ABSTRACT
This volume presents the first substantial exploration of crusading and masculinity, focusing on the varied ways in which the symbiotic relationship between the two was made manifest in a range of medieval settings and sources, and to what ends. Ideas about masculinity formed an inherent part of the mindset of societies in which crusading happened, and of the conceptual framework informing both those who recorded the events and those who participated. Examination and interrogation of these ideas enables a better contextualised analysis of how those events were experienced, comprehended and portrayed. The collection is structured around five themes: sources and models; contrasting masculinities; emasculation and transgression; masculinity and religiosity and kingship and chivalry. By incorporating masculinity within their analysis of the crusades and of crusaders the contributors demonstrate how such approaches greatly enhance our understanding of crusading as an ideal, an institution and an experience. Individual essays consider western campaigns to the Middle East and Islamic responses; events and sources from the Iberian peninsula and Prussia are also interrogated and re-examined, thus enabling cross-cultural comparison of the meanings attached to medieval manhood. The collection also highlights the value of employing gender as a vital means of assessing relationships between different groups of men, whose values and standards of behaviour were socially and culturally constructed in distinct ways.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |68 pages
Sources and models
chapter 2|17 pages
The valiant man and the vilain in the tradition of the Gesta Francorum
chapter 3|19 pages
Al-Afḍal b. Badr al-Jamālī, the vizierate and the Fatimid response to the First Crusade
chapter 4|15 pages
The adolescent and the crusader
part |60 pages
Contrasting masculinities
chapter 6|13 pages
The true gentleman? Correct behaviour towards women according to Christian and Muslim writers
chapter 7|16 pages
Contrasting masculinities in the Baltic crusades
part |49 pages
Emasculation and transgression
chapter 9|16 pages
Crusader masculinities in bodily crises
chapter 11|13 pages
Fighting women in the crusading period through Muslim eyes
part |75 pages
Masculinity and religiosity
chapter 12|23 pages
Leading the people “as duke, count, and father”
chapter 14|19 pages
Mediterranean masculinities? Reflections of Muslim and Christian manliness
part |72 pages
Chivalry and kingship