When people hear the term crusader, it's likely that it conjures up an image of a

dashing nobleman on a mighty steed heading out for holy war. This is completely

understandable as the term is a modern one.

Medieval people didn't understand themselves as crusaders in the way that we do today,

and instead they used the term pilgrim,

just as visitors to any holy site would have done at the time. the term

pilgrim. So we think about Knights when we say Crusader because that's what we mean

and what we want to talk about. However, our use of this new term crusader obscures a whole

score of people who absolutely went to the Holy Land, but did so for any number of reasons,

and participated in any number of activities that weren't quite so connected to tales of daring due and nightly splendor.

More specifically, it means that we don't hear about all the women who also went on Crusade.

Yes, really, the women.

I'm Dr. Eleanor Yannaga, and today on Comade Evil from History Hit, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yannaga and today on gom medieval from history hit I'm joined by

Dr Natasha Hodgson the author of women crusading in the Holy Land and

historical narrative to talk about what it means to be a crusader, how women were, well, everywhere

that men were in the medieval period, and what our own expectations lead us to overlook in

history.

First of all, Natasha, thank you so much for coming.

Yeah, it's really nice to be invited, so thank you.

So this is a topic near and dear to my heart,

because I think that a lot of time when we consider the Crusades

we think that it's a bunch of guys being blokes and they're out there on their way to

...