In Christine Meek and Catherine Lawless eds., Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Women 4: Victims or Viragos?  (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005) pp. 57 - 68. Women and the First Crusade: Prostitutes or Pilgrims? The general view of the First Crusade is that it was an entirely male affair, and this is not surprising given that even eminent experts in the history of the Crusade can begin articles by saying that ‘the history of the First Crusade is, in large part, the history of mass movements of men’. J. A. Brundage, The Crusades, Holy War and Canon Law, (Aldershot, 1991), II p. 380. An unfortunate beginning to his 1960 article, which is more than redressed in the pathbreaking ‘Prostitution, Miscegenation and Sexual Purity in the First Crusade’ Ibid. XIX, pp. 57-65. Yet the sources for the Crusade give ample and overwhelming evidence that ‘innumerable’ Bernold of St Blaisen (Constance), Chronicon, 1096, Die Chroniken Bertholds von Richenau und Bernolds von Konstanz 1054-1100, ed. I. S. Robinson, MGH Scriptores Rerum Germanicorum nova series 14 (Hanover, 2003), p. 529: innumerabiles. numbers of women joined the movement. A typical, if rather salacious, comment for example occurs in the history of Albert of Aachen as he talks about the setting forth of the Crusade: Crowds from different kingdoms and cities gathered together, but in no sense turning away from illicit and sexual intercourse. There was unbridled contact with women and young girls, who with utter rashness had departed with the intention of frivolity; there was constant pleasure and rejoicing under the pretext of this journey. AA 125. Albert of Aachen’s description of the immorality and licentiousness of the Crusade is coloured by the morality of a celibate male infused with the characteristic misogyny of monasticism. But it is nevertheless a striking passage by an eyewitness to the departure of the First Crusade that raises interesting questions. What motivated women to join the First Crusade? Was the undertaking an opportunity for them to escape a sexually restrictive society? Did they see themselves as participants or were they camp followers? Firstly, to establish that there were indeed thousands of women involved in the Crusade, and that their presence is well attested, the sources can quickly be surveyed. Orderic Vitalis, who wrote his Ecclesiastical History between 1125 and 1141, noted that the determination to either go to Jerusalem or to help others who were going there affected ‘rich and poor, men and women, monks and clerks, townspeople and peasants alike. Husbands arranged to leave beloved wives at home, the wives, indeed, sighing, greatly desired to journey with the men, leaving children and all their wealth.’ OV 5, 17: Diuitibus itaque et pauperibus, uiris et mulieribus. monachis et clericis, urbanis et rusticis, in Ierusalem eundi aut euntes adiuuandi inerat voluntas mirabilis. Mariti dilectas coniuges domi relinquere disponebant, illae uero gementes relicta prole cum omnibus diuitiis suis in peregrinatione uiros suos sequi ualde cupiebant. That many women acted on this inclination is clear. Guibert, abbot of Nogent’s history, written to provide the monastic reader with a set of moral standards J. G. Schenk, The Use of Rhetoric, Biblical Exegesis and Polemic in Guibert of Nogent’s ‘Gesta Dei per Francos’ (unpublished M. Phil thesis: TCD, 2001). is full of (usually derogatory) references to women and is an important source more generally for the theological and moral view of women in the early twelfth century. Guibert was another eyewitness to the departure of those participating in the expedition and described how ‘the meanest most common men and even unworthy women were appropriating to themselves this miracle [the mark of the cross].’ GN 330: ... quilibet extremae vulgaritatis homines et etiam muliebris indignitas hoc sibi tot modis, tot partibus usurpavere miraculum. Ekkehard, abbot of Aura and crusader on the 1101 expedition alongside many of those who had participated in 1096, wrote that of the common people, ‘a great part of them were setting out with wives and offspring and laden with the whole household.’ EA 140. In a manner very similar to that of Albert of Aachen, Ekkehard condemned the ‘degraded women’ (inhonestas feminei) who had joined the Lord’s host under the guise of religion. EA 144. The Anglo-Saxon chronicler, writing in Peterborough, had very little to say about the Crusade, but he did think it noteworthy that countless people set out, with women and children (wifan and cildan). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, ed. Michael Swanton (London, 2000), p. 323. The near contemporary Annals of Augsburg say that along with warriors, bishops, abbots, monks, clerics and men of diverse professions, ‘serfs and women’ (coloni et mulieres) joined the movement. Annales Augustani, MGH SS 3, 134. The epic poem, the Chanson d’Antioche, which, it is generally accepted, contains eyewitness material, has the lines: ‘There were many ladies who carried crosses, and the (freeborn) French maidens whom God loved greatly went with the father who begat them.’ Chanson d’Antioche, II.2, 9-12: Des dames i ot maintes qui ont les crois portées; Et les frances pucieles que Diex a moult amées O lor pères s’en vont quit les ont engenrées. See also Susan B. Edginton, ‘Sont çou ore les fems que jo voi la venir? Women in the Chanson d’Antioche’, in Gendering the Crusades, ed. S. B. Edginton and S. Lambert (Cardiff, 2001), pp. 154-62, here p. 155. Anna Comnena, the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I, writing in the 1140s gave a brief description of the People’s Crusade whose unusual make-up must have been a striking feature. She remembered seeing ‘a host of civilians, outnumbering the sand of the sea shore or the stars of heaven, carrying palms and bearing crosses on their shoulders. There were women and children too, who had left their countries.’ Anna Comnena, The Alexiad, X.5, trans. E. R. A. Sewter (Middlesex, 1979) p. 309. In his description of the disastrous aftermath of the battle of Civetote, 21 October 1096, Albert of Aachen wrote of the Turks who came to the camp of the crusaders: ‘Entering those tents they found them containing the faint and the frail, clerks, monks, aged women, young boys, all indeed they killed with the sword. Only delicate young girls and nuns whose faces and beauty seemed to please the eye and beardless young men with charming expressions they took away.’ AA 119: tentoria vero illorum intrantes quosquos repererunt laguidos ac debiles, clericos, monachos, mulieres gradeuas, pueros, sugentes, omnen vero etatem gladio extinxerunt. Solummodo puellas teneras et moniales quarum facies et forma oculis eorum placere videbatur, iuvenesque inberbes et vultu venustos adbuxerunt. This description by Albert is particularly important in that it draws attention to the previously barely noticed fact that nuns (moniales) came on the crusade. Even after the slaughter at Civetote, many women were assimilated into the Princes’ Crusade. It is clear, indeed, that large numbers of women were travelling with the Princes’ contingents. In Brindisi the first ship of those sailing with Robert of Normandy capsized (5 April 1097). Fulcher of Chartres wrote of the incident that four hundred ‘of both sexes’ perished by drowning. FC I,VIII,2 (169). Fulcher described the united army at Nicea as containing women and children. FC I, X, 4 (183). The Chanson d’Antioche indicated that the camp of the crusaders had a particular women’s section, which was raided by the Turks shortly after the siege of Nicea: ‘Firstly, turning their violence on the ladies, Those who attracted them they took on horseback, And tearing the breasts of the old women, When the mothers were killed their children cried out, The dead mothers suckled them, it was a very great grief, They climbed up on them seeking their breasts, They must be reigning [in heaven] with the Innocents.’ Chanson d’Antioche, III.4, 15-21: Premièrment aus Dames vont leur regne tournant, Celes qui lor contequent es sieles vont montant, Et aus vieilletes vont les mamelles torgant. Quant les mères sont moretes, si crient li enfant, Sor les pis lor montoient, les mameles querant, La mère morte alaitent; ce fu dolor moult grant, El regne aus innocents doivent estre manans. See also Susan B. Edginton, ‘Women in the Chanson d’Antioche’, p. 155. The anonymous author of Gesta Francorum reported that at the battle of Dorylaeum (1 July 1097), the women in the camp were a great help, for they brought up water for the fighting men to drink and bravely always encouraged them, fighters and defenders. GF 19. The Chanson d’Antioche has a description of the same scene: ‘The baronage was thirsty, it was greatly oppressed; The knights of Tancred strongly desired water. They were greatly served by them who were with them. The ladies and maidens of whom there were numerous in the army; Because they readied themselves, they threw off their cloaks, And carried water to the exhausted knights, In pots, bowls and in golden chalices. When the barons had drunk they were reinvigorated.’ Chanson d’Antioche, III.11, 3-10: Li barnages ot soif, si fu moult oppressés; Forment desirent l’aigue li chevalier Tangrés. Mestier lor ont éu celes de leur regné, Les dames et pucieles dont il i ot assés; Quar eles se rebracent, les dras ont jus jetés, Et portèrent de l’aigue aus chevaliers lassés, As pos et as escueles et as henas dorés: Quant ont bu li baron tout sont resvigorés. See also Susan B. Edginton, ‘Women in the Chanson d’Antioche’ , p. 155. During the battle, Turkish horsemen were sent to cover a possible line of retreat, and the near contemporary Historia Vie Hierosolimitane recorded that they ‘cruelly put to the sword almost a thousand men, women, and unarmed, common folk.’ GP 86-7: crudeliter ense necauit, Mille viros ferme, mulieres, vulgus inerme. Further along the march in the arid stretches of Asia Minor, in July 1097 William of Tyre noted the presence of women on the crusade, and their suffering: ‘Pregnant women, because of the rigours of both thirst and of the intolerable heat were forced to expel the foetus before the time decreed by nature. Through sheer mental distress they cast them out in coverlets, some of them alive, some half dead. Others with more humane feelings embraced their offspring. They fell down along the route and forgetful of their feminine sex exposed their secret parts. To a great extent they were more apprehensive about the immediate risk of death than that about the preservation of the reverence that was due to their sex.’ WT 217-18: pregnantes pre sitis angustia et caloris intemperie ante tempus a natura decretum fetus edere compellerentur, quos pre anxietate spiritus quosdam vivos, extinctos quosdam, alios etiam semineces in strate proiciebant; alie, ampliore habundantes humanitate proles suas circumplexe, per vias volutabantur et sexus oblite feminei archana denudabant, magis pro instante mortis periculo sollicite quam ut sexui debitam conservarent reverentiam. Albert of Aachen referred to there being thousands of women and children at the siege of Antioch that began 21 October 1097. AA 252. The Gesta Francorum had a description of a woman in the camp of Bohemond being killed by an arrow during that siege. GF 29. In the plague that followed the capture of the city women were notably more likely to be victims. WT 344. At the climactic denouement of the First Crusade, the capture of Jerusalem (13-15 July 1099), women were still present in considerable numbers, sharing the work and bringing water and words of encouragement to the men. Indeed, according to William of Tyre, who although writing some three generations after the events had access to local traditions in Jerusalem, the women even presumed to take up arms. WT 403. This by no means exhaustive selection of references to women on the Crusade, from a range of sources, establishes without a doubt that women were present in large numbers. But is it possible to focus more closely on the women present in the First Crusade and indicate something of their motivation? One group of women whose presence and role is most easily understood are those who were members of the aristocracy. For a full discussion of their presence on the crusade see S. Geldsetzer, Frauen Auf Kreuzzügen 1096-1291 (Darmstadt, 2003) esp. Appendix 2, pp. 184-7. Because the sources were largely written for the benefit of the aristocracy and because historians such as William of Tyre were interested in the genealogy of the leading noble families in Outremer, we are in a position to name some of the aristocratic women involved in the Crusade. Raymond of Toulouse brought with him on the Crusade his third wife, Elvira, daughter of Alfonso VI of Castile by his mistress, Ximene. FC I, XXXII, 1 (320); GN 134. Baldwin of Boulogne, later Count of Eddessa, also brought his wife, Godehilde of Tosny, ‘an illustrious lady of high rank from England’ wrote William of Tyre. AA 139; WT 453. See also S. Geldsetzer, Frauen Auf Kreuzzügen, p. 186. Godehilde’s first cousin, Emma of Hereford came on the crusade with her husband Ralph I of Gael. OV 2, IV, 318. See also S. Geldsetzer, Frauen Auf Kreuzzügen, p. 185. Bohemond brought his sister with him on Crusade and once he and his nephew The relationship that Historians have generally reached consensus upon, see R. L. Nicholson. Tancred: A study of his career and work in their relation to the First Crusade and the Establishment of the Latin States in Syria and Palestine (Chicago, 1940) p. 3-15, who opts, based on a discussion of the contemporary evidence, for Tancred being the son of Bohemund’s half sister Emma, whereas she is shown as a full sister to Bohemund but without supporting evidence in the Hauteville family tree in E. van Houts, The Normans in Europe (Manchester, 2000) p. 298. Tancred had obtained their impressive landholdings in Outremer, he sought and received suitably prestigious marriage partners. Bohemund married Constance and Tancred her half-sister Cecilia, both daughters of Philip I of France. It is likely that Count Baldwin of Bourcq brought at least one of his sisters with him as she later (12 September 1115) married Roger, Prince of Antioch. WT 498. Walo II, lord of Chaumont-en-Vexin brought his wife, Humberge, daughter of Hugh Le Puiset and sister of the crusader Everard. RM 794 – 6; GP 127. See also S. Geldsetzer, Frauen Auf Kreuzzügen, p. 186. On the deatho of Walo, Humberge was described as being supported by a band of mature ladies (matres). GP 126. In all likelihood the wives and sisters of many other lesser nobles intending to stay in the newly won crusader states were present, but by and large they did not come to the attention of the chroniclers of the Crusade. We know that Hadvide of Chiny, for example, journeyed with her husband Dodo of Cons-la-Grandville only due to charter evidence. Chartres de l’abbaye de St-Hubert-en-Ardenne, ed. G. Kurth, I (Brussels, 1903), p. 81. For Dodo of Cons-la-Grandville see J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, p. 203. Emeline, wife of Fulcher a knight of Bullion only appears in the historical record as a crusader, due to Albert of Aachen taking an interest in the story that although she was captured, because of her beauty an illustrious Turkish knight, a general of Omar, lord of Azaz fell in love with her. At the suggestion of Emeline, this Turkish general contacted Duke Godfrey of Lotharingia with a view to leading a revolt against Ridwan of Aleppo. AA 380. See also S. Geldsetzer, Frauen Auf Kreuzzügen, p. 185. Other than this example, aristocratic women seem to have played no independent role in the Crusade. Their actions or words are not mentioned. This is hardly surprising given that for an aristocratic woman to have a measure of authority c.1100 she would have had to be a widow with a sizeable patrimony or a mother with significant influence over powerful sons. It was the next generation of aristocratic women who controlled property in the Kingdom of Jerusalem who were able to wield some political power, or indeed those women left behind by their noble husbands. The women of the nobility present on the initial expedition were brought to generate families should the conquest be successful and were not in a position to play an independent political role during the campaign. Indeed if their male guardian died on the crusade such aristocratic women could be placed in a difficult position, Humberge was given a speech on the death of Walo that includes the question: ‘other than with a man, can a woman live following the camp?’ GP 128 – 9. Although dependent on Ovid for the phrase, Gilo posed the question in the contemporary setting of the Crusade, using the classical reference to indicate the dependency of the position of aristocratic women on their guardians. Beyond the aristocratic women there were far greater numbers of women of the other social orders. There is no possibility of finding out their names or much detail concerning their backgrounds. Eyewitness descriptions of the gathering of forces for the First Crusade, however, have important information to offer. It is clear, first of all, that women from the social order of pauperes, both urban and rural poor, came with their husbands and children on the crusade. Guibert of Nogent, for example, was amused at the setting forth of entire families of the poor from southern France: ‘you were seeing extraordinarily and plainly the best of jokes; the poor, for example, tied their cattle to two-wheeled carts, as though they were armoured horses, carrying their few possessions, together with their small children, in the wagon. And these infants, when coming to a castle or a city, enquired eagerly if this were the Jerusalem to which they strained.’ GN 120: Videres mirum quiddam et plane ioco aptissimum, pauperes videlicet quosdam, bobus biroto applicitis eisdemque in modum equorum ferratis, substantiolas cum parvulis in carruca convehere et ipsos infantulos, dum obviam habent quaelibet castella vel urbes, si haec esset Jherusalem, ad quam tenderent rogitare. From Pope Urban II’s letter to the clergy and people of Bologna of September 1096, it is clear that the unexpected departure of large numbers of non-combatant forces was a concern and a development to be restrained. Urban II, letter to the clergy and people of Bologna, H. Hagenmeyer ed. Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088 – 1100 (Innsbruck, 1901), p. 137-8. But it is hardly surprising that peasants undertaking the crusade with the expectation of finding a better life moved in entire families. As Ekkehard disapprovingly observed, ‘the farmers, the women and children, roving with unheard of folly, abandoned the land of their birth, gave up their own property and yearned for that of foreigners and go to an uncertain promised land.’ EA 140. There can be no question of describing such women as prostitutes or camp followers. These married women were non-combatant participants like the elderly, the clergy and the children on the crusade. In addition to married women of urban and rural poor families, there is also evidence that unattached women participated in the Crusade. For this there are five important and interesting sources. The first has already been presented: Albert of Aachen’s anger that what should be been a chaste undertaking in the manner of all pilgrimages was contaminated by licentiousness. See above, note 3. The second was a description of the recruiting activities of Peter the Hermit by Guibert of Nogent. Peter was an enormously influential figure in generating support for the Crusade and led the People’s Crusade: ‘[Peter the Hermit] was liberal towards the poor showing great generosity from the goods that were given to him, making wives of prostitutes [prostitutae mulieres] through his gifts to their husbands.’ GN 121: ... dilargitione erga pauperes liberalis, prostitutas mulieres non sine suo munere maritis honestans. For Peter the Hermit see above p. xxx. Guibert’s use of the term prostitutae needs to be put in context. In contemporary ideology, particularly that of a monk, for a woman to fail to give an appearance of modesty, let alone for her to engage in sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage, meant she was considered a prostitute. As summarised in J. A. Brundage, Sex, Law and Marriage in the Middle Ages (Aldershot, 1993) I, p. 378. In fact canonists found it very difficult to define prostitution. A letter by Jerome’s (ca.342-420) contained the definition that ‘a whore is one who lies open to the lust of many men’. In the same letter Jerome clarifies this by saying that ‘a women who has been abandoned by many lovers is not a prostitute.’ Jerome, Epistula, 64.7, PL 22, col. 611: Meretrix, quae multorum libidini patet; col. 612: Non meretricem, quae multis exposita est amatoribus. It was the first formulation that was to be used by Gratian for his widely distributed Decretum (ca.1140). Gratian, Decretum, C.XVI. See J. A. Brundage, Sex, Law and Marriage in the Middle Ages, p. 827. In other words, the early twelfth century concept prostitutae was far broader and much more detached from financial exchange than the modern term prostitute. The term was used by Church reformers to refer to priests’ wives, women who would have considered themselves entirely respectable. Given this context, it seems reasonable to understand Guibert’s prostitutae mulieres as wandering women – his sense of proper place being offended in a manner similar to his attitude towards runaway monks – rather than their literally being ‘prostitutes’. In an article unrelated to the Crusade, G. Duby made a comment that is extremely helpful in analysing the description given by Guibert of the activities of Peter the Hermit. In discussing the consequences of the drive to reform the church from 1075-1125, Duby wrote: ‘Prostitution flourished in the rapidly expanding towns, thronging with uprooted immigrants. Above all, there were those women without men that the reform movement had itself thrown out onto the street, the wives abandoned by husbands because they were priests, or if laymen, because they were bigamists or had contracted an incestuous union. These women were to be pitied, but they were also dangerous, threatening to corrupt men and lead them astray...’ G. Duby, Women of the twelfth century, I: Eleanor of Aquitaine and six others, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1997), p. 36. The fact that Peter the Hermit was providing dowries to ‘prostitutes’ has been noted by E. O. Blake and C. Morris as showing that his was an urban audience. E. O. Blake and C. Morris, ‘A hermit goes to war: Peter and the origins of the First Crusade’, Studies in Church History 22, 1984, 79-107. But it seems possible to draw a further conclusion, that Peter the Hermit was using his gifts to gather a following amongst marginalised women. Those who accompanied him on crusade should therefore, once more, not be considered camp followers in the conventional sense. In the period of the First Crusade these women were prostitutae only in the sense that they were unmarried and as such a cause for concern, particularly to the clergy who were anxious at the potential social disorder they might cause and the contamination of the purity of the pilgrimage. The reforming concept of pilgrimage was closely related to that of the Truce of God, a clerically led peace movement that emphasised chastity and abstinence during the period of peace. The third source, Raymond of Aguilers, gave very detailed accounts of the speeches of peasant visionaries, from which it is possible to detect elements of the political programme of the poor crusader. In one vision of St Andrew to Peter Bartholomew (30 November 1098), we have evidence that the body of unmarried women was still a cause for concern, as the saint says ‘amongst your ranks is a great deal of adultery, though it would please God if you all take wives.’ RA 171: Inter vos caedes et... plurima adulteria: quum Deo placitum sit, si uxores vos omnes ducatis. This idea seems remarkably similar to the aims of Peter the Hermit who was closely linked to the pauperes, for whom, in part, Peter Bartholomew was speaking. Guibert of Nogent, writing for the edification of his congregation of monks, says that the measures taken on the Crusade against unmarried women were far more severe than desiring they be married off. Having made the point that those requiring the protection of God should not be subject to lustful thoughts, he wrote that ‘it happened there that neither a mention of harlot or the name of a prostitute was tolerated... because if it was found that any of those woman was found have become pregnant, who was proven to be without husbands, she and her procurer were surrendered to atrocious punishments.... Meanwhile it came to pass that a certain monk of the most famous monastery, had the cloister of his monastery and undertaken the expedition to Jerusalem, being inspired not by piety but by shallowness, was caught with some woman or other. If I am not mistaken he was found to be guilty by the judgement of red-hot iron, and finally the Bishop of Le Puy and the others ordered that the miserable woman with her lover be led naked through all the corners of the camps and be most fearfully lashed by whips, to the terror of the onlookers.’ GN 196: Unde fiebat ut ibi nec mentio scorti nec nomen prostibuli toleraretur haberi…quod si gravidam inveniri constitisset aliquam earum mulierum, quae probantur carere maritis, atrocibus tradebatur cum suo lenone suppliciis. Contigit interea quemdam predicatissimi omnium coenobii monachum, qui monasterii sui claustra fugaciter excessarat et Iherosolimitanam expeditionem non pietate sed levitate provocatus inierat, cum aliqua femina ibi deprehendi, igniti, nisi fallor, ferri iudicio convinci ac demum Podiensis episcopi ceterorumque precepto per omnes castrorum vicos miseram illam cum suo amasio circumduci et flagris nudos ad terrorem intuentium dirissme verberari. That Guibert is particularly vehement on this point is unsurprising given his purpose. As Brundage has noted, the incident is likely to have some basis in fact given that Albert of Aachen tells a similar story. AA 261-2. Fourthly, a more precisely observed episode of relevance occurred at a moment of great strain for the Crusade, January 1098, during the siege of Antioch, when famine was causing the movement to disintegrate. During this crisis the higher clergy managed to gain an influence over the movement, which they were not subsequently able to maintain. Their argument that to weather the crisis particularly devout behaviour was required carried the day and therefore their hostility to the presence of unmarried women on the crusade surfaced in the form of a decision that women should be driven from the camp. Fulcher – at the time in Edessa – wrote that ‘the Franks, having again consulted together, expelled the women from the army, the married as well as the unmarried, lest perhaps defiled by the sordidness of riotous living they should displease the Lord. These women then sought shelter for themselves in neighbouring towns.’ FC I, XV, 14 (223): tunc facto deinde consilio, eiecerunt feminas de exercitu, tam maritatas quam immaritatas, ne forte luxuriae sordibus inquinati Domino displicerent. Illae vero in castris adfinibus tunc hospitia sibi adsumpserunt. William of Tyre describes the same incident as being a more limited purge of solely ‘light foolish women’ (leves mulierculae). WT 264. This incident reveals the presence of significant numbers of unmarried women on the Crusade and that given the opportunity the senior clergy moved to drive them away and give the movement a character more in keeping with the reforming military pilgrimage that Pope Urban II had envisaged. Finally, the fifth piece of direct evidence for the presence of large numbers of unmarried women on the crusade, an excerpt from the chronicle of Bernold of St Blaisen (Constance): ‘At this time a very great multitude from Italy and from all France and Germany began to go to Jerusalem against the pagans in order that they might liberate the Christians. The Lord Pope was the principal founder of this expedition ...an innumerable multitude of poor people leapt at that journey too simple-mindedly and they neither knew nor were able in any way to prepare themselves for such danger... It was not surprising that they could not complete the proposed journey to Jerusalem because they did not begin that journey with such humility and piety as they ought. For they had very many apostates in their company who had cast off their monastic habits and intended to fight. But they were not afraid to have with them innumerable women who had criminally changed their natural clothing to masculine clothing with whom they committed fornication, by doing which they offended God remarkably just as also of the people of Israel in former times and therefore at length, after many labours, dangers and death, since they were not permitted to enter Hungary they began to return home with great sadness having achieved nothing.’ Bernold of St Blaisen (Constance), Chronicon, 1096, pp. 527-9: His temporibus maxima multitudo de Italia et omni Gallia et Germania Ierosolimam contra paganos, ut liberarent christianos, ire cepit. Cuius expeditionis domnus papa maximus auctor fuit… Nimium tamen simpliciter innumerabilis multitudo popularium illud iter arripuerunt, qui nullomodo se ad tale periculum praeparare noverunt vel potuerunt…Non erat autem mirum, quod propositum iter ad Ierosolimam explere non potuerent, quia non tali humilitate et devotione, ut deberent, illud iter adorsi sunt. Nam et plures apostatas in comitatu suo habuerunt, qui abiecto religionis habitu cum illis militare proposuerunt. Sed et innumerabiles feminas secum habere non timuerunt, quae naturalem habitum in virilem nefarie mutaverunt, cum quibus fornicati sunt; in quo Deum mirabiliter, sicut et Israheliticus populus quondam offenderunt. Unde post multos labores, pericula et mortes, tandem, cum Ungariam non permitterentur intrare, domum inacte cum magna tristicia ceperunt repedare. The importance of Bernold’s work is that it is the most contemporary eyewitness account of the setting forth of the Crusade. He did not wait for the end of the year to write up his chronicle and therefore it is particularly valuable in recording the immediate response to events. It is notable that he shared with Guibert of Nogent and Albert of Aachen a sense that women leaving their allocated social position are similar to monks casting off their habits. Bernold’s description of women dressing as men in order to go on crusade is supported by an entry in the Annals of Disibodenberg which states that news of the expedition depopulated ‘cities of bishops [and] villages of dwellers. And not only men and youths but even the greatest number of women undertook the journey. Wonderful indeed was the spirit of that time in order that people should be urged on to this journey. For women in this expedition were going forth in manly dress and they marched armed.’ Annales s. Disibodi, MGH SS 17, 16: regna rectoribus, urbes pastoribus, vici vastantur habitatoribus; et non tantum viri et pueri, sed etiam mulieres quam plurimae hoc iter sunt aggressae. Mirabilis enim spiritus illius temporis homines impulit ad hoc iter aggrediendum. Nam feminae in hanc expeditionem exeuntes virili utebantur habitu et armatae incedebant. It is possible to see women taking men’s clothing as a form of protection for their journey. Their action could also be a form a social statement, indicating a desire to be considered pilgrims. Both ideas are present in a twelfth century saint’s life, that of St Hildegund, who is disguised by her father, a knight, during their travels on crusade to Jerusalem and who retains her garb to become a famous monk whose secret is only revealed upon her death. A. Butler, Butler’s lives of the Saints, April (London, 1999), p. 141-2. See also V. L Bullough and B. Bullough, Cross Dressing, Sex and Gender (Philadelphia, 1993) p. 54. The prescriptions against women wearing men’s clothes would have been well known at the time of the First Crusade, for example that in Burchard of Worms’ widely disseminated Decretum: ‘if a woman changes her clothes and puts on manly garb for the customary female clothes, for the sake, as it is thought, of chastity, let her be anathema.’ Buchard of Worms, Decretum, VIII.60, PL 140, col. 805A: Si qua mulier propter continentiam quae putatur, habitum mutat, et pro solito muliebri amictu virilem sumit, anathema sit. Guibert of Nogent also told an interesting story in his autobiography in which men and women overcome their fear and distaste of cross-dressing in order to disguise themselves for an escape. Guibert of Nogent, Monodiae, III.9. Nevertheless by this time there was an almost respectable tradition of pious women disguising themselves as men to escape persecution or to live like monks, for example, Pelagia, Thecla, Anastasia, Dorothea, Eugenia, Euphrosyne, Marina and Theodora. D. Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford, 1997), p. 396 (Pelagia), p. 462 (Thecla). J. Coulson ed., The Saints – a concise biographical dictionary (London, 1958), p. 28 (Anastasia), p. 160 (Eugenia), p. 177 (Euphrosyne), p. 300 (Marina), p. 428 (Theodora). See also V. L Bullough and B. Bullough, Cross Dressing, Sex and Gender, p. 51. Whether these tales had any influence over the cross-dressing crusaders is entirely speculative, but it is possible to draw at least one unambiguous conclusion from the description in Bernold and the Annals of Disibodenberg, which is that these women did not attach themselves to the movement as prostitutes – male attire and the bearing of arms being completely inappropriate for such a role. Insofar as historians have considered the role of women on the First Crusade they have tended to make the assumption that the majority of women were associated with the movement as camp followers, prostitutes. A closer examination of the evidence suggests that this is an error and that the thousands of women who went on the Crusade – to find a promised land, or to get away from the towns in which many of them had been abandoned – did so as participants, as pilgrims. PAGE 1