← New Books Network
New Books Network
Helen J. Nicholson, "Women and the Crusades" (Oxford UP, 2023)
00:35:30
An interview with Helen J. Nicholson
Loading summary
Transcript24 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form, and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:07]
B
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of New Books Network. This is your host, Morteza Hajizade from Critical Theory Channel. Today I'm honored to be speaking with Professor Helen J. Nicholson. Professor J. Helen Nicholson is the author of a very fascinating, a fascinating book that was recently published by Oxford University Press. The book is called Women and the Crusades. Dr. Helen Nicholson is Professor of Medieval History at Cardiff University in the uk. She has published extensively on the Crusades, the military orders, and various related topics, including a translation of the Chronicle of the Third Crusade. Helen, welcome to New Books Network.
- [01:45]
C
Thank you very much for inviting me.
- [01:47]
B
Bye. Helen, can you please just briefly introduce yourself and talk about your field of expertise and then tell us how and why you decided to write a book about women and Crusades.
- [01:59]
C
As you already heard, I'm professor of Medieval History at Cardiff University. I retired in 2022. So I'm now an American professor, which in theory means I have more time for my research. I'm still writing and researching on the Crusade and the military orders of the Crusades, the Templars and Hospitallers and the Psychotic Order. Finally, I'm particularly an expert on the Templars and hospitals. I studied their original documents and produced an addition of the proceedings against the consuls in Britain and Ireland in the early 14th century. As well as my work on women in religious orders and on the Crusade more generally. I got interested in women on the Crusades because when I first started reading about the Crusades as a teenager, I discovered there was very little reference in the secondary literature to women. But when I looked at the primary sources, in particular the document I later translated, Chronicler of the Third Crusade, there were women there, they were mentioned by the writers. And it puzzled me as to why the secondary historians there weren't any women, even if they were just in supporting roles. I thought they should be there. I was privileged enough to be at a state school that taught Latin, so I could look at the Latin force and see that women were meant to dimly sex. But when it came to translation, they got faded out rather than people. This is going on. Well, I can now tell you the suggestive social convincing in modern writing that it must just be men and not women, because the contemporary writers put the first two people on the Crusade and the women are always there, even if they're not taking the leading roles, they're in supporting roles. And it's been quite fascinating collectively over the years. But you have to make sure you read the text carefully once you start looking. There are women everywhere, as I say, not necessarily the front line, but there's all sorts of background work which needs to be done. No army can operate without its support forces. Not to mention the fact that women also behind the scenes back in Europe, as we will talk about later, I've just been told by other academics that there were lots of people working on women in the Crusade and there was no need for me to write a book about it. But when told, it became evident that I've got a couple examples than there were any in any one book. And I wanted to draw them all together and put them all together. So Women and the Crusade covers women from the First Crusade before the First Crusade right up into the 16th century, involved an expedition which used crusading language, even if the Pope never said that there were a crusade. So I even have references to the Portuguese involvement in the war against Muslims in Ethiopia in the 1530s, where although the Pope never said that this was a crusade, the sisters involved in it were talking about it being Christ's business and shedding our blood and laying down our lives for Christ, which is the sort of language that Crusaders always use. So what you have in women's episodes, there's a very wide ranging survey covering all of Europe and the Middle east, and also briefly Mexico and Ethiopia, and covered a very long period Right, Okay. Well, that's right.
- [05:12]
B
And that was a very interesting point you mentioned about women presumably being absent, but when you read the literature, they're actually everywhere. So let's talk about that. Was it easy for women to enter into political arena? And more specifically about crusades, what were some of the difficulties they encountered as.
- [05:31]
C
Far as politics go? It varies from different part across different parts of Europe. In some areas, there was no problem about women owning land and administering the land themselves and inheriting land and passing it on. In other parts of Europe, this was not acceptable. So, for example, in Wales, a woman might act on her husband's behalf, but she couldn't inherit land herself, although in practice, some people did. Whereas just across the border in England, women could inherit land, but while they were married, it was under their husband's protection, so their husband's responsibility to look after it. And their husband should be acting for their wife, rather than their wife taking on particular roles as lord of the land. In practice, however, many women did in fact minister their own land in England. And famously, Nicola de la Haye, who was hereditary Catalan of Yington, descended Lincoln Castle throughout her adult lifetime from the late 12th century into the first 1620, even though he has a live, active husband. So on the one hand you have what the law might say, and on the other hand, you have what's in practice. If we go to the south of Europe, in Spain, Queen Urarqa of Leon, Castile, in the early 12th century and her own kingdom, appoints her generals, fights a war against the Muslims on her southern frontier, and also against her second husband, the King of Aragon, on her eastern frontier. And this is her land where her son reaches his majority. He expects to take over the kingdom, and his mother is prepared to give it up. That's another problem. So situations vary depending what the land law is and what the kittens are. As far as getting involved in crusading goes, some religious writers regarded women as being unwelcome. On crusade, you wouldn't expect women to go. Their very presence would lead the men astray and extract them from their holy work. On the other hand, other writers would say that women could be going on crusades, particularly because if men and women are separated during the period of the Crusade, the men are likely to be let into sting because they'll feel the deeds coughed if they abstain from sex altogether, it's bad for you. You might die as a result of having your desires unfulfilled. So better to have the wife along with you, and then it would all be above board and safe. So there were different views. In practical terms, there were obviously barriers to women taking part in trading part. Simply noble women could afford to go. Women of left affluent social classes couldn't definitely afford to go on to say. They certainly couldn't afford to raise group. And they might have difficulty financing themselves. So they would be encouraged to remain at home and make a financial donation instead. Many people who went home to the trade, of course didn't go because they had a religious desire to go, or they did have a religious desire to go, but they principally went because they accompanied their family. So women might not have any choice about accompanying their husbands, or they might be going with children, or they might in fact be going with their employer and their employer wanted them there. Because a noble woman is going on crusade, she leaves her later. There will be other practical problems about being on crusade. A married woman on crusade or even a woman with a partner on crusade may get pregnant. There's all the problems with pregnancy, morning sickness, the various conditions that pregnant women fall foul of such a clear transfer. Finding good medical care whilst his older say while they're traveling could be a problem. When he did die in childbirth, they still do. They certainly did in the Middle Ages. And he might well die in childbirth. And if he survives, he has to look after the child. The child may die. These are all problems. There's the month by month problem of the monthly bleeding. A woman who's bleeding is not supposed to go into Kurt, leaving a trail of blood behind her. She spiritually unseen. That is a problem, is no untouched image. So there are all these difficult problems as well. Altogether, you might wonder why anybody went on to be paid. It was so expensive. But nevertheless a lot of people did.
- [09:45]
B
And you kind of covered the next question that I had in mind, which was the reasons they go, whether the political ambition or religion. But I'm also interested to know if women play a role in preventing the Crusades, or let's say preventing their husbands or their men joining or their sons joining the war.
- [10:07]
C
There are quite a few very famous stories of women intervening to stop their husbands, dozens particularly going on crusade. And in some cases there's good reason for this. Queen Blanche of France, who had cot with her husband King Louisiana VIII against the Albertan increased heretics in the south of France after his death on that crusade. He did not want her son Louis IX to take the cross. And when he did, he was ill at the time. He tried to persuade him he'd only taken the cross because he was ill. He didn't want him to go on crusades. He did everything he could to stop him going, but when he did go, he supported him. And there were a number of anecdotes, all bikes who spray the creature, all those involved in preaching the crusade, about women who tried to stop their men folk going. But in practice, and these preachers also admitted there were many women who did fought their men folk going on crusade. In practice, the women did encourage their men folk to go on crusade, sometimes for family reasons. My father went on Crusade, my brother went on crusade, but my husband and my son could also go on Crusade. This is a pious family who serves God, so you could go to the Holy Land and defend the holy places. And one of the contemporaries of the third Crusade reported that women were urging their husband and son to go and they wanted to go themselves, but they couldn't because of the weakness of their sex. They weren't strong enough to go on crusade. In fact, many women did go on Google. So on the one hand, you have the anecdote, the popular stories that women might discourage men from going, or indeed that men didn't want to go because they didn't want the women's coat behind. There were good practical reasons for not wanting to beat all the folk behind. They might get killed by their hostile neighbors. And on the other hand, there were many women who did encourage their mentor to go on crusade and become involved in the crusade. Particularly in the book, I look at the queens of Leon Castiglion, who, generation after generation, encouraged their husbands and their sons to be involved in the war against the Muslims on their southern frontier, right up to the time of Ferdinand Isabella in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, where Ferdinand of Aragon was depicted as the military leader and Isabella Cassidy of Lyon was depicted by contemporaries and has been subsequently as the spiritual leader who urges her husband holy war, as he calls it, and released the campaign to encourage him, but doesn't actually get involved in the fighting herself. And she's the one that the Pope honoured as being the inspiration behind that crusade rather than her husband, because the Pope said it wouldn't happen if Isabel hadn't driven it on.
- [12:54]
B
And you also talk about the role of elite women, also holy women. You have Countess Matilda of Canossa or Brigitte of Sweden. Can you briefly talk about the role of elite women in Crusades?
- [13:10]
C
Well, let's start with the children of Canossa. The Byzantine Empire had suffered a very serious defeat by the seljuk Turks in 1071 at the battle of Manci Turk. And the Pope in the West, Pope Gregory VII was very concerned about the situation of the Eastern Christians. And he decided in 1072, yes, that he was going to organize an expedition, a military expedition to the east. And he asked one of his leading military supporters, the Turg of Knozza, to organize the military side. And her mother counted Beatrice to hold the fort, as it were at home. And they would go and Matilda and the Tok would go to the e. And clearly Gregory reckoned that Matilda was the best military leader at his disposal, who would support him during this campaign and who was capable of getting the army together and keeping it together for the length of the crusade. In the end, though, it didn't set out. It seems that Gregory found that apart from Matilda, he couldn't trust anybody else and that nobody was very enthusiastic about this. So that campaign didn't happen. But Matilda do finance and support Anatha expedition against one of the northern African towns. I'm just going to check the spelling so I'll get the pronunciation right. This is Madia on the North African coast near Tunisia. This seems to actually be an expedition to knock out a commercial competitor against the Italian city states. It was depicted by contemporaries as a holy war fighting against God's enemies. And Matilda contributed troops to this. So they had a lot of commercial advantages in this expedition. But also claim that it was a spiritual victory against the religious enemy. When you move on to the 14th century, you mentioned Saint Pakuta of Sweden. She was a noble woman who was married. She had eight children. Not the traditional image of a saint, because traditionally in Catholic Christianity, saints should be cakes. Ideally, they should be virgins. They certainly shouldn't be married and have eight children. But nevertheless, Birgitte's visions and the spiritually inspired advice that she gave leading figures the African countries believe that she was a saint. And she was one of very few people canonized her to recognize the saints in the 14th century. Among other things, she nagged the king and the queen about reasons about their worldly lifestyle and to urge King Magnus of Sweden to go on a key stage against the Russians, who of course were kingdom. But they were schismatic, they were orthodox rather than being Catholic. So Gitter reckoned that they were culprit for the state. And a number of Magnus subjects on his western front here were still pagan. So Bragitta's idea was that Magnus could dawn a crusade against the Russians of Northworld and convert the pagans that he found on the way. These things did not go quite as he had hoped and stigmatised Magnus Lifestyle and exhausted goals for the Crusade having succeeded theory. He was a noblewoman who most famously. Sorry, she was a noble woman. Her successor as a patriot adviser was Catherine of Siena, who was not noble, but came from good family and friends of Siena. And Sue More excluded the Pope and in fact anyone she could write an effort to who had any power than an army at their disposal, urging them that they must go on to fame. He had a vision of the world as reformed Christianity unified, fighting against evil and Greek picks. In her mind, this was Catholic Christianity going to war against the Saracens, as he called them, the Muslims in the Middle east and North Africa. They would raise the banner of Christ and go and recover Jerusalem. Brilliant people into this because what they seem to do is they would feel Christian and the Pope, who'd been based in Avignon since the early 14th century, should come back to Rome and they could purify the Church. But none of this actually happened. And the Pope did come back to Rome, but there was no crusade. In 1378, two popes were elected. One in Rome and one in Avignon. And Catherine desperately campaign thought there just to be a Pope in Rome, but too many people the pope in Avignon. So she died a disappointed woman. She was planning to go on the crusade herself, of course, but she wasn't going to fight. She wanted to die as a martyr. We could also mention the disc of the group Gild of Arc and other Christian mystics. Again, probably not of noble birth, but certainly was very influential in high places who as part of her campaign her plans to restore the kingdom of France, said that when she had restored the king of France and throne in Paris, he would lead a crusade against the Muslims. And all good citizens could join her. Even her enemies, the English could join her. The English were not suppressed by this, but he convinced the contemporaries that this was what the French would do. Having once restored the Kingdom of France, they could go and fight the Muslims.
- [18:28]
A
New Year.
- [18:29]
C
Same extra value meals at McDonald's. So now get two snack wraps plus.
- [18:34]
A
Fries and a medium soft drink for.
- [18:36]
C
Just $8 for a limited time only.
- [18:38]
A
Prices and participation may vary.
- [18:40]
C
Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery.
- [18:43]
B
And we've discussed the role of these women and I'm also interested to know about the main three roles they played during the Crusade. You talk about. You briefly discussed women accompanying their husbands, but there was also caregiving and also diplomacy. Can you talk about these three categories of roles that women played during the Crusades?
- [19:06]
C
The three roles of accompanying husbands and caregiving. And diplomacy could be linked in that when they were traveling with their husbands, they could also act as diplomats and they might be called on to give prayer or at any rate, to organize it. There were a number of wives who went with their husbands on the First Crusade, and scholars speculate whether the plan was that they would then be able to start a new family, a new dynasty in the east, having recaptured Jerusalem. In fact, most of the first Crusaders did not stay in the east. And even when they did, the wives didn't necessarily stay with them. Some wives died during the course of the Crusade, some return to. Some wives died during the course of the Crusade and returned to the West. So if they were planning to start doing this, this wasn't necessarily how it worked out. But for example, during the Third Crusade, which is of England, Alexis insisted Joanna on the way out to the east, he had been married to the King of Sicily. The King II died. They had no children, so it was a relative of William II who took the throne. And Richard managed to negotiate for Joanna's dowry out of his hand and then took Joanna to the East. Did Joanna want to go to the East? We don't actually know whether she was given any choice. Richard certainly hoped to use her dowries as part of the finances for his crusade. That's another reason for taking your wife with you or your lipstick, your sister, because he has money. And also on that crusade went Richard's wife, Berengaria of Navarre, who he married. He actually married her on quite the. On the course of the journey out to the East. Perhaps he was hoping to start a dynasty in the East. Perhaps he was hoping that Joanna could marry one of the leading Christians in the youth. And there was the story, which was supported by Saladin and the court and his biographers, that Richard had suggested that Joanna should marry Saladin's brother, Al Adil. It is possible that he would suggest that Saladin was certainly thrown off course by the suggestion. He hadn't expected it. In the East, Christian noble women and Muslim noble women did marry, and they retained their own religion unity. There was no need for anybody to convert to the unhappy religion. So that was another reason why a wife might accompany a husband. You might be taking part in diplomatic efforts. In this case, the reports were that Joanna didn't support the suggestion of the marriage, or at any rate, that's what Richard said. We don't know what Joanna actually said. So he may simply have been using her existence as part of his diplomatic efforts. On the seventh decade for going particular narration, Richard's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine had first been married to King Louis separate from France that had accompanied him on that crusade. And the Empress of Byzantium, Irene or her European name is Bertha wrote to her and the two queens and exchanged letters. So there was some diplomatic exchange between the high ranking women in this case. And Eleanor also seems to have negotiated with her uncle who was princess Antioch over what would be the best use of the crusading army once it had arrived to the east and what would be the best strategy to adopt. However, Louis appears to have rejected anything that she negotiated. And what happened was that Eleanor said accused of being far too friendly with her uncle. Unfortunately, because that could have been a very useful connection to have exploited in the second two period was disastrously unsuccessful. The public you didn't have to be at that sort of level though. And around the time of the Third Crusade recorded again by one of Saladin's historians, Ibn Al Aziyyah. So he wasn't actually one of Saladin supporters, but he was writing at that time one of the leading noble women in the principality of Antioch was in contact with Saladin and sending him information. And this was very useful to her. Then when Saladin captured a castle which was held by her brother I think and his family and who was able to negotiate their relief much more easily than it would have been possible otherwise. Because women were non competent it is far easier for them to take on the diplomatic role. However, this wasn't always expected. Saladin for example didn't seem to want to negotiate face to face with queens similar to Jerusalem after he captured her husband die. He did negotiate at nob distance but when it came to surrender of Jerusalem it's Sybil's stepfather who go and negotiate with Stalin and not Sybil herself. As far as caregiving goes, there were various stories about queens taking a role in Face to Face Caregiving. There's a story during the crusade of Edward I of England in he was attacked by an assassin while he was in the city of Acre in the east. And one of the narrative stories was that his queen Elena is also called Eleanor. Eleanor tried to suck the poison out of the womb. This is a much later story and this is probably not true in respectful the close relationship between Eleanor and Edward. They were very fond of each other. But in fact the more contemporary account is that Eleanor was taken out of the room weeping and waning and in great panic as you would be and that Edward was treated by a local medic rather than by his wife. However, there was another report which is Much more credible during Louis IX Crusade in Egypt, where he was very ill, as his army was retreating north after the Crusade collapsed, they'd been effectively defeated by Muslim causes. He was being cared for by his personal position. She was a woman called her frienda from Paris. And after the Crusade he gave her and her husband, you received an annual payment in thanks for all the support that they'd given them during the crus. Caregiving is traditionally a role of women. So even if women are not named as caregivers, we see them being referred to as doing medical and caregiving roles. So women are responsible for washing, women are responsible for laying out dead, women are responsible for ensuring that people are correctly buried. With all due respect, women are responsible for not mental, women are responsible for picking licensees out of the schools of care and so on.
- [25:51]
B
And so, based on what you said, I don't assume that women were actively involved in wars. I'm also curious to know about what happened to women who did not join the Crusades, because in your book, one of the, I think, most fascinating parts of your book is that part where you discuss about the challenges they had they faced at home, the women who didn't go to Crusades. Can you talk about that, please?
- [26:18]
C
Yes, and in fact, I should have mentioned that women were responsible for defending fortresses during the Crusade on the battlefield. In the same way at home they would be left in charge of defending the family land. And in theory, the families of Crusaders were topped by paper protection. In actual practice, this didn't always work out, because who was going to enforce it? A ferocious military leader is not necessarily particularly worried by paper excommunications could always deal with that later. So for example, during the Second Crusade, when Count Thierry of Flanders was in the east, his wife Hibbel, Tibbel of all, forgetting that she was related to the royal family of Jerusalem, found that she was under attack from neighboring Count of Einol. And at that point she was about to have a baby, so she was not able to do anything about this. And the Count of Einault's forces rampaged over her. After, however, he had withdrawn and she had had her baby, risen from childbed, got her army together, he took her forces back into Aino and ravaged his land and repaid him in kind, much to the admiration of contemporaries. And the Pope had to intervene and sort out peace be between them. He was able to raise an army because he was a noble woman. Lawful women were such a happy position. And we come down to the level of the more ordinary people, the Poor free farmers, who one member of the family might be courted by the rest of the family to take the cross, go as a Crusader to the Holy Land. The rest of the family might then find that they were involved in legal arguments with their neighbors, and they might not have the resources easily to fight their neighbors off. Or indeed, as some kind of happened, the neighbors decided to settle old grievances by murdering the wife, killing a daughter, kidnapping a daughter, and the male head of the family, with all the resources that he might have at hand, was not there to protect them. So that would be a problem. Other more mundane problems is if they spent all the money to send the members of their family abroad, then they're left in a position where they have no resources, they haven't got any money, or indeed the debt piling up are no means of paying them, particularly after a crusader was, for example, killed or taken prisoner in use, where they have no means of raising money, and in the case of a death, the pottery for the crusader lapses. And they might not have the means of sorting out the estate, or indeed the wife's dower is confiscated, and they can't afford to go to law to get it back. So local women probably had it more easily because they had more resources and they had family connections. And families are very, very important not only in encouraging people to go on crusade, but also in supporting them while they're on crusade and in supporting the immediate members of the Crusaders family.
- [29:10]
B
And how did women commemorate the memory of their relatives who died in the wars?
- [29:19]
C
Nurbur women would endow a tomb, a particular tomb with beautiful decorations, inscriptions, carvings to commemorate their ancestors. It might be a husband or a son, or indeed it could be an ancestor from a couple of generations back who they felt ought to be honored for their involvement in a crusade. Can be quite difficult to work out who was actually responsible for committing tomb. So when historians have deduced that it's the wife or the daughter or the mother who committed the tomb, that's usually on the basis of the iconography on the tomb, which figures are commemorated there, or the wording of the inscription on it, or simply by she was the only person that had the money to do this. So when the Countess of Champagne pays for her tomb for her husband Tibo, who didn't actually get on the whole crusader because he died first. But I just date with this Laurence Navarre, whose family are also crusaders and who is married, sorry, her sister Berengaria is married to the cousin first of England, who is a crusader. So Blanche had all around the tomb her husband Kebo. Members of the family who were involved in crusading which seemed roll call of all the nobility of Western Europe at the time. They'd almost forget that in the middle of all this is a man who didn't actually make it on the crusade. He was intending to go. Let us honor the family by showing that we were crusaders. We would have been crusaders if we if we hadn't unfortunately died. Another option for wives who maybe didn't have the money to pay for a fine tomb or didn't have a body if they died after the it might never come back to the westboard. As well as having an tomb is to pay for a feast, for saying that a daily basis and for prayer to be said in commemoration to insert their name into commemorative work in honor of the lost members of the family. So during Louis IX Crusade William of Horsbury was killed and his wife memorized him when the chronicle of Barlings Abbey was there. Abbey and then his mother who'd founded Laycock Abbey and became abbess there had a vision of his death which was recorded again in the annals of the abbey. And this was also written up by the chroniclers Alban's Abbey back in Paris with the greatest Mara Countess Ella, William's mother. And he describes her vision. So on the one hand they're exalting the family and on the other hand they're remembering William Salisbury's death. So there were different ways of commemorating members of the family and women didn't usually write chronicles. But we can point some letters that were exchanged as well which mention members mention members of the family who were crusaders. One chronicle writer I ought to mention who was not herself a crusader was Anna Komnena, the Byzantine princess, daughter of the emperor Alexius of Byzantium who wrote about the crusades of the first Crusade as they came through Byzantium. And their relations with her father was not very complimentary about them. But he gives this outsider's view of the rowdy band. He depicts them so painfully and she doesn't really explain that it was her father who'd invited them. And that's a different way of commemorating crusaders. And some of her word pictures vividly describing Bermuda Kranto in terms of his accused very picketly impressive man but terribly barbarous piper like by Vantine men was so well educated and co Professor Helen.
- [33:41]
B
Nicholson, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us on New Books Network. The book we just discussed was called Women and the Crusades published by Oxford University Press in 2023.