The Chronicon of Archbishop William of Tyre (d. c. 1184) is of paramount importance to the study of the four Latin Christian polities created in the Near East as a result of the First Crusade (1095–9): the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch and the counties of Edessa and Tripoli. Born in Jerusalem in about 1130, William departed for Western Europe around 1146 to pursue an education in the schools of Paris, Orléans and Bologna, before returning home in 1165. Upon his arrival, he quickly built a career in the Jerusalemite Church through the patronage of Amalric of Jerusalem, rising to the position of archbishop of Tyre in 1175. He also acted as chancellor of the kingdom of Jerusalem (1174–84), royal diplomat to the West and Byzantium and tutor to Amalric's son and heir, the future King Baldwin iv, the ‘leper king’.Footnote 1 Alongside these responsibilities, William was a keen writer, gathering historical materials on the Latin East upon his return and composing at least two now-lost works – a history of Islam and an account of the Third Lateran Council – as well as his magnum opus, the Chronicon. The latter, written during the 1170s and 1180s, initially at Amalric's behest, charts the Latin East's development down to William's own time and is the only historical source internal to Outremer to cover the crucial years 1127–84.Footnote 2 It has therefore had a significant bearing on modern scholarship of the Latin East for this period and, unsurprisingly, has been subjected to significant academic scrutiny. Thus, alongside Peter Edbury and John Rowe's 1988 biography, in which the Chronicon is interpreted as an attempt to promote the kingdom of Jerusalem's legitimacy and provoke renewed Western crusading efforts, scholars have also examined William's views of Islam and Byzantium, as well as his interest in legal and political structures.Footnote 3
Nevertheless, despite much excellent work, the Chronicon’s complexity and sophistication ensures that there is still significant scope for re-evaluation of its content. There is a particular need to re-integrate William's Chronicon within the wider literary developments that took place in Latin Christendom during the twelfth century, from which he – along with other Eastern writers, such as Fulcher of Chartres – is frequently omitted. This is despite William's education in the West, especially Paris, where many of the more prominent historical authors of his time were also trained, and the fact that his text enjoyed a long and influential after-life.Footnote 4 Indeed, alongside the several surviving manuscripts of the Chronicon, it was also used by a number of Western authors, including Matthew Paris and Marino Sanudo Tosello, translated into Old French, and transmitted through several vernacular continuations.Footnote 5 One of the most important, yet least explored, areas to warrant deeper discussion is William's presentation of women. For, while several authors have used his text empirically to reconstruct the lives and actions of women in the Latin East, few have considered them from a literary perspective, with the prominent exceptions of Thomas Asbridge, who has pointed to the problems in his presentation of Princess Alice of Antioch (d. c. 1149); Deborah Gerish, who has examined the narrative role played by Queen Melisende of Jerusalem (d. 1161) and her sisters; and Natasha Hodgson, who has explored various episodes from William's text against the broader presentation of women in ‘crusade’ narratives.Footnote 6 Consequently, this article offers a focused examination of the ways in which William represented both femininity and acts of female agency by exploring the characteristics that he associated with the women who appeared in his text and, most especially, his presentation of three Antiochene princesses: Alice, Constance (d. c. 1164) and Sybil (fl. late twelfth century). It will be argued that such an investigation can not only enable a deeper understanding of William and his work, in particular by addressing the potential ways in which the specific political pressures of Outremer, as well as Jerusalem's spiritual significance, might have impacted upon his approach; but, by contextualising the Chronicon within the broader corpus of historical narratives composed by authors in the medieval West, it can also provide greater texture to our understanding of the gendered frameworks within which medieval ecclesiastical writers operated and the extent to which William's text can be relied upon as a source for empirical reconstruction.
William, women and femininity
As an ecclesiastical author of the twelfth century, William of Tyre was not only the product of a patriarchal society, he also inhabited a world of religious reform and extensive theological debate.Footnote 7 Drawing on classical texts, Scripture, as well as the works of the Church Fathers and later canonists, the clerical writers of Latin Christendom in this period could tap into broad conversations relating to social ideals, including issues of gender and sexuality.Footnote 8 It is of no surprise, therefore, that William followed several traditional patterns in describing women and female agency. For a start, in line with canonists like Isidore of Seville, he was conventional in utilising mulier and femina to designate women.Footnote 9 More significantly, on those occasions when William wrote approvingly of a woman standing in to rule in place of a man, either through death, disaster in battle or extended absence, she was said to have transcended the bounds of her sex. Thus, Beatrice, the wife of Count Joscelin ii of Edessa who governed the county after her husband was captured by Nur al-Din of Aleppo in 1150, was described as a ‘modest women, sober and God-fearing’, one who surpassed ‘womanly strength’ (‘vires … femineas’).Footnote 10 The primary exemplar, however, is Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, who from 1131 to 1143 co-ruled with her husband, Fulk v of Anjou, and later acted as regent for, and co-ruler with, her son, Baldwin iii (d.1163). Of Melisende as regent, William said that she was ‘a most prudent woman, having much experience in almost all worldly affairs, clearly transcending the nature of her female sex, so that she could put her hand to strong things, and strive to emulate the glory of the most magnificent princes, and follow in their endeavours without false steps’.Footnote 11 The importance that William attached to this characterisation of Melisende is indicated by the fact that he offered similar comments on two further occasions during her regency, as well as details of her effective governance and leadership (albeit through proxies in the case of military matters).Footnote 12 The wider context for this is that Melisende's efforts to retain a guiding influence over Baldwin iii caused conflict within the kingdom, tantamount to civil war. Yet, alongside his positive portrayal of the queen's actions, William even suggested that the period of co-rule was not one of dangerous civil conflict, rather of largely peaceful co-operation between mother and son. Though William accepted that there were those who considered it unseemly for a king ‘to always hang from his mother's teat’, episodes of civil strife were blamed on evil men, who led the young and pliable Baldwin astray, or the haughty actions of the queen's supporters, above all the constable, Manasses of Hierges.Footnote 13 Gerish has convincingly argued that William's coverage of these events was carefully crafted in order to promote the notion that the Jerusalemite ruling house had always acted to maintain the unity of the kingdom and, by extension, Outremer.Footnote 14 None the less, the implications that this episode has for our understanding of William's attitudes towards such acts of female agency deserves further comment.
This emphasis on transcending the feminine sex places William in line with Western writers who praised the political activities of powerful women. For example, detailing the actions of Queen Mathilda of England (d. 1152), wife of King Stephen, during the anarchy, the author of the Gesta Stephani wrote that she was ‘a woman of subtlety and a man's resolution’, and ‘forgetting the weakness of her sex and a woman's softness, bore herself with the valour of a man’.Footnote 15 It is interesting that William's account of Melisende's reign, with its focus on transcending sex, governing, and defending the land through personally appointed proxies, also closely mirrors the ways in which ecclesiastical authors detailed the political activities of biblical widows, whose status was seen as more religiously meritorious than that of a wife. The most famous of these was the Old Testament Deborah, who ruled Israel in the Book of Judges, of whom St Ambrose (d. 397) wrote that ‘not being restrained by the weakness of her sex, she undertook to perform the duties of a man’; as a widow (vidua) ‘she governed the people, led armies, chose generals, made military decisions, and had charge of triumphs’.Footnote 16 However, in contrast to certain Western authors who profiled women who exhibited ‘manly’ authority, William did not deploy the term virago.Footnote 17 Though this is not necessarily uncommon, it could signify that, despite his general approval of Melisende, and the fact that female succession was accepted practice in the Latin East (due to the short life span of its male inhabitants), William's authorial aim of promoting the legitimacy of Jerusalem's ruling house – already made problematic by the fact that it sat within Christ's own patrimony – meant that he could not fully endorse female rule.Footnote 18 In this respect, it is probably also significant that, while Melisende was praised for her actions as a widow, William's coverage of moments when she was afforded agency during Fulk's reign are more ambiguous. For instance, when detailing a civil war between Fulk and Count Hugh of Jaffa (d. 1134), probably resulting from the king's efforts to supplant the in situ nobility with newcomers, William noted that there were rumours, of which there were ‘many proofs’ (‘multa … argumenta’), that the relationship between the queen and the count was ‘too familiar’ (‘familiaria nimis’) and that this had aroused in Fulk ‘a husband's jealousy’ (‘maritali zelo’).Footnote 19 William was careful not to imply any act of sexual misconduct, but his account nevertheless cast doubt over the queen's actions and tapped into gendered tropes associated with devious women. Regarding the aftermath to the rebellion, during which Fulk was forced to show far greater deference to his wife, William then described the king's status as ‘uxorious’ (‘uxorius’).Footnote 20 While this has sometimes been read as a positive, for it portrayed Fulk respecting the royal house and nobility, and Melisende as a unifying force, William's use of the gendered trope of the hen-pecked husband indicates some ambiguity.Footnote 21 Moreover, while he praised Beatrice of Edessa for her manly actions, he also decried the fact that Frankish sin had caused the county – like the principality of Antioch – to be ‘ruled by the commands of women’.Footnote 22 Consequently, although William could draw on biblical precedents and established narrative frameworks to depict a widow ruling in the land of Israel, there is reason to believe that his broader attitudes towards female political agency are less clear-cut and more complex than has yet been recognised, with William seemingly equivocating over female rulership, however ‘manly’ female protagonists like Beatrice and Melisende might appear. This challenges Gerish's view that William ‘evinced no ambivalence whatsoever about Melisende’.Footnote 23
Yet, the ability to exercise masculine power was not the only criterion against which William evaluated women. For example, he considered some to be valuable sources of historical information. When discussing the provenance of his information regarding the divorce of King Amalric from his first wife, Agnes of Courtney, on grounds of consanguinity, William noted that he gained the truth from Stephany of Courtney (fl. mid-twelfth century), who was abbess of the Church of St Mary the Major in Jerusalem, daughter of Count Joscelin i of Edessa, niece of Prince Roger of Antioch, and Agnes's aunt. William emphasised that she was ‘a religious and noble woman, by birth and behaviour’, and that although ‘greatly advanced in years’ (‘natu grandevam’), ‘she retained a strong memory of these matters’.Footnote 24 Given her wisdom, noble birth, age and religiosity, Stephany was considered a respectable and reliable eye-witness, which mirrors the ways in which male oral testimony was often legitimised in Western Europe.Footnote 25 Furthermore, nobility of birth and character, as well as strength of faith, were all frequent means by which William – and medieval authors more broadly – judged a woman's worth.Footnote 26 As such, in addition to being God-fearing, Beatrice of Edessa was described as ‘noble in person but also noble by habit’.Footnote 27 This also echoed descriptions of several other women, including two of King Baldwin i of Jerusalem's wives, Godehilde and Adelaide of Sicily; Constance of France, who was wife to Bohemond of Taranto, prince of Antioch; the Jerusalemite noblewoman, Helvis of Ramla; Countess Sybil of Flanders; and King Louis vii of France's second wife, Constance of Castile, mistakenly called Maria.Footnote 28
By contrast, William was highly critical of women who failed to live up to these behavioural expectations. For instance, William specifically referred to the more femineo, or the female manner, in describing those women who either manipulated men into following their wishes or obstinately refused male direction.Footnote 29 This also tapped into William's aforementioned coverage of sexuality. Thus, an unnamed wife of the Jerusalemite nobleman, Renier Brus, was said to have contravened ‘the manner of noble matrons’ by engaging in sexual relations with her captors after being taken hostage by the Muslim ruler of Damascus in the early 1130s.Footnote 30 Likewise, in William's account of Louis vii’s stay at Antioch during the Second Crusade in 1148, we find reference to the French king's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, having sparked up an inappropriate relationship with her uncle, the Antiochene prince, Raymond of Poitiers. William denounced her as a ‘foolish woman’ (‘mulier imprudens’) because ‘against the laws of royal dignity, she had disregarded her husband by forgetting the faith of the marital bed’.Footnote 31 In accusing Eleanor of sexual misconduct, William not only mirrored similar discussions of her sexual deviancy by other medieval authors, including those similarly educated in Paris, like Walter Map and Gerald of Wales, he also deployed a typical narrative device for discrediting women.Footnote 32 Indeed, as Theresa Earenfight has noted, the transgression of the ‘cultural imperative of the marital debt’ struck at a core social function expected of women in medieval Europe – the production of children – and was deeply imbued with biblical precedence through the figure of Eve.Footnote 33 Thus, when another twelfth-century dynastic chronicler, Abbot Suger of St Denis, sought to discredit Bertrada of Montfort (d.1117), the proverbial ‘wicked step-mother’ of his protagonist, Louis vi of France, he alluded to her use of ‘allurements’ (‘illecebris’) and her ‘great skill in that amazing artifice of women who have become accustomed to boldly trample upon and unjustly harass their husbands’.Footnote 34 By contrast, and as a means to further demonstrate the Western influences and frameworks within which the Chronicon can be viewed, Suger described Louis's sister, Constance of France, upon whom William also looked approvingly, as ‘very noble … courteous in her manners, [and] charming in character’.Footnote 35 That William was willing to use sexual fidelity as a means to defame certain women, but, as we have seen with Melisende, could also selectively side-step such accusations, demonstrates both his similarity to Western contemporaries who considered there to be specifically feminine behaviours, many of which were worthy of censure, but also how his pro-Jerusalem tendencies influenced the tone and texture of his narrative.
Despite William's clear interest in the expected (and enacted) behavioural traits of his female protagonists, and the quite lengthy physical descriptions he offered of male leaders (including his comment that King Amalric ‘was excessively fat, so that he had breasts like those of a woman hanging as far as his waist’), he was far less forthcoming when it came to physical descriptions of women.Footnote 36 He came close to profiling Queen Melisende, if only indirectly, when noting that Baldwin iii ‘was handsome, with a very fine appearance and a highly coloured complexion signifying his natural vigour; in this regard, clearly, he resembled his mother in his features’, as well as his comment that Baldwin was ‘moderate of flesh’ (‘carnositatis media’), which made him unlike the corpulent Amalric or his ‘thin’ (‘macilentus’) mother.Footnote 37 However, William's failure here to profile Melisende with the same depth as he did the kings of Jerusalem is perhaps another indication that he did not necessarily consider her to be on a par with her male counterparts. There is in fact only one woman for whom William did offer a physical description. Of Theodora Komnena (1158–63), the Byzantine bride of Baldwin iii, William said that she was ‘of particularly striking attractiveness, elegant of face and the whole condition of her person was favourable to look at’.Footnote 38 In doing so, William did not stray particularly far from Western conventions, for many ecclesiastical authors commented on a woman's beauty (most often using pulcher or species), and some also placed women in sexualised situations, for example the accounts of the ‘Virgin Martyrs’, in which those like SS Agnes, Catherine and Agatha faced violence for resisting the advances of men. Yet such descriptions rarely – if ever – exceeded comments on the woman's face.Footnote 39 Since Theodora was present in the kingdom of Jerusalem upon William's return to the East in 1165, holding the major port city of Acre as her dower following Baldwin's death in 1163, it seems likely that William had seen her himself and was obviously rather taken with her.Footnote 40
While it would be misleading to argue that William was overly concerned with the actions of women, as his text was principally designed to showcase the deeds – for good and for ill – of men, it is nevertheless evident that he was interested in gender roles and expectations. Therefore, an examination into the frameworks within which William worked when detailing the activities and behavioural traits of women suggests that he was influenced both by contemporary models prevalent in Western Europe and the unique pressures of a secular kingdom in the Holy Land. When the Chronicon is read closely, it can also be noted that the actions of certain powerful women at times conflicted with William's overarching narrative strategies. This can be seen through the underlying tensions of his coverage of the career of Queen Melisende and as regards three Antiochene princesses whose activities served to challenge and undermine the primacy and royal integrity of the Jerusalemite throne. By identifying and accounting for such narrative tension, moreover, important new insights can be gained into William's authorial motives and the influences that these had over the composition of his text.
William and the princesses of Antioch
First, Alice, the second daughter of King Baldwin ii of Jerusalem who married Prince Bohemond ii of Antioch, the son of the principality's founder, Bohemond of Taranto, in 1126, and whom William dealt with primarily through the medium of character assassination – which is made all the more prominent given that his is the sole narrative source to detail her life.Footnote 41 Thus, when the Antiochene prince was ambushed and killed in 1130 – a disaster which left the principality devoid of military and political leadership, as his only heir was an infant daughter, Constance – into the political void, so William argued, stepped Alice.Footnote 42 Moreover, when Baldwin ii then came to Antioch, having earlier served as its regent (1119–26), the city gates were locked to him, and it apparently took the support of a monk, Peter Latinator, and a burgess, William of Aversa, to allow the king entry. So desperate was Alice for power, William reported, that she even dispatched an envoy to Zengi, the Muslim atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo, to offer him an alliance, which might have come to fruition had Baldwin not intercepted the messenger and had him tortured and executed. Nevertheless, the king now forgave Alice, who was expelled to her dower lands, the coastal cities of Latakia and Jabala, where she built a powerful independent lordship over the following years.Footnote 43
Describing Alice's actions, William said that she was ‘driven by a wicked spirit’ and ‘malice’ (‘maliciam’), propping up her tyranny (‘tyrannidem’) by acting against her father, the will of the people, and the best interests of her own daughter; indeed, it took ‘God-fearing men, who thought little of the recklessness of a mad woman’ to oppose her.Footnote 44 Alice's evil intentions were also stressed when William moved onto detailing an elite cabal of the northern states, led by Counts Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin ii of Edessa, who sought to oppose Jerusalemite supremacy following Fulk's succession in 1131/2. Here, William characterised Alice as ‘a sly woman beyond measure and exceedingly wicked’, one who had again acted against the wishes of the principality's leading men, who opposed her ‘wicked’ (‘impiis’) behaviour in favour of supporting Fulk.Footnote 45 This assault on Alice's reputation continued during his coverage of negotiations carried out by Antioch's nobles over who would marry Constance, with an envoy sent to offer her to Raymond of Poitiers kept secret from Alice because she was an ‘exceedingly wicked woman’ who might seek to oppose the union.Footnote 46 Of particular interest is William's change of tack when detailing how, in either late 1135 or early 1136, Alice again moved on Antioch, securing control of the city and her daughter. When Raymond then arrived in northern Syria to marry the eight-year-old Constance in mid-1136, he was reportedly met with a complex situation. Yet, unlike before, William acknowledged that Alice had the support of certain nobles and even refrained from personally insulting her nature or intentions.Footnote 47 She did not completely escape the archbishop's scorn, however. William detailed how Alice was prevented from opposing the marriage by Antioch's patriarch, Ralph of Domfront, another of William's ‘crafty’ (‘subdolus’) protagonists, who reportedly used the situation to extract an oath of obedience from Raymond. As such, Ralph duped Alice into thinking that it was she who was to be married instead, with William claiming that ‘this exceedingly gullible woman was deceived by false hope’.Footnote 48 Realising this, Alice is said to have retired to Latakia and Jabala, as can be traced through the charters, although William's comment that from then on she pursued Raymond with ‘inexorable hatred’ (‘inexorabili odio’) cannot.Footnote 49 Thus, while William was not uncritical of Alice here, there is a clear move away from vitriolic notions of malicious intent.
William's account of Alice's career is problematic on several counts. First, as Thomas Asbridge has demonstrated, while the princess was presented as acting against the principality's major players before 1136, those who opposed her were of minor significance, with the notable silence of the patriarch, Bernard of Valence (d.1135), and the nobility suggesting their support for the princess, or at least a willingness to use her actions to renegotiate the terms of Jerusalem's influence within Antioch, which experienced a significant shift after 1130.Footnote 50 It is even possible that William afforded Alice a far more prominent role in these events than she actually had, using her to deflect attention away from the role of the patriarch and nobility and thus any sense that anti-Jerusalem dissent was more widespread. In this regard, it is significant that William deployed several gendered barbs, portraying Alice as disobedient and driven by greed, lust, impiety and wickedness: the archetypal dangerous woman.Footnote 51 As Hodgson has pointed out, she was also a bad mother – another deeply gendered criticism.Footnote 52 Rather than a shift in the political dynamics of Outremer, then, this was depicted as another instance of female deviancy, disobedience and lack of restraint. Likewise, as notions of an alliance with Zengi are not substantiated by Arabic sources (although this could be explained by the suggestion that the envoy never reached the Muslim ruler), Asbridge is likely correct that William also hoped to discredit Alice as an irreligious traitor – which again carried gendered overtones given the author's emphasis on faith and noble conduct as key markers of praiseworthy femininity.Footnote 53 It is of interest, however, that Alice was never accused of being forgetful of her sex, a frequent means by which ecclesiastical authors could criticise powerful women.Footnote 54 In all instances, therefore, William clearly offered a narrative of Alice's career replete with gendered criticisms and designed to present the kingdom and its rulers in the best possible light. This authorial aim almost certainly explains his change in tone regarding 1136, for he commented that Fulk's lack of intervention was due to Alice's sister, Queen Melisende, who convinced her husband not to get involved.Footnote 55 This not only dovetails with his belief in the king's uxorious status after Hugh of Jaffa's rebellion, it also demonstrates that the figure whose reputation William was most concerned with at this moment was Fulk. Once again, moreover, as the wife of a Jerusalemite king, Melisende was far less immune from moments of indirect criticism. Likewise, William's reluctance to imply any attempt by Alice at entering the masculine sphere as a widow could relate to his depiction of Melisende, who was praised for doing so. For fear of creating narrative inconsistencies which might bring the actions of Jerusalemite rulers into question, William thus had to carefully modulate both his presentation of events and his use of gendered language.
The desire to protect the kingdom's reputation also lay behind William's treatment of Constance, about whom we know very little until Raymond of Poitiers's death at the battle of Inab in 1149, at which point she emerged as the independent ruler of the principality with the support of Antioch's patriarch, Aimery of Limoges (c. 1141–93).Footnote 56 However, her effective role in governance is largely ignored by William, beyond his lament that Antioch and Edessa were ‘ruled by the commands of women’.Footnote 57 The context for this is Constance's steadfast opposition to Baldwin iii’s efforts to influence the affairs of the principality. Thus, when the king called a council at Tripoli in 1152 and sought to impose a new husband on Constance with the support of Queen Melisende and her sister, Hodierna of Tripoli, the princess refused to marry any of the suitors. Instead, she wed the infamous Western knight, Renaud of Châtillon, a figure whom William held in deep disregard for his role in the Jerusalemite factionalism of his own time.Footnote 58 In detailing these events, William again used gendered barbs to dismiss this act of female agency. Thus, Constance opposed Baldwin in ‘the female way’ (‘more femineo’), and ‘fearing the chains of marriage, and preferring the unbound life, she paid little attention to that which might help her people’.Footnote 59 In this, it was said, she was driven by ‘matters of the flesh’ (‘carnis curam').Footnote 60 By dismissing Constance's actions as the result of a typically female lack of sexual restraint, the archbishop effectively deflected attention away from the limitations of royal influence.Footnote 61 William developed this theme further in his account of Constance's marriage to Renaud, commenting that it was ‘not without much astonishment that so distinguished, powerful, and illustrious a woman, and [formerly] wife to such an excellent man, would deign to marry, as it were, a common soldier’.Footnote 62 The accusation, left unsaid, is that she was once again driven by concerns other than political sense. Avoiding any notion that Constance had attempted to transcend her sex, William instead portrayed the princess, like her mother, being driven by distinctly feminine impulses. Moreover, that this passage also implied that the princess's social standing was linked to that of her husband, even though she was the true dynastic heiress, raises further questions regarding William's attitudes towards female political agency and, more broadly, the legitimacy of Melisende's actions in the kingdom, for she too carried the bloodline of the ruling house of a ‘crusader’ state into a marriage with a Western husband. This helps to further reveal the tensions that William faced in reconciling his patriarchal upbringing with his desire to protect and promote the reputation of the Jerusalemite throne.
There are further signs that William carefully managed his narrative to present Jerusalem in the best possible light in his treatment of Renaud's capture by Nur al-Din in November 1161, which again saw Constance emerge as leader because her son by Raymond, Bohemond iii (d.1201), was not yet old enough to rule. William's portrayal of Constance here stands in marked opposition to her actual influence over governance, which had only increased over the course of Renaud's time as prince-regent. Thus, the archbishop recorded that Baldwin iii came north to settle matters in Antioch after Renaud's capture, noting that the king placed Patriarch Aimery in charge before departing for Jerusalem ‘having established the lady princess with honourable expenses’, again implying her material focus.Footnote 63 Moreover, when Constance then secretly negotiated a marriage alliance between her daughter, Maria, and Manuel Komnenos, now Byzantine emperor, in 1161–2, despite the latter earlier offering Baldwin iii the chance to lead negotiations, William again protected the king. Indeed, given that Baldwin had championed Melisende of Tripoli as an imperial spouse, perhaps to limit Byzantine influence in the principality, this was deeply embarrassing. William therefore blamed this on the Greeks, whose treachery was a regular trope for Latin authors of this period.Footnote 64 They were also criticised for their prevarication and for mistreating Melisende by shamefully demanding to examine ‘the disposition of the secret parts of the body’ (thus doubting her sexual continence). Baldwin, on the other hand, was presented as handling his frustration with dignity and care for his orphaned cousin, Maria.Footnote 65
Of primary interest here, though, is William's coverage – or, rather, lack thereof – of Bohemond iii’s succession to the princely throne in late 1163/early 1164. When the prince finally came of age in 1163, it appears that Constance, with the apparent collusion of the principality's major nobles, was unwilling to hand over the reins of power, causing Bohemond to rebel and expel his mother from Antioch. This is primarily detailed in two independent Syriac accounts, the contemporary world chronicle of the Jacobite Patriarch, Michael the Syrian, and the anonymous thirteenth-century 1234 Chronicle.Footnote 66 It is also corroborated by documentary sources issued by Bohemond. Firstly, in a letter sent to Louis vii of France in 1162, in which he called on the French king to provide aid, Bohemond described himself simply as ‘the son of Raymond, former prince of Antioch’.Footnote 67 Moreover, he issued two charters in 1163 in which he claimed dominion (dominium) over the princess's dower lands of Latakia and Jabala – which could either indicate the start of hostilities through the capture of vital economic ports, or that Constance had placed her son there to gain important experience of governance (which he perhaps felt he did not need).Footnote 68 However, William was remarkably silent on this, offering little in the way of comment on Bohemond's accession. Indeed, the only hint that Renaud's capture had seen a new prince come to power appears in William's account of the marriage negotiations with Manuel Komnenos. In the emperor's letter to Baldwin iii, which William purports to have copied faithfully and must pre-date Bohemond's accession, the emperor noted his willingness to marry either Melisende of Tripoli, or Maria, the sister of ‘the magnificent man, the prince of Antioch’.Footnote 69 Given that Bohemond was described as prince when he next appeared in William's text, just before a disastrous battle against Nur al-Din near to Artah in 1164, there is a clear sense that the archbishop had simply bypassed any notion of a troubled succession.Footnote 70
While this lacuna is possibly the result of William still being in the West when these events unfolded, his fastidious approach to collecting materials for the rest of the period suggests a more deliberate reason for his silence. Bohemond's troubled succession, in which he vied with his mother for political dominance, raised awkward parallels with Melisende's relationship with Baldwin iii. William went to great lengths to cast the kingdom and its rulers in a positive light, excusing both the king and his mother for their dispute and presenting the period as one of largely peaceful co-operation broken only by the actions of others. When William came to reconcile his narrative of Jerusalemite events with the similar actions of an Antiochene princess who had frequently undermined the kingdom's authority, who was – at least by his presentation – overly driven by material and sexual concerns, and who was related by marriage and birth to two of his most hated protagonists, he encountered distinct problems of continuity. Faced with detailing Bohemond iii's succession, and either criticising a woman for actions that he had earlier praised in another context, and so risk damaging Jerusalemite prestige, or praising Constance as he had Melisende, and thus undermine his broader portrayal of the princess's character, William instead chose a third option: to pretend that these events had simply not happened. Significantly, this view challenges, or least muddies the waters of, Hodgson's belief that ‘William clearly considered the rule of an experienced regent preferable to that of an untried youth’, for it suggests that the archbishop's authorial motives behind the discussion of female regency were tied instead to protecting the reputation of Jerusalem.Footnote 71 It also brings into question the extent to which historians can rely on the Chronicon as a source for empirical reconstruction.
Of the three princesses, there is least evidence for Sybil, yet what details we have from William's text can still help to demonstrate how his views on gender intersected with his Jerusalem-focused narrative strategies. It is likely that Sybil came from within the ranks of the Antiochene nobility, although the first of her handful of appearances in the historical record relates to when, in late 1180 or early 1181, she became Bohemond iii’s third wife following his hasty – and not entirely legal – divorce from one of Manuel Komnenos's seemingly endless supply of nieces, Theodora Komnena (not to be confused with the wife of Baldwin iii). In response, the nobles and the patriarch reacted angrily, not least because of the uncanonical nature of the union but also because this breach with Byzantium came at a time when, despite Manuel's death in September 1180, the prince's sister, Maria, was empress-regent. It also contravened long-held aristocratic rights of discussion over diplomatic activities and marriages. Civil war thus erupted, and it took an extended period of negotiation (probably up to early 1182) supported by a Jerusalemite delegation for peace to return; a peace bought at the expense of the expulsion of several of Bohemond iii’s closest advisors and Sybil's reduced status in governance.Footnote 72
Of these events, William decried that Bohemond iii had married ‘a certain Sybil who, so it was said, practised sorcery’; an act he also described as ‘madness’ (‘insaniam’), albeit without alluding to the deeper political roots behind the aristocratic reaction.Footnote 73 For medieval authors, accusations of witchcraft were a powerful way to discredit women, imbued as they were with ideas of impiety, deviancy and deviousness.Footnote 74 William was thus able to criticise Bohemond's moral character by implying that behind these actions lay the manipulations of a dangerous woman. This also taps into William's broader coverage of the rebellion; as I have argued elsewhere, these events – in which a morally compromised ruler was defeated by a noble faction who then influenced the composition of the central household – raised important parallels with the situation in Jerusalem during Baldwin iv’s reign.Footnote 75 Indeed, with Baldwin unable to sire children due to his leprosy, and often too ill to rule on his own, the kingdom was subject to infighting and factionalism (which William himself became embroiled in), as noble groups sought to exert influence over the royal court – a conflict which did little to advertise the strength of the Jerusalemite throne.Footnote 76 Similarly, although leprosy was a disease seen to reflect severe moral failings, William sought to combat any sense that this might raise questions over the ruling house by praising Baldwin's martial qualities and rulership.Footnote 77 Consequently, to prevent events in Antioch from drawing unwanted attention to problems in Jerusalem, William seemingly did two things: first, he deployed a deeply gendered criticism of Sybil to emphasise her moral failings, perhaps implying that she led Bohemond astray; and secondly, rather than recognising that the prince was forced to accept the expulsion of some of his closest advisors (which charter and other narrative evidence suggests is the reality), he instead noted that it was Bohemond who had actively exiled figures for supporting the nobles.Footnote 78 William's narrative of the rebellion thus offered the portrait of a leader who, despite his moral failings, was able to control his principality forcefully; which certainly chimes with his largely positive portrayal of Baldwin iv. Like Alice and Constance, therefore, Sybil's character was used as a vehicle through which William pursued his broader authorial aim of preserving and promoting the reputation of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
What is clear, therefore, is that the activities of these princesses – who either proved willing, and able, to enter the ‘masculine space’ of rulership, and thus act independently of Jerusalemite influence, or brought the political and moral fractures which occurred in the kingdom of Jerusalem into sharp relief – threatened to undermine William's narrative aim of promoting Jerusalem's supremacy in the Latin East. How he dealt with the Antiochene princesses thus offers a valuable window into his authorial strategies, his attitudes towards gender and the challenges of utilising the Chronicon for empirical reconstruction.
This article has sought to demonstrate, through its examination of William of Tyre's approach to women, femininity and female agency, the importance of understanding the gendered frameworks within which twelfth-century historical writers operated. For William, this is especially true in relation to his coverage of acts of female political agency which challenged the power and reputation of the kingdom of Jerusalem and its ruling house. In his efforts to emphasise the legitimacy and supremacy of Jerusalem, therefore, he praised a powerful queen like Melisende for her ability to transcend her sex, albeit only when she became a widow – a status imbued with more religious (and, importantly, biblical) precedence and significance – and with an underlying sense that even then she was not necessarily on a par with her male counterparts. Conversely, in order to deflect any potential criticism away from Jerusalem's rulers, William discredited those women who drew negative attention onto the kingdom by deploying common female-gendered tropes, including deviousness, impiety, witchcraft, sexual incontinence, and a focus on the material world. This is especially true of the three Antiochene princesses, Alice, Constance and Sybil. At times, however, even character defamation was not enough, with William seemingly suppressing or altering details to ensure that his broader Jerusalem-focused narrative arcs were undamaged. In short, Antioch's independent and powerful princesses posed a distinct problem to William of Tyre. By identifying this, historians are not only challenged to think more carefully about deploying the Chronicon as a source for empirical reconstruction, but it also becomes evident that an analysis of the ways in which William approached this problem offers important new insights into the author and his text. Furthermore, by reintegrating William into the broader processes of historical writing in medieval Christendom, these findings can also contribute to historiographical understanding of how male ecclesiastical authors conceptualised and dealt with the deeds of women who transcended social expectations and the implications that this has for reconstructing the realities of the past.
