Crusades, Women and the (Wars)

Camp followers, combatants, vivandieres, leaders, and tenders of home property during the Crusades. The crusades—medieval European attempts to conquer and control Jerusalem and its surrounding territory—were the largest and longest military endeavor of the Middle Ages. Between 1096 and 1400, well over a million European men, women, and children "took the cross," vowing to reach Jerusalem or die in the attempt. Besides the Holy Land crusades, there were holy wars against Muslim rulers of Spain, non-Christian Slavs, heretics in southern France, and, increasingly, the enemies of the papacy. Although women only bore weapons in the direst emergencies, they still played interesting roles in these conflicts because of the nature of crusading itself.

In the Middle Ages, the only women who normally accompanied troops were camp followers, but a crusade was a holy war and the reward for participation was remission of all penalties for sin. At a more mundane level, a Holy Land crusade could last for years, a long time for families to be separated. Thus, when the First Crusade was preached in November 1095, wives, daughters, and even nuns joined the cause. Pope Urban II tried to dissuade women from going without the permission of their legal guardians but recognized their right to participate. Because the crusade was a holy endeavor, attempts were made, especially on the First Crusade (1096-1099), to drive the prostitutes from camp and even to prevent sexual encounters between married couples. Still, the women played a useful role dealing with supplies, nursing the sick and injured—and of course providing sex.


The largest role played by a crusading woman was that of Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of France and participant with her husband Louis VII in the Second Crusade (1147-1148). Eleanor went as spokesperson for the contingent of soldiers from her province of Aquitaine, who otherwise would not have been represented in military councils. Her command position was considered so outrageous that imaginative chroniclers later decided that she and her female attendants must have dressed up as Amazons and that Eleanor must have behaved scandalously with her uncle the prince of Antioch. The truth of the matter seems to be that Eleanor disagreed with Louis on the conduct of the war (which was a miserable failure), and he exerted his husbandly rights by placing her under restraint. Arabic reports of the Third Crusade (1189-1192) also tell of female Europeans taking part in battles. These tales should not be taken at face value; the Arabic authors were eager to show how barbarous the westerners were, and to Muslims as to medieval Europeans, warrior women were the height of barbarity. The only certain cases of women participating in crusading battles are when they were in besieged cities or castles; the Albigensian crusade commander Simon de Montfort was killed by a stone shot by a woman during a siege. As always in premodern war the women of the losing side could expect rape or worse; one crusade chronicler commends the good Christian soldiers for not raping Muslim women but only killing them.

Because of the length of an average crusade, the role of women left behind was particularly important. Women controlled estates in their husbands’ absence and acted diplomatically for their distant spouses. Queen Blanche of Castile even served as regent of France while her son Louis IX was off on the first of his two crusades and had to raise his ransom when he was captured.

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