Wanton Women and Women Warriors in Arabic and Latin Chronicles of the Crusades

Women involved in the crusading movement (11^th -13^th c.) and the Muslim counter-crusades (jihād) are often understood in a binary between supporters or obstructers, rather than fighters in their own rights. On the home front, women were either imagined as hindrances (or encouragers) of their husbands’ martial involvement or, if they went along, as camp-women: prostitutes, laundresses, or lice-pickers. Some historians have theorized that women could take up arms in defense of their camps or outposts, but the sources for women actively fighting is sparse and inconclusive. More clear is the gendered nature of the texts which describe women’s possible martial activity: both Latin Christian and Arabic Muslim chronicles described enemy women fighting and engaging in immoral sexual behavior, in order to cast aspersions on the righteousness and military prowess of the other side. Employing shared gender expectations, both Christian and Muslim chroniclers depicted women warriors who could not be distinguished from male warriors on the battlefield —thus emasculating the enemy. Likewise, Christian and Muslim authors described the odd sexual behaviors of the other side’s women. For both sides, negative portrayals of the sexual ethics and gender roles of the enemy were a prime opportunity for deriding the enemy and promoting the righteousness of their own cause. By evaluating key Muslim and Christian chronicles of the Crusades, this paper examines the debates surrounding the question of women warriors and analyzes the roles that images of women, both in bed and on the battlefield, played in interreligious dialogue during the Crusades.