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[History Blog] Frankish Women in the Crusades

Blogs > TheGiz
Post a Reply
TheGiz
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada708 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-09 22:24:17
October 26 2011 19:53 GMT
#1
Hey there TL!

So you may have noticed that my blogs have started becoming a little more diverse in topic. I think it's a good thing. I'm writing this blog because I love history and have a history report to write by the end of the day and I figure this is a good way to get my rough thoughts down. It's actually super-interesting: Frankish women were sluts!



Frankish Women of Peace and War

So the document that I have to review is by Imad ad-Din, an Arab historian who was a very good friend of Saladin. He's actually a character in the movie Kingdom of Heaven, which is terrible history but still good for picturing what everything looked like at the time:

[image loading]
Imad ad-Din at the Battle of Kerak

Imad ad-Din is a good primary source for the Arab side of the conflict in the Crusades, since he both lived through the Second and Third crusades and was also directly involved as a political figure and scribe. Of course he's biased, but at this time who wasn't? You will find no such thing as a secular source written in the middle ages, unless a Buddhist Monk were to witness everything.

So the Third Crusade was sparked when Jerusalem and Acre fell. It's main two leaders were Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, but the deposed King of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan also took part, along with Frederick I Barbarossa of Germany (his run was cut short, in the least awesome way imaginable), and Philip Augustus of France.



Well, in Imad ad-Din's document he talks about a group of 300 Frankish (French) women who came to the Holy Land with some mighty queen. They came with a very special mission; to relieve the crusaders of their pent up sexual desires during the long siege of Acre. Apparently, they were somehow ordained by the Church to give up their bodies to the crusaders as the noblest of selfless sacrifices in order to appease them, and God would forgive them of their sinfulness. I don't know if this was a papal declaration or not, but Imad ad-Din does not think too highly of it. He was certainly not shy of using every medieval sexual innuendo imaginable to describe what was going on though. Check it out:

They were the places where tent-pegs are driven in, theyinvited swords to enter their sheaths, they razed their terrain for planting, they made javelins rise toward shields, excited the plough to plough, gave the birds a place to peck with their beaks, allowed heads to enter their ante-chambers and raced under whoever bestrode them at the spur’s blow. They took the parched man’s sinews to the well, fitted arrows to the bow’s handle, cut off sword-belts, engraved coins, welcomed birds into the nest of their thighs, caught in their nets the horns of butting rams, removed the interdict from what is protected, withdrew the veil from what is hidden. They interwove leg with leg, slaked their lovers’ thirsts, caught lizard after lizard in their holes, disregarded the wickedness of their intimacies, guided pens to inkwells, torrents to the valley bottom, streams to pools, swords to scabbards, gold ingots to crucibles, infidel girdles to women’s zones, firewood to the stove, guilty men to low dungeons, money-changers to dinar, necks to bellies, motes to eyes.

So basically they had a lot of sex with pretty much everyone who needed it, and it earned them a one-way ticket to heaven. I'd compare it to tailgating outside a football game, but replace the barbecues with women on cots and you get the idea.

Apparently there were other women there too, even though the popes at the time of the crusades didn't want women going on them in the first place. They were noblewomen with money who dressed up as knights and fought. You would have had not clue that they were women until they were captured, at which point they'd be promptly sold off as slaves, and despite Muslim laws pertaining to slaves I'm willing to be the quality of their treatment was dubious at best. These were, after all, dark times with different attitudes about a great many things. ad-Din basically laments the fact that they were out of the kitchen, and God have mercy on whomever let them do it.

Imad ad-Din also mentions that there were old women there for the purpose of motivation, but at other times they were a weakness. He doesn't speak too highly of them, although though in reality they were probably nuns.

Imad ad-Din concludes with the statement that the latter women, "in their religious zeal tired of feminine delicacy... and became hardened, and stupid, and foolish." He more or less relates their religious wrongness to the fact that they are taking some refuge in audacity to cover for the fact that they have lost their femininity because they went out crusading in the first place. What turns this into circular logic is the fact that their religious zeal is what led them to crusade in the first place...

Either way, this was a much different time.

EDIT: More history.

***
Life is not about making due with what you have; it's about finding out just how much you can achieve. Never settle for anything less than the best. - - - Read my blog!
Praetorial
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
United States4241 Posts
October 26 2011 20:12 GMT
#2
Interesting history lesson, but I suppose that you could note that "Frankish" means "French" earlier?
FOR GREAT JUSTICE! Bans for the ban gods!
forSeohyun
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
504 Posts
October 26 2011 20:46 GMT
#3
Wasn't the Franks a germanic tribe? Is it wrong to equate them with French?
Seohyun fan
wherebugsgo
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Japan10647 Posts
October 26 2011 20:49 GMT
#4
This actually made me wonder if the Saracen campaign in Age of Empires 2 is told from the perspective of this guy.
Kukaracha
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
France1954 Posts
October 26 2011 21:06 GMT
#5
French people descend from Celts, Gauls, Franks, Romans, Wisigoths, probably Vandals, Burgundians (who were Celts and Romans I guess), Normans... well, from a lot of stuff.

But this explains many things about France in general.

Also wasn't Philip Augustus the dick who called a crusade without even participating himself?
Le long pour l'un pour l'autre est court (le mot-à-mot du mot "amour").
Newbistic
Profile Blog Joined August 2006
China2912 Posts
October 26 2011 21:21 GMT
#6
I thought you were going to talk about Joan of Arc. Whose civilization in the AoE2 campaign was the Franks. 192 hp paladins were cool.

I do look forward to more entries though.
Logic is Overrated
d3_crescentia
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States4054 Posts
October 26 2011 21:24 GMT
#7
Do the Childrens' Crusade next.
once, not long ago, there was a moon here
UniversalSnip
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
9871 Posts
October 26 2011 22:19 GMT
#8
Would this guy's works be readable and entertaining for someone casually interested in them?
"How fucking dare you defile the sanctity of DotA with your fucking casual plebian terminology? May the curse of Gaben and Volvo be upon you. le filthy casual."
Kerotan
Profile Blog Joined May 2008
England2109 Posts
October 26 2011 22:51 GMT
#9
On October 27 2011 05:46 StatorFlux wrote:
Wasn't the Franks a Germanic tribe? Is it wrong to equate them with French?

Its wrong in the same way that it is wrong to equate Anglo-Saxon with the modern day English. They are associated with the French, because while coming from a region outside modern France, they came to inhabit an that was nearly all of modern France one way or another.
So by saying French equals franks, is an easy way to draw comparisons for when we talk about history between historians and to the general public.
Nerdette // External revolution - Internal revolution // Fabulous // I raise my hands to heaven of curiosity // I don't know what to ask for // What has it got for me? // Kerribear
3Form
Profile Joined December 2009
United Kingdom389 Posts
October 26 2011 23:04 GMT
#10
The Moslems used the term "Franks" to describe any western european crusader, much in the same sense that Christians used "Saracens" to describe any arab.

Probably because the Franks under Charlemagne founded the Carolingian empire, which later split into West Francia (to become the Kingdom of France) and East Francia (analagous to Germany, later called the Holy Roman Empire). Middle kingdom, Burgundy, notwithstanding.
TheGiz
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada708 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-27 03:51:00
October 27 2011 03:46 GMT
#11
Talking about the Franks all those responses are correct, although I'll be the one to point out that the Visigoths actually ended up all the way in Iberia, despite being a Germanic tribe as well. From 711 onward they were pretty much wiped out though.

Also Philip Augustus did participate in the crusade, but he left early. In fact he arrived months before Richard did. He had a huge rivalry going on with Richard, in which Richard usually came out on top. After Richard conquered Cyprus - from Rome - Philip wanted to divide the island between them. Richard pretty much told him to go shove it.

And yes, the French/German/English forces were just universally called "Franks" by the Muslims, just like the crusaders universally called the Muslims "Saracens," even though they were sometimes Abbasid, sometimes Fatimid, and sometimes Seljuk Turks. This fed a lot of fuel to the fire on both sides because they lumped everyone into the category of "The Enemy." Saladin considered it a jihad to expel the Franks, and the Franks were on a 3 year tear of trying to restore Jerusalem.



      Sidenote: Rome at this time was in Greece, and what we now call the Byzantine Empire was still called Rome or The Empire (no joke), and they were interchangeably called Greeks/Romans. Anyone from actual Italy was simply called Italian, although they could be Sicilian or Genoese or Pisan, or whatever. Genoa and Sicily both had huge navies. If I read it correctly Philip hired Genoa and Richard hired Sicily, or rather inherited it.

      Sidenote 2: By the time of the Third Crusade Rome was pretty much frenemies with the Franks/Germans. The Germans were actually pretty respectful, but the French were far from it (respectful in this time was "I promise not to raid your towns for supplies with my army, buddy....much"). The Franks had a particularly jerkass-ish habit of saying they would reconquer Byzantine territory on their behalf, then claiming it for themselves despite not having the truly necessary manpower and political prowess to maintain those territories.



Also it is interesting to note that the entire world would be a different place had Frederick I not died in the Saleph river on his way to Antioch. Saladin was veritably shaking in his boots at the impending arrival of the German army, which would have closed out the 2-year-long siege at Acre much sooner and probably gone straight to Jerusalem, and maybe even Damascus after that (which the crusaders almost managed to take in the Second Crusade, had it not been for the sabotage of the Greeks and Armenians). The death of the very devout and very disciplined Frederick broke the German army's spirits, and they had pretty much disbanded by the time anyone arrived at Acre.
Life is not about making due with what you have; it's about finding out just how much you can achieve. Never settle for anything less than the best. - - - Read my blog!
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