THIS study is based upon historical narratives of the crusades and the Latin East and therefore it is necessary to provide a ‘working definition’ of what these entail. As well as narratives, a wide variety of relevant charters, letters and legal records survive from Europe and the Levant. Ecclesiastical records, Greek, Syriac, Hebrew and Arabic sources, and considerable architectural and archaeological data are also available to the historian of crusade and settlement. These forms of evidence provide a great wealth of historical data, but narratives provide a ‘precise framework’ which is perhaps better suited to ‘types of history which are less event-centred, such as the study of social change, thought, and cultural patterns’. It would be hard to postulate any coherent picture of the social and cultural impact of crusading without those authors who chose to interpret the events of crusade and settlement in a narrative format for posterity. The umbrella term ‘crusade narratives’, however, encompasses texts with divergent political, geographical and literary influences which varied considerably over the 200-year period in which crusading was at its height. Allowing for generic overlap and the pitfalls of categorisation, they can be roughly divided into chronicles, gesta, historiae, genealogies, annals and hagiographical works. Histories were also written in epistolary form in order to impart news of crusading events, such as the Lisbon Letter, De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, or the letters of Stephen of Blois to his wife, Adela.

IT is impossible to generalise about the authorship of crusade narratives. To some extent authors shared social and literary influences, but as well as geographical and chronological diversity, each had unique perspectives or personal agendas in terms of patronage, opinion, justification or propaganda. The widespread practice of plagiarism during the medieval period meant that some authors simply compiled crusade texts, including additional evidence where they had access to it. All of these factors may have influenced opinion of women in crusade narratives. Unfortunately there is not space within the scope of this book to give detailed background information for each author. Instead this chapter will provide an overview of issues such as textual interdependence and authorship in terms of patronage, education, and access to material, in order to show that the authors of histories of crusading and the Latin East cannot be universally described as more misogynistic than their contemporaries.

Textual Interdependence

THE propensity of medieval authors for borrowing extensively from other sources often makes it difficult to assess individual agendas. If a text influenced the development and spread of the crusade idea it might also have influenced attitudes to women's involvement. In these circumstances, a careful comparison of texts can be of benefit. Deletion of information suggested that it was considered inconsequential or incorrect, whereas its inclusion verbatim implied tacit approval. Additions indicated personal knowledge, opinion, or access to external sources. Nicholson views this kind of plagiarism as ‘evidence … of how the crusaders themselves saw crusade and how they developed the account of the crusade which they would have eventually retold in Europe’.

Mothers and Medieval Society

THE historian of women, while recognising that motherhood is biologically exclusive to the female sex, must be careful to avoid applying ‘universal’ values or innate qualities to mothers, as their experiences were affected by a variety of criteria including wealth, social class, and individual perspective. It is true that medieval women were often defined solely by their unique capacity to produce children, but not all of them became mothers, especially where relatively high rates of celibacy existed. Even then, pregnancy and birth only formed part of the parental process – the conventions surrounding child rearing and the interaction between parents and children are, like gender, subject to social change. When focusing on the medieval period, a further layer of complexity is added by the specific problem of male authorship in relation to the female experience of motherhood. Self-evidently biological and social restraints limited men's experience of motherhood, but relationships with their own mothers as well as medical knowledge and tradition helped to form opinions that varied with individual authors. A medieval male perspective on the maternal role, no matter how alien it may seem to modern women, can still provide valuable evidence about how motherhood was perceived by contemporaries.

Traditional Views onMotherhood

The reliance of medieval authors on tradition allows for a fairly consistent literary construct of motherhood for this period. The biblical command to ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’ is described by Blamires as fundamental to the case for women, and allowed mothers a measure of authority that was not bestowed upon any other female role.

THE sources which record the history of crusading and the Latin East during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were subject to a wide variety of literary influences, both ecclesiastical and lay, and their perceptions of women varied accordingly. Preachers and canonists may have attempted to prevent women from taking the cross, and many authors of narratives agreed to this principle, but there was inherent disparity within both the theory of women's involvement in crusading and the practical reality of their presence on crusade expeditions – their role in ‘historical’ events. Women were not the only group treated in this manner – many criticisms applied to a range of anonymous non-combatants, including the sick, the young and the elderly. Such restrictions were seldom extended to individual noblewomen who took the cross, as long as they adhered to correct modes of behaviour. They usually accompanied their male kin who would take part in the fighting, and if they could provide financial support to the crusade army, rather than draining its resources, they were often welcomed.

However, high death rates on crusade through warfare, famine or disease could lead to rapid changes in the social arrangements between crusaders, both men and women. Whether they took part in an expedition or not, noblewomen and their families were identified with the aristocratic audience at whom the crusade message was aimed, and authors seemingly found no inherent contradiction in portraying women as a gender to be ‘inhibitors’, but recognising certain women to be ‘enablers’.