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William of Tyre, Femininity, and the Problem of the Antiochene Princesses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2019

ANDREW D. BUCK
ANDREW D. BUCK*
Affiliation:
School of History, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines the representation of women and femininity in Archbishop William of Tyre's Chronicon. It considers how his text was shaped by contemporary Western ideas of gender, and how this impacted upon his presentation of women, especially Queen Melisende of Jerusalem and three Antiochene princesses, Alice, Constance and Sybil. It argues that, in doing so, we can raise important questions regarding his use for empirical reconstruction by revealing the nuanced ways in which, in pursuit of broader narrative goals, he utilised gender as a tool to both praise and discredit.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 70 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 731 - 749
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

A version of this article was presented to the Leeds International Medieval Congress. I would like to thank the audience for their comments, and to express my sincerest gratitude to Susan Edgington, Cath Hanley, Eleanor Janega, Katherine Lewis, Matthew Mesley, Danielle Park, Thomas Smith and Stephen Spencer for their invaluable advice.

References

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7 Swanson, R. N., The twelfth-century renaissance, Manchester 1999, esp. pp. 103–51Google Scholar, 188–206.

8 For a good introduction to several key texts which influenced medieval conceptions of femininity and womanhood see Blamires, A., Woman defamed and woman defended: an anthology of medieval texts, Oxford 1992Google Scholar. See also Bernau, A., ‘Medieval antifeminism’, in McAvoy, L. and Watt, D. (eds), The history of British women's writing, 700–1500, i, Basingstoke 2015, 72–82Google Scholar.

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10 ‘mulier pudica, sobria et timens deum’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, Turnhout 1986, 781–2.

11 ‘mulier prudentissima, plenam pene in omnibus secularibus negociis habens experientiam, sexus feminei plane vincens conditionem, ita ut manum mitteret ad fortia et optimorum principum niteretur emulari et eorum studia passu non inferiore sectari’: ibid. 717. On the events of Melisende's life and political career see Mayer, H. E., ‘Studies in honour of Queen Melisende’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers xxvi (1972), 93–182CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 William of Tyre, Chronicon, 720, 761, 777, 850–1.

13 ‘semper ad matris ubera dependere’: ibid. 717–18, 777–80.

14 Gerish, ‘Royal daughters’, 101–12. See also Hodgson, Women, 181–8.

15 ‘astuti pectoris virilisque constantiae femina … sexusque fragilitatis femineaeque mollitiei oblita, viriliter sese et virtuose continere’: Gesta Stephani, ed. and trans. K. Potter, Oxford 1976, 122, 126. See also LoPrete, K., ‘Gendering viragos: medieval perceptions of powerful women’, in Meek, C. and Lawless, C. (eds), Studies on medieval and early modern women, IV: Victims or viragos?, Dublin 2005, 17–38Google Scholar, and Wilkinson, L., ‘Women as sheriffs in early thirteenth-century England’, in Jobson, A. (ed.), English government in the thirteenth century, Woodbridge 2004, 111–24Google Scholar, esp. p. 114.

16 ‘nec sexus infirmitate revocata, munia virorum obeunda suscepit … populos regit … ducit exercitus … duces eligit … bella disponit, mandat triumphos’: St Ambrose, ‘Liber de viduis’, PL xvi.260–3 at 262. See also Hodgson, Women, 198–9; Bernau, ‘Medieval antifeminism’, 74.

17 LoPrete, ‘Gendering viragos’, 17–38; Fenton, K., Gender, nation and conquest in the works of William of Malmesbury, Woodbridge 2008, 50–2Google Scholar.

18 On female succession see B. Hamilton, ‘Women in the crusader states: the queens of Jerusalem (1100–1190)’, in D. Baker and R. Hill (eds), Medieval women (Studies in Church History Subsidia i, 1978), 143–74 at p. 143. On the issue of the conflict over whether to allow a secular ruler in the Holy City, as well as William's views of this, see Edbury and Rowe, William of Tyre, 61–108, and S. John, ‘The papacy and the establishment of the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal: twelfth-century papal political thought on incipient kingship’, this Journal lxviii/2 (2017), 223–59, esp. pp. 230–5.

19 William of Tyre, Chronicon, 651–6. See also Mayer, H. E., ‘Angevins versus Normans: the new men of King Fulk of Jerusalem’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society cxxxi/1 (1989), 1–25Google Scholar; Mayer, ‘Studies’, 110; and Hogdson, Women, 134–5.

20 William of Tyre, Chronicon, 656. See also M. Sauer, Gender in medieval culture, London 2015, 63.

21 Gerish, ‘Royal daughters’, 105–8; Hodgson, Women, 185.

22 ‘femineo regebatur imperio’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 775.

23 Gerish, ‘Royal daughters’, 102.

24 ‘religiosam et nobilem carne et moribus feminam’, ‘sed memoriter hec retinentem’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 869. See also Hamilton, B., ‘The titular nobility of the Latin East: the case of Agnes of Courtenay’, in Edbury, P. (ed.), Crusade and settlement, Cardiff 1985, 197–203Google Scholar.

25 van Houts, E., Memory and gender in medieval Europe, 900–1200, Basingstoke 1999, 22–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Sauer, Gender, 107; Stafford, P., ‘The portrayal of royal women in England, mid-tenth to mid-twelfth centuries’, in Parsons, J. C. (ed.), Medieval queenship, Stroud 1994, 143–68Google Scholar.

27 ‘nobilem corpore, sed moribus nobiliorem’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 775.

28 Ibid. 453, 541–3, 613, 770, 778, 781–2.

29 Ibid. 638, 795–6. See also Hodgson, Women, 123.

30 ‘matronarum more nobilium’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 656.

31 ‘contra regiam dignitatem legem negligens maritalem, thori coniugalis fide oblita’: ibid. 754–5.

32 Evans, M., Inventing Eleanor: the medieval and post-medieval image of Eleanor of Aquitaine, London 2014, 21–8Google Scholar.

33 Earenfight, T., Queenship in medieval Europe, New York 2013, 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 23. See also Fenton, Gender, 108–9, and Sauer, Gender, 107.

34 ‘eruditissima illius admirandi muliebris artificii, quo consueverunt audaces suis etiam lascessitos injuriis maritos suppeditare’: Suger of St Denis, Vie de Louis le Gros, ed. and trans. H. Waquet, Paris 2007, 122–3.

35 ‘nobilissimam … moribus facetam, personal elegantem’: ibid. 46.

36 ‘Pinguis erat super modum, ita ut more femineo mamillas haberet cingulotenus prominentes’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 868. See also Edbury and Rowe, William of Tyre, 71–2.

37 ‘fuit sane facie decorus elegantissima, colore vivido et innatum designante vigorem, a quibus plane in ea parte matrem referens’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 715.

38 ‘forme venustate singulariter conspicua, vultus elegantia et totius corporis habitudine intuentibus favorabilis’: ibid. 843.

39 See, for example, the descriptions of beautiful women found in Suger, Vie de Louis le Gros, 46; William of Poitiers, Gesta Guillelmi, ed. and trans. R. H. C. Davis and M. Chibnall, Oxford 1998, 62–4; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum anglorum, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, completed by R. M. Thompson and M. Winterbottom, Oxford 1998–9, i. 754–8; Gerald of Wales, De principis instructione, ed. and trans. R. Bartlett, Oxford 2018, 688; and Dudo of St Quentin, De moribus actis primorum Normanniae ducum, ed. J. Lair, Caen 1865, 166–7, 185–6, 264, 289. For the virgin martyrs see Voraigne, Jacobus de, Legenda aurea vulgo historia Lombardica dicta, ed. Graesse, T. H., Bratislava 1845, 113–16Google Scholar, 170–3, 789–96.

40 Barber, M., The crusader states, New Haven 2012, 212Google Scholar; Hodgson, Women, 218; Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, ed. Mayer, H. E. and Richard, J., Hanover 2010, i. 497–9Google Scholar.

41 On these events see Asbridge, T., The creation of the principality of Antioch, 1098–1130, Woodbridge 2000, 81–9Google Scholar, 125–7, 143–6, and ‘Alice’, 29–47; and Buck, A. D., The principality of Antioch and its frontiers in the twelfth century, Woodbridge 2017, 69–73Google Scholar, 89, 96–7, 130–43, 191–2, 221–6.

42 William of Tyre, Chronicon, 623–4.

43 Ibid. 623–5.

44 ‘nequam agitata spiritu’, ‘viri deum timentes, insanientis femine contempnentes proterviam’: ibid. 623–4.

45 ‘mulier callida supra modum et maliciosa nimis’: ibid. 634–6.

46 ‘mulier maliciosa nimis’: ibid. 640–1.

47 Ibid. 657–9.

48 ‘credulamque nimis hac vana spe deludebat’: ibid. 658.

49 Ibid. 659.

50 Asbridge, ‘Alice’, 33–4; Buck, Principality, 221–31.

51 Sauer, Gender, 48–50, 107.

52 Hodgson, Women, 154–96, esp. pp. 181–2.

53 Asbridge, ‘Alice’, 34–6.

54 See, for example, the Gesta Stephani. Indeed, while its author praised Queen Mathilda's masculine characteristics, of Stephen's opponent, the Empress Mathilda, it was said that she ‘put on an extremely arrogant demeanour instead of the modest gait and bearing proper to the gentle sex’, and that in moments of anger, ‘every trace of a woman's gentleness was removed from her face’ (‘illa statim elatissimum summi fastus induere supercilium nec iam humilem feminae mansuetudinis notum vel incessum … totam muliebris mansuetudinis eversa faciam’): Gesta Stephani, 118, 122.

55 William of Tyre, Chronicon, 658.

56 On Constance and her career see Buck, Principality, 64, 69–85, 91, 95, 102–5, 132, 141, 181, 191–2, 198, 201, 208–12, 221–9, 235, and A. V. Murray, ‘Constance, princess of Antioch (1130–1164): ancestry, marriages and family’, Anglo-Norman Studies xxxviii (2015), 81–96.

57 ‘femineo regebatur imperio’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 775.

58 Edbury, P., ‘Propaganda and faction in the kingdom of Jerusalem: the background to Hattin’, in Shatzmiller, M. (ed.), Crusaders and Muslims in twelfth-century Syria, Leiden 1993, 172–89Google Scholar.

59 ‘vincula timens coniugalia solutamque ac liberam vitam preponens, non multum attendebat quid populo expediret’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 786.

60 Ibid.

61 Sauer, Gender, 107–15.

62 ‘non sine multorum admiratione quod tam preclara, potens et illustris femina et tam excellentis uxor viri quasi gregario nubere dignaretur’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 796.

63 ‘commissa honestisque sumptibus domine principisse constitutis’: ibid. 854–5.

64 M. Carrier, ‘L'Image des Byzantins et les systèmes de représentation selon les chroniqueurs occidentaux des croisades, 1096–1291’, unpubl. PhD diss, Paris–Sorbonne 2006, passim but especially pp. 68–96.

65 ‘de occultarum corporis partium dispositione’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 855–7.

66 Michael the Syrian, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d'Antioche (1166–1199), ed. and trans. J.-B. Chabot, Paris 1916–20, iii. 324; Anonymi auctoris Chronicon ad A. C. 1234 pertinens, ed. and trans. J.-B. Chabot, A. Abouna and J.-M. Fiey, Leuven 1916–74, i. 119.

67 ‘Raimundi quondam Antiochiae principis filius’: Louis vii, ‘Epistolae’, in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, Paris 1738–1904, xvi. 27–8.

68 Cartulaire général de l'ordre des hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jérusalem (1100–1300), ed. J. Delaville Le Roulx, Paris 1894–1906, i, no. 311; Memorie storico-diplomatiche dell'antica città e ducato di Amalfi, ed. M. Camera, Salerno 1876, 202. See also Buck, Principality, 80–4.

69 ‘magnifici viri Antiocheni principis’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 855. It should be noted that this letter survives only in William's account. Moreover, because Greek authors who described Manuel's negotiations over the marriage, like Constantine Manasses, John Kinnamos and Niketas Choniates, detailed Maria only in terms of her being the daughter of Raymond of Poitiers, not the sister of Bohemond iii, it is possible that, even if William did have access to a real letter, he doctored its content for the Chronicon to suit his authorial purposes. For Greek source coverage see W. Aerts, ‘A Byzantine traveller to one of the Crusader States’, in K. Ciggaar and H. Teule (eds), East and West in the crusader states: context-contacts-confrontations, iii, Leuven 2003, 165–221 at pp. 172–219; Kinnamos, John, Epitome: rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum, ed. Meineke, A., Bonn 1836, 210–11Google Scholar; and Choniates, Niketas, Nicetae Choniatae historia, ed. van Dieten, J. L., Berlin 1975, 115–16Google Scholar. See also Buck, Principality, 209–12, and Gastgeber, C., ‘Schreiben der byzantinischen Kaiserkanzlei in der Kreuzzugsgeschichte des Wilhelm von Tyrus’, Jahrbuch der österreichischen Bzyantinistik lxiii (2013), 91–106Google Scholar.

70 William of Tyre, Chronicon, 786.

71 Hodgson, Women, 185.

72 On Sybil and the events detailed below see Mayer, H. E., Varia Antiochena: Studien zum Kreuzfahrerfürstentum Antiochia im 12. und frühen 13. Jarhundert, Hanover 1993, 162–83Google Scholar, and Buck, A. D., ‘The noble rebellion at Antioch, 1180–1182: a case study in medieval frontier politics’, Nottingham Medieval Studies lxi/2 (2016), 93–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Dynasty and diaspora in the Latin East: the case of the Sourdevals’, Journal of Medieval History xliv (2018), 151–69, esp. pp. 164–7.

73 ‘quandam Sibillam, maleficiis utentem ut dicitur’: William of Tyre, Chronicon, 1012–14.

74 Fenton, Gender, 33–4, 52; L. Stokes, ‘Toward the witch craze’, in Bennett, J. and Karras, R. (eds), The Oxford handbook of women and gender in medieval Europe, Oxford 2013, 577–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Buck, ‘Noble rebellion’, 114–16.

76 For Baldwin's reign see Hamilton, B., The leper king and his heirs: Baldwin IV and the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, Cambridge 2005Google Scholar.

77 Edbury and Rowe, William of Tyre, 62–5; S. Brody, The disease of the soul: leprosy in medieval literature, Ithaca, NY 1974, 132–46.

78 William of Tyre, Chronicon, 1012–14; Buck, ‘Noble rebellion’, 93–112.