ABSTRACT
Women were often the first and sometimes the only ones taken captive on both the Muslim and the Christian sides. For this reason their experiences of captivity and the need for their ransom would seem to be central to the history of warfare in the Latin East, even if their military contribution was negligible. Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, Saladin's secretary and chronicler, described the fair women taken captive in Nazareth and Sepphoris. He described the female captives of Jerusalem in almost the same words, making no secret of the importance of gender: Women and children together came to 8,000 and were quickly divided up, bringing a smile to Muslim faces at their lamentations. According to contemporary chroniclers, the same Baldwin had no moral scruples about smoking out the women and children from the caves between Ascalon and Egypt. He killed some of the women together with their children and showed no merciful regard for motherhood.
