Lesson video

Hello, and welcome back to history with me, Mrs. Badhan.

Thank you for joining us for our fourth and final lesson, looking at the question who lived in the Crusader states? So far, we've looked at what life was like for both Christians and Muslims during this time period.

In our final lesson to this inquiry, we'll be looking at what are the groups lived in the Crusader states and what was life like for them? For this lesson, you will need a pen, a piece of paper and a calm and quiet environment.

If you're not quite ready, press pause now and press play once you're ready to get going.

Great, let's make a start.

Before we start our final lesson today of looking at the other groups within the Crusader states, I would like you to, first of all, look at the following statements.

From everything you've learned over the last three lessons, can you identify which statements are true about the Crusader states? Press pause here, have a read through the statements and press play once you've worked these out.

Brilliant.

So the following statements were true about the Crusader states.

Saladin freed many Christians when he captured the Holy Land.

That was a true statement.

Muslims enjoyed religious freedom under the Frankish rule.

And the Crusader states are referred to as the Levant.

These were all true statements in green.

The ones that were incorrect, were the Holy land was captured by the Crusaders in 1110.

This was actually in 1099.

Jihad is a Holy war against the enemies of Christianity.

Jihad is a Holy war against the enemies of Islam is the correct answer.

And many Buddhists lived in the Crusader states was incorrect because we don't know too much about a Buddhist settlement in these states during this period.

Please refer back to lesson one, two, and three, to look at the different types of religious groups that we had in the Crusader states during this period.

I think it's also a sensible time to go through and recap what we've learned so far and how this will link in with our final lesson in this inquiry.

So in our first lesson, we were looking at what were the Crusader states? And we looked at where these Crusader states lie in the modern-day world, and also what these Crusader states were called during this period.

So we had the County of Edessa, we had Tripoli, we had the Principality of Antioch, and we also had the Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Holy Land.

We also looked in this lesson at what groups of people lived in the Crusader states and how society was formed.

And then we looked at which religious groups and ethnic groups lived in the Crusader states.

Moving on to our second lesson, we considered what was it like to be a Muslim under the new Christian rule? Or we refer to it as the Frankish rule.

Now, what we found in this lesson was that for many Muslims, life continued as normal.

And for many, they interacted with the new Frankish community, even sometimes leading to friendships and marriages.

There was however, we did learn, a small minority of people within the Muslim community that rejected the Frankish rule.

This then led us on nicely to our third lesson, which looked at the rule of Saladin and how the Muslims recaptured and took control of the Crusader states.

And then we focused upon Christian experiences under the Muslim rule, and we found that many of their religious buildings remained and they were able to worship and practise their religion quite freely.

This then led to Saladin earning the title of being called merciful for his treatment of the Crusaders.

So where does this all lead us? Today, we will be looking at some of the other groups who lived in the Crusader states.

Some of these groups will include looking at women, Jewish population, and also those people who were enslaved.

The first thing I'd like you to do is look at this image and think about what you notice in this picture.

You can press pause now, have a real good luck and then press play once you've noted down some of your observations.

Super, let's see what you noticed about this image.

I certainly noticed that there were lots of men who were fighting on horseback and actually felt that this scene was quite brutal.

This is a picture of the death of Raymond Poitiers, husband to Constance of Antioch.

Constance was the ruling princess of Antioch from 1130 to 1163.

Now, although this image is of the death of Raymond Poitiers, Constance herself is nowhere to be seen.

What becomes clearer of this image is that actually we can't see any women.

This is not entirely an accurate portrayal of Crusader states and its society.

Certainly in battle, on the very frontline fighting, we would not expect to see so many women, but women did go to war in many respects during the Crusader period.

The Crusader kingdoms stand out because of the high status of women in the Holy Land, which was far more than any other Eastern empire, or even within Western Europe.

This high status probably evolved out of the repeated failure of ruling dynasties to produce male heirs.

Not only did women act as leaders, but they also enjoyed the freedom of movement and opinion, which scandalised the Muslim and even sometimes the Christian world.

It is natural that the interest of historians have centred on the men responsible for the defence of the kingdom, yet in any society at war, considerable power has to be delegated to women while their menfolk on the active service.

And the Crusader states were no exception to this general rule.

Moreover, because the survival rate among girl children born to Frankish settlers was higher than that among the boys, women often provided the continuity to the society of the Outremer, by inheriting their father's lands and transmitting them to husbands, many of whom had come from the West.

So who were these women and more specifically who were these high-status women in our Principality of Antioch? Looking at this family tree of the Frankish rulers of Antioch, we can see two women in particular who were of huge importance, Alice and Constance.

Both of these who were princesses and rulers of Antioch at some point.

Now Constance was the only child of Bohemond of Antioch.

Constance succeeded her father with her mother looking after the crown for her.

However, her mother, Alice, was replaced with Constance's grandfather, Alice's father, Baldwin the Second of Jerusalem.

Now this was not unusual as many of the men of this time, and specifically the noblemen, were constantly fighting to have her replaced.

Alice again, tried to take control of the government, but the barons acknowledged that, in fact, the right to rule laid with her brother-in-law, Fulk of Anjou, to rule as regent for Constance.

Now that means that he would rule in place of Constance, but both Constance and Alice believed that they had the right to rule.

So what does this story tell us? Well, this story tells us that Alice and Constance both were in positions of power and status, but although they had these positions, in fact, when it came to ruling, they weren't always as successful as they were constantly being challenged and undermined by the noble men.

Now, the appearance of women was rare among Western chroniclers and their writings because their focus was more male dominated.

However, there are mentions of female Crusaders and more commonly these are found in Muslim accounts of the Crusades.

Truth is these stories are quite hard to prove because often they are written with a tone of aggressiveness or unnaturalness and unfairness towards Christian women who were often seen as a way for Muslims to demonstrate how ruthless and depraved their foes could be.

I would now like to tell you a short story of another important woman during this period.

Few episodes are described in detail and it's not by any means a complete record of Margaret's life.

But what we do know is that Margaret travelled to the Holy Land around the mid 1180s.

However, she reached a Jerusalem just before the encouragement of Saladin's forces and the siege of the city in 1187.

Now Margaret fought with the defenders on the ramparts of the city, and she became wounded in the process.

While she was trapped in Jerusalem, she took an active role in helping the Crusaders defend the city walls.

Supposedly she used a cooking pot as a helmet to protect herself.

Following Saladin's capture of the city, he agreed on ransom price for the people that were living in the city, Margaret was able to pay for her share of the ransom and leave the city.

But once she'd left, she was captured once again by Muslims, shortly after her departure and she spent 15 months as a slave.

She was then freed by a Christian noble along with other Christians who had been enslaved.

At Antioch, Margaret was again involved in fighting between a Christian and Muslim army.

She was reported to have taken part in the plundering of lots of deaths of Muslims after the battle.

And then she continued her journey towards Tripoli.

Now on the way to Tripoli, she was taken prisoner once again by a Muslim who had recognised some of the things that she had stolen and taken with her.

Despite all of this, Margaret was described as fighting like a heroine.

She was also said to have brought drinks to the fighting men because of course it was hot and there were no breaks in the fighting.

The descriptions of her show very strong links and portrayals of other female Crusaders involved in fighting during the sieges.

Women were repeatedly drafted in to fight with weapons when there were not enough male Crusaders and they often operated catapults or helped fill ditches or were supplying the fighting men with food and drink, as we've just seen with Margaret.

Now, the description of Margaret of Beverley's experience on the Crusades fits the traditional stereotype image of the female Crusader.

Great, now we know so much more about the women of Antioch and women throughout the Crusader states.

Let's dive a bit deeper and find out a little bit more about women, Jews and enslaved people throughout the Crusader states.

In order to find out more about these three groups of people, I would like you to now pause the video, read through the information and answer the comprehension questions.

You can resume the video once you're finished and we can go through the answers together.

Okay, so you have the following questions to look at and we will go through these questions together.

Please do remember that the answers to these questions are suggestions.

You may have different answers and that's totally okay and these are just a guideline.

So question number one.

What was the role of some women during the Crusades? An acceptable answer may have been, some women helped wash clothes and delice the soldiers.

A good answer may have extended it by saying some women took the cross and fought in armed combat, others removed lice from soldiers' heads or washed their clothes.

Question number two, why did the role of women evolve in the Crusader states? Acceptable answer.

Their role changed as many of the men died in battle.

A good answer.

The role of women evolved in the Crusader states as many of the men died in battle.

As they often died without male heirs, they wanted to ensure their land and money stayed within their families.

This meant women could have this inheritance and therefore carried much power within society.

Question number three, to what extent were Jews persecuted in the Crusader states? An acceptable answer, they were persecuted in the beginning and then led normal lives.

A good answer.

Jews face persecution when the Crusaders arrived whereby their synagogues were burnt and they also had to leave Jerusalem.

However, they did retain many freedoms and equality with their jobs as long as they paid taxes.

Question number four, why did people continue to be enslaved in the Crusader states? An acceptable answer, so that they could be used as a bargaining chip.

Now a good answer would've unpacked that slightly more.

People continued to be enslaved so that leaders could use them as bargaining tools to ensure that their opposition did what they wanted them to do.

Now, a really good example of this was when Saladin would hold Christian prisoners or his opponent would hold Muslim prisoners.

And they would only release them once they had agreed to the terms and conditions of whatever they were laying out.

Now, your challenge was to look at the following source and to think about what you could learn about the Pope's words and how he viewed the Jews of the Crusader states.

Now, the Pope had said the following, "We decree that no Christian shall use violence "to force into baptism while they are unwilling and refuse.

"Moreover, no Christian shall presume "to wound their persons or kill them "or rob them of their money.

"Furthermore, while they their festivals, "no one shall disturb them in any way." Now, the words that you may have really picked up from this passage are the words of violence, celebrate disturb.

Pope had stated that no violence should be used against Jews, that they should be respected, that their festivals should be allowed to be celebrated.

And that all of this shows that there was tolerance towards the Jews under the Crusaders' rule.

So how much closer are we now in being able to answer our question, who lived in the Crusader states? Let's see how much you've remembered.

Which group of people did not live in the Crusader states? Was it the Turks, Armenians, Russians or Greeks? Three, two, one.

Super, it was the Russians.

They did not live in the Crusader states.

Our next question, which group of people faced no persecution? Was it Muslims, Jews, Christians, or Buddhists? Three, two, one.

Buddhists, now at some point, the Muslims, Jews, and Christians all faced some sort of persecution.

And as we don't know very much about the Buddhist community existing throughout the Crusader period, it's safe for us to assume that they faced no persecution.

What role did women not have during the Crusades? Was it recruiting, delicing, washing soldiers' clothes, or banking their money? Three, two, one, brilliant.

It was option four, banking soldiers' money.

Now, although women did play a part in handling money and also donating towards the Crusades money that they had inherited.

They weren't directly responsible for banking soldiers' money.

Who were considered the Poulains? Was it the Christians who had mixed with natives, the Jews who had mixed with natives, the Muslims who had mixed with natives or the Hindus who had mixed with natives? And the word natives means those that live and who'd already been living on that land.

Yes, of course it was Christians who had been mixing with the natives.

Fantastic, let's move on.

Well done on your multiple choice answers and let's now make some sense of everything that we have learned about the people of the Crusader states.

Your final challenge of the lesson is to write a short paragraph explaining who lived in the Crusader states.

I've given you some sentence starters to help you structure this piece of writing, as well as some key words that you may find useful.

You can press pause now, write your answer, and then press play once you're ready.

So what did you put? Let's see some suggested answers.

There were a number of different religious groups who lived in the Crusader states, such as Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

Within these groups that were also different sects within the same religion.

For example, in the Muslim community, there were both Shia and Sunni Muslims. Within the Christian community, there were those who were Eastern Orthodox Christians, as well as Roman Catholics.

Furthermore, there were also many different ethnic groups, such as Turks, Armenians, Europeans, Arabs, and Greeks.

The different ethnic groups would also change as the Crusades developed.

Lastly, there were many different social groups, such as the elected kings, nobles, women, common people, enslaved people, and merchants.

So we started this story in the Crusader states with the Principality of Antioch, where the story in Antioch started with a massacre in 1098, when Antioch was taken.

This story also ends with a massacre in 1268 when Antioch was captured and taken from the Crusaders.

In 1254 Bohemond the Sixth married Sibylla, an Armenian princess, which ended the power struggle between the two states.

Although by this point, Armenia was more of a powerful state out of the two and Antioch was essentially a lesser state.

Both were swept up by the conflict between the Mamluks and the Mongols.

Antioch was eventually taken by Baibars, who was the commander of the Mamluks and who had been fighting to take back the Crusader states and thus ending the Frankish rule in Antioch.

Thank you for taking part in our four lessons on who lived in the Crusader states.

And I hope you've learned a lot more about the people living in these lands during this time period.

It may have also challenged some of your ideas that you had before starting these lessons.

I have really enjoyed giving these lessons and I'd love to see some of your work.

So if you'd like to, please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational at #LearnwithOak.

I look forward to seeing you in some of the other history lessons.