Women Crusaders

Several women from both East and West played prominent roles in the Great Crusades. Anna Comnena (1083-1153), a daughter of the Alexis I, wrote the history of her family, the Alexiad after she failed in a coup to put her husband on the Byzantium throne instead of her brother; she depicted the knights of the first crusades not as saviors but as looters who turned greedy eyes to the gold, enamel, and art work of Byzantium.

Eleanor of Aquitaine, (1120-1204) took the cross with her first husband Louis VII of France and scandalized Europe by leading 300 of her women dressed as amazons and a thousand of her knights from her duchy in the armies of the Second Crusade. Even though she insisted that the women went along to "tend the wounded," Eleanor insisted on taking part in strategy sessions and sided with her uncle Raymond of Antioch instead of her husband Louis on the question of whether to attack Jerusalem. Louis settled the argument by insisting that she accompany him to Jerusalem. The King and Queen of France went home on separate ships, and back in Europe after she gave birth to a daughter, Eleanor insisted on a divorce and married Henry II of England.

During the third crusade, Shagrat al-Durr (d. 1259) wife of the Egyptian sultan, organized the defense of the realm during her husband's illness, became sultan due to the support of the army on his death, and defeated Louis IX, King of France at Damietta. Her overlord the Caliph of Baghdad refused to let a woman ascend the throne and sent a Marmalul solider, Aibak, to take her place. Shagrat then seduced and married Aibak and ruled happily with him until he wanted to take another wife. Shagrat had him murdered, but is killed herself by Aibak's son and former wife.

The paladins who created the Frankish Kingdoms of the East after the First Crusade intermarried with the women of the East, particularly Armenian Christians. One of the children of these unions was Melisende, the daughter of Baldwin II who married Morphia while Count of Edessa. Melisende (1105-1160), Queen of Jerusalem, ruled the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem jointly with her husband or son or vied with them for supreme power. (Women in History Website). The experience of women such as Anna, Eleanor, Shagrat and Melisende proves that women were willing to seize power when the opportunity presented itself. All of these women provoked strong masculine response and found it easier to exercise power through a husband or son.

Eleanor and Shagrat were strong women who were able to assert their independence because of their strong wills and the resources they commanded, but after Eleanor's adventures during the Second Crusade, the Church officially discouraged women rulers from taking vows of crusading. Western women did continue to accompany men to the wars, as the sister and wife of Richard the Lion-Hearted did in the Third Crusade, but they went along in a private capacity. The only women that the Church officially approved for part of the Crusaders army was the washerwomen. Why the washerwomen? They played a vital role in washing clothes to prevent the spread of lice, and they were usually too old to be temptation for men.