Women played a significant role in the Crusades, whether as pilgrims, or supporting the army or, on occasion, as Queens Regnant of Jerusalem, Carol McGrath writes. And, although Richard I’s role in the conflict is well known, few people are aware of the roles of his sister Joanna, or his wife, Berengaria.
The Crusades were holy wars in which Latin Christians, acknowledging the Pope as their spiritual leader, fought other faiths: Muslims, ‘pagans’, ‘heretics’.
Jerusalem was lost by Christians to Saladin in 1187 and in 1189 the Third Crusade, led by Richard I and, initially, also by Philip Augustus of France, aimed to recover the city. After several tough campaigning years Saladin still held the Holy City.
Much is written about Richard the Lionheart, whose name is known to us through the tales of Robin Hood and stories of Richard’s return from the Crusade. Much less is known about Berengaria of Navarre, the wife Richard I married in Cyprus, and who, along with Richard’s sister Joanna, accompanied him on the Crusade.
How usual were female Crusaders?
Evidence from medieval European and from Middle Eastern primary source material reveals that women played a significant role: giving support on the battlefield, raising money, as servants and companions. They played a combat role only in emergencies.
They usually gave support by, for instance, herding livestock to safety, loading crossbows, boiling water and preparing munitions.
Women present in the armies of the First Crusade (1096–1099) were sometimes full participants in the expedition even if they did not take the cross. Often they were taken prisoner, enslaved or killed.
Why did women join crusades? The importance of spiritual health during the medieval period cannot be underestimated. It was a way of cleansing the soul from the taint of sin, a penitential exercise, and so there were female pilgrims. Yet for women to visit holy sites during menstruation was not acceptable to the Church; monthly bleeding rendered women spiritually impure.
They were not deterred. One story circulated at the time concerning a woman who set out with her goose on the First Crusade — the goose led her, and she followed it accompanied by a credulous crowd.
Outremer, the Frankish name for the four ‘Crusader States’, was lucrative for trade, and during the era female sole traders, especially from Genoa and Pisa, moved to the cities of the middle eastern kingdom.
Nuns visited and many stayed and established orders in the Holy Land. Queens travelled with spouses and, since sexual relations continued whilst on crusade, pregnancies occurred. Joan of Acre, daughter to Edward I and Eleanor of Castile was famously born in Acre.
There also had been an established royal family in Jerusalem for decades, with a King and Queen, as well as female nobility in Outremer, often widows and heiresses. Diplomatic marriages were made by Franks (European Christians) throughout the Holy Land. Noble women provided diplomatic support — as Berengaria did in Rome after Richard I was imprisoned in Austria on his return from the Third Crusade.
Queens Regnant were responsible for the defence of their territory against Muslim enemies. They recruited troops and organised campaigns.
Queen Melisande of Jerusalem (1131–1153) ruled with her son, Baldwin III. She sent a military force to relieve Odessa from the enemy. She was known to her contemporaries as “a wise and cautious woman with a manly heart”.
Holy women joined the Crusades, drawing authority from visions as evidence of piety. Women visionaries and recluses set up in Acre and Jerusalem.
Some crusade chronicles invented stories about women crusaders to improve their narrative.
Florina, daughter of Odo of Burgundy, was said to have died fighting in battle, late in the autumn of 1097. She had hoped to marry the son of the King of Denmark if the expedition was successful. Their army was attacked by the Turks whilst crossing the Kingdom of Rum (Turkey), but both were killed.
The dates for this tale do not work and she would only have been 14 years old. She was likely an invention — as a moral warning to women of the dangers of going on crusade. This story is in several chronicles, including Albert of Aachen.
Marriage alliances united crusading families, and marriages were not unknown between Muslims and Christians without either party converting.
Joanna, Richard I’s widowed sister, had taken the cross with her new husband William II of Sicily. Richard needed her dowry to help finance his expedition and she was noble company for Berengaria.
The story that Richard proposed his sister to marry Saladin’s brother, Al-Adil, exists in contemporary Muslim accounts and in the History of Eracles.
The History says that Richard used the possibility of marriage as a bargaining tool; the idea was that they would share authority over Jerusalem and the castles of the kingdom. The condition was that Al Adil should become a Christian.
We cannot know if Richard’s proposal was serious. Given that, while he could take Jerusalem, he had not enough men to hold, it this marriage could have been an interesting idea. His suggestion put his opponents at a disadvantage, since they had to guess his motive, and this bought him valuable time.
Joanna famously refused the marriage. Interfaith marriages took place amongst the rural population in Sicily, but not amongst noble persons. It is unlikely the Pope would have agreed.
In the Middle East they were commonplace between noble Muslim and Latin Christians without insistence upon conversion. Two of Al-Adil’s sons contracted such marriages as a way of forging alliances.
By the fall of Acre in 1191, even if women did not personally take up the cross, crusading had become an integral part of medieval society. It touched the lives of women all over Europe.
Historians in the 18th and 19th centuries romanticised the military exploits by emphasising crusaders’ heroism and admiring chivalric notions whilst retaining a condescension towards their belief in the crusade ideal. Just as did medieval writers, they omitted women from their histories and stories as historically unimportant — or even as obstructive.
Women have been regulated to the role of bystanders during the Crusades, even though primary sources explicitly state that women took part. I hope my new novel, The Lost Queen, in which a widow and a queen are its protagonists, will contribute to addressing this neglect.
The Lost Queen by Carol McGrath is published on 18 July, 2024.
Following a first degree in English and History, Carol completed an MA in Creative Writing from the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University Belfast, followed by an MPhil in English from University of London. She has written two acclaimed medieval trilogies and two stand-alone novels.
Carol’s written other features for Historia, including:
The Empress Matilda and the stolen crown
Henry VIII, impotence and the thorny question of male heirs
Opus Anglicanum: the beauty of medieval English embroidery
There’s more about Richard I, Berengaria and Richard’s sister Joanna in Female networks of power in the Middle Ages by JF Andrews.
You may also enjoy these Historia features about influential medieval women:
The personal and the political in the Middle Ages by Catherine Hanley
Magna Carta’s inspirational women by Sharon Bennett Connolly
To have and to hold: pawns in the medieval marriage game by Anne O’Brien
Images:
- Tomb of Berengaria of Navarre, wife of Richard I, Abbaye de l’Épau, France: Selbymay for Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Joanna and Richard I meeting Philip Augustus II of France from Histoire d’Outremer, 1232–61: British Library Yates Thompson MS 12, fol 188v via Wikimedia (public domain)
- Jerusalem, illustration from the Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum by William of Tyre: Picryl (public domain)
- Coronations of Melisande and Baldwin III: Bibliothèque nationale de France via Wikimedia (public domain)
- Joanna, Queen of Sicily from the Genealogical roll of the kings of England: British Library, Royal 14 B VI, via Wikimedia (public domain)
- Philippe Augustus and Richard I receiving the keys to Acre in 1191, illumination from the Grandes Chroniques de France, c1375–1380: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département des Manuscrits, Français 2813, folio 238 verso (non-commercial use)
