Społeczna i polityczna rola kobiet z kręgów władzy w państwach krzyżowych i Bizancjum w okresie od pierwszej do czwartej krucjaty, ss. 353

The PhD dissertation “Social and political roles of Women connected with power and authority in Crusader States and Byzantium from the first to the fourth Crusade” was written under the supervision of dr hab. Rafał Kosiński prof. UwB. The work concerns women’s participation in power and authority and their hidden influence in Crusader States and Byzantium in the twelfth century. Its purpose is to compare women’s roles in politics in Western Europe, Outremer and Byzantine Empire. Moreover this work is concentrated on establishing differences and similarities between overmentioned countries and it attempts to explain their causes. It uses mostly narrative sources in Latin and Greek. Sociological theory of social roles (created by Florian Znaniecki and Erving Goffman) was used as an analytical method. Thanks to it the work established nine basic tasks connected to the social role of queen, empress or generally female ruler. Based on that were created models of ideal female ruler in the West, Crusader states and Byzantium, which could be compared relatively easily.