Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem

21 Nov, 2019 950 History of Asia

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful woman in the Crusader states in the century after the First Crusade. Melisende (1105-61) was born and raised after the mainly Frankish crusaders had taken Jerusalem from the Fatimids, and her father was King of Jerusalem. She was married to Fulk from Anjou, on the understanding they would rule together, and for 30 years she vied with him and then their son as they struggled to consolidate their Frankish state in the Holy Land.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

  • Natasha Hodgson No other episodes
    Senior Lecturer in Medieval History and Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Nottingham Trent University
  • Katherine Lewis 7 episodes
    Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Huddersfield
  • Danielle Park No other episodes
    Visiting Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London

Reading list

  • Medieval Women
    Derek Baker (ed.) (Blackwell, 1978) Google Books →
  • Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem
    Bernard Hamilton (Blackwell, 1978)
  • The Crusader States
    Malcolm Barber (Yale University Press, 2012) Google Books →
  • Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe
    Theresa Earenfight (ed.) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) Google Books →
  • The Spending Power of a Crusader Queen: Melisende of Jerusalem
    H. A. Gaudette (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
  • Queenship in Medieval Europe
    Theresa Earenfight (Palgrave, 2012) Google Books →
  • Gendering the Crusades
    Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert (eds,) (University of Wales Press, 2001) Google Books →
  • Women, Crusading and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative
    Natasha R. Hodgson (Boydell Press, 2017) Google Books →
  • Reassessing the Roles of Women as 'Makers' of Medieval Art and Architecture
    Therese Martin (ed.) (Brill, 2015) Google Books →
  • Melisende of Jerusalem: Queen and Patron of Art and Architecture in the Crusader Kingdom
    J. Folda (Brill, 2015)
  • Fulk and Melisende: King and Queen of Jerusalem
    Danielle Park (forthcoming - Routledge, 2021) Google Books →
  • Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades
    Jonathan Phillips (Vintage, 2010) Google Books →
  • The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus: vol. III, The City of Jerusalem
    Denys Pringle (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Google Books →
  • The Crusader Armies
    Steve Tibble (Yale University Press, 2018) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m000bg2y

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bg2y

Auto-category: 956.94 (History of Palestine and Israel)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello, Melisande was Queen of Jerusalem in the 12th century AD and held power there alongside three different kings.