Return to Crusades-Encyclopedia Return to Crusades Bibliography
Bibliography- Women and the Crusades
See the supplementary bibliography that follows for additional useful material
Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Bloss, Celestia Angenette. Heroines of the Crusades. Auburn, N.Y, 1853.
Brady, L.A. Essential and Despised: Images of Women in the First and Second Crusades: 1095-1148. M.A.
Thesis Windsor Ontario, 1992.
Brundage, James A. "Prostitution, Miscegenation and Sexual Purity in the First Crusade." CS, 57-64.
Brundage, James A. "The Crusader's Wife: A Canonistic Quandry." Studia Gratiana 12 (1967) .
Brundage, James A. "The Crusader's Wife Revisted." Studia Gratiana 14 (1967).
Buckler, G. Anna Comnena. Oxford, 1929.
Burns, Robert I. S. J. "Women in Crusader Valencia: A Five-Year Core Sample, 1265-1270,” Medieval
Encounters 12, 1 (2006): 37-47.
Caspi-Reisfeld, Keren. "Women Warriors During the Crusades, 1095-1254." Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan
B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
DeVries, Kelly. Joan of Arc: A Military Leader. Phoenix Mill: Sutton, 1999.
DeVries, Kelly. "A Woman As Leader of Men: Joan of Arc’s Military Career." In Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc,
edited by Bonnie Wheeler and Charles Wood, 3-18. New York and London: Garland, 1996.
Edgington, Susan B. and Sarah Lambert, eds. Gendering the Crusades. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Gendering the Crusades is a collection of thirteen essays focuses on women’s various roles in the
crusades. This is one of the most important recent works in the field. Each essay is included in this
bibliography.
Edgington, Susan B. "'Sont cou ore les fems que jo voi la venir?' Women in the Chanson d'Antioche." Gendering
the Crusades. Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Evans, Michael. "'Unfit to Bear Arms': The Gendering of Arms and Armour in Accounts of Women on Crusade."
Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert.Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Finucane, Ronald C. Soldiers of the Faith: Crusaders and Moslems at War. New York: St. Martins, 1983.
Finucane devotes one chapter to women (and Jews) during the crusades (Chapter 8). The author notes,
“In accordance with the perceived prejudices concerning the Muslims, their men were assumed to be
oversexed, and consequently all female Christian captives almost certainly condemned to a fate worse
than death.” The author argues that this argument was given justification by the Crusaders' awareness of
the Islamic law allowing for Muslims to have up to four wives. The author also quotes Muslim writer
Imad al-Din who cites the widespread rape of western women by Saladin’s men. pgs.176-177. Finucane
notes that while no doubt some Christian women were abused, Imad al-Din was prone to exaggeration.
Forey, Alan. " Women and the Military Orders in the 12th and 13th Centuries." In Alan Forey, Military Orders
and Crusades (Collected Studies Series, Cs432) Variorum, 1994.
France, J. "Anna Comnena, the Alexiad and the First Crusade." Reading Medieval Studies 10 (1984), 20-38/
Frankopan, Peter. "Perception and Projection of Prejudice: Anna Comnena, the Alexiad and the First Crusade."
Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Friedman, Yvonne. "Captivity and Ransom: The Experience of Women." Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan B.
Edgington and Sarah Lambert. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Geldsetzer, Sabine. Frauen auf Kreuzzugen, Damrstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2003.
Hamilton, Bernard. “Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem (1100-1190):” In Medieval Women.
ed. Derek Baker. Oxford: Blackwell, 1978.
Hamilton’s examination of women on the Crusades provides some revealing insights into the thinking of
the Crusades and Muslims on the role of women in their societies. Specific snippets on topics that may be
helpful include; “…the Moslem world was clearly shocked by the degree of social freedom which western
women enjoyed and reacted to women with political power much as misogynist dons did to the first
generation of women undergraduates by affecting not to notice them.” Or the case cited in which Baldwin
“put away his wife because she had been raped by pirates on the voyage south.”
Hamilton, Bernard. "The Titular Nobility of the Latin East: The Case of Agnes of Courtenay." CS, 197-201.
Hay, David, "Gender Bias and Religious Intolerance in Accounts of the 'Massacres' of the First Crusade",
Tolerance and Intolerance: Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades, eds. Michael Gervers and James M.
Powell Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2001. 3-10.
Herlihy, David. “Land, Family, and Women in Continental Europe.” In Women in Medieval Society. Edited by
Susan Mosher Stuard. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976. 13- 45.
This article briefly examines the plight of women left home alone by male family members who went on
Crusade. Many successfully managed their husbands affairs while they were gone. This is according to
monastic land ownership records showing a huge increase in women as both managers and owners during
this period. Specifically, the author focuses on women in Northern France.
Hodgson, Natasha. "The Role of Kerbogha's Mother in the Gesta Francorum and Selected Chronicles of the First
Crusade." Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales,
2001.
Hodgson, N.R. Women, Crusade and the Holy Land. Boydell and Brewer, Forthcoming- November, 2007.
Howard-Johnston, J."Anna Comnena and the Alexiad." in M. Mullett and Howard-Johnston (eds.), Alexios I
Komnenos. Belfast, 1996.
Irwin, Robert. "Muslim responses to the Crusades." History Today, April, (1997).
This article provides some analysis of how Arabs might have viewed (or wished to portray) Christian male
relations with Christian women. It cites the Islamic writer Bahr al-Fawa'id, who for example claimed
Christians allowed fornication with unmarried women and their judges fixed the going rate for sexual
intercourse at four copper coins a time. The children of this sort of prostitution were supposedly presented
to the church where they were received with joy. The women also supposedly visited the churches to
fornicate with priests. Christian women do not veil their faces, but they say `We are not stingy like the
Muslims'.
Jeffreys, Elizabeth M., 'The Comnenian Background to the Romans d'antiquite', Byzantion 50:2 (1980): 455-86.
Deals with Eleanor of Aquitaine's travels to Constantinople during the Second Crusade.
Jones, C. Meredith.“The Conventional Saracen of the Songs of Geste.” Speculum, Vol.17, (1942): 201-225.
The text examines the way in which Muslim women are portrayed in the Chanson de Geste as desiring to
have sexual relations with crusaders and their willingness to convert to Christianity in order to win a brave
western knight. It is well indexed and footnoted. The footnotes provide many relevant quotations in
various languages.
Kelly, Amy. Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings. Cambridge, 1955.
Kibler, W.W. (ed.). Eleanor of Aquitaine: Patron and Politician, Austin, Texas, University of Texas Press,
1976.
Kinoshita, Sharon. “The Politics of Courtly Love: La Prise D’Orange and the Conversion of the Saracen Queen.”
Romantic Review, 86 (1995): 265-287.
The author claims that the possession of Muslim women “came to serve as a surrogate for and means to
the political and military conquest of the Arab world.” Specifically, the article examines La Prise D’Orange
and the role of the Muslim queen Orable. The queen abandons her Muslim husband Tieband and her
Muslim faith to deliver the city of Orange to the Franks, all for the love of Guillaume Fierebrace, who will
become, William of Orange. Kinoshita provides considerable focus to the “exotic” aspects of the portrayal
of Orable.
Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. translated by Barbara Bray. New York: G.
Braziller, 1978.
This work provides significant details about family life for the Cathars including much about women.
Lambert, Sarah. “Crusading or Spinning.” Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert.
Cardiff: University of Wales, 2001..1-15.
This essay by Sarah Lambert on the symbolic meanings of the treatment of women in crusades accounts,
fiction or otherwise, will be useful in examining the values western authors placed on matters relating to
women.
Lambert, Sarah. "Heroines and Saracens." Medieval World 1 (1991), 3-9.
Lambert, Sarah. "Queen or Consort: Rulership and Politics in the Latin East, 1118-1228." Anne J. Duggan (ed.),
Queen and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference Held at King's College, London,
April 1995. (Woodbridge, 1997), 153-69.
Magdalino. Paul. "The Pen of the Aunt: Echoes of the Mid-Twelfth Century in the Alexiad." T. Gouma-Peterson
(ed.), Anna Komnene and her Times. (New York, 2000), 15-43.
Maier, Christoph T. "The Roles of Women in the Crusade Movement: A Survey." Journal of Medieval History 30
(2004) pp. 61-82.
Martindale, Jane, 'Eleanor of Aquitaine' in Janet L. Nelson (ed.), Richard Coeur de Lion in History and Myth,
London, Kings College London Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 1992.
Mayer, H.E. "Studies in the History of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem." Dumberton Oaks Papers 26 (1972), 93-
189.
Mazeika, Rasa. "’Nowhere Was the Fragility of Their Sex Apparent’: Women Warriors in the Baltic Crusade
Chronicles." From Clermont to Jerusalem: The Crusades and Crusader Societies, 1095-1500. Ed. Alan V.
Murray. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998.
Meade, Marion. Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography, New York, Hawthorn, 1977.
Munro, Dana Carleton. “Did the Emperor Alexius I. Ask for Aid to the Council of Placenza, 1095?” The American
Historical Review, 27:4 (1922): 731-733.
Among the letter's claims are that Bishops were being raped and Christian women were forced to sing
lewd songs while their daughters were raped. The depictions of Christian women being defiled by
“unclearn” Muslims appears to have been useful in inspiring the Crusaders to take up the cross. See also
Einar Joranson’s The Problem of the Spurious Letter of Emperor Alexius to the Court of Flanders.
Nicholson, Helen. "Templar Attitudes Towards Women." Medieval History 1, no. 3 (1991) 74-80.
Nicholson, Helen J. "The Head of St. Euphemia: Templar Devotion to Female Saints." Gendering the Crusades.
Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Nicholson, Helen. ‘The Military Orders and their Relations with Women’, in The Crusades and the Military
Orders: Expanding the Frontiers of Medieval Latin Christianity, ed. Zsolt Hunyadi and József Laszlovsky
(Budapest: Central European University, 2001), 407-14.
Nicholson, Helen."Women on the Third Crusade." Journal of Medieval History 23:4 (1997) pp. 335-349.
Owen, D.D.R.Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
Pernoud, Regine. Eleanor of Aquitaine, (1965), Peter Wiles (trans), London, Collins, 1967.
Powell, James M. "The Role of Women in the Fifth Crusade." The Horns of Hattin.Procedings of the Second
Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Edited by Benjamin Z. Kedar.
London: Variorum, 1992.
Purcell, M. "Women Crusaders: A Temporary Canonical Aberration?" L.O. Frappell (ed.), Principalities, Powers,
and Estates:Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Government and Society (Adelaide, 1979), 57-67.
Richard, J. "Le Statut de la femme dans l'Orient Latin." La Femme, 2: Recueils de la Societe Jean Bodin pour
l'Histoire Comparative des Institutions 12 (Brussels, 1962), 377-87.
Rousseau, Constance M. "Homefront and Battlefield: The Gendering of Papal Crusading Policy (1095-1221)."
Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert.Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Schein, Sylvia. "Women in Medieval Colonial Society: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Twelfth Century."
Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Schlosser, F. "The Alexiad of Anna Comnena as a Source for the Crusades." Byzantinische Forschungen 15
(1990), 397-406.
Siberry, Elizabeth. Criticism of Crusading: 1095-1274. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.
Siberry’s excellent work examines the position of women on Crusades in three separate sections including
pages 44-46, 90-91, and 102-103. She briefly addresses the plight of women who were sometimes blamed
for the loss of Crusaders, simply by their presence.
Siberry, Elizabeth. "The Crusader's Departure and Return: A Much Later Perspective." Gendering the Crusades.
Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Skoulatos, B. Les Personnages byzantins de l'Alexiade: Analyse prosopographique et synthese. Louvain, 1980.
Tessera, Miriam Rita. "Philip Count of Flanders and Hildegard of Bingen: Crusading against the Saracens or
Crusading against Deadly Sin?" Gendering the Crusades. Eds. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert.
Cardiff: Univ. of Wales, 2001.
Thomas, R. D. "Anna Comnena's Account of the First Crusade: History and Politics in the Reigns of the
Emperors Alexius I and Manuel I Comnenus ." Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 15 (1991): 269-312.
Tuilier, Andre, "Byzance et la feodalite occidentale: les vertus guerrieres des premiers croises d'apres l'Alexiade
d'Anne Comnene." In La guerre et la paix au Moyen Age. 35-50. Paris: Bibliotheque nationale, 1978.
Women and the Middle Ages
Although not dealing specifically with the crusades, many of the following works provide excellent supplementary material to the relatively limited secondary material dealing specifically with women and the crusades.
Blythe, James. M. "Women in the Military: Scholastic Arguments and Medieval Images of Female Warriors."
History of Political Thought 22 (2001), 242-269.
Bossy, Michel-André . "Arms and the Bride: Christine de Pizan’s Military Treatise as a Wedding Gift for Margaret
of Anjou." Christine de Pizan and the Categories of Difference. Ed. Marilyn Desmond. Minneapolis: Univ.
of Minnesota Press, 1998.
Brundage, James A. “Playing by the Rules. Sexual Behavior and Legal Norms in Medieval Europe. ” In Desire and
Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern World. ed. Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. 23-41.
Cadden Joan. The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages : medicine, science, and culture (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Chibnall, Marjorie. "Women in Orderic Vitalis." The Haskins Society Journal 2 (1990) pp. 106-121.
Dunn, Diana. "The Queen at War: The Role of Margaret of Anjou in the Wars of the Roses". In War and Society
in Medieval and Early Modern Britain. Ed. Diana Dunn. Liverpool, 2000.
Eads, Valerie. “Sichelgaita of Salerno: Amazon or Trophy Wife?” Journal of Medieval Military History 3 (2005)
Eads, Valerie. "The Geography of Power: Matilda of Tuscany and the Strategy of Active Defense." Crusaders,
Condottieri and Cannon: Medieval Warfare in the Mediterranean Region. Edited by L.J.. Andrew Villalon
and Donald Kagay. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Eads, Valerie. Mighty in War: The Role of Matilda of Tuscany in the War between Pope Gregory VII and
Emperor Henry IV (Ph.D. Dissertation: City University of NY, 2000)
Echols, Anne and Marty Williams. An Annotated Index of Medieval Women. New York: Markus Wiener, 1992.
Frantzen, Allen J. "When women Aren't Enough," Speculum 68 (1993), 445-471.
Gillingham, John. "Love, Marriage and Politics in the Twelfth Century." In John Gillingham. Richard Coeur-de-
Lion: Kingship, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth Century. London; Rio Grande, Ohio: Hambledon Press,
1994.
Hall, Bert S. "‘So notable ordynaunce’: Christine de Pizan, Firearms and Siegecraft in a Time of Transition."
Cultuurhistorische Caleidoscoop aangeboden aan Prof. Dr. Willy L. Braekman. Ed. C. De Backer. Ghent:
Stichting Mens en Kultur, 1992.
Hay, David. The Campaigns of Countess Matilda of Canossa (1046-1115): An Analysis of the History and Social
Significance of a Woman’s Military Leadership. Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Toronto, 2000.
Kahf, Mohja. Western Representations of the Muslim Women: From Termagant to Odalisque. Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1999.
The author argues that during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance Western authors portrayed Muslim
women as “forceful queens of wanton and intimidating sexuality.” However, the new gender dynamics in
Western societies resulting from the Enlightenment led to a new portrayal of Muslim women as veiled,
secluded, submissive, and oppressed.
Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge: Harvard Univeristy
Press, 1990).
Lees, Clare A. (ed.) Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages (Minnesota: University of
Minnesota Press, 1994)
Lourie, Elena. "Black Women Warriors in the Muslim Army Besieging Valencia and the Cid’s Victory: A Problem
of Interpretation." Traditio 55 (2000) pp. 181-209.
Lozar, A. "Hildegard von Bingen und Bernard von Clairvaux." Unsere Liebe Frau von Himmerod 68 (1998), 8-18.
McLaughlin, Megan. "The Woman Warrior: Gender, Warfare and Society in Medieval Europe." Women's Studies
17 (1990), 193-209.
McMillin, Linda A. "Women on the Walls: Women and Warfare in the Catalan Grand Chronicles." Catalan Review
3:1 (July, 1989) pp. 123-136.
McNamara, Jo Ann Kay. Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns Through Two Millennia. Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ.
Press, 1996.
Moore, R. I. The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250
(Oxford, Blackwell, 1987).
Nirenberg, David. Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1996.
Although this work does not focus on the crusades, it provides useful insight on sexual relationships
during the era of the crusades. See especially chapter five, Sex and Violence between Majority and
Minority. The primary focus of this chapter is the violence and anger aroused in medieval communities
when cases of sexual intercourse between members of different religions took place. Nirenberg argues
that this was the “hottest” boundary that should never be crossed in multi-religious societies. Nirenberg
cites as evidence a story in which “a Christian of Daroca first hit a Muslim on the head and then, when the
Muslim tried to bring suit for the assault, charged the Muslim with interfaith sex to scare him into
dropping his case.” He traces the history of Christian anxiety about interfaith sexual intercourse to biblical
times and the prohibitions of the earliest Christian Roman emperors. The author also cites Medieval Iberian
Christian laws that condemned to death Muslim or Jewish men who slept with Christian women. The
Christian women were also to be burned to death if the participated willingly. The author also claims that
among the reasons the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 required Muslims and Jews to dress differently was
so that Christians would have less chance of being deceived by non-Christians who hid their true faith in
order to fool Christians into sexual relationships.
Partner, Nancy F. "No Sex, No Gender," Speculum 68 (1993), pp.117-42.
Rossiaud, Jacques. Medieval Prostitution. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.
Rossiaud’s work is a general overview on medieval prostitution in the West. While it does not directly
address the crusades it is still useful for providing a general overview of Western perceptions in the middle
ages of sexual morality.
Searle, Eleanor. "Emma the Conqueror." in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, edited by C.
Harper-Bill, Christopher J. Holdsworth and Janet L. Nelson, pp. 281-88. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer,
1989.
Solterer, H. "Figures of Female Militancy in Medieval France." Signs 16 (1991), 522-49.
Stuard, Susan Mosher. "Burdens of Matrimony: Husbanding and Gender in Medieval Italy." Medieval
Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages, ed. Clare S. Lees (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1994), 61-71.
Truax, Jean A. "Anglo-Norman Women at War: Valiant Soldiers, Prudent Strategists or Charismatic Leaders." The
Circle of War in the Middle Ages: Essays on Medieval Military and Naval History. Edited by Donald J.
Kagay and L.J. Andrew Villalon. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999. Pp. 111-125.
Weever, Jacqueline de. Sheba's Daughters: Whitening and Demonizing the Saracen Woman in Medieval French
Epic. New York and London, 1998.