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This article evaluates how far chivalric notions of honour and shame had become associated with crusading by the early thirteenth century. It stems from a wider investigation into how crusading helped to forge standards for knightly behaviour and influenced the development of chivalric ideals. The Fourth Crusade serves as a focused case study, and this article examines the significance of its controversial course and conclusion as well as how two lay authors, Geoffrey of Villehardouin and Robert of Clari, used ideas about honour and shame in their narratives. It takes a close look at terminology, exploring a variety of expressions for concepts of honour and shame, and highlights the contexts in which they were used: whether to describe military encounters, the pressure on social bonds, or leadership roles. It argues that by the turn of the thirteenth century, crusading played a significant rather than extraneous role in developing ideas about chivalric conduct and proper social behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Historical narratives of the crusades and Latin settlement in the Levant, like other medieval literature, provide slim details about women. In medieval society Latin literary education was dominated by a predominantly male and ecclesiastical hierarchy, which reflected the views of a patriarchal social system and marginalised the public role of women. Crusade narratives in particular have been criticised for their negative attitude towards women, mirroring a lack of ecclesiastical enthusiasm at their involvement in the crusade movement. Histories about crusading and events in the Latin East were often written for, and in some cases by, the lay nobility who took part in crusades and settled in the holy land. These texts were sometimes used as propaganda to encourage nobles to take the cross, and much of the imagery within them had didactic elements. In the case of women, they provided models for behaviour according to social and marital status. A consistently negative portrayal of women was doubtless impossible due to the number of important noblewomen who took the cross, and their value in cementing political alliances between western Europe and the Latin East through marriage. This article contends that it is the complex links between crusade narratives and the nobility, in terms of participation and patronage, audience, subject matter and values - crusade as a "noble" pursuit - which helps to explain the discrepancy between established ecclesiastical views and the portrayal of women in historical narratives about crusading and settlement in the East. In order to establish this idea effectively, several main themes must be addressed, including the role of crusade texts within the context of contemporary noble culture, and crusade narratives as source material for noble values concerning women. To begin, however, it is necessary to provide some background on attitudes towards women and crusade, as well as the concept of nobility and the noblewoman's place in medieval society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]