Agnes of Courtenay - Agnes in Fiction

Agnes in Fiction

Until recent years, the image of Agnes perpetrated by Ernoul and William of Tyre has defined her treatment in history, especially of the 'popular' variety, the political agenda of these authors not being taken into account. This has affected her fictional portrayals. She has appeared in a number of novels dealing with twelfth-century Outremer - Zofia Kossak-Szczucka's Król trędowaty (The Leper King), Graham Shelby's The Knights of Dark Renown, and Cecelia Holland's Jerusalem - invariably as an aging harlot, her attractiveness varying from author to author. (Kossak depicts her as buxom and blowsy; Shelby, with particularly vicious misogyny, as a scrawny creature whom even Eraclius, whom he depicts as her lover, despises.)