الفرنجيات.. كيف عاشت النساء الصليبيات في المشرق؟ ولماذا تشبَّهن بالمسلمات؟ |
The Crusades was one of the episodes of the long conflict between the East and the West for two whole centuries, from the late fifth century AH / eleventh century AD to the end of the seventh century AH / thirteenth century AD. The mistaken, hoping to establish the earthly paradise in the Levant, where Christ and Christianity originated.
From the outcry of Pope Urban II at the Clermont complex in southern France in 1095AD/488AH, they were able to crawl in campaigns after another until they were able at an early period to defeat the Muslims, who at that time suffered dispersal and internal strife in the Seljuk House, as well as the Fatimid Seljuk War And they were able to establish four political entities represented in the Emirate of Edessa in the Euphrates Island in southern Turkey and northern Syria today, Antioch on the Mediterranean coast, and Tripoli in the Levant, and finally the Kingdom of Jerusalem in all of Palestine, to which all of these entities became politically affiliated.
These colonies kept growing over time, and the Crusader crowds came from western and central Europe groups after another until they occupied the entire Levantine coast from Gaza in the south to Antioch in the north, in addition to their constant and constant threat to northern Syria and southern Anatolia through the Emirate of Edessa. Throughout the two hundred years 491-690 AH/1091-1293 AD, the relationship between the two sides was not a continuous war relationship or one of fighting, blood and body parts along the way, but rather it was interspersed with treaties, truces, and economic and trade relations dictated by the necessity of the fait accompli.
Despite this, a small number of Muslim historians were interested in dealing with the customs and traditions of the Frankish house in the East, but for a few of them, their observation of her was funny and accurate at the same time, and the topic of the Crusader woman and how she lived and what she wore, adorned and dressed among the things that drew the attention of these historians and Muslim travelers They were even astonished by some of the similarities between the women of the Crusaders and the women of the Muslims. How was the role of the crusader woman throughout these two centuries in the world of the East? Who are the most prominent historians and writers who dealt with some of the customs of the Crusades? How did the Crusader woman resemble her Muslim counterpart? That is what we will see in our next lines.
Crusaders on the battlefield
The Frankish woman participated in war and peace with her man, and some of them even participated in political power, such as the queens of Jerusalem and others, but most of them were like political goods who were married in the framework of the interest of the Crusader emirate or the kingdom. Helpless and without will, she let herself pass from one husband to another because she is the legitimate heir to the crown of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
After the capture of King Jay in the Battle of Hattin in the year 583 AH / 1187 AD, the throne was transferred to Isabella, the daughter of Amouri, who was married to Prince “Humphrey”, the owner of Toron “Tibnin”. When he was assassinated by the Assassin’s Balinese in the year 1192 AD / 588 AH, Isabella was married to Amuri II, King of Cyprus.[1].
However, the women of the lower class of the Crusaders were on the shoulder of equality with men in participating in war actions and battlefields. In the battle of Sultan al-Nasir Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi on Acre in the year 585 AH / 1189 AD, “there were three Frankish women among the prisoners who were fighting on horses, and when they were captured and thrown They were known to have weapons, as the historian Izz al-Din Ibn al-Atheer narrates in his complete history.[2].
It seems that the participation of the Crusader women in the battles remained continuous and is well-known. When the Crusaders attacked the camp of the just king, the brother of Sultan Salah al-Din, near Acre in the year 586 AH / 1190 AD, they entered it after being evacuated, before the just attacked them and later defeated them, among the attackers were some of the Crusader knights. The writer of Sultan Salah al-Din and the historian “Imad al-Din al-Isfahani” says in his history: “I and Judge Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad (the historian and judge close to Salah al-Din) rode to see the remains of dead bodies and bodies there, and we saw a woman killed because she was a fighter.”[3].
Some historians have narrated scenes of crusader women fighting in other historical fragments, perhaps the most important of which was mentioned by the historian “Prince Osama bin Munqith” (d. 584 AH) in his autobiography “Al-Etibar” which is rightly considered one of the most important and first personal notes in Islamic history, She conveyed to us many important social features of the Crusaders, their women, their society, their customs and traditions, which Prince Osama considered strange and often reprehensible.
He tells us that he met one of the princes of Egypt, his name was “Nada Al-Sulayhi”, and he had two prominent blows in his face from a previous fight and cohesion. They got up, and I met a man with a bayonet (spear) and his wife behind him with a wooden cone in which there was water, and the man stabbed me with this one stab and I hit him, killing him, so his wife walked to me and hit me with a wooden cone in my face, this other wound wounded me, so they cut my face.”[4].
The participation of the Crusader woman did not stop at the battles of the Levant only, but she also participated in the Fifth Crusade against Egypt in the famous Battle of Damietta in the year 615 AH / 1217 AD when the Crusaders managed to occupy Damietta in the beginning, and they seized a lot of gold, silver and jewelry that they divided not only among the fighters and men Religion is from the Crusaders, but also against the women of the Crusaders and their children who attended[5].
crusade flirt
But with every defeat that the Crusaders suffered throughout their stay in the Levant and their attempts to Egypt, the hands and tongues of the Crusaders were directed to the violation of the sanctities, corruption and bad morals of the Crusaders. This can be seen from the message sent by Patriarch Baldwin Chaplin, Patriarch of Canterbury in England, to his church, He was a participant in King Richard the Lionheart in his campaign after the defeat of the Crusaders in Hattin, dated Sunday, October 21, 1191 CE / 587 AH, where he says:
And when we waited for some time to wait for King Richard and his companions, and they did not come, we marched towards our army in Acre, and we found our soldiers there, and I say it with all pain and sorrow, having submitted themselves to shameful acts, and yielded to rest and lust, and the camp was devoid of chastity, poise, faith and charity.[6].
The Muslim historian Al-Imad Al-Isfahani confirms in “Al-Fath Al-Qassi” the fact that a group of Crusaders who worked in prostitution and had places designated for these matters in some of Acre’s Crusader streets and lanes deviated, in a military campaign sent by Sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi in 585 AH / 1189 AD against the city of Acre, we find In this matter, Al-Isfahani says: “He (the Sultan) transported men, ammunition and equipment to her, and a group of princes were transferred to her in the boats, and they began to attack the Franks as voyeurism, phishing, and hunting.[7].
We found in the poetry of the poet Sharaf al-Din ibn al-Qaysrani (d. 548 AH / 1153 AD) many of his references to the Crusaders, their dress and their image. He visited the Crusader Emirate of Antioch in the year 540 AH / 1145 AD, and he was keen in his diwan to convey the character of the Crusaders and their customs; Their honorable women who were keen to visit churches for prayers on Sundays, as well as those who went out uncovering naked in the streets and balconies of houses, and Ibn al-Qaysrani was impressed by their beauty in many of his poems, even one of them bewitched him and said in them[8]:
I was fascinated by a frangipani ** the breeze of aromas wafts through them
In her dress is a soft branch ** and in her crown is a bright moon
And if there is blue in her eye ** The canna tooth is blue
Imitating Muslims
Concerning the marriage traditions and ceremonies that governed them; The Crusaders in the Levant followed the customs that prevailed in their country, and considered marriage a sacred secret and a divine gift, so it was forbidden to separate this bond except in the case of committing indecency, and they accepted the Roman legal rule that set the age of twelve as the minimum age for a girl’s marriage and the age of thirteen as the minimum age for a boy’s marriage[9].
The traveler “Ibn Jubayr Al-Andalusi” in the year 581 AH / 1185 AD witnessed a Crusader marriage ceremony in the occupied city of Tyre at the time. He described the manifestations of the ceremony and the shape of the bride and all the invitees and their decorated clothes, saying: “Among the scenes of the decorations of the world that were updated by the wedding of a bride we saw in pictures one day at its port, and he celebrated That is why all the Christians, men and women, lined up (two rows) at the door of the gifted bride, and the trumpets sounded and the psalms and all the musical instruments, until she came out wobbly between two men holding her from right and left, as if they were related to her, and she is in the best of clothes, and the most proud of clothes, pulling the tails of golden silk. Clouds in the usual form of their clothing, and on its head a gold band that was surrounded by a woven gold net.[10].
Likewise, Ibn Jubayr described to us the characteristics of the crusader men and women invited to that wedding, saying: “In front of it, a large number of Christian men in their most elegant clothes, pulling their tails behind them, and behind them are their female equals and counterparts from the Christians, jogging in the finest clothes, and flapping in the flankers of the ornaments, and the divine instruments have preceded them. And the Muslims and the rest of the Christians from the nazars had returned on their way as two men (Sifteen) who looked at them and did not deny them that, so they marched with her until they entered her husband’s house, and they held that day in a feast.”[11].
Prince Knight and historian “Osama bin Munqith” recognizes in his biography “Al-Etibar” the courage and patience of the Crusaders in the fields of war and fighting, but at the same time he blames them for their lack of jealousy over their women, and the daring of these women to speak with strangers who are not related to them, so he says: “They do not have A kind of pride and jealousy, a man among them walks with his wife and meets him, another man takes the woman and secludes her and talks to her, and the husband is standing in one direction waiting for her to finish talking, and if she takes a long time, he leaves her with the speaker and goes away.[12].
However, Ibn Jubayr was among those who turned to the fondness of a group of Crusader and Frankish women for imitating Muslim women in dressing, digging, adorning, dyeing and perfuming, which must be added to the sum of what Westerners at that time were keen to borrow from the doctrines of Islamic civilization that they saw and experienced in the Levant and Andalusia. When he passed by the Sicilian city of Palermo, which was home to Muslims and Christians under the rule of the Normans at the time, returning from the East to Andalusia, he caught his eye, like the women of the Franks, saying: “The dress of the Christians in this city is that of the Muslim women: the eloquent tongues, veiled, veiled, went out in This aforementioned feast, they wore golden silk clothes, embroidered clear quilts, wore colored kilts, wore gilded slippers, and appeared to their churches or swept them carrying all the adornment of Muslim women, including adornment, dyeing and perfume.[13].
These are the most prominent customs and traditions revealed by the sources of Islamic history about the Crusader woman, and the extent of similarities and differences between Crusader women and Muslim women. There is no doubt that the relations between the East and the West played a role in which moral values and the differences of cultures played their role, as it became clear in the observations of Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Munqith, al-Qaysrani and others.
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