1st Edition

Women, the Crusades, the Templars and Hospitallers in Medieval European Society and Culture

By Helen J. Nicholson Copyright 2025
    276 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Known worldwide among scholars of medieval Europe for her books on the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar, the trial of the Templars in Britain and Ireland, and women and the crusades, Professor Helen J. Nicholson has drawn together in this volume a selection of her shorter publications, previously published in academic journals, scholarly collections, or online.

    Reflecting almost thirty years of published research, this collection includes articles focusing on women’s depiction in contemporary writing on the crusades and their involvement with the military religious orders, the Templars’ and Hospitallers’ relations with the rulers of Latin Christendom and with their noble patrons and their operations in Britain and Ireland.

    Women, the Crusades, the Templars and Hospitallers in Medieval European Society and Culture will interest scholars, students, and other researchers studying the military religious orders, the crusades and women’s lives in medieval Europe and the crusader states.

    Part 1: Women in the Crusades and the Military Orders

     

    1. Women on the Third Crusade. Journal of Medieval History (1997), 23.4, pp. 335–349.

    2. The True Gentleman? Correct behaviour towards women according to Christian and Muslim writers: from the Third Crusade to Sultan Baybars. Crusading and Masculinities, ed. Natasha R. Hodgson, Katherine J. Lewis and Matthew M. Mesley, Crusades Subsidia 13 (2019).

    3. Women in Templar and Hospitaller Commanderies. La Commanderie: Institution des ordres militaires dans l’Occident médiéval, ed. Anthony Luttrell and Léon Pressouyre (2002), pp. 125–134.

    4. The Role of Women in the Military Orders. Militiae Christi: Handelingen van de Vereniging voor de Studie over de Tempeliers en de Hospitaalridders vzw, year 1 (2010), pp. 202–219.

    5. Margaret de Lacy and the Hospital of St John at Aconbury, Herefordshire. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 50.4 (1999), pp. 629–651.

     

    Part 2: The Templars’ and Hospitallers’ relations with rulers and medieval society

     

    6. ‘Nolite confidere in principibus’: The Military Orders’ relations with the rulers of Christendom. Élites et ordres militaires au moyen âge: rencontre autour d’Alain Demurger, ed. Philippe Josserand, Luís F. Oliveira and Damien Carraz (2015), pp. 261–276.

    7. The Motivations of the Hospitallers and Templars in their Involvement in the Fourth Crusade and its aftermath.

    8. The Military Orders and the Kings of England in the twelfth and thirteenth Centuries. From Clermont to Jerusalem: the Crusades and Crusader Societies, 1095–1500, ed. Alan V. Murray, International Medieval Research, 3 (1998), pp. 203–18

    9. The Military Religious Orders in the Towns of the British Isles. Les Ordres Militaires dans la Ville Médiévale (1100–1350), ed. Damien Carraz, Collection Histoires croisées (2013), pp. 113–126.

    10. The Knights Hospitaller on the Frontiers of the British Isles. Mendicants, Military Orders and Regionalism in Medieval Europe, ed. Jürgen Sarnowsky (1999). pp. 47–57.

    11. Serving king and Crusade: the military orders in royal service in Ireland, 1220–1400. The Experience of Crusading, vol. 1: Western Approaches, ed. Marcus Bull and Norman Housley (2003), pp. 233–252.

    12. The military orders in Wales and the Welsh March in the Middle Ages. The Military Orders, Volume 5: Politics and Power, ed. Peter W. Edbury (2012), pp. 189–207.

    13. The Templars’ estates in the west of Britain in the early fourteenth century. The Military Orders, vol. 6.2: Culture and Conflict in Western and Northern Europe, ed. Jochen Schenk and Mike Carr (2017), pp. 132–142.

    14. The Hospitallers in England, the kings of England and relations with Rhodes in the fourteenth Century. Sacra Militia: Rivista di Storia Degli Ordini Militari, 2 (2002), pp. 25–45.

    15. The Hospitallers and the ‘Peasants’ Revolt’ of 1381 revisited. The Military Orders, volume 3, History and Heritage, ed. Victor Mallia-Milanes (Aldershot, etc.: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 225–233.

    Biography

    Helen J. Nicholson is Emerita Professor of History at Cardiff University, Wales, U.K. She has published extensively on the Templars and Hospitallers, the crusades, medieval warfare, and various related subjects. Her books include The Knights Hospitaller (2001), The Proceedings Against the Templars in the British Isles (2011), Sybil, Queen of Jerusalem, 1186–1190, in Routledge’s Rulers of the Latin East series (2022), and Women and the Crusades (2023).