10 Facts About The Crusades

However, in desperate situations, whether the women had an interest in fighting or not, they but had to find means to defend and protect themselves. Thomas of Beverley's poem on the deeds of his sis Margaret offers a fascinating insight to a female person pilgrim'south fight for survival in a unsafe identify. Margaret had travelled to the Holy State on pilgrimage and was in Jerusalem when it was besieged by Saladin in 1187. The verse form tells u.s. that she was able to avail herself of a breastplate but in the absence of a helmet she merely improvised with a cauldron!

On the Muslim side, Usamah talks about an instance when a castle owned by his family was attacked and conquered by the Ismailis. The Ismaili leader tells Usamah's cousin Shahib that he volition turn a blind eye if he goes back home, gathers his property and leaves the castle. As Shahib goes dorsum home to collect his valuables he is startled by a effigy who enters the business firm wearing a mail service hauberk and a helmet, a sword and shield. The effigy throws off the helmet, and lo and behold, information technology'due south Shahib's aging aunt. She berates Shahib for his cowardice and for letting down the family honour past considering running away and leaving all the women backside.

It is interesting that both sources were written by men, who praise women for their ingenuity without the slightest trepidation – despite the fact that these women's actions dealt a audio blow to accustomed medieval gender roles!

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During the crusader period medical knowledge was highly valued and constituted one of the crucial points of contact between eastern and western cultures

The memoirs of Usamah ibn Munqidh (1095–1188), The Volume of Contemplation, are a goldmine of information about daily life in the Holy Land and include many anecdotes (some serious, some less then) on various forms of cultural substitution betwixt the Latin crusaders and the natives of the Holy Country.

Information technology would be fair to describe Usamah as a person who was 'born' to the crusades. Born on iv July 1095, he spent his long and adventurous life living side-by-side with the residents of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. In ane chestnut, Usamah talks most an artisan from Shayzar named Abu al-Fath, whose son was suffering from scrofula [a tuberculosis infection of the lymph nodes in the neck]. While Abu al-Fath was in Antioch on a business trip with his son, a Frankish man noticed the sores on the boy'due south neck and offered them a remedy ("burn some uncrushed leaves of glasswort, soak the ashes in olive oil and strong vinegar").

While the anonymous Frankish homo seemed to exist genuinely motivated by his wish to cure the boy, he was also keen to keep the 'copyright': Abu al-Fath had to swear by his religion that he wouldn't make coin out of anyone that he cured using the recipe.

It appears that the remedy was indeed new to the Muslims, and as it cured Abu al-Fath's son its success ensured further apportionment. The remedy was passed on to Usamah, who tells usa that he himself used it on a number of sufferers. Through his memoirs, the remedy constitute its way to future generations.

c1275, a knight of the crusades in chain mail is kneeling in homage, his helmet being held above his head. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) — c1275, a knight of the crusades in chain post is kneeling in homage, his helmet existence held above his head. (Photograph by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Some crusader medical advice included remedies that were hardly palatable

For instance, the 14th-century anatomist and royal physician Guido da Vigevano offered slug soup as antidote to aconite poisoning. In 1335 da Vigevano produced a text (Texaurus Regis Francie) urging the French male monarch Philip VI to launch a new crusade. The text includes technical plans, drawings for siege engines and a air current-propelled chariot, likewise every bit medical communication, including the above-mentioned solution to aconite poisoning – which despite sounding unpleasant, is really very ingenious.

Aconite, commonly known as monkshood and nonetheless institute in cottage gardens, is a highly poisonous plant and during the crusader menstruum it was used by the Muslims confronting the crusaders. Why slugs, though? On noticing some slugs that were feeding on aconite leaves, da Vigevano seems to accept experienced a light-seedling moment. He collected and boiled the slugs, concocting a soup out of them, which he commencement tested on animals. After achieving satisfactory results he took some aconite and tried the antidote himself.

Da Vigevano proudly reported that while the first two doses made him vomit, by the tertiary dose he was free of the poison. Sadly, he never constitute out whether it was worth going through this nasty trial, as Philip 6's crusade failed to materialise.

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When all was lost and they were taken hostages, negotiation skills were all that mattered to crusaders

These skills undeniably came to the fore during the 7th Crusade (1248–54). Initiated, led and largely financed by King Louis IX of France, the 7th Crusade was one of the most logistically sophisticated expeditions to the East. While it held cracking hope at the offset, it ended in apple-polishing failure.

Louis IX'due south acts during the crusade were documented by his close friend Jean de Joinville, who was privy to nearly of the negotiations and controlling. Joinville provides united states with one of the liveliest and interesting accounts in crusader history: he was obsessed with detail, blessed with a prodigious and photographic retention and had a passionate interest in vesture. To top it all, he had a barely concealed beat out on Louis Ix's wife, Queen Marguerite of Provence, who was also on cause. Nearly chronicles of the crusades offering their audiences countless tales of individual bravery and sacrifice – Joinville does this likewise, just likewise gives us a rex battling a tour of dysentery and so severe that a pigsty has to exist cutting in his drawers.

Louis IX of France was captured in Egypt during the Seventh Crusade in April 1250. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images) — Louis 9 of French republic was captured in Arab republic of egypt during the Seventh Crusade in April 1250. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Subsequently a doomed expedition up the Nile to take the town of Mansurah, the crusaders try to retreat to Damietta but are forced to carelessness the attempt. Joinville'due south party realise that they are running out of options and have to surrender. A crusader amidst the group clearly sees this as an human action of cowardice and argues that rather than giving themselves upward equally hostages they should all let themselves be slain and get to paradise. Joinville bluntly reports: "just we none of us heeded his communication".

Instead, once he is taken hostage Joinville does everything he can think of so that his life will be spared: he strikes a kinship with a Muslim human being, lies to his captors that he is the king's cousin, fabricates a human relationship to Emperor Frederick 2 and quotes Saladin when it suits him ("never impale a man in one case you had shared your breadstuff and salt with him"). In the end it'south Queen Marguerite's powers of negotiation that salvage them: she hands Damietta over to the Mamluks in exchange for her husband's life and Louis pays 400,000 pounds for his army to be released.

Watch: Did women keep crusades? | lx-2d history with Natasha Hodgson

The royal women of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem played crucial roles in political life, which sometimes meant that they had to suffer successive marriages

Royal matrimony was an of import political tool in the survival of the kingdom. The prize for the highest number of marriages goes to Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem, who married four times. All her husbands, bar i, were eliminated from the picture quite dramatically. She was forced to divorce her commencement hubby, Humphrey of Toron, who was not only extremely reluctant to stride up to the throne but also perceived to be as well young, too intellectual and somewhat effeminate by the dignity. The divorce meant a loss of face for Humphrey, but at to the lowest degree he remained live.

Isabella'due south second married man, Conrad of Montferrat, was non so lucky: he was assassinated past the much-feared Assassins, an Ismaili sect. Isabella married her third hubby, Henry of Champagne, while heavily pregnant with Conrad's child and merely a week later on his death. This marriage lasted for five years and ended when Henry died falling from a castle window. Isabella'south final married man, Aimery of Lusignan, died of "a surfeit of white mullet": quite a preventable death.

How do we explain these serial marriages and what do we know almost the woman who endured them? Was Isabella a helpless, romantic victim who was but interim as a vessel in the transmission of legitimacy? Indeed, her life corresponds to the most turbulent menstruum in the history of the crusader states: she witnessed the rise of Saladin and the autumn of Jerusalem; she saw the Third Crusade come and go and Republic of cyprus conquered, colonised and turned into a new kingdom.

The man who married Isabella would be rex, then he had to be an experienced political ruler and an exceptional military leader. The decision wasn't Isabella'due south to brand, however, as the barons were the agile kingmakers, only she appears to have accepted their choices. By the end of her reign the kingdom had found stability and her eldest daughter's right to dominion was secure.

Similar to Margaret of Beverley's cauldron-come-helmet in 1187, Isabella's marriages can be seen as improvisations to protect the kingdom. The cauldron saved a pilgrim; Isabella'south marriages ensured the survival of the kingdom at a perilous time.

Dr Aysu Dincer Hadjianastasis is a instruction young man in medieval and early on modern history at the University of Warwick