Kindle Notes & Highlights
“He was legally betrothed to her, and could not marry anyone else without a formal annulment. Her marriage to Amalric was not legal—” “In which case, Amalric’s children by her are bastards, including that leper boy,” Barry pointed out.
Nope. Under canon law, children of putative marriages were (and are) considered legitimate. Granted, there were plenty of medieval nobility who tried to argue otherwise, but their attempts to completely disinherit their children of a putative marriage seldom worked. For specific examples, consider Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk and Marguerite II, countess of Flanders.
After Hugh’s death, his second wife, Gundreda de Beaumont, tried to get his son by his annulled marriage to Juliane de Vere declared illegitimate so her sons could inherit instead and failed. Marguerite, meanwhile, tried to completely disinherit her sons by her first husband, Bouchard IV d’Avesnes, but was unable to do so. Instead, the county of Hainaut went to her sons by her first husband and the county of Flanders went to her sons by her second husband.
Ramla had been an Arab city, destroyed in an earthquake centuries before the First Crusade and half buried in sand dunes when the Christians reoccupied it,
The earthquake that destroyed Ramla occurred in 1068; only thirty years before the start of the First Crusade.
undergarments, over which came silk gowns and surcoats embroidered with bright silk, gold, and silver threads.
Women don't seem to have worn surcoats until the 13th century.
finger. A Syrian Christian had been employed for the sole purpose of outlining her eyes, rouging her cheeks and lips, coloring her eyelids, and styling her hair, which was never entirely concealed under the sheer silk veils that she wore.
It’s unclear what type of Syrian Christian this girl is supposed to be, though Maria Komnene would probably regard her as a vile heretic if she was Syriac Orthodox.
Balian drew a deep breath. He believed deeply in God,
A 12th century person believing in God is about as remarkable as a modern person thinking democracy is better than absolute monarchy.
The light was back in Baldwin’s eyes. “I love horses!” he exclaimed eagerly. “There is nothing I loved doing so much before as riding. I told my father that just the other day—”
"I'm exclaiming," he exclaimed. And that's when he knew that he was in a shitty novel.
But Baldwin had been only two when his mother was sent away, and he had been raised by a wet nurse.
How this makes him strikingly different from most aristocratic children of the period is never explained.
and he ordered the Arab groom Abdul, assigned to the Prince because he was a slave and had no say in the matter,
Urgh... This is such an elementary mistake. Abdul is not a complete Arabic name (it literally means “servant of the”) and wasn’t used alone until the 20th century, by people who didn’t understand Arabic.
A pilgrim in long white cotton veils trimmed with blue embroidery emerged from the old Byzantine chapel to their right. The veils were pulled up over her head and wound around her shoulders, covering everything but a foot of shirt below the edge of the veil, almost like the way the Arab women wore their veils—only white instead of black.
Sounds like a burqa, which was and is worn in primarily by Pashtun women in Central Asia, of whom there would have been few in the Levant. Depending on what school of Islamic jurisprudence they followed, Muslim women would either have covered everything but their but their faces and hands or everything but their eyes.
I rather doubt that the concept of veiling would have seemed especially exotic to medieval Christians, though, because most Christian women above the age of puberty would have covered their hair in public, too, especially if they were married.
She had expected the Carmelite nuns at this remote, impoverished convent to welcome a prominent (and wealthy) boarder with open arms.
The Carmelites were not a recognized mendicant order until the early 13th century and there were no Carmelite nuns until 1452.
certain. Tripoli, too, could die of dysentery as Amalric had, or malaria as Nur-ad-Din had done, or
Nur ad-Din died of fever bought on by a Peritonsillar abscess, not malaria.
most Maronite Christians were exceptionally loyal to the current regime. These were men whose fathers or grandfathers still remembered what it was like to live under Turkish rule—and had no desire to return to it.
I doubt it. Most of the Maronites fled to the mountainous regions of Lebanon in the 7th century and had next to no contact with outsiders until the First Crusade.
“Yes, your grace. The Marquis of Montferrat has agreed to all our terms with only minor alterations, and is prepared to sail before the autumn storms.
Guglielmo Lungaspada never held the title Marquis of Montferrat, because his father didn’t renounce it until after his death.
Agnes de Courtney was no longer beautiful, if she ever had been. Maria Zoë suspected that she had not, because Maria Zoë had noticed that a lack of beauty often drove women to offer sex. A beautiful woman could afford to say no, and men would still desire her; a less attractive woman had to bait her snares.
Is Maria SUPPOSED to come off as a medieval version of Regina George? Jesus.
“Ye-es,” Maria Zoë confirmed, as she searched and finally found a remarkably young-looking man in ecclesiastical robes. He was as handsome as an archangel, with beautiful chestnut curls and perfect, regular features in a smooth-cheeked face. “He calls himself Heraclius. He is a native of these parts, illegitimate I believe; certainly obscure, albeit well educated.”
Though no birthdate is available for Héraclius, Wikipedia estimates that he was born around 1128, probably because he studied canon law in Bologna at the same time as Étienne de Tournai, who was born in 1128. If this estimate is reasonably correct, he would have been in his late forties in 1176 and so, it’s doubtful he would have been the youthful Adonis depicted here.
Also, Héraclius was not also a native of Outremer; he was actually from Gévaudan in Auvergne.
“But—” Maria Zoë was shocked. Of course, clerics were men. Of course, there were priests and monks who broke their vows. But an anointed bishop? And one who looked as innocent as an archangel? “The Queen Mother favors youth and beauty—even if it is found under a cassock, madame,” Lusignan noted acidly.
Clerical concubinage would be considered extremely shocking TODAY, but I rather doubt people in the 12th century would have been so scandalized. You might get some rolling of eyes, but not this.
Also, if the birth date of around 1128 for Héraclius is accurate, then he was actually older than Agnès de Courtenay and Guillaume of Tyre.
“Demetrius learned to cook in the household of the Caliph of Damascus,” Roger explained. “Only as a boy, my lord,” Demetrius hastened to assure Balian, afraid this would be held against him.
The last person to hold the title of Caliph who lived in Damascus was the Umayyad, Ibrahim ibn al-Walid, who abdicated in December 744; Demetrius seems awfully spry for someone who’s over 400 years old. Maybe he’s been eating Beth’s father’s magic fruit.
“My sister is due any day now, and the Count of Flanders wants to impose his own candidate as her next husband.” Balian was not surprised. The Count of Flanders had come out to Outremer with several hundred knights and the blessings of the Kings of France and England. When he discovered that the Marquis de Montferrat had died unexpectedly, he immediately started scheming to put someone “suitable” into Princess Sibylla’s bed—and onto the throne of Jerusalem. “What does Princess Sibylla say?” Balian asked cautiously. Baldwin shrugged eloquently, adding, “She does not like Flanders.”
Philippe, count of Flanders didn’t have a snow cone’s chance in hell of marrying Sibylle because she was his half-cousin (they shared a common grandfather in Foulques V, count of Anjou) and canon law at the time forbade marriage between people that closely related. He was also already married at the time to Élisabeth, countess of Vermandois, and bigamy was also forbidden under canon law.
“He’s not very good-looking,” Baldwin noted, reminding Balian that Sibylla was a very different woman from Zoë—and her reasons for disliking the Count equally different. “And he does not have much respect for me or my Kingdom,” Baldwin added, with a depth of dejection that made Balian stiffen with protectiveness. How dare a Count of Flanders look down on a King of Jerusalem?
Evidently, in addition to leprosy, Baudouin has also suddenly developed severe amnesia, since he has completely forgotten that the count of Flanders is his cousin.
The Real Crusades History team seems to have A Thing for their characters forgetting who their cousins are.
Richildis reacted with the anguished admission, “We—we are estranged.” “What does that have to do with anything?” Balian snapped back. “You’re still his wife, and Eschiva is his heir!” he insisted indignantly. “And Barry wishes that both were not the case! Surely you know he wants to divorce me?” Richildis answered.
Baudouin d’Ibelin and Richilde de Bethsan divorced in 1174, but this scene is supposed to be happening in 1177.
continued. “Father Vitus referred to a girl called Beth. I will tell you about her. She is a thirteen-year-old Muslim maiden, raised very strictly by her father, who owned a fruit shop near the southern gate. She claims she had never left the inside of her father’s house except to go to Friday prayers and visit her uncles’ houses—all within a couple of blocks.
How in the hell could the owner of one measly fruit shop afford to keep his female relatives in a harem? Was his fruit actually the secret of eternal youth or something?
Yes, seclusion of women has been common throughout Asia from antiquity, but it was confined to the upper class and some of the very wealthy middle class, because most families couldn’t have plausibly afforded it.
“That made me very angry,” Richildis admitted, her lips drawn into a thin line.
“You can’t just announce how your characters feel! That makes me feel ANGRY!!!”
After that, Gudrun and I took turns telling her everything we knew from the life of Christ or the lives of the saints that underscored the high status of women in Christianity—not just the Virgin Mary,
... Beth should already know who the Virgin Mary is. She’s known as Maryam bint Imran in Arabic and her virgin birth of Isa (Jesus) is part of Islamic doctrine.
I mean, I can definitely buy medieval Christians not knowing that, since a lot of them seemed to think that the Muslims were pagans, but I doubt that’s what’s going on here.
The youth, in contrast, was a “hothead,” Balian claimed, but also the most valuable of the captives: the son of a powerful official at Salah-ad-Din’s court in Damascus and a scion of one of the leading Seljuk families in Syria.
This part is set in 1178, but the Seljuk rule of Damascus and Aleppo had ended in 1105 and 1117, respectively. I think the author doesn’t appreciate that Oghuz Turk and Seljuk are not synonyms; one is an ethnic group and the other is a dynasty.
“He did it to insult me—despite the courtesy and generosity I have shown all of them. When he caught sight of you, he said, ‘Look at that! These Franks are so lacking in honor, they let their wives show themselves to strange men like common whores.’”
This is one of the dumbest plot points in the book and that’s saying something. Muslims of this period considered it inappropriate for a married woman to be in the presence of male strangers IF her husband or a male relative wasn’t present. Christians in this time also shared the idea
Second, the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem is a public figure throughout her Kingdom. Third, a woman who carries the blood of the Roman Emperors in her veins is more noble than I—or the Kurdish upstart who has stolen the Sultanate of Cairo and then Damascus from the rightful heirs.”
LO fucking L. In 1178, the Komnenos dynasty was not quite a century old and their first emperors, Isaakios I and Alexios I, were usurpers who took power in military coups. The only way this passage makes sense is if we assume Balian is a snobbish moron who isn’t up to snuff on his Byzantine history.
Given these gaps and contradictions, this novel has opted for a lucid story line that is not inconsistent with key known facts and in no way violates the historical record,
Unless you count Baudouin and Sibylle suffering spontaneous amnesia about their relationship to the count of Flanders, of course. Which is really weird, since Sibylle was probably named after the count of Flanders’ mother (and her half-aunt), Sibylle d’Anjou.
Some sources suggest his marriage to her was bigamous, because she had been married (or betrothed) to Hugh d’Ibelin before marrying Amalric—but if this were the objection, then her children by Amalric would have been deemed illegitimate, which they were not.
I kind of doubt it, given that the children of the bigamous marriages of Philippe I and Philippe II of France were both eventually declared legitimate.
One key chronicle imputes immorality, claiming Agnes had affairs with Heraclius, later the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Aimery de Lusignan, but modern historians question whether she could have had a scandalous reputation at the time of the divorce.
The biggest problem with this explanation is it’s impossible on chronological grounds: both Aimery de Lusignan and Héraclius were definitely or probably still in France when the marriage between Agnès and Amaury was annulled in 1163.
Since she was independently wealthy and mature and could not have been compelled into a new marriage, this is about as close to a love match as it comes among the nobility in the late twelfth century—at least on her part. Balian’s motives may indeed have been more venal. The marriage was, however, explicitly sanctioned by King Baldwin IV.
First of all, younger sons marrying heiresses was actually extremely common in the Middle Ages. In the 11th and 12th centuries alone, the heiresses Adélaïde de Vermandois, Mathilde de Boulogne, Constance de Bretagne, Isabella de Clare, and Élisabeth de Courtenay all married landless younger sons. This was considered an ideal arrangement by the families of both parties, because it gave heiresses a husband to fulfill the military requirements of the title and it gave younger sons lands and titles without having to break up the family holdings.
Second, Maria Komnene likely had good reason to remarry rather than just solely because she fell in love. If she wished to protect the interests of her daughter in the kingdom of Jerusalem, she desperately needed a second husband to do so, especially because she had no blood ties to any of the nobility of Outremer. Furthermore, widowed wealthy women were a prime target for abduction by ambitious men who would try to claim their wealth and titles by marrying them by force. Marriage by abduction was not permitted under canon law, but it nevertheless happened and getting out of such marriages often took a lot of time.
Abaya: a black garment, worn by Islamic women, that completely covers the head and body in a single, flowing, unfitted fashion so that no contours or limbs can be seen. It leaves only the face, but not the neck, visible and is often supplemented with a mask or “veil” that covers the lower half of the face, leaving only a slit for the eyes between the top of the abaya (which covers the forehead) and the mask or veil across the lower half of the face.
The abaya is most common in North and Eastern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
