Helen J. Nicholson, "Women and the Crusades" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Jan 14, 2026

Helen J. Nicholson, a Professor of medieval history at Cardiff University and expert on the Crusades, dives into the often-overlooked role of women in the crusading movement. She discusses how women provided crucial support through funding, prayer, and even diplomacy. The conversation highlights notable figures like Joan of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their influential roles. Nicholson also reveals barriers that prevented many women from participating and reflects on how they defended their homes and commemorated the fallen, showcasing their significant yet underappreciated contributions.

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INSIGHT

Women Are Present If You Read Closely

Medieval sources often hide women's roles by using masculine generic language, so careful reading reveals women everywhere in crusading sources.
Helen Nicholson argues women performed vital background tasks that enabled crusading efforts despite not always appearing in secondary literature.

INSIGHT

Local Law And Practical Limits Shaped Roles

Legal and cultural norms varied across Europe so women's political and property roles differed regionally.
Practical constraints like cost, pregnancy, and ritual purity also limited some women's ability to join crusades.

ANECDOTE

A Queen Tried To Stop A King's Crusade

Queen Blanche tried to stop her son Louis IX taking the cross because his father had died on crusade and she feared for him.
Nevertheless many women encouraged male relatives to crusade as a family pious duty, and some wanted to go themselves.

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The crusade movement needed women: their money, their prayer support, their active participation, and their inspiration.

Helen J. Nicholson's book Women and the Crusades (Oxford UP, 2023) surveys women's involvement in medieval crusading between the second half of the eleventh century, when Pope Gregory VII first proposed a penitential military expedition to help the Christians of the East, and 1570, when the last crusader state, Cyprus, was captured by the Ottoman Turks. It considers women's actions not only on crusade battlefields but also in recruiting crusaders, supporting crusades through patronage, propaganda, and prayer, and as both defenders and aggressors. It argues that medieval women were deeply involved in the crusades but the roles that they could play and how their contemporaries recorded their deeds were dictated by social convention and cultural expectations. Although its main focus is the women of Latin Christendom, it also looks at the impact of the crusades and crusaders on the Jews of western Europe and the Muslims of the Middle East, and compares relations between Latin Christians and Muslims with relations between Muslims and other Christian groups.

Helen J. Nicholson is Professor of Medieval History at Cardiff University, UK. She has published extensively on the crusades, the military orders, and various related subjects, including a translation of a chronicle of the Third Crusade and an edition of the Templar trial proceedings in Britain and Ireland. She has just completed a history of Queen Sybil of Jerusalem (1186-1190).

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

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