Helen J. Nicholson's "Women and the Crusades"

Helen J. Nicholson is Emerita Professor in the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University, UK. She has published extensively on the crusades, the military orders, and various related subjects, including a translation of a chronicle of the Third Crusade and an edition of the Templar trial proceedings in Britain and Ireland.

Nicholson applied the "Page 99 Test" to her new book, Women and the Crusades, and reported the following:

Page 99 of Women and the Crusades lies in the second half of the book, near the start of the fourth chapter of six, which considers ‘The Home Front’. The women on ‘The Home Front’ waved goodbye to their family members and tried to get on with their lives and look after family interests while their nearest and dearest were away seeking salvation on crusade. Page 99 considers some of the costs of crusading for those left behind. In theory, spouses, children and possessions of crusaders were under Church protection, but in practice such protection was not always enforced. Page 99 explains that crusaders ‘had to worry about their lands being seized and their wives and family attacked, evicted by their neighbours, or even murdered during their absence or if they died on crusade, when papal protection would lapse’. It goes on to give a few examples of women who were murdered or raped during family members’ absence. It also mentions a women who married during her father’s absence in the Holy Land, who might have simply taken advantage of her father being away to marry without asking his permission.

Page 99 gives readers some idea of the breadth of this book and how it approaches its subject through a broad range of examples. It considers women who neither initiated crusades (chapter two) nor took part in crusade expeditions (chapter three), but who nevertheless had their lives changed or even destroyed by crusading. Many of the women in ‘The Home Front’ chapter were looking after family estates during their loved ones’ absence, but not all held such heavy responsibilities. Some purchased ‘crusade indulgences’ to help fund crusaders, and some donated to organisations which ransomed crusaders who had been taken prisoner. Some had to cope with the death of family members on crusade and the administering of their wills (or the fall-out if they had left no will!), and a few had to cope with the reappearance years later of those who had been presumed dead. This chapter and this page show that even women who did not take part in crusading themselves would have been involved in it in some way or another.

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--Marshal Zeringue