The Strong One & the Bright One: Power and Presence of Melisende of Jerusalem &

Eleanor of Aquitaine in the Twelfth Century

Holly Soltis

Adviser: Dr. Florin Curta

History Department

April 4th, 2014

Acknowledgements

First and foremost this thesis must be dedicated to my family, who have always

encouraged and supported my love of history: my mother, who taught me to be creative and how

to paddle through tough waters, my father, who built me a bookshelf to house the hoard of books

that were the source of my dreams, my sister Bonnie, who showed me how to laugh and has been

reminding me to do so every day of my life, my sister Kerry, who always had the most sensible

piece of quiet advice when I needed it, and to Johnathon, who taught me selflessness and joy. A

project such as this takes a part of oneself, and I would never have been able to do it without the

lessons my family imparted upon me.

I must thank Dr. Florin Curta, my advisor, for inspiring the purpose and direction I have

found in history, as well as showing me what great heights I could achieve in the field of history.

I believe every student should have at least one teacher who touches him or her profoundly, one

he or she will remember and thank forever – Dr. Curta is that teacher for me.

Another person that cannot be forgotten is fellow Honor’s Thesis student Rachel

Walkover, without whom I would have never retained my sanity. A friend, editor, sympathetic

ear, and part of the medievalist-club, I would not have survived this process without you.

Finally, to my grandfather James E. Flannery II, who will live forever in memory. He

made me realize that inquisitiveness and learning does not have to be without humor. For a man

whose mind was as sharp as a tack, his heart and his humor was just as formidable. Always and

forever, “Irish and good-looking.”

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Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………3

Chapter One – A Woman’s Restrictions…………………………………………………………8

Chapter Two – Sway and Scandal……………………………………………………………….12

Chapter Three – Women of War or of Patronage?.……………………………………………...23

Chapter Four – Politics and Proponents………………………………………………………….34

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….44

Appendix: Images………………………………………………………………………………..48

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..49

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Introduction

The name Eleanor of Aquitaine is a name well recognized even by people uninterested in

history. This is in stark contrast to Melisende of Jerusalem, a name not frequently recognized by

those unfamiliar with medieval history. Despite this contrast, both women propelled their futures

forward with surprising zeal and power unlike the typical medieval woman. Their destinies to

greatness are even reflected in the meaning of their names. Upon research, “Melisende” is most

often seen to mean “Strength” or “hard work”1 whereas “Eleanor” (or Aliénor) can mean

“bright” or “light.”2 Certainly Melisende worked furiously and cunningly to keep her position as

reigning queen as her son grew of age. Similarly, Eleanor could never be described as dull

considering the copious critiques of her person that exist.

The scope of this work surrounds the deeds of Melisende of Jerusalem and Eleanor of

Aquitaine during the Second Crusade in 1145-1149 CE and the following decades after it in the

twelfth century. By this point in history Frankish pilgrims had already settled in the area named

Outremer, which literally means “across the sea.” The term “Outremer” arose from twelfth-

century France to describe the region of crusader states in Mediterranean Levant, including

Antioch, Jerusalem, Edessa, Tripoli, and Cyprus.3 Jerusalem was still in Christian possession

from their acquisition of it during the First Crusade, but the monarchy – as well as the crusader

states as a whole – was suffering from a lack of male heirs and an overabundance of female ones.

Baldwin II was devoid of male heirs upon his death, thus leaving the throne of Jerusalem to his

eldest daughter Melisende.4 Developing at the same time in France was Eleanor of Aquitaine’s

1 Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names (London: Macmillian, 1884), c.

2 Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names (London: Macmillian, 1884), xxi,lii.

3 Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. 20 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), “Outremer.” 4 Jean Richard, The Crusades c. 1071-c. 1291, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: University Press, 1999), 80.

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marriage to Louis VII of France, an unsurprising match considering her position as heiress to

Aquitaine made her one of the wealthiest women in Christendom at the time, as well as having a

large portion of France in her control.5 At the onset of the Second Crusade the church was able to

convince Louis VII to take up the mantle of a crusader for Jerusalem. What made Eleanor’s

initial involvement in the Second Crusades significant was her forceful demand to be included. It

was openly preached that women were not allowed to go on crusade to the Holy Land, so

Eleanor’s insistence on accompanying her husband was highly disapproved of by the church.

The goal of this research was to discover how Eleanor and Melisende wielded power as

queens in a society and climate that viewed and treated women as inferior. The secondary role

that women played in the crusading climate is a result of the prohibition of female participation

in the crusade and the fact that the crusades focused on the most traditionally masculine activity

in human history – war. The most pervading question in recent research surrounding women’s

involvement in the crusades is if they actually participated in the warfare of the crusades. There

is no true evidence of either Melisende or Eleanor actually participating in war, and with the

abundance of topics pertaining to the physical warfare of the crusade many people forget that

Outremer was preoccupied than more than that one facet of life. Politics, diplomacy, patronage,

and social relations all were integral to the business of the crusades in the Outremer and it was

there that Eleanor and Melisende rooted their power.

Before the extent of the two queens’ power can be visualized, the legal and social

restrictions and freedoms of wifehood and womanhood must be understood. The legal codes for

women and their marriage and inheritance were much more lenient in Outremer than in France.

This was in part because the crusades created a shortage of men and the life expectancy of

5 Peggy McCracken, “Scandalizing Desire,” in Eleanor of Aquitaine Lord and Lady, ed. Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2002), 247-264.

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female infants was much higher. As Queen of Jerusalem, Melisende was considered a liege lord

despite her sex. She owed vassalage to no one. Circumstances were different in France and while

Eleanor was an heiress to Aquitaine, she owed vassalage to Louis since he was not just her

husband but her king, too. Overall, Melisende was in a better legal position to seize power for

herself, so when contrasting the two queen’s deeds it must be remembered that Eleanor was

much more restricted to begin with than Melisende.

As queen in her own right, Melisende had an arsenal of assets in hand to use as political

leverage. She used her land towards patronage for the church and political allies. She funded

other charitable projects that did not included using land, but her focus on patronage through

land was unique for a woman since it was moveable goods that comprised most women’s usable

resources. Although Eleanor was only queen consort of France the collection of lands belonging

to her was extensive and the profit and value coming from Aquitaine was impressive on its own.

The record of patronage in the form of land grants during Eleanor’s time as Queen of France or

Duchess of Aquitaine was scant, indicating that her patronage funneled more towards movable

goods. After her foray in the Second Crusade and into her marriage to Henry King of England,

Eleanor did donate land and resources heavily to Fontevraud Abbey, perhaps following the

example of Melisende.

Patronage was essential for Melisende and Eleanor to consolidate power because it was

key way to gain important allies in different spheres such as the church and in the royal courts.

Along with patronage, the two queens used varying tactics to different degrees of success to

achieve autonomy through politics. Melisende used her patronage to coerce the church and

courtly followers to her side, whereas Eleanor’s main ally to attain influence was her husband.

Melisende consolidated land and allies who owned land surrounding Jerusalem as part of her

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technique to solidify herself as Queen of Jerusalem and to propagate the assumption that her

name and Jerusalem were one in the same. Her use of charters was how she kept her son

Baldwin III from seizing full sovereignty of the crown as he came of age. Eleanor’s charters

concerning her dowered land of Aquitaine demonstrate Eleanor’s persistence in having a say in

the care and upkeep of her land and also pointed to evidence of Eleanor making allies of her

male kin.

Archbishop William of Tyre’s chronicle of the crusades is the central primary source for

this argument. Born at the height of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1130, he was only a baby

during Melisende and Eleanor’s reigns in the time of the Second Crusade. William studied canon

law and the liberal arts in Europe, making him familiar with both the land and climate from

which Eleanor came, while his career as a tutor to Baldwin IV put him in the court of Jerusalem

that was Melisende’s legacy. William’s work is useful because it is one of the most extensive

histories of the crusade, as well as the most widely used in scholarly work for all things

pertaining to the crusades. The original work is in Latin and has since then been translated into

French and English, but this research used the Latin version of Chronicle to verify translations

and derive deeper meaning from the text.

Is it helpful that William was contemporary of the crusading era, however he was writing

just after the period of Melisende and Eleanor’s reign. This would have left him subject to the

biases and gossip residing from the two queen’s deeds, creating a preconceived coloring of their

character and the events that surrounded them.

Another problem that infuses William’s work is the fact that his position as Archbishop

of Tyre placed him in a difficult position when writing about events that went against church

ordinance. In particular, since Melisende and Eleanor were women, they were not supposed to be

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involved in the crusades, so his recording of their actions may be skewed in the form of either

downplaying or overstating their actions so as to better meet the expectations of the church.

William's particular bias highlights why this body of research is so important. The era of

the crusades saw a huge dominance of church involvement in social, political, and legal life; as

such there is either a lack of or misinterpretation of female roles and involvement. Medieval

sources in general left out records of females, but the crusades caused a vehement opposition by

the church to female involvement and created a lot of propaganda to discourage women from

going or to show that they were a nuisance. By showing that Melisende of Jerusalem and Eleanor

of Aquitaine did wield power during the time of the second crusade, it not only gives an

exemplum of women surpassing the social bounds of their sex, but also opens a broader

discussion of women in the crusading period.

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Chapter 1 –A Woman’s Restrictions

The standards of womanhood and wifehood in France and Jerusalem are essential in

comprehending Melisende and Eleanor’s inherent limitations and how each overcame those

restrictions. Twelfth-century Jerusalem saw more reasonable conditions for women than in

contemporary France in regard to conditions of marriage. In Outremer feudal lords were required

to present three candidates for heiresses to marry and the heiress could marry whichever

candidate she chose. These candidates had to be of similar social rank and women could still

refuse them on certain grounds.6 Melisende’s father, King Baldwin, invited Fulk of Anjou to “to

wed the lady Melisende” after “unanimous advice from the princes, and the favor of the

people.”7 There is little indication in this statement that Melisende had much choice in the

matter, but by law she could have rejected Fulk of Anjou if he would not been an agreeable

choice of spouse to her. Unlike Melisende, Eleanor did not have law to back her up if she desired

to reject King Louis VII. It would have been foolish to turn down a proposal to marry someone

of higher rank, specifically a king, but even were that not the case, there was no “rule of three” in

France until the thirteenth century, when the Établissements de Saint Louis implemented a

woman’s right to choose from three suitors.8

Moreover, Eleanor spent her entire sojourn in the Second Crusade as Louis’s wife, while

Melisende remained a queen even after her husband’s death. In Jerusalem, lords could force a

6 Sylvia Schein, “Women in Medieval Colonial Society: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Twelfth Century,” in Gendering the Crusades, ed. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002),141.

7 William Of Tyre, Chronicle, ed. R.B.C. Huygens. (Turnhoul: Brepols, 1986), 633: “Post multam deliberationem de communi universorum principum consilio, sed et de populi favore, quosdam de princibus suis, dominum videlicet Willelmum de Buris, dominum Guidonem Brisbarre, ad predictum dirigit comitem, invitans eum ad filie nuptias et regni successionem.”

8 Schein, “Women,” 142-3.

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widowed heiress to remarry, but not a woman who had dowry by herself.9 Melisende was

technically an heiress and a feudal lord, so the lords of Jerusalem could have forced her to

remarry. They never did, an indication of trust in her abilities to rule. True, Melisende was also

regent and her son Baldwin would eventually come to age to inherit the throne, however, politics

in Outremer were too volatile to leave a weak monarch on the throne, and if the lords did not

think that Melisende was an efficient ruler until Baldwin would come of age, they would have

certainly made her marry a man who could rule.

The preference of males for the line of inheritance was typical of both France and

Jerusalem in the twelfth century. If there were no male heirs, however, women could inherit land

and vassalage in Jerusalem,10 which clarifies Melisende’s ascent to the throne and full legal

power of regina, “queen,” and co-ruler with Fulk as within the bounds of the law. Jerusalem on

the whole had more women inheriting fiefs than Western Europe during that era, in part because

of the clear stipulations of the law, in part because Jerusalem had a higher female infant survival

rate and a shorter male lifespan due to constant warfare in the region.11 Melisende had specific

dowered lands over which she had full legal rights. Acre and Tyre were the major lands given to

her in her dower, along with smaller domains that included Tekoah. Tekoah was a piece of land

that Melisende transferred to the church in exchange for the lands of Bethany, on which she

wanted to build her convent. 12

9 Peter Edbury, “Women and the Customs of the High Court of Jerusalem According to John of Ibelin,” in Chemins d'outre-mer : etudes d'histoire sur la Mediterranee medievale offertes a Michel Balard, ed. Damien Coulon et al. (Paris: Pulications de la Sorbonne, 2004), 288.

10 Edbury, “Women,” 285.

11 Schein, “Women,” 141.

12 William Of Tyre, Chronicle, 709: “Erat autem idem locus ecclesie Dominici Sepulchri proprius, pro quo domina regina tradens canonicis urbem prophetarum Thecuam locum in proprium receipt.”

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It was rare for women in the twelfth century, even heiresses, to be liege lords.

Melisende’s exception from that pattern was expressed through the mentions of oaths of fealty

sworn to Melisende as liege lord in her own right: “Certain nobles whose possessions lay within

the queen’s domains and who were attached to her by merely nominal loyalty disregarded their

oaths of fealty.”13 As queen and liege lord, Melisende was the highest-ranking liege lord in the

kingdom and owed fealty to no one. In addition to her power as liege lord, her twice-royal

background added to her social legitimacy by creating a stronger royal image. She was not only

heir to the throne of Jerusalem via her father King Baldwin II, but she was also an heir of

Armenian royalty through her mother Morphia.14

Heiresses in France were less common than in Outremer and Eleanor of Aquitaine was

one of the few. Aquitaine was her “paternal inheritance”15 and thus had direct suzerainty over the

area, as well as having an extensive dower made up of Falasie, Domfort, Bonville-sur-Loque,

Chateau-du loin, and the castles of Mervent and Ile d’Oleron.16

Eleanor of Aquitaine was the rightful owner of Aquitaine yet it remains unclear whether

or not she was regarded as a liege lord. The source of confusion is the fact that her charters

addressing issues pertaining exclusively to Aquitaine are co-signed by Louis, which implies that

by virtue of marriage he had gained legal rights over Aquitaine. Before his death, Eleanor’s

13 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 779: “Recesserant autem a domina regina, iuramentorum et fidelitatis inmemores, quidam ex his, qui infra sortem eius habebant possessions et ei fide media erant obligati, pauci vero, ei adherents, fidei servaverant integritatem, Amalricus videlicet comes Ioppensis, filius eius valde adolescens, Philippus quoque Neapolitanus et Rohardus senior et pauci alii, quorum nomina non tenemus.”

14 Silvia Rozenburg, ed., Knights of the Holy Land: the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1999), 63.

15 William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. by Emily Atwater Backcock and A.C. Krey, Volume 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), 196.

16 Nicholas Vincent, “Patronage, Politics and Piety in the Charters of Eleanor of Aquitaine,” in Plantagenêts et Capetiens: Confrontations et Heritages, ed. Martin Aurell and Noel-Yves Tonnerre (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 30.

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father was the Duke of Aquitaine, and as such, a vassal of Louis. He must have expected Louis

to uphold his duties as liege lord and protect his daughter and heiress, Eleanor, after his death. As

such, Louis had a right to marry her in exchange for that protection.17

In short, the bounds of vassalage and lordship were very different between Melisende and

Eleanor. Melisende held oaths of fealty from various nobles in Outremer, and her claim to the

throne was solid and invested within her the highest form of secular power. Her royal heritage

also helped to establish an image of rightful authority. On the other hand, Eleanor may have had

some form of lordship over Aquitaine, but she was still constrained by the fact that her husband

was also her king, therefore making her owe fealty to him since she was an heiress and thus

vassal to him.

17 Jean Dunbabin, France in the Making, 843-1180 (Oxford: New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 362.

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Chapter 2 – Sway and Scandal

The primary duties for aristocratic wives during the twelfth century were to listen to the

husband and to bear male heirs. The latter became increasingly important for females as the

social rank got higher – it was essential for queens. Melisende fulfilled her duty quickly,

producing a male heir to be dubbed Baldwin III only a year after her marriage to Fulk in 1129.18

Eleanor was only destined to give birth to two daughters, hardly to be considered stable heirs in

France. The two queens production of heirs contributed to the varying degrees of support they

received from their respective courts and husbands, affecting each queen’s approach on swaying

their husband and the court to gain power.

Eleanor’s introduction of Provençal verse and southern fashions outraged the northern

courtiers of France. Certain ideas expressed in the troubadours and trouvères that Eleanor

brought to the court aggravated both clergy and husbands alike.19 There was also strife between

Eleanor and at least one of Louis’s advisors, Thierry Galeran.20 Eleanor’s delights and

importation of southern culture made her few friends at court and a handful of opponents, but she

compensated for this by keeping a firm hold over her husband.

A main point of leverage Eleanor had over Louis was that he stood to gain much from her

inheritance upon marrying her. Louis gathered more legitimacy for his throne and his campaigns

to unite the provinces of France into a cooperative coalition because when he gained the duchy

of Aquitaine, he gained lands that his ancestors had not held before. Gascony, Poitou, and

18 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 630-2: William says Baldwin III is two years old when he goes to see Baldwin II on his deathbed in 1131, placing his birth in 1129. William of Tyre, Chronicle, 633-4: the year of Fulk’s and Melisende’s marriage is discerned by Baldwin II’s death and the assertion that Fulk had stay as a count for three years after their marriage until they ascended the throne.

19 Desmond Seward, Eleanor of Aquitaine (New York: Times Books, 1979), 28-9.

20 Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons, ed., Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 6.

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Toulouse bordered the duchy of Aquitaine,21 with Gascony and Poitou included in Eleanor’s

inheritance. This allowed Louis to expand charters in Gascony and lead campaigns into Poitou

and Toulouse in the name of defending Eleanor’s interests – southern France had long resisted

the will of what they thought was a “northern king” and Louis finally had an excuse to assert his

dominance more strongly over the south. Louis’s justification to invade Toulouse was due to

Eleanor’s claim of inheritance to Toulouse through her grandmother Philippa, the daughter of

Count William of Toulouse and of Emma of Mortain.22

The wealth and influence Louis had gained from Eleanor was not necessarily what

inclined him to consider her opinions, but his apparent infatuation with her certainly made him

do so. William of Tyre described Louis’s desire for Eleanor as “immoderate,” suggesting that the

king’s love for his wife was a key factor in his political decisions. However there was a deeper

meaning in his remark. To have such a desire for one’s wife was disparaged at the time, as

marriage was intended to temper the sin of desire and to focus sexual activity for procreation

alone. Aside from ruining the religious reasoning behind marriage, strong desire emanated by the

husband disturbed the social order where the man was to be in control. Desire was perceived as a

loss of control, and as in the case of Louis and Eleanor, it was a way to allow the wife to wield

power improperly.23 The aforementioned remark of Louis’s “immoderate desire” by William of

Tyre was in reference to why Louis allowed Eleanor to accompany him on the Second Crusade,

backed her causes, and allowed her freedom to issue charters for Aquitaine.

21 For map of the area, see Appendix I

22 Wheeler, Eleanor of Aquitaine, 6.

23 Georges Duby, The Knight, the Lady, and the Priest: the Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), 62-7.

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Unlike Eleanor, Melisende sought to gain more personal and political freedoms through

support of the court. According to William of Tyre, Fulk and Melisende were allied and warm

towards each other in the late half of their marriage, but the marriage was undoubtedly icy at the

start. Fulk still sought to deny Melisende the status of co-ruler, the status her father had intended

her to have. One of the most powerful illustrations of the conflict between the two spouses was

the exquisite Psalter know as Melisende’s Psalter. This manuscript is thought to have been

commissioned by Fulk as a present to Melisende. The illuminated images are full of allusions to

benevolence, forgiveness, and wifely duty, with some pictures of Jesus painted to remind one of

Fulk’s features. By giving Melisende the personalized Psalter, he was subtly attempting to coax

her into political passivity, possibly even censuring her behavior.24

Melisende looked to her courtiers for support in her political ambitions. The faith they

held for her came not only from their belief of her legitimacy to the throne, but their

interpretation of Melisende as a woman representative of Outremer. One of Eleanor of

Aquitaine’s main problems in gaining the support of the court was that she was constantly

perceived as a foreigner. Her southern style of dress and southern way of thinking did not endear

her to her court. There is no evidence that Melisende faced such prejudice from her court. It is

not clear whether that was the result of her upbringing in Jerusalem that erased any possibility of

her being perceived as “foreign,” or that Outremer was a melting pot of Latin, Byzantium,

Islamic, and other cultures, in which dress and ideas were not so readily labeled as foreign.

Melisende’s coalition of loyal nobles was particularly helpful in getting her way with

Fulk. Since she was not on negotiating terms with Fulk, she gathered strength from her allied

nobles to force his support. One instance of this was when Melisende barred Fulk from

24 Jaroslav Folda, “A Twelfth-century Prayerbook for the Queen of Jerusalem,” Medieval Perspectives 8 (1993): 1-14.

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intervening on her sister Alice’s march on Antioch by “having support from certain nobles”25 to

enforce her will.

If one is forced to gather allies to assure power, then it is logical to assume the existence

of enemies bent on stopping the accumulation of power. Melisende and Eleanor were no

exception to the aforementioned logic and used their allies to battle slander from enemies trying

to discredit them. The most popular way to question the reputation of women was, and still is, to

incriminate their sexual behavior. The adultery scandals surrounding Melisende and Eleanor

during their ascent to power have fascinated and entertained many; however there has been less

research on the different outcomes of the scandals for each woman and why they were different.

Adultery was regarded in the twelfth century as a terrible crime because it broke the

sanctity of marriage and welcomed sin and chaos, since the adulterer was indulging in sexual

desire and disrupting the social order. This need for marriage to bring about peace and order was

so important that there were laws and disciplinary measures taken against sexual desire within

marriage. Punishments for men were dealt out when they had sex with their wives during

proscribed days, in a banned position, while their wives were pregnant, or menstruating. Thus,

the act of adultery was so heinous because it was direct proof of sexual desire and encouraged

disharmony.26

Rumors flew that Melisende and Hugh, the count of Jaffa, were having too close

“dialogues.” William’s use of misceret, “mixed”, and colloquia, “dealings or dialogues,” was

meant to convey a sense of intimacy, as the two needed to be physically close to each other to 25 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 658: “Porro modico ante tempore, postquam tamen predicti missi fuerant ut dominum Raimundum citarent, Aaliza principissa, domini quoque Milissendis regine soror, quam pater eius, civitate exclusam Antiochena, Laodicia et Gabulo iusserat esse contentam, interveniente apud regem sorore sua ne actibus eius obviaret, quorundam procerum fulta patrocinio iterum Antiochiam ingressa est, pro domina se gerens, et universa ad suam revocabat sollicitudinem.” 26 Duby, The Knight, 53.

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have such intimate conversations. According to William, Fulk distrusted Hugh of Jaffa from the

beginning, and the rumor of Hugh’s closeness with the queen turned Fulk’s jealousy into

hatred.27 He may have thus attempted to turn Melisende’s allies against her by slurring her

reputation. Prior to the adultery scandal, Melisende had a gathering of nobles whose support

helped push her agenda with Fulk, but the intimate conversations with Hugh could point to

Melisende’s creation of an opposition party against with Hugh as the head. It would explain the

mistrust Fulk was said to have for Hugh, and why Melisende was in such close contact with

Hugh. Jaffa was also a very powerful fief in Outremer, adding to the reasons Hugh was a viable

leader of the opposition for Melisende. Spreading rumors about an adulterous liaison between the

Count and the Queen could have aided in alienating her from her allies and would have severed

her from her most important collaborator.

Fortunately, Melisende had a strong support base that helped stave away the indecent

accusation, and the rumor eventually backfired on Fulk and his supporters. Melisende may have

had the church on her side at this point, as William of Tyre spoke highly of her throughout his

history. This particular bias in favor of Melisende was not apparent in William’s Chronicle,

however, until after the scandal, particularly in his coverage of the civil war between Melisende

and her son Baldwin III, in which Patriarch Fulcher was shown on her side.28

Melisende may not have even needed the support of the clergy, since Fulk and his

supporters eventually implicated themselves when news of an attempt on the Count of Jaffa’s life

surfaced. Fulk wittingly exonerated himself from direct blame by ordering the tongue of Hugh’s

27 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 652: “Dicebatur a nonnullis qoud dominus rex suspectum nimis haberet comitem ne cum domina regina familiaria nimis misceret colloquia cuius rei multa videbantur extare argumenta; unde et maritali zelo succensus inexorabile odium adversus eum dicebatur concepisse.”

28 William of Tyre, A History, 206.

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assailant be kept intact, allowing the assailant to admitted he had attempted to kill Hugh of Jaffa

to win Fulk’s favor, but not on direct orders from Fulk. Although Fulk acquitted himself of any

involvement in the crime and there was no direct proof he or his supporters had planned it, the

blunder allowed for Melisende to come out ahead in public opinion and possibly lead a political

coup to overthrow Fulk from his dominant position in Outremer.

There was indeed a hint at a political coup in William’s conclusion to the account of the

adultery scandal:

“From that day, everyone who were bringing accusations against the count to enflame the king fell under the displeasure of Queen Melisende and were forced to take diligent measures from their safety… The queen persecuted in most ways Rohard the Elder…who ushered in the matter of hatred with the king. It was not safe for these informers to come before her presence; in fact, they deemed it prudent to keep away even from public gatherings.”29

Melisende’s phenomenal display of temper was proof of her skills of intimidation and

was a testament to her well-regarded position: men of the court typically did not fear women, yet

they feared such a tantrum from Melisende. Even more than a show of anger, the implication of a

political coup results from the concluding comment that, “from that day forward, the king

became so uxorious that, whereas he had formerly aroused her wrath, he now calmed it, and not

even in unimportant cases did he take any measures without her knowledge and assistance.”30

Eleanor’s adultery scandal did not have a happy ending such as Melisende’s. There was

little love between the church and Eleanor due to various reasons. At that time in history, Eleanor

29 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 655-6: “Ab ea die quicumque comitis apud dominum regem fuerant delatores et incentores odii, domine milissendis regine, quam etiam obiecti criminis quodammodo respergere videbatur infamia et dolor inmanissimus expulsi comitis macerabat precordia, indignationem incurrentes exactum pro tutela proprii corporis oportebat habere diligentiam, maxime autem Rohardum seniorem, qui postmodum dictus de Neapoli, qui dominum regem precipue in eam induxerat odiorum materiam, domina regina quibus poterat persequebatur modis. Non erat eis tutum ante eius accedere presentiam, sed et publicorum conventuum se subtrahere cetibus erat consultius.”

30 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 656: “Rex autem ab ea die ita factus est uxorious, ut eius, quam prius exacerbaverat, mitigaret indignationem, quod nec in causis levibus absque eius conscientia attemptaret aliquatenus procedere.”

17

had failed to do her duty in bearing a male heir, insisted upon accompanying Louis on the

Second Crusade and thus was defying the church mandate that it was to be a male-only

endeavor, and the church saw Eleanor’s spirited attitude and sexual influence over Louis as unfit

behavior not only for a queen but for a woman of God. The story of Eleanor’s supposed shame

began when the king and queen’s retinue arrived at Antioch. Prince Raymond of Antioch was

Queen Eleanor’s uncle. He had hoped to secure Louis’s favor and support in Antioch through

gifts and flattery, but Louis refused Raymond’s propositions of military expeditions for glory and

gain because it would have deterred him from his ultimate goal of Jerusalem. Feeling insulted,

Raymond took revenge by plotting to “deprive him of his wife” and even to physically harm the

king. While Raymond was depicted as the seducer, Eleanor appeared as consenting because she

“was a foolish woman.”31

William may have been expressing more than personal views alone here. His disparaging

remark was in tune with the way churchmen, in general, regarded Eleanor, so his critique was

also a voice for the church. Despite the outrage about her behavior, neither Louis nor his advisor

Abbot Suger wanted a divorce. The fiasco at Attalia, as well as the Siege of Damascus and

Eleanor’s relation to Raymond may be the key to understanding why.

Louis VII’s piety was well known, but the same fame could not be said of his exploits as

a military leader. His inability to hold his soldiers respect and to inspire them to follow orders

was apparent in the disastrous confrontation between the traveling Christian army and the Turks

at Attalia during the Second Crusade. The French Advanced Guard camped in the valley area

rather than moving forward through the pass as Louis had instructed. Due to this, the entire rear

of the army was congested and without free movement, and nearby Turks took advantage of the

31 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 755: “Una aerate de fatuis mulierisbus.”

18

handicap. Louis himself was almost killed, but thankfully he escaped alive and the army was

able to hold them back until reinforcements arrived.32

Desmond Seward in Eleanor of Aquitaine rightly scorned other histories for the

propagation of false versions of Odo’s account.33 In these false versions Louis decided to camp

in the valley by Attalia instead of moving through it as Odo says was his intentions. At the

behest of Eleanor, Louis moved the army down into the valley into a vulnerable area. Here the

Turks attacked, and Eleanor was the person to blame for the defeat. Aside from the fact that

these recent accounts of Attalia are completely different that the account written by Odo of Deuil

who was a contemporary of the Second Crusade, according to Odo, Geoffrey of Rancon was the

original perpetrator of the hold up that left the French army open to near decimation, not Eleanor.

Louis commanded his army to move forward through the pass, but Geoffrey decided to stop

progress in the front and camp in the valley, leading to the clogging and disorganization of the

army.

The very fact that modern historians debate the issue of Eleanor’s involvement in the

battle near Attalia shows how entrenched were the rumors about Eleanor’s influence over Louis

and the army. The perpetuation of the idea that Eleanor had a hand in the debacle simply shows

how much hostility surrounded her, even before the adultery scandal. In fact, the perception of

those writing about the Second Crusade in later years may have been colored by their attitudes

towards the adulterous queen even when dealing with events occurring much earlier. It is

possible, therefore, that after the Second Crusade Eleanor was used as a scapegoat for Louis’s

military failures. It did not matter whether the front of the army camped when they should not

32 Odo of Deuil, The Journey of Louis VII to the East, trans. Virginia Berry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948), 144-9.

33 Seward, Eleanor, 47.

19

have or moved camps if they were indeed told to camp, because as a military commander Louis

should have seen the correct order carried out. Many churchmen and Frenchmen would have

loved to have used Eleanor’s tendency to bend Louis to her will as a reason for Louis’s

negligence that lead to military disaster. Whether or not Abbot Suger had that in mind when

advising Louis not to divorce Eleanor while in Outremer cannot be known, but French authors

writing about Eleanor after the crusade certainly took advantage of the fact that they stayed

married.

Eleanor appeared as a scapegoat in yet another key movement if the Second Crusade. A

great council was held in Acre to decide how to better expand and glorify the Kingdom of

Jerusalem. Eventually Damascus was decided upon as the target of the crusade, with Louis VII

having been present at the council and at the siege. William of Tyre described the many great

deeds of the crusaders at Damascus, including the Christian force’s success in taking the

orchards and the river around Damascus. The Damascenes, in despair and running out of

supplies, bribed men of the Christian company to convince the King of Jerusalem and the other

princes, as well as Louis, to move to the other side of the city. The company soon realized that

they had been deceived, moved away from food, water, and supplies, and were not able to return

as the area had been barricaded and fortified against them. The princes and leaders of the

Christian forced gave up the task quickly and called for retreat. In the future, the ordeal was

regarded as a shameful failure.34 Debates have ensued about why such treachery happened. One

of the perpetuated happenstances was that Prince Raymond of Antioch used all matter of

schemes to make sure the King failed because he still held a grudge against him for not aiding

him in his endeavors at Antioch after giving Louis all the gifts and charities he did.

34 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 760 -770

20

Eleanor was the perfect justification for Louis’s behavior both before and after the siege

of Damascus. Raymond, regardless if his deception at Damascus was true, was right to be angry

at Louis’s refusal of aid after all the gifts given by Raymond to Louis. Called “gifts,” the

definition is not the same today as it was then. Gift giving during the medieval period was done

to try and gain the upper hand over a person, or to evoke a sizeable return gift that would put the

original giver in a more desirable position.35 In this instance, Raymond wanted a return gift of

Louis’s army to aid him in extending the lands of Antioch. Louis’s refusal to give Raymond a

return gift of equal or higher importance was a political blunder that painted Raymond as the

more powerful man. William of Tyre and the church covered this up nicely by excusing Louis’s

actions as a desire to fulfill his holy quest for pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Louis was also said to

have left out of a desire to escape from the plotting minds of Eleanor and Raymond while they

indulged in their lover’s schemes behind Louis’s back. In this way, Eleanor’s adultery created a

scene where Raymond appeared as a jealous lover and Eleanor a shame to her husband, as well

as a facilitator for Raymond’s attempts to exploit Louis’s power and favor.

Ironically, somehow Louis ended up in at the siege of Damascus instead of heading

towards Jerusalem, although he had told Raymond the latter had been his most important

mission. Once there, in addition to all the other princes and kings with their armies, his was

perhaps the largest attacking force of the Second Crusade. But the attack failed. Modern

historians agree that accounts of later chroniclers, such as William of Tyre, were little more than

shots in the dark in an attempt to distract the attention for the real cause of the debacle at

Damascus.36 This is even more reason to believe that Eleanor was used by later French authors to

justify Louis’s military failures. William of Tyre wrote his chronicle at the behest of Melisende’s

35 Florin Curta, “Merovingian and Carolingian Gift Giving,” Speculum, 81 (2006): 671-699.

36 Alan J. Forey, “The Failure of the Siege of Damascus in 1148,” Journal of Medieval History, 23 (1984): 13-23.

21

grandson and used French sources for his account of the siege of Damascus. Those sources

definitely gave him a particular view of what had happened, and placed Raymond at the top of

William’s list of scapegoats.

The postponing of Louis and Eleanor’s divorce was most likely not because Abbot Suger

hatched a brilliant plan to blame the failure of Damascus on Eleanor. More likely, Abbot Suger

felt that with all of Louis’s failures on campaign, a divorce from Eleanor while Louis was still

away from France would be a bigger scandal than Eleanor’s adultery. Divorce would have left

Louis politically weaker without Aquitaine, which would not have been a smart decision while

Louis was away from France and unable to defend his position as king. Eventually Eleanor was

too much for Louis VII and they did divorce at the close of the Second Crusade, creating even

greater hostility in France against her. It was there, right after the Second Crusade and beyond,

that the French writers likely thought to use Eleanor as a reason for why Louis performed so

poorly in the fight for Christianity in the Holy land. It was also immediately after the Second

Crusade that Eleanor had to fend for herself and quickly marry Henry II of England to protect

herself from ambitious suitors – a fate much different from how Melisende escaped her adultery

scandal.

22

Chapter 3 – Women of War or of Patronage?

Throughout the years there has been increased interest in female involvement in the

warfare of the crusades. The clerical propagation of the crusades discouraged all female

involvement, Pope Urban II famously barring women as “unfit to bear arms” for the First

Crusade, thus excluding them from the whole business of the crusade.37 Despite this edict,

evidence of women in Outremer surfaced in a surprisingly frequent amount. Even more

surprising were the accounts of women partaking in infantry and in other facets of war.

Most of the concrete evidence lies in women who involved themselves in the camps of

the army. Christian sources mention the activity of washerwomen, prostitutes, lice removers, and

women as moral support.38 The accounts of female warriors during the crusade, however, mainly

come from Muslim sources. These present a partial bias, as Muslim sources may have over-

exaggerated the involvement of women to disparage the Christian forces as so weak to need

women as warriors. Christian sources would have wanted to leave out evidence of women

fighting because it was in direct contradiction to the Church edicts that barred women from

involvement in the crusade. Either way, there can be no doubt that women were involved in war

in the crusades; but to what extent can not be assured. The uncertainty about exactly how many

women did participate in the actual fighting in the crusades comes from the aforementioned bias

of sources, as well as the fact that the armor covered up the features that identified women as

female. Hauberks and other protection hid the sex of women and were therefore not known to be

women until the armor was stripped from the dead bodies after the battles were done. If the sex

37 Michael R. Evans, “Unfit to Bear Arms,” in Gendering the Crusades, ed. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert (New York: Columbia Press, 2002), 45.

38 Keren Caspi-Reisfeld, “Women Warriors during the Crusades,” in Gendering the Crusades, ed. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert (New York: Columbia Press, 2002), 98-9.

23

of all these women were unknown unless they died in battle, then many women might have went

unaccounted for because they had not died in battle.39

It would be a most glorious revelation to find either Melisende or Eleanor of Aquitaine

brandishing a sword or lance and diving into the mêlée of a crusade. Unfortunately, no such

evidence exists. A few historians have tried to establish Eleanor of Aquitaine as a war heroine on

the basis of the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates’s testimony:

I speak of the Germans, joined by other kindred nations. Females were numbered among them, riding horseback in the manner of men, not on coverlets side saddle, but unashamedly astride, and bearing lances and weapons as men do; dressed in masculine garb, they conveyed a wholly martial appearance, more mannish than the Amazons. One stood out from the rest as Penthesilea and from the embroidered gold which ran around the hem and fringes of her garment was called Goldfoot.40

In eagerness, Choniates’s war-clad Penthesilea has been dubbed Eleanor of Aquitaine, but with

little proof. Historians41 since then have taken this assumption without checking Choniates’s

chronicle themselves, and the image of Eleanor as an Amazon Queen has gained some

popularity. Besides the fact that she is not mentioned by name in the passage quoted from

Choniates’s work, it remains unclear whether the Byzantine chronicler has in mind a French

woman, or one of the other “kindred nations.” If the “Penthesilea” in question was French, why

is she also known as “Goldfoot”? No other sources refer to Eleanor by that nickname. While

there is proof of women fighting in the crusades, the majority of noblewomen did not, and there

was is proof of either Melisende or Eleanor fighting.

Noblewomen could be, and were, left in charge of defending the estate while the husband

was away, but that fact does not mean noblewomen dressed in armor and led troops out against

39 Caspi-Reisfeld, “Women Warriors,” 102-4.

40 Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium, trans. Harry I. Magoulias (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984), 35.

41 J.F Verbruggen, “Women in Medieval Armies,” Journal of Medieval History, 4 (2006): 119-136.

24

enemies taking advantage of a fief with an absent lord. A noblewoman’s power lay in her ability

to choose a commander to lead the war party for her, so the actual business of fighting was still

left to men. There are isolated cases around Europe where noblewomen did take up the mantle of

commander and physically lead troops out to battle, such as Matilda of Tuscany and Matilda de

Braose,42 but these cases were rare and various barriers stopped most noblewomen from

following that example. The popular view of women at that time was that women were the

weaker sex, unable to physically and mentally carry out the duties of war. If this alone was not

enough to discourage women from taking up arms, then the prospect of losing their good

reputation was. Taking a place in military camps endangered a woman’s reputation because

prostitution was rampant among the camps of the crusaders43 and her name could be linked with

that of the prostitutes and their activities. Donning armor was also viewed as shedding one’s

femininity,44 a position Melisende would not have wanted to put herself in simply to join the

fighting. The church and her people saw Melisende’s supreme virtue as prudentia,45 for she was

prudent and knew her place and donning armor and fighting would have sullied her reputation as

a queen who knew her place a woman and a wife, which was her major platform for political and

church favor.

War was still considered a man’s sphere in Outremer and, although there were incidents

of common women involving themselves in the fighting, there is no proof that either Melisende

or Eleanor ever took up the function of a warrior. Despite being limited by their inability to wield

42 Caspi-Reisfeld, “Women Warriors,” 102-3.

43 Alan V. Murray, “Sex, Death and the Problems of Single Women in the Armies of the First Crusade,” in Shipping, Trade and Crusade in the Medieval Mediterranean: Studies in Honour of John Pryor, ed. By Ruthy Gertwagen et al. (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 255-270.

44 Evans, “Unfit to Bear Arms,” 49.

45 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 761.

25

true weapons, both Melisende and Eleanor made up for it in the savvy conduct of political affairs

and in patronage of arts.

To make up for their inability to participate directly in the sphere of war, Melisende and

Eleanor funneled their assets towards patronizing causes that would be favorable to their prestige

and political positions. As previously discussed, Eleanor had an extensive dowry and inheritance,

which produced various fiscal advantages. While it is hard to prove how autonomously Eleanor

governed her lands while married to Louis, it is known that she collected rent and profits from

mills from those occupying her lands.46 She also had money from the queen’s gold, as well as ten

percent on all voluntary fines and fines from Jews. There is no record of the exact amount of

income Eleanor collected, however it can be estimated to be as much, if not more, than the

greater barons of Western Europe. 47

Melisende also had sizeable assets at her disposal, possessing both the crown’s income

and her personal wealth. The crown’s income consisted of the royal demesne, the monopoly of

minting coins, taxes from the Bedouin tribes, religious taxes on non-Christians, and customs and

harbor tariffs. No record of Melisende’s personal wealth has survived, however it has been

theorized to include jewels, relics, books, and other precious objects.48 Melisende and Eleanor

seemed to have comparable amounts of assets and income at their disposal, but Melisende

surpassed Eleanor significantly in patronage. This could explain Melisende’s higher rate of

approval both politically and by the church, since Melisende’s patronage was both

ecclesiastically and socially focused.

46 Wheeler, Eleanor, 58.

47 Vincent, “Patronage,” 31.

48 Helen A. Gaudette, “The Spending Power of a Crusader Queen: Queen Melisende of Jerusalem,” in Women and Wealth in the Late Medieval Europe, ed. by Theresa Earenfight (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 137.

26

Melisende had three main patronage projects that she undertook to secure the favor of the

church, people, and a major military order, respectively. Her first project, Bethgibelin castle, was

a joint effort with her husband Fulk.49 Fulk held the primary authority for the charter, with

Melisende and Patriarch William consenting, but that Fulk included her in the charter was

evidence of the assertion that, “not even in unimportant cases did [Fulk] take any measures

without her knowledge and assistance.”50 The transfer of Bethgibelin Castle and the surrounding

lands from Hugh of St. Abraham to Raymund de Puy, the Master of the Hospitallers, began

Melisende and Fulk’s joint project. Helen Gaudette believes that the project was not just about

the renovation of Bethgibelin castle, but a process to turn Hospitallers into a monastic military

order through the grant of Bethgibelin castle and the resources that came with it. To be a

monastic military order, groups such as the Hospitallers needed to move from being just a

charitable institution to having the resources and permission to function militarily. Melisende

and Fulk gave the fortress of Bethgibelin and the surrounding casalia as gifts, and as preparatory

steps for readying the Hospitallers for their new military function.51 However, simply giving the

Hospitallers a castle was not enough to confer the rights of a military monastic order, which was

why the charter created by Fulk was singed with the “consent of his wife Melisende and

Patriarch William.”52 That Melisende and Fulk gave the Hospitallers their start as a military

monastic order was not insignificant. The Hospitallers were indebted, figuratively, to Fulk and

Melisende, which made the Hospitallers an indispensable weapon for the two monarchs. Military

49 Reinhold Rohricht, ed., Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani (Oeniponti: Libraria Academica Wageriana, 1893), 40-41: “Fulco, rex Hierosolymitanus, assensu uxoris Milesendis et Willelmi patriarchae.”

50 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 656.

51 Gaudette, “Spending,” 139.

52 Reinhold, Regesta, 41-2: “assensu uxoris Milesendis et Willelmi patriarchae”

27

monastic orders were not only powerful allies for battling back Muslim enemies, but also for

keeping disorderly nobles under the thumb of the monarchy. This was due to the fact that

military monastic orders were intimidating as a physical and political force. The political

presence the monastic military orders built for themselves was due to their collection of land,

allies, and other wealth of resources. Melisende had a fighting force at her disposal, as well as a

political one

Melisende took up her next project after Fulk’s death, involving a grant of land from her

personal inheritance. Melisende decided to establish a convent at Bethany, “for the healing of her

soul, as well the salvation for her parents, her husband, and her children.”53 Bethany was not in

Melisende’s original possession so she exchanged one of her dowered lands, Tekoah, for

Bethany. Melisende was intently focused upon the specific land of Bethany for her convent, her

attraction to the location due to its nearness to Jerusalem, the religious significance of Bethany in

the New Testament, or that her friendly association with the patriarch may have made the

negotiation for the trade of lands easier.

Now that Melisende was a widow she had to reaffirm her power as primary ruler, for she

was only Queen Regent. Her preoccupation with acquiring land and allies who had land near

Jerusalem, as seen through both William of Tyre’s Chronicle and her assorted charters, was to

fashion Jerusalem the seat of her power. Bethany’s nearness to Jerusalem is exampled in the fact

that the Jerusalem’s residents could easily flock to Bethany for a procession on Palm Sunday.54

53 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 709: “Interea per domini superhabundantem gratiam regno ad aliquam tranquillitatem redacto, concepit domina Milissendis, pie recordationis regina, pro remedio anime sue et parentum suorum, pro salute quoque mariti et liberorum, si locum inveniret iuxta cor suum, monasterium sacrarum virginum fundare.”

54 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 709.

28

Bethany may also have had a special religious significance for Melisende. This was the

place where Mary and Martha lived, who invited Jesus into their home. Mary sat at Jesus’s feet

while Martha carried out the housework of hospitality alone. Martha eventually complained to

Jesus and asked why he did not command Mary to help with the housework, whereby he replied,

“you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.

Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”55 These words from

Jesus may have inspired Melisende, who associated herself with Mary and her piety, to take part

the main activity in which women could become involved and obtain social approval, distinction,

and even power, which was religious involvement including patronage.

The lands of Bethany belonged to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,56 and if Melisende

was to exchange lands of her own for Bethany, she would have had to negotiate carefully with

the church. Melisende at this time had excellent relations with both the patriarch of Jerusalem,

William, and the archbishop of Tyre, Fulk. These connections would have been extremely

helpful in convincing the church to exchange their lands of Bethany for her dowered lands of

Tekoah.

Iveta, Melisende’s sister, was pursing a monastic life at Saint Anne’s church and the

convent at Bethany was an ideal place to relocate Iveta, as Iveta’s position beneath a mother

superior was for a commoner, not the daughter of a king. Melisende nominated an abbess of

experience as the head of Bethany, but she intended for Iveta to be the next abbess. Indeed, “on

the death of [the abbess], the queen put her original intention into effect. With the sanction of the

patriarch and the willing assent of the holy nuns, she made her sister the superior of the

55 Luke 10:38

56 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 709: “Erat autem idem locus ecclesie Dominici Sepulchri proprius, pro quo domina regina tradens canonicis urbem prophetarum Thecuam locum in proprium receipt.”

29

convent.”57 That Melisende made such an appointment speaks volumes of her considerable

power at the time, even if she needed the consent of the patriarch for the appointment.

Considering the appointment was an ecclesiastical one, the approval by the patriarch may have

been needed even if the ruler of Jerusalem was a male.

Melisende wittingly ensured the convent’s self-sufficiency when she placed it at Bethany.

She built it next to the Mount of Olives, which could have been used by the nuns for economic

production for the profit of the convent. This did not mean Melisende left the convent to its own

devices once she built it and set Iveta up; on the contrary, Melisende “added many gifts in

chalices, books and others ornaments for the people of the church. She did not cease to show that

place her favor until she died.”58 Melisende’s patronage and gifts secured her continued favor

with the church, as well as good publicity, as piety was central virtue of the medieval aristocracy.

Malquisinat, or the “street of bad cooking,”59 was the last of Melisende’s three major

patronage projects. Melisende took up this project during the time when she was a widow and

still regent to her son Baldwin. Jerusalem was experiencing a large influx in the volume of

pilgrims and the city needed vendors to cook food for the pilgrims. A canopy covering was

constructed for Malquisinat as part of the project and Melisende restructured the area to host the

required instruments the vendors needed to cook. The vendors that were brought in were

Armenians, implying that Melisende used the connections she had with Armenia60 to get vendors

57 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 710: “Defuncta quoque illa venerabili matrona, quam eidem prefecerat loco, ad intentionem rediens sororem suam de consensu domini patriarche et sororum sanctimonialium coniventia eidem prefecit monasterio.”

58 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 710: “Cum qua etiam adiecit plura in caliciubus, libris et ceteris que ad ecclesiasticos respiciunt usus ornamenta, locum non cessans, quamdiu vixit, intuitu anime sue et sororis, quam unice diligebat, gratia ampliare.”

59 Gaudette, “Spending,” 137.

60 Recall that Melisende’s mother, Morphia, was an Armenian princess.

30

to Jerusalem at a good price. The location of Malquisinat was particularly strategic within

Jerusalem, being near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, St. John’s Hospital, the Dome of the

Rock, as well as the Abbey of St. Anne.61 Malquisinat was not only an urban renewal project, but

also a ploy to gain favor from the people of Jerusalem. She did this at a time when she

desperately needed to remind her nobles that she could not just rule Jerusalem well, but that she

was the most competent ruler for it. The political climate at this time was tense, for although

Melisende ruled as if she were queen, her son Baldwin was well past being of age to take the

throne. With the aid of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Melisende was determined to deny him that

right. Melisende needed to convince the city and her nobles to believe she was a better ruler than

Baldwin. Malquisinat was her attempt to prove the point.62

As mentioned before, Eleanor was significantly less involved in patronage during her

time as Queen of France than Melisende was. What she did give away in patronage was done in

the form of movable goods. This may be due to her limitations as queen consort, for although

Eleanor was an heiress with a significant dowry of lands, as the wife of Louis she may have

needed permission to give away her lands or to fund certain projects not pertaining to her

inheritance of Aquitaine. That Eleanor gave Louis the Aquitaine Vase as a wedding present is

well known in the scholarly world. Whether or not the vase can be an example of “patronage” is

debatable, but one could argued that since Louis was his wife’s liege lord, such gifts were given

to him to support his rights as king, especially as he tried to consolidate power through the new

lands acquired by him through his marriage to Eleanor. The vase itself is thought to be of

Fatimid origin, and five out of ten similar rock crystal artifacts known from the Middle Ages

61 Gaudette, “Spending,” 143.

62 More will be said about the struggle between Melisende and her son Baldwin for sole rulership of Jerusalem later on.

31

were also held by Aquitaine collectors. The ability to search out and procure such rare and

expensive artifacts bespeaks the prosperity of Eleanor’s country. Once again this was a subtle

indication of how powerful Eleanor actually was. Louis needed the connection, power, and

money that Eleanor had, and he was gaining legitimacy in his throne due to her. Louis may have

had certain legal rights to administer Aquitaine due to his marriage to Eleanor, but Eleanor was

still the sole heiress of Aquitaine and had a right to the personal income from Aquitaine and the

land would revert back to her if she ever divorced Louis. The Aquitaine Vase was a symbol of

power and money Louis was receiving from his marriage to Eleanor, but Eleanor was the one

bestowing it to him.

Besides the Aquitaine vase, very little exists as evidence of Eleanor’s patronage as queen

of France and nothing similar to Melisende’s convent at Bethany. Eleanor donated Great East

Window of the Cathedral of Poitiers,63 and granted a forest and a moor to the monks of St-

Maixent.64 Eleanor is well known for her contributions to the Abbey of Fontevrauld, donating an

annual rent of 500 sous in 1152,65 but the majority of those donations were during her reign as

queen of England. Unlike Melisende, Eleanor never founded a new abbey or convent, nor

donated any lands to the church during her reign as Queen of France.66

Although Melisende was a queen and Eleanor only queen consort, Eleanor still had the

resources to be as significant a patron as Melisende was. Melisende’s patronage was a

considerable force behind her support from the clergy, political groups, and the people of

63 Madeline H. Cavines, “Anchoress, Abbess, and Queen: Donors and Patrons or Intercessors and Matrons?” In The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. June Hall McCash (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 127.

64 Nicholas Vincent, “Patronage, Politics and Piety in the Charters of Eleanor of Aquitaine,” in Plantagenêts et Capetiens: Confrontations et Heritages, ed. Martin Aurell and Noel-Yves Tonnerre, 24-5.

65 Jean-Marc Beivenu, “Aliénor d'Aquitaine et Fontevraud,” Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale, 29 (1986): 19.

66 Vincent, “Patronage,” 25.

32

Jerusalem. The fact that Eleanor was less generous with her patronage possibly lost her potential

allies and support.

33

Chapter 4 – Politics and Proponents

Evidence of Eleanor’s political activities during the Second Crusade in sources such as

William of Tyre’s Chronicle is less overt than that surrounding Melisende. What little we can

discern from William of Tyre’s history comes in subtle forms. The church was not pleased when

Eleanor joined Louis on Crusade, not only because she was a woman and therefore defying

church edict, but because she influenced other lords to bring along their wives as well.67 Her

ability to influence Louis and ignore church mandates so blatantly suggests a certain amount of

political weight carried by Eleanor.

Eleanor’s retinue of women who followed her to the Holy land aided in one political

situation, and could have proved useful in others, too. When the French party stopped at

Byzantium for the negotiations between Louis and Manual I Emperor of the Byzantine

Emperor,68 the emperor demanded the homage of the French barons, as well as one of the ladies

in Eleanor’s retinue as a wife for his nephew. The Count of Perche, Louis’s younger brother,

“secretly abducted his kinswoman from the Queen’s retinue thereby releasing himself and certain

barons from paring homage to the emperor and his relative from marrying the emperor’s

nephew.”69 While it is hard to prove Eleanor directed this scheme all by herself, one cannot

imagine that she was unaware of the activities of her ladies and might have imagined the

usefulness of bringing unmarried ladies of good birth on the journey besides for the sake of her

own propriety.

67 William of Newburgh, “Historia Rerum Anglicarum,” in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I: Containing the First Four Books of the Historia Rerum Anglicarum, ed. Richard Howlett (London, Longman and Co.: 1884), 92: “Multi alii nobiles uxores suas secum duxerunt.”

68 Crusading parties had to stop in Byzantium before proceeding into Outremer to get the Emperor of Byzantium’s permission to proceed. Although the crusades included pilgrimage, and the Byzantines did request help that led to the First Crusades and more, it still meant there were large forces of armed men going through the lands of Byzantium and the emperors sought ways to keep these armies in check.

69 Odo of Deuil, The Journey of Louis, 79.

34

The most concrete evidence of Eleanor’s political power was when the peers of

Jerusalem and the realm of Outremer sent the patriarch to shuffle Louis out of Aleppo because

they feared the “intervention of the queen”70 as her connections with Raymond would prevent

Louis from leaving Antioch and taking his troops to Jerusalem. Both Antioch and Jerusalem

wanted Louis and his French army to further their campaigns, and the men of Jerusalem were at

loath to waste Louis’s army in aiding Raymond’s plans to expand Antioch. If it were Raymond’s

influence alone that the men of Jerusalem feared, it would not have been so out of the ordinary –

Raymond was tied to Louis by Eleanor’s marriage and was a powerful lord through his province

of Antioch. However, William of Tyre specifically mentioned the fear of Eleanor’s influence,

proving that she had a moving hand in all of this. Her ability to do so most likely came from the

earlier evidence of Louis’s military weakness and the fact that Eleanor, as an heiress, controlled

a small part of the French army that was tied to her by vassalage. She did not directly control

them – as stated prior, there is no evidence of Eleanor or Melisende being direct military

commanders – but she could have most certainly threatened to pull them away from Louis’s

army or to lend her soldiers to Raymond and his purposes.71

It would be ideal if Eleanor’s exile from influencing Louis and the French military

interests was soothed by evidence of her retaining power over Aquitaine. Unfortunately there is

no concrete proof that Eleanor continued to single-handedly direct affairs of Aquitaine during

her marriage. Although she was an heiress and all lands would revert back to her upon divorce,

she was still married to Louis thus her lands and the authority that came were still subordinate to

Louis’s power. The few surviving charters by Eleanor during her time as Queen of France dealt

70 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 757: “Interventu regine.”

71 Connor Kostich, “Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Women of the Second Crusade,” in Medieval Italy, Medieval and Early Modern Women: Essay in Honour of Christine Meek,” ed. by Conor Kostick (England, Four Courts Press: 2010), 203-5.

35

only with money allotment to the church or groups such as the Templars.72 However, these

charters are still important in pointing out Eleanor’s political power.

To retain political relevance back in France Eleanor utilized her other ties of kin in

addition to the sway held over Louis. Eleanor’s broadening her support base was an intelligent

maneuver in self-preservation, for the power of the king was not entirely assured in France.

Powerful nobles constantly tested the king’s control over the provinces, which compose today’s

as “France.” Eleanor would have benefited greatly from making allies within the court, as they

were the most powerful, but sources show that the French court had no love for Eleanor. Instead,

Eleanor used family ties as her secondary support for power and stability. A female heiress to an

estate, especially to one as powerful as Aquitaine, was usually forced to deal with male kin vying

to take it over. That her male cousins and other kin did not fight to take possession of Aquitaine

from her control is extremely indicative of Eleanor forming a coalition of supportive family

members. One might argue that having Louis as her husband could have staved off the proverbial

wolves as she was under the protection of the monarchy, but at that time a monarch “owning” or

“protecting” land did not traditionally stop French nobles from creating conflicts over said land.

More likely, Eleanor used her role as queen and a powerful heiress to favor her kin so as to

entice them into being more supportive of her. During her reign as Queen of France and

continuing into her position as Queen of England, Eleanor awarded her kinsmen positions of

merit such as seneschal of Poitou.73 To prevent her male cousins vying to take pieces of her

inheritance away from her, Eleanor gathered her male relatives close her and showed them favor

72 Vincent, “Patronage,” 60.

73 Vincent, “Patronage,” 48.

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through positions of power. Having these male relatives nearby to witness Eleanor’s charters

supports the idea of an affable relationship between Eleanor and her male kin.

Unlike Eleanor, there is much more evidence of Melisende’s political influence during

her reign. This is due to a variety of reasons, the first being that Melisende had legal

confirmation of her political power since she before she was crowned, her father the king naming

her “Regis filia.” Upon her father’s death, with her husband Fulk and son Baldwin IV, she was

crowned “cura regni pleni potestas,”74 that is, she had royal power over the care of the kingdom

and government along with Fulk and Baldwin. Although her status as queen was legally

confirmed, Fulk initially took the power of primary ruler, despite her father’s explicit intentions.

During her marriage with Fulk and as her time as regent, Melisende utilized the strategy of

centralizing her power around the seat of Jerusalem so she could eventually take her place as

primary ruler.

While Fulk was still alive, Melisende’s first major accomplishment towards the former

goal was when she constructed the convent at Bethany. The adultery scandal had already passed

by this time and Fulk did not make charters without her consent, yet he still was listed as the

primary authorizer on her Charters. The convent of Bethany was made with Fulk as the primary

authorizer, but Melisende gained the lands of Bethany by trading it with lands from her own

dowry, as well as showering the convent with gifts from her own possession. So, while Fulk

technically marked his approval of charter for Bethany, Melisende guaranteed the convent’s

loyalty to her by it being her own initiative75 and funding it herself.

74 Hans Eberhard Mayer, “Studies in the History of Queen Melisende,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 23 (1972): 100.

75 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 709: “Concepit domina Milissendis.”

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Melisende, during Fulk’s life and after it, seated some of her most important allies near

her in Jerusalem and gathered more allies who had holdings near Jerusalem. Phillip of Nablus,

who may or may not have actually been Lord of Nablus, was definitely a powerful ally and

belonged to a family who had been in royal service for over forty years. He held considerable

power in the Samaria, one of the centers of royal domain. By gaining Phillip of Nablus as any

ally, Melisende continued her policy of gathering power around Jerusalem since Samaria was

Jerusalem’s neighbor, and Melisende strengthened her relationship with Phillip of Nablus by

adding to his holdings with lands surrounding Samaria. Phillip’s loyalty granted Melisende

connections with several other important feudal lords such as Renier Lord of Ramlah, who

guarded the plain of Saron on the coast of Jerusalem, and Barisan of Iblen who safeguarded

Jerusalem from Egypt. Not to be forgotten was Rohard the Elder, of whom Melisende was not

overly friendly with during her adultery scandal. It cannot be determined if the two ever came to

like each other afterward, however Rohard must have allied with Melisende out of his own self

interest because she certainly needed him out of hers. Rohard was not only the owner of many

lands around Jerusalem, but he also was a viscount and very influential in the political

machinations of the court.76 Evidence of Rohards alliance with Melisende is seen in his role as

witness in charters signed by Melisende in the Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani, which will be

discussed in further detail later.

Melisende’s popularity in the political sphere was evident in the specific wording

William of Tyre used when describing her political acumens. The word prudens meant

“prudence” and was a cardinal virtue of the time. William of Tyre referred to Melisende as a

“prudens et circumspecta mulier,”77 or a prudent and discrete woman, when she was at a council

76 Mayer, “Studies,” 118-119.

77 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 761.

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with her son Baldwin III. The phrase implies that she was respected, for although she knew how

to exert power and influence, she also knew her place and her limits. This was in stark contrast to

William’s reference to Eleanor’s behavior at Antioch as imprudens,78 making clearer to see why

Eleanor had a harder time measuring up to Melisende’s success. During that same account of the

aforementioned general council, Baldwin was mentioned as inclite indolis,79 a glorious youth,

inclite a word reserved typically for males. It is very telling that William later described

Melisende as a woman of “glorious memory”80 using the same word inclite. The manly

references continued with the description of her “manly heart” and her “wisdom of advice in

regards to politics was inferior to no prince.”81 The masculine description of Melisende’s

character and her prudence were necessary partners because for her to be well regarded and

powerful, Melisende needed manly qualities while knowing her place.

The small but essential paper trail of charters in the Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani are

essential in proving Melisende’s political rise to power from the wife of Fulk, to queen regent, to

queen of Jerusalem. In 1142, charter 210 was signed by “Fulk, King of Jerusalem, with Queen

Melisende and son Baldwin consenting,”82 and although Melisende was listed as consenting, as

William of Tyre confirmed she always was in charters after the adultery scandal, Fulk was listed

as King of Jerusalem whereas Melisende was only queen. The omission of Hierosolymitanus

78 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 755.

79 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 761.

80 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 777.

81 William of Tyre, A History, 204-5.

82 Rohricht, Regesta, 53: “Fulco, rex Hierosolymitanus, consensus Milisendis reginae et Baldwini filii.”

39

after Melisende’s title of reginae was deliberate and indicative that Fulk was still legally seen as

the dominant ruler, even if Melisende was indeed ruling the court politically.

After Fulk’s death in 1143 a smattering of charters appear with Baldwin III’s signature or

the Patriarch of Jerusalem’s. It was not until 1146 in charter 240 that the Regesta Regni

Hierosolymitani mentioned Melisende in charters again. Her title significantly changed to matris

Milisendis83 confirmed her position as queen mother and her “consensus” over Balduinus III rex

Hierosolymitanus confirmed her position as queen regent. While this was indeed a rise in power

for her, the most prominent political move for power was when in 1149 Melisende switched the

power balance between her and her son Baldwin III by signing charters with her as the primary

authorizer, Milisendis regina Hierosolymitana84 and having Baldwin III simply as filii and regis.

In future charters, such as 259, Melisende grew so bold as to sign charters with her seal only,

with no confirmation from Baldwin.85

Melisende’s legal overthrow of Baldwin III through her charters was not an unsupported

move. Numerous powerful peers and clergy of Jerusalem witnessed her charters, such as Fulcher,

Archbishop Baldwin of Caesarea, Archbishop Robert of Nazereth, Raymund the Master of the

Hospitallers, Rohard the Elder, Phillip of Nablus, Constable Manassas, and many others.

Witnesses role’s were not necessarily one of power, they were simply there to prove it was

indeed signed legally, but with all these powerful men there to witness it can be imagined they

would not have signed off as witness unless they approved of her signing the charter alone.

Melisende’s second son, Amaury, was also a witness to her charters, but his role was most

important before Melisende started signing charters as Milisendis regina Hierosolymitana. In a

83 Rohricht, Regesta, 61.

84 Rohricht, Regesta, 64.85

Rohricht, Regesta, 65

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tactic to weaken Baldwin’s power, Amaury was listed as co-signer of charter 245 in 1147 to split

the power of Jerusalem not just between Baldwin and Melisende but also between Baldwin,

Melisende, and Amaury. By taking away power from Baldwin and bestowing it to Amaury,

Melisende essentially bestowed it upon herself since Amaury was part of her power center.

Later, when Melisende began signing charters with full authority as Queen of Jerusalem, she

placed Amaury as Count of Jaffa in 115186 since she no longer needed his support through

mediums such as signing charters, instead putting him towards better use a political and military

force.

Perhaps what won the political support that allowed Melisende to purport herself as

reginae Hierosolymitani was Baldwin’s military failure at Damascus in 1148. A general war

council at Acre was held to make the decision to capture Damascus and although historian Hans

Myer implied that Melisende was not there since “Otto of Freising should not have omitted to

mention [her]…had she been there,”87 William of Tyre clearly mentioned Melisende at the

council along with Baldwin and Patriarch Fulcher.

Whether or not Melisende was actually in attendance, it can be discerned that she would

have not favored the expedition. If Damascus was not captured it would not have changed the

welfare of the state of Jerusalem for her, but if it were captured by Baldwin it would have

diminished her claim for the full power of Queen of Jerusalem. It should be remembered that

while all of that was occurring, Louis VII was whisked away from Eleanor and Raymond at

Antioch for that same expedition for Damascus. Fortunately for Melisende, the failure of the

siege was much more beneficial for her than it was for Eleanor’s political position. Melisende

86 Rohricht, Regesta, 68.

87 Mayer, “Studies,” 127.

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seized the chance that the failure of Damascus gave her to further her cause and claimed the title

of reginae Hierosolymitani soon after in 1149.

Charter 256 in Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani exhibited Melisende’s attempt to once

again centralize power around Jerusalem, as well as gain more political allies, but this time she

extended her sphere of power more militarily. Melisende must have known civil war between

herself and her son was an option, for Charter 256 granted land to the Knights of St. John, a

monastic military order. The land grant was to the Village of Assera, located on the coast and

was near Jerusalem.88 Military monastic orders were powerful allies to have in both the political

sphere and a fight, and seeing as the Hospitallers were favoring Baldwin at that particular time, it

was a wise move for Melisende to entice them into an alliance.

William of Tyre’s recollection of Baldwin’s crowning without Melisende was significant

proof of the trouble brewing between Melisende and Baldwin. While it is difficult to place this

after before or after the charter 256 of Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani, it was definitely after

Melisende assumed power as queen of Jerusalem. If Baldwin’s unofficial crowning occurred

before charter 256 – the land grant to Knights of St. John – it would explain Melisende’s action

to enlist the aid of the Knights of St. James, however Melisende was surely prudent enough to

notice the opposition building from Baldwin even without his unofficial crowing. The wording

of William of Tyre’s account of Baldwin’s crowning leaves one in doubt that Baldwin actually

assumed full power as king at this point. On the contrary, power forces such as Patriarch Fulcher

and other nobles urged Baldwin to allow his mother to participate in the inclite of the crowning

ceremony. Baldwin was wise enough to not reject his mother out of hand, but instead switched

88 Rohricht, Regesta, 64-5.

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the day and appeared without his mother in a public procession with a laurel.89 The use of the

laurel instead of a crown was intentional and significant because the crown was symbolic of true

legitimacy and Baldwin was not supported in full to do so without having his mother Melisende

as joint ruler. Since he did not want to be under the rule of Melisende, but could not force his

way to full kingship, Baldwin stated his intentions with the laurel, which was a sign of power but

not true legitimacy of rule.

Baldwin’s laurel crowning did come with significant power, even if it was not complete

power, and spelled the eventual end to Melisende’s autonomy as Queen of Jerusalem.

Immediately after Baldwin’s informal crowning, he demanded the kingdom be split up between

them. Melisende took Jerusalem and Nablus and their surrounding lands, while Baldwin took

Tyre and Acre and their surrounding lands. Not soon after, a military and political struggle

ensued, ending in Melisende’s capitulation and receiving Nablus as her only settlement.

Although this was the end of Melisende’s rule as queen of Jerusalem, her immense power and

political acumen was evident by the residual influence she kept later on. Melisende, along with

her sisters Sibylla and Iveta, intervened to elect the unusual choice of Amalrich as Patriarch of

Jerusalem.90 She also gave land to the Hospitallers at Bevoeth, near Acre, most likely because

Acre was Baldwin’s domain and she wanted to irk him. Baldwin at this point still had the right to

approve her charter’s before they went into force, but it would have been a slight to the

Hospitallers it he did not approve it. Eventually Baldwin had to deny Melisende the use of a

chancellor because she continued issuing charters without his permission. Ultimately they

89 William of Tyre, Chronicle, 778: “Horum igitur et similium rex fretus consilio proposuerat in die festo Pasche Ierosolimis sollempniter coronari; cuius glorie cum a domino patriarcha et a viris prudentibus, qui pacem regni diligebant, instanter rogaretur ut matrem participem faceret, distulit predictorum consilio, ne matrem haberet consortem, illa die qua proposuerat, et sequenti die subito, matre non vocata, in publicum processit laureatus.”

90 William of Tyre, A History, 271- 272.

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reconciled and she was often brought in as an advisor.91 In the later narration of Baldwin III’s

rule, William reported that Melisende fell ill, yet proceeded to remember her rule as “wise and

judicious” and that she “had governed the kingdoms with strength surpassing that of most

women.”92

91 Mayer, “Studies,” 136-140.

92 William of Tyre, A History, 283.

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Conclusion

Comprehending the power and influence Melisende and Eleanor held begins with the

assessment of their assets they inherited and were otherwise as their disposal. The patronage they

funded as well as the political structure built took money, land, and other moveable sources of

wealth that both Melisende and Eleanor had aplenty. Melisende’s direct inheritance of the

queenship left her with not only with a dowry, but the entire royal domain. Eleanor was Queen of

France by marriage alone, however her legal inheritance of Aquitaine left her with a wealth of

land, goods, and money that was comparable to Melisende.

Although these two women had resources to spare, they still had roles they were expected

to fill as a wife and a woman, each defying and complying with these in their own unique ways.

Melisende defied the norm and acted as a liege lord, even though she was married to Fulk – her

inheritance of the throne of Jerusalem and Outremer’s laws granted her this privilege. Her

marriage with Fulk was politically tense, but she fulfilled her duty as a woman and provided no

less than two male heirs to the throne in quick succession, allowing her to go on her way in

attempting to take political control of Jerusalem. Her adherence to certain female norms gained

Melisende the favor of the church and allowed for Melisende to not only escape from an adultery

scandal with her reputation intact, but also overturning Fulk’s stronghold as the primary ruler of

Jerusalem.

Eleanor, in contrast, was legally in control of her own lands up until she married Louis.

Technically her marriage and her being heiress to Aquitaine made her a vassal to her husband as

well as his wife. This rendered Eleanor’s control over her lands less define and weaker than

Melisende had over hers. Eleanor was unable to fulfill her duty to produce a male and instead

gave Louis daughters, a fact many were not pleased about. This, along with her open defiance

45

against the Church’s mandate against women on the crusade did not gain Eleanor the Church’s

favor. The lack of prudence on Eleanor’s part in following female duties and behavior led to a

less favorable outcome of her adultery scandal than Eleanor’s. A clear difference in womanly

behavior appears between Melisende and Eleanor, with Melisende being able to wield her power

while also adhering to the majority of womanly expectations while Eleanor’s power steamrolled

through a select few – but crucial – social mandates for noble women.

Although the wealth of Melisende and Eleanor was comparable, Melisende arises as

more generous patron of the two women. Melisende used land and donations to the church to

gain political favor from the church and Jerusalem’s neighbors. Eleanor’s adherence to donations

of money and movable goods may come from the fact that she has less direct control over her

lands than Melisende does. For Melisende, her legal rights in Outremer and as queen in her own

right made it easier to donate and exchange her land at will, whereas Eleanor’s dealings with her

land were subject to Louis’s approval.

Eleanor’s main political advantage came from the control she had over her husband and

her ability to gain her male relative’s support instead of dissention. Her main feats via using the

ear of her husband were used to influence events in Outremer, whereas her ties of kin were for

aid back in France. The court and the church supported Melisende’s political base and allowed

Melisende to consolidate power around Jerusalem and to achieve her overall goal of becoming

reginae Hierosolymitani.

From all of this it can be gleaned that Melisende reached far greater heights in terms in

autonomy, patronage, and political support. It should be credited to Eleanor, however, that

Melisende was working with far more inherited and legal rights than Eleanor was. That in mind,

Eleanor achieved a noteworthy amount of autonomy and power during her time as Queen of

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France. Unfortunately the medieval time period leaves historians today in want of primary

sources, and the sources that are known and used for this research disparage Eleanor in their

majority. For this reason, Eleanor could have reached even greater heights than proposed in this

paper. There also could have been more charters that were destroyed that might have proved

even more powerful displayed of patronage.

Despite this, the sources used leave plenty of evidence to show that Melisende and

Eleanor were both extremely powerful and influential women for the times they lived in. This

case study provides a significant insight into gender studies surrounding the medieval period. It

may not have been common, but women could be heiresses to an estate, as well as gain

significant political influence through patronage and diplomacy. One of the most interesting

themes that develops is how Outremer’s legal structure allowed for a women like Melisende to

surpass many boundaries upon her sex and become not only a powerful ruler, but a ruler well-

liked enough by both laymen and clergy to be supported in disallowing a male heir to assume the

throne when he came of age.

The case study of Melisende and Eleanor also opens up the discussion of women in the

crusades outside of the backdrop of war. The majority of discussions of women in the context of

the crusades focus on whether or not they participated in warfare, and if they did not, their role in

the camps. Melisende and Eleanor’s lives during the Second Crusade consider how women’s

roles in politics were influential in the crusading era.

Melisende’s hard work and manly heart and Eleanor’s cunning are evident in how they

displayed power. They used their assets and resources as women towards patronage and political

feats that created a permanent legacy for both women. Although Melisende’s historical footprint

is decidedly larger than Eleanor’s in this study, Melisende had more tools to start with to help her

47

ascent to power. Also, although Eleanor’s shine is slightly duller than Melisende’s in this

comparison, she no doubt left an impression on her contemporaries that would create a

reputation that would precede her all the way into present day.

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Appendix I

France in the twelfth century (From Jean Richards The Crusades c. 1071-c. 1291)

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