In Anticipation of Women’s History Month: A Medieval Queen, The First Crusade And The Quest for Peace In Jerusalem
March 1st is barrelling down upon me. It’s the start of women’s history month–which doesn’t have much impact on me because women’s history has been the pool I swim in for the last several years. It’s also the day my manuscript (typescript? bytescript?) is due to my editor and I am scrambling. I hope you enjoy one more post from the archives, this one from 2014. New blog posts are coming as soon as I have an hour and a brain cell to spare. Honest
Recently I’ve been reading Sharan Newman’s Defending The City of God: A Medieval Queen, The First Crusade And The Quest for Peace In Jerusalem. It was a perfect read for March, which was Women’s History Month.*
Newman tells the story of a historical figure who was completely new to me. Melisende (1105-1161) was the first hereditary ruler of the Latin State of Jerusalem, one of four small kingdoms founded by members of the First Crusade. Her story is a fascinating one. The daughter of a Frankish Crusader and an Armenian princess, Melisende ruled her kingdom for twenty years despite attempts by first her husband and then her son to shove her aside. Even after her son finally gained the upper hand, Melisende continued to play a critical role in the government of Jerusalem. Those few historians who mention Melisende at all tend to describe her as usurping her son’s throne.** Newman makes a compelling argument for Melisende as both a legitimate and a powerful ruler. (In all fairness, this is the kind of argument I am predisposed to believe.)
Fascinating as Melisende’s story is, Newman really caught my attention with this paragraph:
Most Crusade histories tell of the battle between Muslims and Christians, the conquest of Jerusalem and its eventual loss. The wives of these men are mentioned primarily as chess pieces. The children born to them tend to be regarded as identical to their fathers, with the same outlook and desires. Yet many of the women and most of the children were not Westerners. They had been born in the East. The Crusaders states of Jerusalem, Edessa, Tripoli, and Antioch were the only homes they knew.
Talk about a smack up the side of the historical head!
If you’re interested in medieval history in general, the Crusades in particular, or women rulers, Defending the City of God is worth your time.
* It was also nice to spend some time in a warm dry place, if only in my imagination. Here in Chicago, March came in like a lion and went out like a cold, wet, cranky lion.
** To put this in historical context. Melisende’s English contemporary, the Empress Matilda (1102-1167) was the legitimate heir to Henry I. After Henry’s death, her cousin Stephen of Blois had himself crowned king and plunged England into a nine-year civil war to keep her off the throne. Apparently twelfth century Europeans had a problem with the idea of women rulers.
From the Archives: Word With a Past -Vaudeville
In 1648, revolution broke out in the streets of Paris. Known at the time as the Fronde ,* it was in many ways a rehearsal for the French Revolution(s) that would follow. Barricades went up in the streets. Aristocrats were pulled out of their carriages and shot at. Militias paraded in the public squares. There were threats of pulling down the Bastille.
More important for the purposes of this blog post, the Fronde was fought in the media as well as in the streets. Printed placards were put up in public places and distributed door-to-door. Small notices, called billets (tickets), were strewn around the city streets. Peddlers sold political pamphlets on street corners like newspapers.** And satirical political songs, known as vaudevilles, became popular.
A contraction of the the phrase voix de ville (the voice of the town), vaudevilles were well named. Writers took popular tunes and wrote new lyrics to them about current events. Singers were paid to roam the streets and sing the latest tunes. Rich and poor alike would hum them as they went about their day. The songs became so popular that collections of greatest hits were compiled.
In eighteenth century France, vaudevilles became a way to get around restrictions on the theater. Theaters presented vaudevilles in conjunction with pantomime and comic sketches. Tap shoes optional.
* Slingshot, a name with a David and Goliath feel appropriate for a revolution that was, at base, about privilege.
** Almost a historical reference in its own right.
The Weeping Widow
The world’s first female prime minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike of what was then Ceylon, is the archetypical example of what political scientists sometimes refer to as the “widow’s walk to power,” in which a woman steps into a position of political power after the often-violent death of her husband.The assumption is such women will carry on the same policies and protect the same interests as the men whose size elevens they try to fill.
Her husband, S.W.D. Bandaranaike, was a national hero who democratized Ceylon’s government after it gained independence from Great Britain in 1956. A Buddhist monk assassinated him three years after he was elected; his death left a power vacuum not only in the Ceylonese government but in the political party that he founded. After several months of bitter infighting, several key party members asked Bandaranaike to run for office in his place, assuming she would be a political placeholder.
Bandaranaiake was the visual embodiment of what her society expected from a widow, from the dark shadows under her eyes to her white mourning sari. She played tapes of her husband’s speeches at every campaign stop. The press called her the “weeping widow.”
In fact, Bandaranaiake was not the political innocent expected by both her supporters and detractors. In addition to the political education she received as the daughter and wife of important politicians, she had years of experience as an leader in Ceylon’s largest Buddhist women’s organization. Prior to her first election, she worked to improve economic and social conditions in rural areas, focusing on rice yields, women’s education, and access to family planning—all political hot buttons at the time.
Her widow’s walk was the first step in a forty-year career in national politics. She served as prime minister three times for a total of eighteen years and became a dominant figure in Sri Lankan politics. A weeping widow, perhaps, but not a wimpy widow.