Abstract

Women participating in the crusader movement left only a few traces in Byzantine written sources. Byzantine women are often referred to in a collective sense and did not take up arms, although they seem to have accompanied military campaigns and are recorded as prisoners of war. However, it seems that the common view of the secluded female life can be upheld: even highborn women rarely became involved in political and military life. On the other hand, Greek historiographers emphasize the strange behaviour of foreign women in public in order to underline the otherness of the Latin intruders. From 1096 to 1204 the relations between East and West gradually deteriorated. In the end even the walls of Constantinople could not protect its inhabitants. A few glimpses underline this development: fear of a seizure of Constantinople, abduction of female workers, sexual violence against women after the conquest of Constantinople.