What Role Did Women Play During The Crusades?

 

Pregnant women and crusades seems to be a massive contradiction but it did happen. Motivated by sheer religious devotion or perhaps not wanting to be parted from their husbands, expectant women made the long and difficult journey to the Holy Land and elsewhere. The suffering in blistering summer heat in the East would have been terrible for women in this condition and Albert of Aachen spoke of pregnant women travelling alongside the First Crusade and being forced to give birth prematurely and with water supplies running desperately low. Albert, in almost accusing fashion, says that the women abandoned their child to die by the roadside but the likelihood of either mother or child surviving in this instance would have been doubtful at best. Surviving a medieval pregnancy was a minor miracle at the best of times. Giving birth on Crusade, depending on the circumstance, quite probably, horrendous.

It would be easy here to question why a woman, in circumstances such as these, would even think of going on Crusade. Indeed, to us today, it seems almost madness for anyone to go on Crusade, male or female. Often, for the male Crusaders, greed has often been levelled at them and that would have certainly been a factor for some. But, for both the men and women of the Crusading era, the true motivation was unquestionably driven by their religious convictions. Ultimately, the opportunity to travel to the Holy Land was something that simply could not be passed up. The dangers that such ventures posed to their physical and mental well being was clear. In his preaching for the First Crusade, Pope Urban had spoken in no uncertain terms as to what lay ahead for his Holy Army.

And stories of the First Crusade and the remarkable and often chilling deeds that were accomplished there would not only have inspired future generations of would-be warriors and pilgrims but would also have informed them of the immense sufferings that the likes of Godfrey of Bouillon had gone through during the First Crusade. So, ignorance cannot be used as a reason to explain why Crusaders and their female companions decided to make such a journey in the name of Christ.

Of course, with different classes taking part in the Crusades, it’s likely that women of less reputable backgrounds may have hoped to use their charms in order to gain some advantage with some European nobleman but that would be far from the norm. For the women like Adela of Normandy, wife of Count Stephen of Blois, a leader of the First Crusade, Crusades were to be fought with no half measures. When Stephen returned to the West before the task of Jerusalem being retaken had been achieved, Adela ordered him to return. He did, was captured by Muslim enemies and was beheaded. Adela would grieve at the news but, for her, comfort lay in the fact that her husband had died both a man and in the name of Christ. A Holy Warrior.