The legal privileges of Frankish women did not, however, extend to the entire population. On the contrary, Muslim women were still subject to Sharia Law, Jewish women to Talmudic Law, while the women from the various Italian mercantile states lived under the laws of their respective metropolitan cities, be it Venice, Pisa or Genoa. Nuns, naturally, were subject to canon law. Yet it is still noteworthy that women enjoyed extraordinary and prominent rights at the highest echelons of society, something which was bound to influence the attitudes and behaviour at lower levels as well.
The Marriage of Heiresses
As noted above, due to the need for the holder of a fief to fulfil military obligations, any woman who held a fief in her own right was required to have a husband capable of performing those military duties. In most cases, heiresses were betrothed at a young age (the legal minimum was seven for both boys and girls) by their parents or guardian and, as a rule, were already married when they succeeded to their inheritance. Among royal heiresses, we see this was the case with Queen Melisende, who wed Fulk de Anjou before her father’s death, with Sibylla, who wed before the death of her brother, and with Isabella I. It was also true of baronial heiresses such as Eschiva of Tiberias and Stephanie de Milly, the heiress to Transjordan.
The marriages of royal heiresses were supposed to require the consent of the High Court, and those of baronial heiresses were supposed to be approved by the feudal overlord. However, in practice, most baronial marriages contracted before an heiress came into her inheritance were made without the consent of the feudal overlord, i.e., the families alone selected spouses for their children. Philip de Novare claims that under King Amalric in the 1160s, an attempt was made to give the feudal overlord a say in selecting husbands for heiresses. He admits, however, that this met with resistance from the barons, who wished to retain complete control over the marriage of their daughters, suggesting this practice may not have been universally implemented. Most likely, some barons avoided surrendering control over the marriages of their offspring or obtained the nominal consent of their overlords for their own choices. Nevertheless, Amalric asserted his right in at least one case, namely that of Stephanie, the widow of Humphrey of Toron the younger, who Tyre claims King Amalric gave to Miles de Plancy.46 Likewise, his son Baldwin IV successfully asserted this right to select the husband of his half-sister, Isabella, taking her away from her mother and stepfather against their wishes and forcing her into a betrothal at the age of 8 that ended in an illegal marriage at 11 years. In both cases, however, the heiresses involved were half-orphans with no father capable of withstanding the king’s will.
Curiously, in cases of orphans who came into their estate without already being betrothed or married, the laws of Jerusalem provided clear guidance on what was to happen next. Namely, as soon as the heiress reached the marriageable age of 12, her feudal lord would propose three suitable candidates, from which she was to select her husband. The legal scholars of the thirteenth century explained further that if she refused to marry any of the three, she would lose her fief (the revenues and privileges) for a year and a day, after which she would be re-summoned and again offered three candidates. Likewise, if a woman held a fief in her own right and was a widow without an adult male heir, she was required to remarry, albeit not until one year of mourning had passed. In both cases, ‘suitable’ candidates meant men of equal rank and status who were young, fit and strong enough to fight. Widows over the age of 60 were exempt from the mandate to remarry.
Edbury points out that such a practice was an invitation to corruption. Anyone keen to obtain the fief (or the bride) would be inclined to bribe the feudal overlord to become a ‘candidate’. The heiress might also bribe her lord to ensure he included her preferred candidate among the three he would present. Or, the heiress’ guardian, who enjoyed control of her estates until her marriage, might bribe the overlord to forget to summon the heiress altogether.47
Nevertheless, the practice was considerably more favourable to heiresses than prevailing law elsewhere, as a quick comparison to the contemporary customs in England and France demonstrates. In England and France, heiresses could not marry anyone without the permission of their feudal overlord. This meant women were, in effect, forced to bribe their overlord before they could contract a marriage with the candidate of their choice. In France, it was not until the middle of the thirteenth century that King Louis IX introduced into French law the custom of giving an heiress a choice between three candidates presented by the feudal overlord. Notably, this custom was introduced after King Louis’ four-year sojourn in the crusader states. Before that, as in England, the feudal overlord selected an heiress’ husband without giving her any choice whatsoever.
Practice, however, can vary substantially from theory. There can be little doubt that mediaeval noble children, whether male or female, rarely enjoyed anything more than nominal consent to their marriages. Betrothed as children and married in puberty, most lacked the power or courage to withhold consent from a marriage arranged by their parents or guardians. Furthermore, while the High Court of Jerusalem rejected the Count of Flanders’ demeaning candidate for Sibylla’s second husband on the grounds that her year of mourning was not yet over, Isabella I was married to her third husband only a week after the assassination of her second. Admittedly, this was during the Third Crusade, and it could be argued that the High Court had not been formally reconstituted since the disaster at Hattin. Five years later, after the institutions of the Kingdom of Jerusalem had been re-established, however, Isabella married her fourth husband within just four months of losing her third. In both cases, she did so freely as an adult ruling queen and widow to whom her barons had already done homage.
Isabella was not the first widowed heiress to take her marriage into her own hands, regardless of law and custom. Another kinswoman, Constance of Antioch, had already provided a more spectacular example. Constance was the daughter of Queen Melisende’s sister Alice and Alice’s husband, Bohemond II of Antioch. Bohemond was killed in 1130, making Constance the ruling princess at age 2, long before she could either exercise her office or marry. The principality was governed by regents and the High Court, which in 1136 selected Raymond de Poitiers, the younger brother of the Duke of Aquitaine, as Constance’s husband. Poitiers came to Antioch armed with a papal dispensation to marry the 8-year-old Constance. The issue of consent was brushed aside for dynastic reasons. The marriage lasted until 1149, when Raymond de Poitiers died fighting against Nur ad-Din in the Battle of Inab. Constance was left a widow at 21 with four children, including a 5-year-old son, Bohemond, now Prince Bohemond III.
After her year of mourning, the king of Jerusalem – Constance’s cousin Baldwin III – urged her ‘repeatedly’ (according to William of Tyre) to take a new husband. Tyre notes that ‘there were in the land at that time a number of noble and distinguished men … [anyone of whom] seemed with justice quite capable of protecting the region’. Tyre goes on to list the three candidates with their qualities and bloodlines to show they were worthy consorts for the Princess of Antioch. However, as Tyre says: ‘The princess … dreaded the yoke of marriage and preferred a free and independent life. She paid little heed to the needs of her people and was far more interested in enjoying the pleasures of life’.48
While Tyre’s opinion of Constance’s motives may be biased, the fact remains that the king singularly failed to convince or force Constance to take one of his ‘suitable’ candidates. Indeed, he summoned what Tyre calls a ‘General Council’ at Tripoli and sent for Constance’s aunts, Queen Melisende and Countess Hodierna of Tripoli, as well. Yet, as Tyre laments, ‘neither the king nor the count, her kinsmen, neither the queen nor the countess of Tripoli, her two aunts, was able to induce her to yield and thus provide for herself and her land’.49 Yet, three years later, Constance remarried a man of her choosing – the soon-to-be notorious adventurer, Reynald de Châtillon. Less than twenty years later, the widowed Sibylla of Jerusalem followed Constance’s example by marrying the man of her choice without the consent of the High Court, albeit with her brother’s approval: Guy de Lusignan.
Finally, the case of Isabella d’Ibelin of Beirut is an interesting case study regarding heiress and marriage obligations. Isabella inherited this important lordship from her father, John d’Ibelin of Beirut II, in 1264, when she was just 12. Shortly afterwards, she was betrothed to Hugh II of Cyprus, a youth her age, who unfortunately died two years later in 1267. Isabella returned to Beirut, yet her feudal overlord undertook no measures to make her remarry, despite her being an heiress of marriageable age. Apparently of her own will, she married and was widowed a second time. Then, suddenly, ten years after she had left Cyprus, the Cypriot king, Hugh III, sought to enforce his feudal rights as overlord to compel a marriage on Isabella. He had misjudged her. Isabella took her case to the High Court and won with an ingenious defence that will feature later in this book.
What this tells us is that no matter how much the High Court of Jerusalem wanted to ensure that heiresses were always wed to spouses capable of fulfilling the military obligations of their fief, the Church requirement for consent to marriage gave women the means to refuse the political pressure to marry – if they had the backbone. It is doubtful if a maiden of 12 or 13 would have had the courage to resist pressure like Constance did at 21 or Isabella at 25. Yet there can be no doubt that mature women, notably widows, could – and did – ignore the legal niceties recorded by the scholars of the thirteenth century in order to marry who and when they wanted.
Wives and Widows: Rights of Property, Dower and Guardianship
Turning to the status of non-heiresses as wives and widows, the laws of the crusader kingdoms were again surprisingly progressive. First, property was held jointly by a married couple, and neither partner could dispose of it without the other’s consent. Indeed, it was common for all documents involving property transfers to be witnessed not only by husband and wife but also by all potential heirs (i.e., children over 7).
When a man died, his widow received a dower amounting to fifty per cent of his property at the time of his death. In other words, only half of the estate went to the adult heir or heiress, while the widow retained the other half for her maintenance until her death. The only exceptions to this were for the kingdom and the four principal baronies (Jaffa and Ascalon, Galilee, Tripoli and Transjordan). Due to the size of these estates, it was deemed appropriate that a smaller dower would suffice. As we have seen, the widowed Queen Theodora Comnena received Acre, and Maria Comnena was given Nablus, both extremely wealthy lordships. Widows of all lesser fiefs, were entitled to half of their husband’s estate at the time of his death.
For comparison, in English law, a widow’s dower initially consisted of only those lands and properties that had been explicitly designated at the time of the marriage. These might be generous or paltry, depending on the ability of the bride’s family to negotiate a dower portion for her. By the twelfth century, English law recognised that in the absence of a formal agreement a widow was entitled to one-third of her late husband’s property. In France, however, the right of a widow to a dower (properties for her maintenance after the death of her husband) did not evolve until the middle of the thirteenth century. In France as in England, it was set at one-third rather than one-half (as in Outremer) of the husband’s property at the time of his death.
In the crusader states, widows had complete and sole control of their dower lands, including the right to alienate property. There are many examples of widows granting lands and revenues, entirely on their own, particularly to the Church. Equally important, however, was the right to buy fiefs if they were for sale. (Although that sounds like a contradiction since the crown granted fiefs, there were circumstances in the crusader states under which a fief-holder was allowed to alienate his fief through a sale.) However, a widow could only acquire such a fief if she were married and her husband could fulfil the military obligations associated with the fief.
This brings us to the marriage of widows. As noted above, widowed heiresses were, at least theoretically, required to marry after one year of mourning. In contrast, widows who were not heiresses were not required to remarry. In England, however, widows throughout the crusader era could be compelled to remarry. This fact offended contemporary sensibilities sufficiently for a prohibition of the practice to be included in Magna Carta. This seminal document explicitly states: ‘a widow should not be compelled to marry so long as she prefers to remain without a husband’.50 Yet the custom persisted; the grievance was raised again in the baronial revolt of the mid-thirteenth century.
While they could not be compelled to remarry, widows in possession of fiefs either as dowagers or as regents for minor heirs required the permission of their feudal overlord to remarry. Thus, we find Reynald de Châtillon outside the siege camp at Ascalon in 1153, seeking the consent of King Baldwin III to marry Constance of Antioch. Likewise, William of Tyre reports in his history that ‘Balian d’Ibelin … with the king’s consent espoused Queen Maria, widow of King Amaury’.51
In sharp contrast to the custom in England and France, when a man was outlived by his wife in the crusader states, his minor heirs, whether male or female, did not become the ward of the feudal overlord. Instead, a man’s widow acted as guardian and regent for minor heirs and all other children of the marriage. This meant that if a man died leaving a minor heir, his widow retained control of the entire estate until that heir came of age (if male) or married (if female), and only after that event, lived from her dower. Again, the exception was in the case of the crown. If a king left a minor heir, it was the responsibility of the High Court to appoint a regent. However, even the major baronies could be held by a widow as regent for the minor heir. This happened twice in the case of the Principality of Galilee; first, when Ermengard, the widow of Elinard of Bures held it from his death in 1153 until her eldest son Walter came of age in 1159, and again when Eschiva of Tiberias ruled the principality following Walter’s death until 1174. Likewise, Stephanie de Milly, heiress of Transjordan, held Toron as guardian of her son Humphrey.
Judicial Status Before the Courts
As opposed to Islamic law, the laws of the Kingdom of Jerusalem recognised women as legal persons equal in status to males, albeit with some restrictions. On the one hand, women defendants were on an equal footing with male defendants. Likewise, in property disputes, issues of inheritance and cases we would treat as civil rather than criminal, women were treated equally with men, and their word was weighted equally with that of male witnesses.
However, in criminal cases in which the punishment could include mutilation or execution, the laws of the crusader states still recognised the right of the defendant to request trial by combat. This impacted the status of women before the law because, despite possible exceptions, women were generally disadvantaged when fighting men. Hence, women were exempted from personally engaging in judicial combat. Instead, they had to bring forth a champion. That did not exempt the woman from capital punishment in the event her champion was defeated. On the contrary, if her champion lost, the female litigant was deemed guilty by the judgement of God and hung.
Notably, members of the clergy and men over 60 enjoyed the same exemption from combat and the requirement to bring forth a champion capable of fighting to initiate a court case that might be referred to judicial combat for judgement. Since witnesses in criminal cases were not allowed to use champions, women – along with priests and men over 60 – were likewise debarred from bearing witness in cases that might be referred to the judgement of God, i.e., trial by combat. It is important to stress that these legal impediments to women were not misogynous because they applied equally to anyone deemed innately disadvantaged in physical combat, e.g., male clergy and males over 60.
In effect, a woman could only initiate proceedings that could go to judicial combat (e.g., rape, assault, highway robbery) if she had two witnesses willing to fight to the death on her behalf. This was because all those initiating proceedings required two people to testify to the truth of their accusation. A male litigant only had to find one companion willing to support his accusations because he offered his own body in judicial combat (unless too old, disabled or in holy orders). A woman had to find two men willing to back her allegations with their lives.
In the case of rape or other acts of violence against women, unmarried women and widows could initiate court proceedings on their own. Married women, however, needed their husband’s consent, presumably because he was expected to serve as her champion; failure to do so (without good reason) would prejudice the case against her. Usually, in the case of a married woman, her husband initiated the proceedings on her behalf and served as her champion. However, the law did allow a wife to choose a different champion because husbands might be old, injured or otherwise disabled. In fact, however, very few cases went to judicial combat; most were settled out of court.
It is worth quoting Peter Edbury’s conclusion to his essay on the legal status of women based on his study of John d’Ibelin’s treatise, Le Livre des Assises, one of the most definitive primary sources on the laws of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Edbury writes:
‘John’s treatise contains a wealth of information about the status and activities of women in the High Court of Jerusalem, but that what he says gives rise to further questions that cannot easily be resolved. While it is clear that women had certain disabilities at law … it is also clear that they had well-defined rights and that the legal system was able to guarantee them’.52
Edbury also notes that, like William of Tyre, Ibelin’s work is devoid of ‘pejorative remarks’ about women. As one of the leading noblemen and jurists of his society, that too tells us a great deal about how women were perceived in the crusader states.
Hostages and Captives
Finally, in a kingdom surrounded by enemies and frequently at war, the status of women caught up in warfare is particularly important. In the crusader kingdoms of the Levant (though not in Cyprus or Frankish Greece), women were frequently caught up in warfare as will be explored in more detail in the chapter ‘In Defence of the Holy Land: The Women of Outremer in Time of War’. In this chapter, only two legal aspects of women’s status in warfare will be highlighted: their ability to serve as hostages and their right to ransom.
The most famous case of a female being pledged as a hostage for the good behaviour of a male released from captivity is Baldwin II’s surrender of his daughter Iveta to secure his release in 1124. At the time, Iveta was just 4 or 5 years old. One can well imagine Muslim dismay and reluctance to accept a female hostage, but Baldwin had no male heirs or close male relatives in the Near East. He only had four daughters. Notably, Iveta was accompanied by other hostages, mostly male and female children.
Interestingly, the ransom negotiations were conducted by Baldwin’s wife, Iveta’s mother, Queen Morphia, and primary sources agree that Baldwin moved as rapidly as possible to raise the enormous ransom required to liberate his daughter. Altogether, she is believed to have spent no more than eighteen months in Saracen hands. In short, she and the other children fulfilled the role assigned them (passively, of course) of ensuring that the king of Jerusalem complied with the terms of the ransom agreement.
In the incident cited earlier, in which two noblewomen served as hostages to ensure William de Villehardouin’s compliance with the terms of his release from captivity in Constantinople, it is possible that, again, there were no suitable male hostages. William himself only had two daughters, both already married and living outside Greece. Obviously, the bulk of the Frankish lords had been killed or captured, which was why women dominated the High Court in the first place. Nevertheless, the fact remains that women were viewed as sufficient security for a man’s compliance with the terms of an agreement.
Yet while hostages were (out of self-interest) generally well-treated, the fate of those taken captive was almost invariably hellish. In the Eastern Mediterranean, in the era of the crusades, there were all too many ways in which a man or woman could find themselves enslaved. The pilgrim routes were notorious for being plagued by robbers, and in an age characterised by widespread slavery, humans were viewed as ‘plunder’ no less than gold or silver. Pirates made sea travel dangerous. The porous nature of mediaeval borders meant that hostile raiders – whether Bedouins or Saracen troops – could conduct raids into the crusader states and take away captives. In the wake of major invasions, villages, towns and even walled cities might be captured and the inhabitants taken away as slaves.
In fact, so many people were taken captive in the Near East during the era of the crusades that several religious orders were dedicated primarily to raising money from charity to buy back those who had been carried off into slavery. For the high born, however, it was more common for captives to be ransomed by their families. Here, again, the crusader states demonstrated a concern and respect for women above and beyond that of other contemporary kingdoms. Thus, while the Law of Provence, for example, decreed that a son lost his fief if he failed to ransom his father, and a father lost his fief if he failed to ransom a son who stood hostage for him, in Outremer, a son had the obligation to ransom both his father and mother, and a man was obliged to ransom both his sons and his daughters, or otherwise lose his fief.
Chapter 8
The Political Power of Women in the Crusader States
Women in the crusader states exercised significant political power. They did so first and foremost due to their legal status as feudal lords. This power was direct in the case of heiresses who held land and titles in their own right or delegated in the case of consorts acting on behalf of absent or incapacitated husbands or mothers acting on behalf of minor heirs. In addition, women also enjoyed a high degree of indirect power in their capacity as consorts or dowagers of living and politically active feudal lords. Yet not all influence was derived from feudal law. Women in Outremer also acted as intermediaries with the enemy, sometimes positively as envoys and sometimes negatively as spies. Finally, in the crusader era, women still enjoyed a notable degree of independence, respect and influence as churchwomen. These different types of power are examined below by providing prominent examples from the historical record.
