The Power of Crusaders Wives in Narrative and Diplomatic Sources, c Danielle E. A. Park

Transcription

1 18 The Power of Crusaders Wives in Narrative and Diplomatic Sources, c Danielle E. A. Park Contemporary chroniclers often treated the crusaders wives as a homogenous group rather than as individuals. These women were catalogued by their moral attributes; wives were noted for their inconsolable tears as their husbands departed on the crusade, they were described as widows while their husbands were still alive, or they were vilified for their infidelity. 2 Regarding the first of these images - the weeping wife - it is possible that these authors were depicting a likely reality; faced with the uncertainty of their husbands returning and the prospect of widowhood it hardly strains credulity that this was a plausible reaction. Likewise adultery did occur. 3 Rather than providing specific examples the authors dealt with anonymous crusaders wives in general terms as literary tropes employed to underline, as scholarship has noted, the masculinity of the crusading enterprise and male concerns of leaving everything behind to follow Christ. 4 As such these women could enable the crusade by encouraging their husbands to take the cross, or they could inhibit the expeditions by shamefully preventing men from doing so. 5 Crusade preachers recounted that those who took the latter course would meet with divine punishment, such as the loss of a beloved child, in an attempt to prevent other women from following such examples. 6 In terms of the recruitment of the crusade, the power of these women was limited by its morality and the focus of the narrative was necessarily more pronounced on the crusaders not their wives. These portrayals of women served to shed further light on the characteristics of their husbands. The wife was either an extension of her husband s devotion by acting as a symbol of everything that he had left behind to follow Christ, or she was a manifestation of the fears of infidelity while the crusader was absent. However, while the agency of these examples was arguably limited, this paper will demonstrate that comital crusaders wives in both narrative and diplomatic sources exhibited genuine political power in many ways. If crusading was a predominantly a male activity then defending the crusaders families and possessions was not. Recent interest in scholarship of women and the crusade has largely focused on women involved in the crusade itself. These works have concentrated on the portrayals of women and attitudes to female

2 19 involvement in both the crusading expeditions and the subsequent settlement in the Crusader States. 7 This paper focuses on crusaders wives of high rank using both diplomatic and narrative sources to determine the actions of individual crusaders wives, and their practical roles as regents for their crusading husbands. 8 First, this paper will address the portrayal of women as defenders of their territory. Secondly, it will investigate the portrayal of these women overstepping their position as overlords of their local community. A final section will assess the charters that these women issued to detail their policies and the extent of their powers. I Upon taking the cross the crusader was taken under the protection of the Church, as were their wives, children, and possessions. In addition to these ecclesiastical defences, the crusader also appointed a secular representative or regent to rule in their absence. This position was often filled by the crusader s wife. In another clearly gendered role many, although not all, of these female rulers were mothers. Thus the very act of regency might be perceived by our authors as an extension of motherhood. 9 Equally, some women took up arms to defend their husbands interests. The authors of the narrative accounts were keen to point out the wife s moral superiority, and the dishonour and shame of their attackers. Thus, Sibylla of Flanders, the wife of the crusader count Thierry of Flanders, was praised for taking up arms against Count Baldwin of Hainault, an invader of her crusading husband s lands. Our main source for this event is Lambert of Waterlos. Born in Tournai in 1108, he was a canon regular at Saint Audebert and held positions as sub deacon and deacon before he was consecrated as a presbyter in Lambert was close to the events that he described and composed his chronicle more or less contemporary to them; he tells us that in 1148 Count Baldwin invaded Flanders in Thierry s absence: After Thierry, the count of Flanders, had set off on the way of the Lord, Baldwin, the count of Hainault soon broke the concluded treaty, having wholly alienated himself, he attacked the wife of the aforesaid count with arms and through plunder. Because that prudent lady delayed she was unable to fight back (she had ordered [this so that] she might rest because she was close to giving birth). The count, nonetheless, refused to obey her command. After the birth the countess had not forgotten his injury and attack [She] being of virile heart

3 20 pursued the count with her men-at-arms; like a lioness gnashing her teeth in wrath. She restrained the count with his men so that he was beaten by many means. Now she invaded the villages and towns, and whatever [was] under his dominion she laid waste by fire and she dispersed by plunder Thus the count acquired no honour for himself [while] the countess indeed both far and wide [was] made greater in her fame and honour since [her] nobility was praised by many indeed [her] eminence was made more magnificent by the glory she acquired through victory. 11 While Sibylla s gender was essential to the author s portrayal of her, it did not inhibit her ability to rule. Instead her femininity served to underline the justness of her action and to emphasise that just like a lioness, the female of the human species could be as deadly as the male and that the countess might command an army just as well as the count. Sibylla was presented in command of men-at-arms. According to Lambert, she made the correct and proactive decision to attack and she claimed the subsequent honour from the campaign; Lambert credited her not her men-at-arms or male advisors - with both the strategy and the success. Sibylla had not only defeated Baldwin but she had also taken possession of the town of Cantin for Flanders. 12 Sibylla reacted as a feudal lord removing a threat from her territory through the force of her arms. 13 She transcended the fragility of her sex by leading an armed force so soon after giving birth. Lambert made no reference to whether or not Sibylla underwent the twelfth-century ritual churching, whereby a woman waited until forty days after childbirth before entering a church, at which point a priest sprinkled holy water and read psalms to restore her spiritual purity. 14 While notions of pollution were attached in literature to women who rose early from the childbed to fight, Lambert did not mention this custom or Sibylla s failure to adhere to it. 15 Instead he revealed the tremendous support that Sibylla had amassed, and her own capacity to rule and react in the best interests of Flanders. Sibylla was presented as the heroine of this event, restoring calm after invasion and removing a clear threat, a resounding success which may have been enough to exculpate her from any potential criticism surrounding the recent birth of her child. The lioness simile further illustrated the justice and ferocity of her actions in defending her family s territories. Lambert s language, with its emphasis on honour and victory, could equally have

4 21 described a male ruler. While at first glance the lioness simile appears to be an obvious nod to Sibylla s sex, the use of the lioness as a descriptor of male and female actions was not without Biblical precedent, and Herodotus had described the lioness as a particularly strong and brave creature. 16 Moreover, Robert of Rheims, a First Crusade chronicler writing in the early twelfth century, had clearly felt that the image of a lioness defending her cubs was ferocious enough to be applied to men. When the following day dawned our men ran to take up arms and stormed savagely through the roads and squares and on the roofs of the houses, like a lioness deprived of her cubs. 17 While the sample size of the lioness motif in the crusading context is small, the fact that it was used for as masculine an enterprise as crusading suggests that the image could be equally applied to military circumstances involving both mothers and military men. Sibylla exerted this power with dignity and her actions were doubly legitimised because Baldwin had not only gone against a recent treaty, but he had also attacked a crusader s wife while Thierry was absent on crusade. This was in direct violation of the crusade protection privilege which granted the crusaders families and possessions protection while the crusader was absent and lasted until the crusaders death or return. 18 It is unsurprising that, in light of these circumstances and her obvious military success, from Lambert s perspective Sibylla grew great in renown while Baldwin was dishonoured, defeated, and put to flight. II Military might was an exceptional way that crusader s wives could express their power; consequently this paper will now concentrate on the diplomatic sources. These materials were often written as immediate responses to certain event and as a means of impressing authority. The example of Adela of Blois ( ) additionally reveals the extent of authority that could manifest in a female regent. In his letter to Adela in c.1104, Bishop Hildebert of Lavardin ( ) encouraged Adela to exercise restraint in the power that she wielded. The fact that he urged her to learn from Seneca and suggested that she remember her past actions might imply that she had lapsed in this regard:

5 22 On clemency too Seneca honed succinct chapters for rulers, in which he chose a brevity not at all obscure, to ensure that those preoccupied with important matters should not be bored by reading. So listen and take to heart these excerpts for you and to you, which you have already learned from yourself and of yourself. They are just a few: It is the function of clemency to make some reduction to an avenging sentence. Whoever leaves nothing of a charge unpunished is wrong. It is a fault to pursue a fault in full. The man who takes pleasure in doing whatever is in his power advertises himself as merciless. Again: it is glorious virtue in a ruler to punish less than he might. It is virtue when one is dragged towards vengeance by compulsion, not when one visits it voluntarily. The injured man who is clement has a taste of what is great and godlike. Again: the good ruler punishes no one without [experiencing] punishment, he proscribes no one without [experiencing] pain. The good ruler pursues an offence in such a way that he keeps in mind that the person whom he is pursuing is a human being. Again: the good ruler is in control of himself, he is the slave of his people, he scorns the blood of no one. It is an enemy s blood but a human being s. Whomever it [the blood] belongs to, because he could not remit the offence, he [the ruler] considers that it [the blood] removes it. Accordingly, whenever it [blood] is shed, it is shed altogether. 19 The reliance on Seneca in this letter is striking and editors have noted that none of the phrases attributed to Seneca appear in the original De Clementia. This suggests that Hildebert was either working from a tradition or excerption that has not survived, or that this is a Christianised fabrication. 20 Seneca s dialogues were hugely popular from the eighth century onwards and reached new heights in the twelfth century, at around the time that Hildebert was writing. De Clementia circulated as an incomplete letter derived from a Carolingian manuscript taken to the Loire valley in the early twelfth century, from which monasteries produced a proliferation of copies. 21 However, it has been commented that the preservation of these texts was less than ideal. Since late Antiquity Seneca s letters had survived in two separate traditions, the first contained missives 1-88 and the second held the remaining materials. As one of the earliest writers in the twelfth century to regularly employ Seneca in his own work Hildebert was only aware of the first half. 22 In addition to this tradition, excerpts from Seneca s works were often used in florilegia which remained in use throughout the Middle Ages. 23 The text was Christianised for a medieval audience and Baraz argues that in this period the medieval understanding

6 23 of cruelty was becoming focused on the spiritual, and cruelty was defined by its impact on salvation rather than the classical stress on the physical and the interpersonal. 24 Consequently, a strong medieval influence was interpolated into the transmission of Seneca s letters which may further explain why none of Hildebert s quotations are exact. 25 Duby interpreted Hildebert s text as a fawning letter designed to depict Adela as a good ruler and to illustrate her successes in following the bishop s ideal. However, I am inclined to agree with LoPrete s reading that in this letter the bishop was urging her to cultivate clemency when exercising her princely power to punish others. 26 Hildebert s use of an exemplary conduct to illustrate the power of mercy might suggest that Adela was lacking in clemency, especially as in this period it was arguably more common for the wife to be the intercessor to a less than clement husband, rather than the recipient of such advice. 27 The author was keen to advocate the virtues of mercy as opposed to cruelty. The bishop s reiteration of the importance of clemency and his instruction that Adela read Seneca suggest that, for Hildebert, the countess had not consistently ruled with mercy and was in need of a timely reminder. Seneca s works were circulated in the Middle Ages and it is striking that the bishop chose to persuade Adela to read an author noted for curbing the young Nero s predilection for murder. 28 Seneca had written De Clementia at the beginning of Nero s reign, before the young emperor perpetrated most of his atrocities. Nevertheless, at the time Nero was suspected of the murder of Brittanicus and few of his imperial predecessors had been noted for their mercy. 29 By juxtaposing the good clement king and the tyrant Seneca invoked the power of clemency for kingship as a means of ensuring the good will of Nero s subjects. 30 Hildebert was by no means the only author to employ Seneca in this rhetorical fashion, examples of the Mirror for Princes genre survive from France, Germany, Italy and Spain. 31 It seems likely that Hildebert had a similar agenda in mind beyond the traditional exhortation that a woman should exercise clemency. Adela s husband, Count Stephen of Blois, had died at the Battle of Ramla in 1102 and the onus was now on the countess to rule well until her sons came of age. Moreover, the recent past had demonstrated that Adela could overstep her comital duties, and in 1102, only two years before Hildebert s letter to the countess, the Church had felt her wrath. This particular issue had arisen from Ivo s attempts to raise low-born members of Adela s entourage to the priesthood. Although Ivo had applied for a papal dispensation, Adela had believed that

7 24 the bishop had abandoned her cause. In retaliation for this perceived slight Adela had sanctioned robbery and violence towards the canons at Châteaudun. 32 The idea that regents could exploit their position was not exclusive to Hildebert. The wife of Narjot, a crusader from Auxerre, was summoned to court in 1110 for misusing her authority and was condemned for her prolonged oppression of the Church through excessive taxes, despite the fact her crusading husband, writing to her from the East, had instructed her to desist. And seized by illness on his way, reaching his last moment, he confessed his sins to the same [the patriarch of Jerusalem] but hearing that repentance was pointless unless things were put right [Narjot] sent letters to his wife and people for the relaxing of the same onerous taxes, by grace ordering and requesting that for the sake of his immortal soul the [taxes] be returned to [the monks] and not be exacted again in any way by any [of his] successors. In truth not only had [his wife and son] refused to give back the same taxes but [they] had added even more onerous ones [and in doing so] they had piled greater evils on evil. 33 Narjot s wife ignored the instructions of her husband and, in fact, she increased the unfair taxes that she exacted from the abbey and citizens. The episode indicates the extent of the regent s authority and the scope of female influence further down the social scale. III This final section of this paper will address the charters issued in the name of these women. These documents represent records of government disseminated for a specific purpose to make their political will clear to their subjects. Thus, in 1097 Countess Clemence of Flanders introduced the theme of the First Crusade which dominated and informed the remainder of the text and her comital position. At the time in which the indignation of the Christians blazed up against the perfidious Persians, who in their pride and arrogance had seized the church of Jerusalem and all about far and wide they threw down the Christian religion. The grace of the Holy Spirit inflamed the heart of my lord and husband, Robert count of Flanders, so that plentifully supplied

8 25 with arms in hands he set off on the expedition for the repressing of the perfidious Persias. 34 This is not a phrase from the accounts of Urban II s call to the First Crusade, but it shares many of those themes and characteristics. Her use of the historical and Biblical term Persians, rather than the more accurate Turks, was not unusual for this period. 35 Fulcher of Chartres, an eyewitness to the Council of Clermont and a participant on the First Crusade presented Urban preaching the expedition with this same emphasis on Persians. For as many of you have already been told, the Turks, a Persian race, have overrun them [Christians] right up to the Mediterranean Sea, to that strait called the Arm of St George. Occupying more and more of the land of the Christians on the borders of Romania, they have conquered those who have already been overcome seven times by warlike invasion, slaughtering and capturing many, destroying churches and laying waste the kingdom of God. 36 Clemence (or the author of her charter) understood the crusade as a war intended to liberate the Christian churches of Jerusalem; a just cause with divine approval evidenced by the fact that Robert was incited by the Holy Spirit. 37 Thus Clemence seemingly had clear ideas about the First Crusade. Her charter contains a cogent appraisal of the crusade message, the motives and aspirations of her husband, and his pious acts in the first stages of his journey. This document provides insight into both how the countess viewed the crusade and her husband s part in it. Her level of knowledge is unsurprising given that Pope Urban II himself had instructed the people of Bologna that young married men were not to take the cross without the consent of their wives. 38 Consequently, it is plausible that she would be wellinformed. The charter also served to underline her position both as crusader s wife and crusade regent; detailing her status and stature as such in the light of her husband s actions. Robert, alone of all the crusaders was singled out here, understandably so given that he was her husband, and because his actions were of the utmost concern to both countess and county. The count s right intent and piety informed a further facet of her charter, she tells us that Robert s brother-in-law, the duke of Apulia,

9 26 asked the count to accept gold, silver and precious ornament, but Robert rejected this offer in favour of most precious relics. 39 These relics included hairs from the head of Mary the blessed mother of God and perpetual Virgin, and the bodies of the saints Matthew and Nicholas, which the count arranged to transfer to Clemence. 40 For the countess, this provided a means to express her husband s religiosity in the first stages of his journey to the Holy Land. 41 Equally this gave Robert the opportunity to spiritually enrich those he left behind. Fittingly for a crusader en route to Christ s patrimony these relics had connections to Jesus Christ, and Robert may have hoped such relics would provide divine protection over both himself and the county he left behind him. This issue was clearly of concern to crusaders, Count Stephen of Blois and Countess Adela granted part of a forest to the monks of Marmoutier, a decision that had partly been motivated by the hope that this act would expiate the count of any sins and ensure that providence would lead him safely home from the crusade: And so that God, by the intervention of Blessed Martin and his monks might indulge me, however much I had transgressed against him, and lead me and return me to my own country safe and sound on my aforementioned journey, and that he might safeguard Adela, my oft-mentioned wife and our children [we gave] a certain amount of a certain allod of ours, that is the wood which is called Long Forest, free from all future taxes. I have also ordered my same wife, who remained behind, that she shall cause the said part to be determined and measured 42 In any case the relics that Robert acquired dominated much of the countess charter, he transferred these most precious relics to me through faithful messengers, instructing and entreating me to store them in the Church of Watten and to consecrate the same church in honour and in the name of the same Virgin.. 43 Here we must make an important distinction regarding her actions and attitudes in the charter. Thus far the charter has revealed the image of a devout crusader maintaining control, albeit at a distance, over his county through messages to his wife. However, at this point Robert s influence fades away, allowing Clemence to come much more to the fore, both politically and spiritually. The second half of the charter gives insight into how the countess constructed her role outside of her husband s influence. In Robert s absence the see of Thérouanne had fallen vacant and was desolate of episcopal care. 44

10 27 Thus Clemence called upon Archbishop Manasses of Rheims and Bishop Lambert of Arras to translate these relics and consecrate the church. In addition to her husband s instructions, Clemence also donated her dower land of Synthe to the same institution. The charter stipulated that the church was to hold this territory freely, just as the counts of Flanders possessed it from the beginning, suggesting that she had alienated long held Flemish land. 45 The charter concluded with the usual malediction clause against anyone who would infringe this act; Bishop Lambert of Arras thrust the sword of anathema against those who threatened Clemence s largess and the church benefices. 46 The bishop provided further security and legitimacy to the countess grant and his involvement as a witness also fitted with comital policy; Lambert acted in this capacity in Robert s charters dated before and after his departure on the First Crusade. 47 By following Robert s policies and employing the same witnesses Clemence provided vital political continuity and exercised comital powers to act as her husband would while she ruled in his place, which was the purpose of a regency. We might suggest then that her authority in terms of the drafting of the charter was limited. However, the grant was given only in her name and besides this charter other sources reveal that she was a significant political player. Clemence had a continued role in the filling of the vacant see in the Church of Thérouanne. It seems that the countess was instrumental in the displacement of Obert, the bishop of Thérouanne, and the appointment of the reformer John of Waasten in his place. Simon of St Bertin, who wrote his monastic history at the command of Abbot Lambert between 1095 and 1123, described how these events took place in the time Robert the younger was then being delayed at Jerusalem. 48 Thus with regards to this church, Clemence carried out the spiritual roles incumbent on her as a crusader s wife and regent. By dispensing relics she followed her husbands instructions. By filling a vacant see she acted to ameliorate the spiritual care of those in her charge, but by overturning an election she was also enforcing her own will. She knew her own remit as regent and was able to move beyond the explicit instructions that Robert had sent to her and act as she saw fit. In the process she pursued her own agenda - the establishment of Cluniac reform in Flanders - which she continued to promote even after her husband s return. 49 These sources reveal the level of independence that Robert had given her as regent, she was able to follow not only his instructions, but also her own will the count had no role in the election that she overturned.

11 28 Her power was also evident in the visual markers of her prestige that included her own seal and the fact that she minted her own coins, both of which show the considerable resources and authority at her disposal. 50 Coins embodied a political and physical representation of the ruler, and were widely disseminated. 51 The possession of a seal in particular may suggest that she had at least some input into the Flemish chancery since seals were another way to ratify these documents and a vital means of communicating images of power. 52 The inscription of the owner s name was designed to prevent forgery, to prove the legitimacy of the act, and to ensure its permanence regardless of whether those involved were literate. 53 As a seal ensured the validity of the act and encouraged trust in a transaction, this must have taken on an added significance when a regent was in power and the fact that Clemence possessed her own at a time when seals were far from in common usage suggests that she was an influential figure. 54 There was little point producing seals and coinage for a politically redundant personage since the point of these items was to cement and symbolise legitimate authority. Conclusion Clemence of Flanders, Adela of Blois, Narjot s wife, and Sibylla of Flanders all fulfilled the authoritative and protective role of regent that wives could legitimately take on in the absence of their husbands. Sibylla especially was a regent par excellence and while Lambert s account of her was to some extent gendered, the countess sex was not presented as a disadvantage, Sibylla s recent pregnancy and childbirth was not used to derogate her, and the countess involvement in the campaign was not used as an excuse to ridicule Count Baldwin of Hainault. Likewise, letters addressed to Adela and Narjot illustrate that female regents could be seen as over-exercising their power. While it was common in this period for women to persuade their husband s to act more virtuously, these women demonstrate that wives could also transgress. Finally this paper addressed material issued in the name of these women, revealing the power and influence that Clemence possessed, how she acted for the spiritual well-being of their subjects, her knowledge of the crusade, and the decisions which female rulers could make in their husbands absences. Our sources reveal how individual women were portrayed and how they presented themselves, and demonstrate how these wives acted as individuals beyond the exemplary and didactic motifs that preachers and crusade chroniclers employed. The crusaders wives were portrayed by contemporaries and they presented themselves in more powerful

12 29 ways. They could weep on the side-lines but they could also defend their counties, overstep the bounds of acceptable authority, and issue acts of government much like their crusading husbands. 1 I am grateful to the AHRC for supporting the research that led to this paper. 2 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, ed. and trans. S.B. Edgington (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 2-3, pp ; Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. H. Hagenmayer (Heidelberg, Carl Winters Universität buchhandlung, 1913), p.163; William of Tyre, Chronicon, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, vol.1 (Turnhout, Brepols, 1986), p.140; De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. and trans. C.W. David, with a new foreword and bibliography by J.P. Phillips (New York, Columbia University Press, 2001), p.71, p.131; nr. 247, Bernard of Clairvaux, Sancti Bernardi Opera, vol. 8, ed. J. Leclercq and H.M. Rochais (Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1977), p Chronique I, Monumenta Vizeliacensia, Textes relatifs à l histoire de l abbaye de Vézelay, C.C.C.M., vol. 42, ed. R.B.C. Huygens (Turnhout, Brepols, 1976), p.400, p.402; trans. The Vézelay Chronicle and other documents from MS. Auxerre 227 and elsewhere, trans. J. Scott et al. (Binghamton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), p James A. Brundage, The Crusader's Wife Revisited', Studia Gratiana 14 (Rome, 1967), pp ; C. M. Rousseau, Homefront and Battlefield: The Gendering of Papal Crusading Policy ( ), Gendering the Crusades, ed. S.B. Edgington and S. Lambert (Cardiff, Columbia University Press, 2001), pp.31-44; Lambert Crusading or Spinning ; Matthew Bennet, Virile Latins, Effeminate Greeks and Strong Women: Gender Definitions on Crusade? in Gendering the Crusades. 5 James of Vitry, Sermon 2, ed. and trans. C.T. Maier, Crusade Propaganda (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp Gerald of Wales, Itinerarium Kambriae, Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, VI, ed. J.F. Dimock (London, Rolls Series, 1868), p See for instance: Gendering the Crusades, ed. S.B. Edgington and S. Lambert (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2001); N.R. Hodgson, Women, Crusading and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative (Woodbridge, Boydell, 2007); S. Geldsetzer, Frauen auf Kreuzzügen, (Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2003); R. Mazeika, Nowhere was the Fragility of their Sex Apparent Women Warriors in the Baltic Crusade Chronicles, From Clermont to Jerusalem: The Crusades and Crusader Societies , ed. A.V. Murray (Turnhout, Brepols, 1998), pp ; Christoph T. Maier, The Roles of Women in the Crusade Movement: A Survey Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004), pp ; Natasha Hodgson, Nobility, Women and Historical Narratives of the Crusades and the Latin East, Al Masāq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 17 (2005), 61-85; S.B. Edgington, Romance and Reality in the sources for the sieges of Antioch, , in Porphyrogenita. Essays on the History and Literature of Byzantium and the Latin East in Honour of Julian Chrysostomides, eds. C. Dendrinos, J. Harris, E. Harvalia-Crook, J.Herrin (Aldershot, Ashgate 2003), C. Kostick, 'Women and the First Crusade', in Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Women: Vol. 3, eds. C. Meek and C. Lawless (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2005), pp ; Megan McLaughlin, The woman warrior; gender, warfare and society in medieval Europe, Women's Studies 17 (1990), pp ; Helen Nicholson, Women on the Third Crusade, Journal of Medieval History 23 (1997), pp This subject has attracted less attention in scholarship than women on the crusade see: T. de Hemptinne, Les épouses des croisés et pèlerins flamands aux XI e et XII e siècles: L exemple des comtesses de Flandre Clémence et Sibylle, Autour de la première croisade: Actes du Colloque de la

13 30 Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East Clermont-Ferrand (22-25 juin 1995), ed. M. Balard (Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996), pp.83-95; Aristocratic Women in Medieval France, ed. T. Evergates (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999); K.A. LoPrete, Adela of Blois: Countess and Lord (c ) (Dublin, Four Courts 2007). 9 Hodgson, Women, Crusading and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative, p. 159; Geldsetzer, Frauen auf Kreuzzügen, p Lambert of Waterlos, Annales Cameracenses, MGH SS 16 (Hannover, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1859), pp , p Ibid., trans. S. Edgington, H. Kleineke and D. Park, p T. de Hemptinne, Thierry d Alsace, comte de Flandre Biographie et actes, Annales de l est, 5 th series, vol. 43 (1991), p K.S. Nicholas, When Feudal Ideals Failed, Conflicts Between Lords and Vassals in the Low Countries, , The Rusted Hauberk, Feudal Ideals and Order and Their Decline, ed. L.O. Purdon and C.L. Vitto (Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 1994), p S.C. Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Ritual, An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany (London, Routledge, 1997), p P. McCracken, The Curse of Eve, the Wound of the Hero, Blood, Gender and Medieval Literature (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 2003), p.61, p. 68, p Numbers 23-26; Herodotus, The Histories, trans. R. Waterfield (Oxford, Oxford Paperbacks, 2008), p Robert the Monk s History of the First Crusade, trans. C. Sweetenham (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005), p For a discussion of the protection privilege and its implications see D. Park, Under Our Protection, That of the Church and Their Own - Papal and Secular Protection of the Families and Properties the Crusaders Left Behind, c , (PhD thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2013). 19 PL 171 (Paris, Garnier, 1893), nr. 3, cols ; trans. S. Braund, Seneca: De Clementia (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009), p Braund, Seneca: De Clementia, p M. Lapidge, The Stoic Inheritance, A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988) pp , p R.M. Thomson, William of Malmesbury (Woodbridge, Boydell, 2003), p G.B. Conte, Latin Literature: A History (Baltimore, John Hopkins Press, 1994), p Baraz, Seneca, Ethics, and the Body, p M. L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, Volume One. Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature (Leiden, Brill, 1985) p K.A. LoPrete, Adela of Blois: Familial Alliances and Female Lordship, Aristocratic Women in Medieval France, pp.7-43, p G. Duby, Women and Power, Cultures of Power, Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. T.N. Bisson (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), p.77; Sharon Farmer, Persuasive Voices: Clerical Images of Medieval Wives, Speculum, vol. 61 (1986), pp Braund, Seneca: De Clementia, p Daniel Baraz, Seneca, Ethics, and the Body: The Treatment of Cruelty in Medieval Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 59 no.2 (1998), pp , (p.196). 30 J. Smith, Christ the Ideal King (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2011), p M.T. Griffen, Seneca on Society: A Guide to De Beneficiis (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), p.167.

14 31 32 K.A. LoPrete, Adela of Blois and Ivo of Chartres: Piety, Politics, and the Peace in the Diocese of Chartres, Anglo-Norman Studies, XIV Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1991, ed. M. Chibnall (Woodbridge, Boydell, 1992), pp , (p.147). 33 Recueil des chartes de l abbaye de Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, ed. M. Prou and A. Vidier, vol. 1 (Paris, A. Picard et fils, 1907), nr. 107, pp ; trans. M. Hall. 34 Epistulae et Chartae ad Historiam Primi Belli Sacri Spectantes quae supersunt aevo aequales ac genuinae, Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den jahren , ed. H. Hagenmeyer (Innsbruck, Wagner schen Universitäts-buchhandlung, 1901), nr. 7, pp The First Crusade, The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials, ed. E. Peters (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), p. 25, p The account of Fulcher of Chartres, L. and J.S.C. Riley-Smith, The Crusades, Idea and Reality, (London, Edward Arnold, 1981), p.40. For other uses of the term Persians to describe the Seljuk Turks see: The Gesta Tancredi of Ralph of Caen; A History of the Normans on the First Crusade, trans. B.S. Bachrach and D.S. Bachrach (Farnham, Ashgate, 2005); The Chanson d Antioche, An Old French Account of the First Crusade, trans. S.B. Edgington and C. Sweetenham (Farnham, Ashgate, 2011); Sweetenham, Robert the Monk s History of the First Crusade; Guibert of Nogent, The Deeds of God through the Franks, trans. R. Levine (Woodbridge, Boydell, 1997). 37 Kreuzzugsbriefe, nr. 7, pp Urban to his partisans in Bologna, The Crusades, Idea and Reality, pp Kreuzzugsbriefe, nr. 7, p Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Dunois, ed. É. Mabille (Châteaudun, Henri Lecesne,1874), nr. 92, pp.79-82, pp.79-81; trans. Kleineke and Park. 43 Kreuzzugsbriefe, nr. 7, p Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Actes des comtes de Flandre, , ed. F. Vercauteren (Brussels, Palais des académies,1938), nr. 23 pp.68-70, nr. 34 pp Simonis Gesta Abbatum S. Bertini Sithiensium, MGH SS 13 (Hannover, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1881), pp , p H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and Gregorian Reform (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970), p P. Adair, Ego et mea uxor : Countess Clemence and her role in the comital family and in Flanders ( ), unpublished PhD dissertation (University of California, 1993), pp A.M. Stahl, Coinage in the Name of Medieval Women, Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval History, ed. J.T. Rosenthal (Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1990), p M.T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, England , 3 rd edition (Oxford, Blackwell, 2012), p Clanchy, Memory to Written Record, p.53, p.235, p T. de Hemptinne, Women as Mediators between the Powers of Comitatus and Sacerdotium, Two Countess of Flanders in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, The Propagation of Power in the Medieval West, Selected Proceedings of the International Conference, Groningen November 1996(Groningen, Egbert Forsten, 1997), pp , p.293.