There's no evidence that people then educate her for the job. But i would argue, given what else we know about women's role in politics, that it's entirely conceivable that actually, not just she, but all her sisters would have been educated. Women needed to know how politics worked. They could not lead an army into and they needed a man for thatat that time. And they went looking for one. The nobility thought folk the fifth of anjou was a great candidate. He'd already been out to the holy land in the first place. Well, he'd kept knights there for a hundred nights, there in the service on crus for a year. So they knew he
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful woman in the Crusader states in the century after the First Crusade. Melisende (1105-61) was born and raised after the mainly Frankish crusaders had taken Jerusalem from the Fatimids, and her father was King of Jerusalem. She was married to Fulk from Anjou, on the understanding they would rule together, and for 30 years she vied with him and then their son as they struggled to consolidate their Frankish state in the Holy Land.
The image above is of the coronation of Fulk with Melisende, from Livre d'Eracles, Guillaume de Tyr (1130?-1186)
Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France
With
Natasha Hodgson
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History and Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Nottingham Trent University
Katherine Lewis
Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Huddersfield
and
Danielle Park
Visiting Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson