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We generally think of the Crusades as being a time when the men would go off and fight the infidel, and the women -- their wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers -- waiting patiently for them at home. One of the most touching portrayals of the "Crusader widow" is the twelfth century memorial to Count Hugh de Vaudemont and his wife, Anne of Lorraine. Hugh was imprisoned in the Holy Land for sixteen years; when his death was reported, Anne was frequently urged to remarry, but she always firmly refused. The sculpture, at the priory of Belval, in Lorraine, in Nancy, preserves for all time that moment when Count Hugh returned to his Anne.1 We must remember, however, that the story of Anne and Hugh is one of the very few such tales that ends so happily. Even during those times when the crown was entrusted with the protection of Crusaders' property, the experiences of those women left behind to look after home and family could be downright horrifying. William Trussel's wife, for example, was murdered just six weeks after her husband left on crusade in 1190, her body thrown into a pit.2 The ballads of the day were infused with the bittersweet tales of parted lovers, as in Ahi! Amours, written by Conon de Bethune about a year before the siege of Acre began:
Ahi! Amours is but a small sample of the vast amounts of songs contemporary to the siege of Acre which were written along these lines -- whether from the point of view of the lord on crusade or the lady he left behind (the chansons de femme) -- a fascinating form of propaganda which bears examining. The Crusades had, to some extent, revived the whole notion of courtly love. The departure for the Holy Land separates the poet from his lady, bringing him great anguish and misery; and yet, in his heart, he knows that she will only despise him if he remains at home, which will mean that he will lose her.4 This, of course, is a departure from the songs of the First and Second Crusades, which mostly reiterated the points of Pope Urban II's sermon at the Council of Clermont; this was an era when it would seem that terrestrial love, and not love of God, inspired men to take up the cross. Routledge, however, proposes a different derivation for the spate of love-ballads that sprung up in the early years of the Third Crusade: The
features which characterize the expression of the fin'amor in the songs
of the troubadours, trouveres and Minnesanger are longing, tension which
is unresolved, and praise of the beloved. These features can be developed
in a number of ways. For example, if the tension is unresolved, we may
be told the reason why: the lady is of such supreme character and status,
so "distant" from the lover that he despairs of ever attaining
the lofty heights where she dwells. There may be other obstacles and dangers:
actual distance, rivals, gossipmongers (known as losengiers), or the lover's
timidity. It is not difficult to see how such elements of the love-song
may be transferred to the idea of crusading. The unresolved longing may
express the intention, as yet unfulfilled, to go on the crusade, or it
may be used to suggest the idea of the journey which seems so long and
to which no end can clearly be seen.5 Other noblewomen were undoubtedly in attendance at the siege of Acre as well. The wives of noblemen could play an important role in the Holy Land -- according to feudal custom, a wife could succeed her husband and could theoretically find herself at the head of a fief, perhaps even the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Salic law was simply not invoked in that era.9 We know that Queen Berengaria and Queen Joanna were at the siege at its close, when Richard entered the city and claimed the palace within as his prize, sending his bride and sister and their retinue to dwell therein. We know that they and their courts did not leave for England until quite a few months later. But what were they doing at the siege of Acre? One author romantically imagines the queens happy in each other's company, embroidering in a fortress within the camp in the care of two guardian knights.10 Perhaps so; but there is simply no evidence indicating what Berengaria and Joanna spent their days doing, only that they were together, and present during what remained of the siege. McLennan more realistically suggests that "the new Queen would not have found her groom physically attractive during an illness that deprived him of his hair, and in which his skin peeled off in strips. Indeed, perhaps she too suffered the same illness, and was confined to her own sickbed."11 Following the siege of Acre, Eastern and Western accounts both speak of a proposal regarding Queen Joanna; Beha al-Din, Saladin’s biographer, attributes the proposal to Richard himself, but some Western accounts, including Ambroise's, consider Saladin to have originated the proposal. The proposal went like this: Queen Joanna would marry Saladin’s brother al-`Adil; the couple would live in Jerusalem, where they would rule jointly; all prisoners taken at the siege of Acre would be released; and the fragment of the True Cross which Saladin kept in his possession would be entrusted to Joanna and al-`Adil jointly. But the proposal fell through, and here again, the accounts differ as to the reasons. Beha al-Din blames Richard, the "accursed Englishman," who had said that "his sister had returned home in a terrible rage when she was told about his proposal: she had sworn that she would never give herself to a Muslim!"12In any case, the proposal fell through; Saladin kept his piece of the True Cross, the Crusaders slaughtered their prisoners, and Saladin's troops killed or enslaved their own prisoners. The Third Crusade would continue. There were women who fought at siege of Acre. `Imad al-Din wrote of one Western noblewoman who was
a queen in her own land, and arrived accompanied by five hundred knights
with their horses and money, pages and valets, she paying all their expenses
and treating them generously out of her wealth. They rode out when she
rode out, charged when she charged, flung themselves into the fray at
her side, their ranks unwavering as long as she stood firm.13 Among
the Franks there were indeed women who rode into battle with cuirasses
and helmets, dressed in men's clothes; who rode out into the thick of
the fray and acted like brave men although they were but tender women,
maintaining that all this was an act of piety, thinking to gain heavenly
rewards by it, and making it their way of life. Praise be to him who led
them into such error and out of the paths of wisdom! On the day of battle
more than one woman rode out with them like a knight and showed (masculine)
endurance in spite of the weakness (of her sex); clothed only in a coat
of mail they were not recognized as women until they had been stripped
of their arms. Some of them were discovered and sold as slaves.15 `Imad al-Din also complains that Everywhere
was full of old women. These were sometimes a support and sometimes a
source of weakness. They exhorted and incited men to summon their pride,
saying that the Cross imposed on them the obligation to resist to the
bitter end, and that the combatants would win eternal life only by sacrificing
their lives, and that their God's sepulchre was in enemy hands. Observe
how men and women led them into error; the latter in their religious zeal
tired of feminine delicacy, and to save themselves from the terror of
dismay (on the day of Judgement) became the close companions of perplexity,
and having succumbed to the lust for vengeance, became hardened, and stupid
and foolish because of the harm they had suffered.17 There
arrived by ship three hundred lovely Frankish women, full of youth and
beauty, assembled from beyond the sea and offering themselves for sin.
They were expatriates come to help expatriates, ready to cheer the fallen
and sustained in turn to give support and assistance, and they glowed
with ardor for carnal intercourse. They were all licentious harlots.20 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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| Историко-искусствоведческий
портал "Monsalvat" © Idea and design by Galina Rossi created at june 2003 |
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