symbolic of them all, the Holy Sepulchre was burned by Muslim troops in 969 AD, and although partially and modestly repaired by 984, the church was again demolished by the Caliph al-Hakim in 1009. No new attempt to construct a church on the site of the crucifixion was undertaken until almost fifty years later, in 1048. That anything could be built at all was an act of generosity by the Muslim ruler of the period; Sharia law prohibits the construction of any houses of worship not dedicated to Islam. Nevertheless, given the impoverished state of the Christian community under Muslim rule and the restrictions imposed by Islam, this new church was not a significant architectural monument.

Meanwhile, the armies of Islam had spread across the Near East to the gates of Constantinople. They had also subdued the North African continent and stormed onto the Iberian Peninsula. All these conquests were justified by the Islamic concept of jihad, which calls for the elimination of the non-Islamic world. The theory was simple. Islam divides the world into two houses or camps: the Dar al-Islam (usually translated as the Abode of Islam) and the Dar al-Harb (the Abode of War). In the name of peace, all regions still in the Dar al-Harb must be conquered and eliminated until the entire world lives harmoniously together in the house of the Dar al-Islam.

Practical politics interfered with this simplistic world view, and Islamic states found it increasingly convenient to make truces with non-believers. This led to the acknowledgement that there was a grey area between the Dar al-Islam and the Dar al-Harb, namely the Dar al-’Ahd or Dar al-Sulh – the Abode of the Treaty. Throughout the crusader era, however, treaties with non-believers were viewed as temporary conveniences that could not exceed ten years, ten months and ten days. In short, during this period the Islamic world fundamentally rejected the concept of permanent peace between Islam and the Christian powers of Byzantium and the West as contrary to Sharia law.