Recently I finished reading "Monstrous Regiment" by the late Terry Pratchett and in this book, a girl who lives in a strictly religious country where women are technically not allowed to own any property decides to join the army when her father dies to find her brother who was declared missing in action during the war that is devastating her country, because she cannot legally take over the bar her father used to run. Problem: women cannot join the army, so she dresses up as a man.
Now I know Pratchett often drew parallels to real-world history, so I was wondering if this happened in other conflicts, more specifically the crusades as large amounts of men were drawn in to fight in the holy wars in the Levant. Did some of these women, upon hearing that their beloved had disappeared, decide to join the war disguised as a man? Is there any record of this?
The crusades were not a male-only enterprise, women went too - many nobles brought their wives, and women were in the army's supply train (as they were in many medieval armies). Furthermore, after the first crusade, there were Christian states for a pilgrim to enter for such a purpose. Accordingly there was no need for women to fight or even cross-dress for such a purpose.
There was a Swedish woman who joined the Swedish army in the early 17th century in an attempt to "find her husband". She pretended to be a man and was even promoted to sergeant. When they finally caught her being a woman, she got discharged but was still awarded military pension for the rest of her life.
Source: a history researcher at Uppsala university is doing a thesis on her life that I met in a bar.