Elite laywomen and the Ideals of Crusade support in England, c.1187-1291

Abstract

Defining exactly what crusade was and what it meant to participate in it has become an archetypal quandary of medieval study. Scholars have increasingly sought to examine the ideals of crusade, typically focusing on the gendered models. Much of this research has examined preparations and dynastic tradition within the movement. This has broadened our understanding of the performance of masculinity in the Middle Ages and crusaders’ motivations. However, ideal performance of femininity within crusade has yet to be fully investigated. This thesis is a contribution to this growing scholarship which determines medieval crusade ideals; the study examines a parallel identity to that of the martial warrior within crusade, one that has received little consideration, that of the female supporter. By the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, supportive roles away from the battlefield were presented as model roles for women intent on participating in Christian holy war. This study explores this idealised feminine role and the means and motivations of elite laywomen who attempted to conform within England between the years 1187 and 1291. This topic is explored predominantly through the evidence of cartularies and judicial records. The main inquiry uses the organisational stages of crusade as its structure and ends with a case study to marry the thesis’ themes. The thesis initially examines the development of idealised feminine roles in supporting crusade and the dissemination of these ideas across England using the evidence of papal policy, preaching tactics, and art that fostered a sense of Christian community with regard to crusade. This is followed by a discussion of women’s positive responses to this idealised role, demonstrating the potential of charters and records of litigation in uncovering women’s involvement, both theoretical and practical, in recruitment, funding and prayer. The motivations of women’s positive responses are then examined, focusing on two broad stimuli: the indulgences offered for support and the influence of families’ crusading traditions combined with personal prestige. The thesis builds on these themes by proceeding to explore women’s intentions to commemorate crusade and their part in it, looking especially at the culture of gift giving and memorialisation. The final case study focuses on Ela of Salisbury’s (d.1261) support for her son’s crusades. This examines Matthew Paris’s textual representation of Ela as a model crusade supporter within his chronicles and the historical Ela’s involvement in elements of support examined throughout the thesis, such as her exposure to propaganda, her enablement and spiritual support of her son, and her role in solidifying a family identity centred on holy war. This thesis emphasises the crusading identity that elite women in England found in supporting holy war. It argues that women did not simply enable male warriors so that the latter could pursue a martial ideal but also, by doing so, women displayed their own power through largesse, piety and conformity to a feminine ideal. Since Jonathan Riley-Smith’s seminal work of the 1990s, historians have often noted that women encouraged men to crusade and therefore continue dynastic and regional traditions. This thesis builds on these theories and suggests that a more nuanced interpretation of women’s enablement of crusade is needed. It is crucial to consider that women not only facilitated traditions but, by assuming a role that paralleled that of the warrior, they also developed and contributed to family, gender, class and regional crusade identity.