How did your book Queens of Jerusalem: The Women Who Dared To Rule come about?
I particularly like to tell the history of the Crusades from a woman’s perspective given that that is something often left out of history. My interests as a historian are to focus on the medieval world of the Middle East and Mediterranean regions and the interactions between the east and the west during this period.
I travelled to the holy city of Jerusalem and other parts of the Middle Eastern regions to ‘peel back’ the layers of history. It was very important for me to stand and look out at the current ‘landscape’ where these women would have stood, to travel to the exact places where they would have been, and to try and put myself in their shoes.
Being a woman historian, tell us more of how you place yourself in relation to these women to tell their story.
As a young woman researching history, one does encounter huge amounts of misogyny not just academically but because the popular culture around the Crusades and Jerusalem is riddled with hypermasculinity, romantic fantasy, colonialism and Orientalism. It’s hard to use the term misogyny since it is a modern term that did not exist in those times but there was always a negative attitude implicit in the writing and viewing of women in positions of power and in royalty during those times that one has to look beyond while writing. It’s a re-reading of history.
How does your background influence your work?
Interestingly I have a mixed ancestry myself. I was raised in London, with British, American and Armenian roots. I currently live in the Languedoc region of France. I have done Master’s in literature and history from Oxford University and UCL. I worked in communications for a year before I began pursuing writing full time.
What is striking about your portrayal of these women is that you have not tried to lionise them. Instead, you have presented them as humane characters with their flaws. Tell us about that.
It’s not the job of the ‘feminist historian’ to make heroines out of every female figure maligned or dismissed by history. Rather it is to present the relevant evidence and analysis to give readers the best understanding. Unfortunately, it is true that Alice was quite maligned.
Is it a cliché followed by historians and journalists to portray one woman as the good girl and the other as the bad girl?
In most cases, yes. If we look at modern English Royalty there is that tendency to create the binaries of the good girl and the bad girl, like in the case of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle. Hence in the case of Melisende and Alice that was the same approach. Also, Melisende was able to hold on to her power but Alice could not. Alice did get portrayed as a ‘bad mother’ and as ‘promiscuous’, which is a typical trope. Melisende, admittedly, is my favourite of the four royal women.
Tell us about your second book Storied Cities: The Forgotten Capitals of the Mediterranean. In my upcoming book, the intention is to show to the world that women have been in power for centuries. It is important to carve out their place in history. In a way, we have to rehabilitate the way women have been viewed. In the middle ages, women were not just sitting at home but going out and conducting themselves in positions of power and it’s important to demonstrate that in history.
Does the way forward for you continue to be about the histories of women?
After the forgotten cities of the Mediterranean, I’m trying to write about the women of the Ottoman Empire, the Slave Queens of the harem and the way they played out their relations with power... how they became queens. I love their rags-to-riches stories!
Queens of Jerusalem: The Women Who Dared to Rule
By: Katherine Pangonis
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Pages: 313
Price: Rs 699