Margaret of Beverley (c.1150 – c.1215) also known as Margaret of Jerusalem, was a Christian pilgrim during the 1180s–1190s in the Holy Land. An incomplete account of her life and travels during the 1180s survives in a book entitled Hodoeporicon et percale Margarite Iherosolimitane written by her brother Thomas of Froidmont.
Contents
Early life and family
According to the Hodoeporicon, Margaret was born while her parents were on a pilgrimage to Palestine, probably during the mid-12th century. Her parents died while Margaret's brother Thomas was still in infancy. Thomas cites this as the reason why Margaret educated him. Presumably Margaret spent a large portion of her life living in Beverley in England hence her epithet, though there is no evidence of this.
Pilgrimage
Margaret travelled to the Holy Land around the mid-1180s, however she reached Jerusalem just before the encroachment of Saladin's forces and the siege of the city in 1187. While trapped within Jerusalem, Margaret took an active role in helping the crusaders defend the city walls. Supposedly she used a cooking pot as a helmet to protect herself, thought this is probably a plot device. Following Saladin's capture of the city, he agreed a ransom price for the inhabitants of the city. Margaret was able to pay for her share of the ransom and leave the city, however she was captured by Muslims shortly afterwards and spent 15 months as a slave. She was freed by a Christian noble from Tyre along with numerous other Christians who had been enslaved.
Margaret then became an itinerant worker, doing washing to gather the funds to resumed her pilgrimage. When she had gathered the money she needed she traveled to the tomb of Saint Margaret.
Margaret then traveled to Antioch, where again she became involved in the fighting between crusader and Muslim armies. She apparently participated in the plundering of the dead after the battle. While making her way toward Tripoli, Margaret was enslaved a second time. The Muslim who captured her did so after recognising some of the trinkets that Margaret had taken from the Muslim casualties at Antioch. After regaining her freedom, Margaret reached Acre in 1191 and from there travelled back to Europe.
Return to Europe
Upon Margaret's return to Europe she did not initially head home to England. Instead she began travelling around the continent visiting shrines and popular pilgrimage sites before seeking out her brother Thomas at his monastery in Froidmont, Picardy.
Death
Margaret died around 1215 while living as a nun in a cistercian monastery in Montreuil-sous-Laon in France.