Writing Biographical Fiction: Maria Comnena

Maria Comnena, the wife of my central character Balian d’Ibelin, has an almost universally bad press. The Itinerarium characterizes her as “godless” and “fraudulent” and one of the most respected modern historians, Bernard Hamilton, describes her as “ruthless and scheming.” In literature, she is invariably cast as ― at best ― an unpleasant intriguer (e.g. Sharon Kay Penman in “Lionheart”) and ― at worst ― an evil witch (e.g. Hana Norton in “The Serpent’s Crown”) Yet, her marriage of Balian was almost certainly a love match on her part (if nothing else because no one, not even the king, could have forced a Byzantine princess and dowager queen of Jerusalem to marry against her will, nor was it the custom of the kingdom to do so). Furthermore, Balian’s devotion to her was demonstrated dramatically by his efforts to rescue her from Jerusalem even if it meant begging a favor of his worst enemy.  Why would Balian have been so devoted to a bitch (not to say witch)?

So my dilemma as a novelist was to try to first identify and understand why Maria was described in such negative terms by contemporaries and then decide if the characteristics that offended 13^th century clerics were truly offensive. And secondly, as with Balian, I had to go beyond what was written about her and try to find evidence of what she did that would give me insight into the kind of woman she really was.

After doing my research, it became clear that Maria’s negative image in contemporary and modern sources can be traced back to a single incident: she pressured her daughter Isabella into assenting to the annulment of her first marriage in order to enable a second marriage to Conrad de Montferrat. Because this second marriage was against the interests of the English king, his supporters heap insults on Maria (and incidentally Balian as well). Because Isabella’s divorce from her first husband also paved the way for her marriage to Henry of Champagne, and her daughters by Champagne laid claim to their father’s county several decades later. French chronicles (beholden to the local claimants to Champagne) were frantic in their efforts to defend their patrons ― even if it meant slandering a dead woman on the other side of the world. In short, the primary sources that heap abuse on Maria Comnena are biased against her and anything but credible. Furthermore, aside from this one instance of pressuring her daughter to do what was good for the kingdom, neither medieval nor modern historians bring forth a single other example of her “scheming,” “deviousness” or “treachery.” 

As for saying she was “steeped in Greek filth from the cradle,” this may have resonated well with Latin clerics after the sack of Constantinople by Western mercenaries (aka the 4^th Crusade), but it should not be used by modern historians (or novelists) as evidence of anything derogatory about Maria Comnena. On the contrary, what this actually tells us is that Maria Comnena was educated and raised at the most civilized city in the contemporary world: the imperial court in Constantinople. It means, objectively, that she enjoyed the high levels of education traditionally accorded the daughters of the Imperial family. She would have learned to read and write in Greek, Latin and French. Her great uncle was one of the most important patrons of the arts, responsible for a veritable artistic revival throughout the Eastern Roman Empire, and Maria personally is credited with inviting Byzantine artists to the Kingdom of Jerusalem to carry out a renovation of the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem ― work whose quality we admire to this day.

Looking beyond the facile descriptions of Maria Comnena written by sources with an interest in discrediting her to her actions, I began to obtain a very different picture. As I note above, she was highly educated, and raised amidst not only splendor and elegance but at the vortex of power politics surrounding the most powerful monarch on earth at the time. Had she been destined for a nunnery, she might have remained apolitical or naïve, but instead she was selected for the diplomatically vital role of marriage to a foreign king at the age of about 13. (We don’t know the date of her birth, so her age is not certain, but her aunt Theodora was sent to the court of Jerusalem to marry Baldwin III when she was this age, so it is reasonable to assume Maria was roughly the same age when she was sent to Jerusalem.) 

Once she was Queen of Jerusalem she distinguished herself as a patron of the arts, but she also accompanied her husband on his trip to Constantinople. Conceivably, she was even behind this trip and may have at least been a factor inducing him to seek closer ties to the Eastern Roman Empire. If so, it was a very wise policy that offered the crusader kingdom the best form of defense against resurgent Islamic aggression. Her political astuteness ― or at least her presumed understanding of politics in Constantinople ― is confirmed by the fact that the Count of Flanders sought her political advice in 1177 when a joint military campaign with Constantinople was undertaken.

Maria Comnena’s second marriage is nothing less than a refutation of all allegations of being “power hungry.” A woman concerned with power and influence does not marry the landless younger son of a minor baron. Balian was so far beneath Maria in rank that the marriage would have been an insult and humiliation, and no one ― certainly not her teenage step-son, nor his unpopular mother ― could have forced Maria Comnena into it against her will. The precedent had been set in the Kingdom of Jerusalem (at the latest by Constance of Antioch, who defied a far more powerful monarch than the Leper King), that widows, even reigning widows whose choice of husband was far more political than for dowagers, married men of their own choosing. Maria Comnena, however, was doubly secure against any attempts to marry her against her wishes because she had the protection of Constantinople. Had a mere King of Jerusalem attempted to humiliate a daughter of the Imperial family with an unworthy marriage, the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire would have been compelled to defend his honor. The increasingly debilitated Baldwin IV would not afford and had no desire to provoke the wrath of Constantinople. Maria Comnena married Balian d’Ibelin because she wanted to. Period. 

As Balian’s wife, she stepped down from center stage and (unlike the “ruthless” and “scheming” woman of legend), engaged in no recorded act of political interference. Indeed, she does not appear in the historical record again until Saladin sends his bodyguard to Jerusalem to remove her from danger before he began his assault. We do, however, hear of her dower barony of Nablus being attacked by a Saracen army in 1184. Since the army of Jerusalem was at this time gathered to relieve the Castle of Kerak, Balian could not have commanded the defense. All Christians in the city found refuge in the citadel and there were no casualties, something found worthy of positive commentary. The name the commander is not recorded, but the defense was most likely commanded by Maria Comnena herself. It was her city and women in the Holy Land of this period usually commanded the garrisons in their husband’s absence.

Maria’s next appearance in history is when she tells her daughter Isabella that unless she divorces Humphrey of Toron she can have “neither honor nor her father’s inheritance” ― i.e. the crown of Jerusalem. Here Maria is acting very much as a daughter of her house but also in the interests of her adopted country to secure the crown for a military competent king who enjoys the backing of the High Court of Jerusalem.

After this one act, although Maria’s daughter was Queen of Jerusalem from 1192 to 1205, there is not a single instance of her “interfering” in the affairs of the Kingdom.  Again this is very odd behavior for an allegedly unscrupulous, devious and power-hungry woman.   

In short, not a single fact supports the allegations against her. 

Once I’d established the facts to my satisfaction, my objective as a novelist was to erase the slander obscuring our understanding of the historical Maria Comnena and to portray her as a woman who did her duty to her own family with her first marriage and followed her heart with her second. My Maria is thus highly educated, sophisticated and politically astute (as a daughter of the Byzantine court), but not in the least power-hungry, scheming or faithless. This is a woman who marries for love at 23 and thereafter devotes herself to the welfare of her family. This includes ensuring that her eldest child inherits the crown to which she is entitled (by extricating herself from an illegal and disadvantageous marriage), but does not entail trying to exercise undue influence over her daughter once she is queen. The Maria Comnena of my novels is competent, practical and financially savvy, but she has no need to be greedy, grasping or vindictive because she is supremely secure in herself and her love.

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Writing Biographical Fiction: Balian d’Ibelin

Having discussed the problems of writing biographical fiction generally, I now want to bore down to examine the problems encountered in depicting the key historical figures of my Jerusalem trilogy, starting with Balian d’Ibelin himself.

The obvious fact is that Balian d’Ibelin did not leave any diaries, letters or documents in which he recorded his view of himself, his contemporaries or his world. All we have are references to him, accounts in which he plays a role, even descriptions of him by others, few of which knew him personally, and many of whom were hostile to him for political reasons.

In trying to re-create Balian d’Ibelin I had to start with this eclectic collection of references and then try to piece together a comprehensible picture. This is where the novelist’s duty to create a coherent and compelling story takes precedence over a historian’s duty to address every single fact or shred of evidence. While a historian needs to examine all the evidence ― even if it only to explain why it is irrelevant, forged, falsified or anachronistic, a novelist needs to pare away superfluous and contradictory facts in order to create a character that is convincing at a human level. That doesn’t mean a character can’t have contradictions and complexity, but they must be plausible and understandable so that readers find the character credible and have the desired reaction.

Furthermore, because my novels are not merely reflections of reality but also intended to stimulate thought and reflection on a variety of issues of more universal relevance, I consciously fill in the blanks of the historical record with material that suits my ends as a novelist.  In other words, as a biographer I strive to accurately reconstruct the object of my study, but as novelist I strive to deliver by own message through the character.

When creating the character Balian d’Ibelin, I started from a recorded historical fact: that he successfully bargained with Saladin for the surrender of Jerusalem on the basis of an agreement that ransomed the poor and destitute. Furthermore, when the sum of money raised from public and private sources proved insufficient to ransom all the poor in the city, he offered himself as a hostage until the balance could be raised.  This was an act of man who took his responsibilities as a commander and a Christian seriously; it was also an act of exceptional compassion. It is hard to imagine any other crusading nobleman doing anything similar ― except St. Louis himself. And, significantly, it was recorded in Muslim sources, not by sources biased in Balian’s favor. It was this single fact that made Balian thematically worthy of a biographical novel―particularly when combined with a host of other fascinating facts such as marrying a dowager queen when just a landless knight, seeking to bridge the differences between Tripoli and Lusignan, escaping the debacle at Hattin and negotiating Richard the Lionheart’s peace with Saladin.

Having decided that Balian’s essence was his ability to identify with the poor and his willingness to make sacrifices for others, my Balian novels had to incorporate all known facts in such a way that when combined they show how Balian developed and evolved into the type of man who would fulfill this destiny. Where I lacked historical material, I interpolated and invented events and episodes, but always with one end in mind: preparing the reader for Balian’s historical role by describing characteristics and feelings consistent with a person who would behave as the historical Balian did.

It also meant that I had to discount or dismiss some historical references to Balian which did not fit into the overall picture (and my interpretation of it). For example, French chronicles written more than thirty years after the fall of Jerusalem during a bitter court battle over the succession to the County of Champagne use disparaging language when referring to Balian and his wife. Yet while the language is intemperate and hostile, these sources site not a single fact or act to justify their negative opinion ― beyond the (undeniable but fully justifiable) fact that Balian supported the divorce of his step-daughter from Humphrey de Toron (as did the Duke of Burgundy, the High Court of Jerusalem, the Papal Legate and many others).

Likewise, the insults heaped on Balian d’Ibelin in the English Itinerarium are empty insults without a shred of evidence to support them. The Itinerarium calls Ibelin “treacherous” only because he acted as Conrad de Montferrat’s envoy to Saladin in November 1191. Yet less than a year later Richard the Lionheart used him as an envoy to Saladin too. Clearly, King Richard didn’t think Ibelin was “treacherous.”  The Itinerarium also calls him “cruel,” again without siting a single example. Without any example, however, the accusation is not credible and unworthy of inclusion.

Another problem I had to deal with is the tendency of modern historians to refer to “the Ibelins” as ambitious and grasping based on the astonishing success of Balian’s descendants. It is true that the Ibelins became the most powerful non-royal family in Latin East from the 13^th to 15^th century, but Balian was a landless knight and his elder, more powerful brother just one of a score of barons. In Balian’s own lifetime there is no reason to impute particularly sinister motives to every action, or to justify the vicious hostility of the Courtenay’s with insinuations of probable disloyalty based simply on the fact that the Ibelins were later so powerful.

Furthermore, while it is plausible that Ernoul, as a former squire of Balian, was biased in favor of his former employer/patron, that does not mean that we have to turn everything Ernoul says into its opposite in order to get the true picture. Certainly, not everyone would have had a positive view of Balian d’Ibelin, but the fact that his squire was loyal even decades later suggests that he might indeed have been an exceptionally good lord, a man who earned loyalty.

Without doubt, by focusing on the negative commentary available in hostile sources and discounting the commentary of Ernoul and the Arab chronicles, it would be possible to build and even justify a character in a novel that is very different from my own. That is the nature of historical fiction. But my Balian d’Ibelin is completely compatible with the historical record and, as my readers have attested, also an attractive, engaging and inspiring character.

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