Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122^[1] – March 31, 1204) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Europe during the High Middle Ages. She was Queen consort of both France and England in turn. She is well known for her involvement in the Second Crusade.

Background

In thetwelfth century, the Kingdom of France was small, being centered on Paris and the surrounding area, but its kings were overlords of all the feudal lords in an area similar to that of modern France. One of the most powerful of these was the Duke of Aquitaine, who was also Duke of Gascony and Count of Poitiers.

Biography

Early life

The oldest of three children, her father was William X, Duke of Aquitaine, and her mother was Aenor de Châtellerault, the daughter of Aimeric I, Vicomte of Chatellerault. William's and Aenor's marriage had been arranged by his father, William IX of Aquitaine the Troubador, and her mother, Dangereuse, William IX's long-time mistress. Eleanor was named after her mother and called Aliénor, which means other Aenor in the langue d'oc (Occitan language), but it became Eléanor in the northern Oil language.

She was raised in one of Europe's most cultured courts, the birthplace ofcourtly love. By all accounts, Eleanor was the apple of her father's eye, who made sure she had the best education possible: she could read, speak Latin, and was well-versed in music and literature. She also enjoyed riding, hawking, and hunting. Eleanor was very outgoing and stubborn. She was regarded as very beautiful during her time; most likely she was red-haired and brown-eyed as her father and grandfather were. She became heiress to Aquitaine (the largest and richest of the provinces in what would become modern France) and seven other countries. Her brother, William Aigret, died as a baby and she had only one other sibling, a younger sister named Petronilla.

Marriage to Louis VII of France

King Louis VII of France, Eleanor's first husband

William X died on Good Friday, 9 April 1137 while on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. Eleanor, about the age of 15, became the Duchess of Aquitaine, and thus the most eligible heiress in Europe. As these were the days when kidnapping an heiress was seen as a viable option for attaining title, William wrote a will on the very day he died, bequeathing his domains to Eleanor and appointing King Louis VI, nicknamed 'the Fat' her guardian. He made his friends promise to approach the king and ask him to arrange a marriage between his son and Eleanor without delay. Louis agreed to the request. Louis sent his son Louis VII with an escort of 500 knights and arranged for Abbot Suger and other lords to accompany him. Louis arrived in Bordeaux on 11 July, and the next day, accompanied by the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who had come on Eleanor's behalf, he was ferried across the river to meet her. On Sunday 25 July, they were married in the cathedral of Saint-AndrAc in Bordeaux. It was a magnificent ceremony with almost a thousand guests. However, there was a catch: the land would remain independent of France, and Eleanor's oldest son would be both King of France and Duke of Aquitaine. Thus, her holdings would not be merged with France until the next generation. She gave Louis a wedding present that is still in existence, a rock crystal vase on display at the Louvre.

Something of a free spirit, Eleanor was not popular with the staid northerners (according to sources, Louis's mother, AdAclaide de Maurienne, thought her flighty and a bad influence). Her conduct was repeatedly criticized by Church elders (particularly Bernard of Clairvaux and Abbot Suger

) as indecorous. The King, however, was madly in love with his beautiful and worldly bride, and granted her every whim, even though her behavior baffled and vexed him to no end.

Crusade

Though Louis was a pious man he soon came into violent conflict with Pope Innocent II. The archbishopric of Bourges became vacant, and the king supported as candidate the chancellor Cadurc, against the pope's nominee Pierre de la Chatre, swearing upon relics that so long as he lived Pierre should never enter Bourges. This brought the interdict upon the king's lands.

Louis became involved in a war with Theobald II of Champagne, by permitting Raoul I of Vermandois and seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife, Theobald's niece, and to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, Eleanor's sister. Eleanor urged Louis to support her sister's illegitimate marriage to Raoul of Vermandois. Champagne also sided with the pope in the dispute over Bourges. The war lasted two years (1142 - 44) and ended with the occupation of Champagne by the royal army. Louis was personally involved in the assault and burning of the town of Vitry. More than a thousand people who had sought refuge in the church died in the flames. Overcome with guilt, Louis declared on Christmas Day 1145 at Bourges his intention of going on a crusade.

On Easter 1146, both Eleanor and Louis took up the cross during a sermon preached by Bernard of Clairvaux. She was followed by some of her royal ladies in waiting as well as 300 non-noble vassals. She insisted on taking part in the Crusades as the feudal leader of the soldiers from her duchy. The story that she and her ladies dressed as Amazons is disputed by serious historians. However, her testimonial launch of the Second Crusade from VAczelay, the rumored location of Mary Magdalene's burial, dramatically emphasized the role of women in the campaign.

The Crusade itself achieved little. Louis was a weak and ineffectual military leader with no concept of maintaining troop discipline or morale, or of making informed and logical tactical decisions. In eastern Europe the French army was at times hindered by Manuel I Comnenus, the Byzantine Emperor, who feared that it would jeopardize the tenuous safety of his empire. However, during their three-week stay at Constantinople, Louis was fAªted and Eleanor was much admired. She is compared with Penthesilea, mythical queen of the Amazons, by the Greek historian Nicetas Choniates; he adds that she gained the epithet chrysopous (golden-foot) from the cloth-of-gold that decorated and fringed her robe. Louis and Eleanor stayed in the Philopation

palace, just outside the city walls.

Beyond Byzantine territory, a particularly poor decision to camp one night in a lush valley surrounded by tall peaks in hostile territory led to an attack by the Turks, who slaughtered as many as 7000 Crusaders. As this decision was made by Eleanor's vassal, Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou (with whom it was rumored that she had an affair), many believed that it was her directive. This did nothing for her popularity in Christendom. Eleanor's reputation was further sullied by her supposed affair with her uncle Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch.

While in the eastern Mediterranean, Eleanor learned about maritime conventions developing there: the beginnings of what would become admiralty law. She introduced those conventions in her own lands, for instance on the island of Oleron in 1160, and later into England as well. She was also instrumental in developing trade agreements with Constantinople and ports of trade in the Holy Lands. She is credited with bringing Opium

from the Middle East to Europe.

Annulment of first marriage

Even before the Crusade, Eleanor and Louis were becoming estranged. The city of Antioch had been annexed by Bohemond of Hauteville in the First Crusade, and it was now ruled by her flamboyant uncle,Raymond of Antioch (rumored to be her lover), who had gained the principality by marrying its reigning Princess, Constance of Antioch. Clearly, Eleanor supported his desire to re-capture the nearby County of Edessa, the cause of the Crusade. Louis was directed by the Church to visit Jerusalem instead. When Eleanor declared her intention to stand with Raymond and the Aquitaine forces, Louis had her brought out by force. His long march to Jerusalem and back north debilitated his army, but her imprisonment disheartened her knights, and the divided Crusade armies could not overcome the Muslim forces. For reasons unknown, likely the Germans' insistence on conquest, the Crusade leaders targeted Damascus, an ally until the attack. Failing in this attempt, they retired to Jerusalem, and then home.

When they passed through Rome on the way to Paris, Pope Eugene III tried to reconcile Eleanor and Louis. Eleanor conceived their second daughter, Alix of France (their first was Marie), but there was no saving the marriage. On 11 March 1152, they met at the royal castle of Beaugency to dissolve the marriage. Archbishop Hugh Sens, Primate of France, presided, and Louis and Eleanor were both present, as were the Archbishops of Bordeaux and Rouen. Archbishop Samson of Reims acted for Eleanor. On 21 March the four archbishops, with the approval of Pope Eugene, granted an annulment due to consanguinity within the fourth degree (Eleanor and Louis were third cousins, once removed and shared common ancestry with Robert II of France). Their two daughters were declared legitimate and custody of them awarded to King Louis. Archbishop Sampson received assurances from Louis that Eleanor's lands would be restored to her.

Marriage to Henry II of England

Henry II of England

The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry of Anjou and Henry's subsequent succession to the throne of England created an empire.

Two lords tried to kidnap Eleanor to marry her and claim her lands on Eleanor's way to Poitiers. As soon as she arrived in Poitiers, Eleanor sent envoys to Henry, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, asking him to come at once and marry her. On Whit Sunday, May 18, 1152, six weeks after her annulment, Eleanor married Henry 'without the pomp and ceremony that befitted their rank'^[2]. She was about 11 years older than he, and related to him in the same degree as she had been to Louis. Eleanor and Henry were half, third cousins through their common ancestor Ermengarde of Anjou (wife to Robert I, Duke of Burgundy and Geoffrey, Count of Gâtinais). One of Eleanor's rumored lovers was Henry's own father, Geoffrey of Anjou, who advised him not to get involved with her. Over the next 13 years, she bore Henry five sons and three daughters: William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor, and Joan.

Despite her reputation in later historical accounts, Eleanor was incensed by Henry's philandering; their son, William, and Henry's illegitimate son, Geoffrey, were born months apart. Henry fathered other illegitimate children throughout most of their marriage.

Some time between 1168 and 1170, she instigated a separation, deciding to establish a new court in her own territory of Poitou. A small fragment of her codes and practices was written by Andreas Capellanus.

Henry concentrated on controlling his increasingly-large empire, badgering Eleanor's subjects in attempts to control her patrimony of Aquitaine and her court at Poitiers. Straining all bounds of civility, Henry had Archbishop Thomas Becket murdered at the altar of the church in 1170 (though there is considerable debate as to whether it was truly Henry's intent to be permanently rid of his archbishop). This aroused Eleanor's horror and contempt, along with most of Europe's.

Revolt and Capture

In March 1173, aggrieved at his lack of power and egged on by his father's enemies, the younger Henry launched the Revolt of 1173-1174. He fled to Paris. From there 'the younger Henry, devising evil against his father from every side by the advice of the French King, went secretly into Aquitaine where his two youthful brothers, Richard and Godfrey, were living with their mother, and with her connivance, so it is said, he incited them to join him'. ^[3] The Queen sent her younger sons to France 'to join with him against their father the King'^[4]. Once her sons had left for Paris, Eleanor encouraged the lords of the south to rise up and support them.^[5] Sometime between the end of March and the beginning of May, Eleanor left Poitiers to follow her sons to Paris but was arrested on the way and sent to the King in Rouen. The King did not announce the arrest publicly. For the next year, her whereabouts are unknown. On 8 July 1174, Henry took ship for England from Barfleur. He brought Eleanor on the ship. As soon as they disembarked at Southampton, Eleanor was taken away either to Winchester Castle or Sarum Castle and held there.

Years of imprisonment 1173 - 1189

Eleanor was imprisoned for the next fifteen years, much of the time in various locations in England. During her imprisonment, Eleanor had become more and more distant with her sons, especially Richard (who had always been her favorite). She did not get the chance to see her sons very often during her imprisonment, though she was released for special occasions such as Christmas. About four miles from Shrewsbury and close by Haughmond Abbey is "Queen Eleanor's Bower," the remains of a triangular castle which is believed to have been one of her prisons.

Henry lost his great love, Rosamund Clifford, in 1176. He had met her in 1166 and begun the liaison in 1173, supposedly contemplating divorce from Eleanor. This was done, believed by many, to disgrace Eleanor while she was imprisoned. Because of this notorious affair, Rosamund was called "Rosa Immundi", or "Rose of Unchastity". When Rosamund died, rumours spread that Eleanor had poisoned her, but there is no evidence to support this. No one knows what Henry believed, but he did donate much money to the Godstow Nunnery in which Rosamund was buried.

In 1183, Henry the Young tried again. In debt and refused control of Normandy, he tried to ambush his father at Limoges. He was joined by troops sent by his brother Geoffrey and Philip II of France. Henry's troops besieged the town, forcing his son to flee. Henry the Young wandered aimlessly through Aquitaine until he caught dysentery. On Saturday, 11 June 1183, the Young King realized he was dying and was overcome with remorse for his sins. When his father's ring was sent to him, he begged that his father would show mercy to his mother, and that all his companions would plead with Henry to set her free. The King sent Thomas Agnell, Archdeacon of Wells to break the news to Eleanor at Sarum. Eleanor had had a dream in which she foresaw her son Henry's death. In 1193 she would tell Pope Celestine III that she was tortured by his memory.

In 1183, Philip of France claimed that certain properties in Normandy belonged to The Young Queen but Henry insisted that they had once belonged to Eleanor and would revert to her upon her son's death. For this reason Henry summoned Eleanor to Normandy in the late summer of 1183. She stayed in Normandy for six months. This was the beginning of a period of greater freedom for the still supervised Eleanor. Eleanor went back England probably early in 1184.^[6] Over the next few years Eleanor often traveled with her husband and was sometimes associated with him in the government of the realm, but still had a custodian so that she was not free.

Regent of England

Upon Henry's death on 6th July 1189, Richard was his undisputed heir. One of his first acts as king was to send William the Marshal to England with orders to release Eleanor from prison, but her custodians had already released her when she demanded this^[7]. Eleanor rode to Westminster and received the oaths of fealty from many lords and prelates on behalf of the King. She ruled England in Richard's name, signing herself as 'Eleanor, by the grace of God, Queen of England'. On 13 August 1189, Richard sailed from Barfleur to Portsmouth, and was received with enthusiasm. She ruled England as regent while Richard went off on the Third Crusade. She personally negotiated his ransom by going to Germany.

Eleanor's tomb: she is depicted in her pious old age

Later life

Eleanor survived Richard and lived well into the reign of her youngest son King John.

In 1199, under the terms of a truce between King Philip II of France and King John, it was agreed that Philip's twelve-year-old heir Louis would be married to one of John's nieces of Castile. John deputed Eleanor to travel to Castile to select one of the princesses. Now seventy-seven, Eleanor set out from Poitiers. Just outside Poitiers she was ambushed and held captive by Hugh de Lusignan, which had long ago been sold by his forebears to Henry II. Eleanor secured her freedom by agreeing to his demands and journeyed south, crossed the Pyrenees, and travelled through the Kingdoms of Navarre and Castile, arriving before the end of January, 1200. King Alfonso VIII and Queen Leonora of Castile had two remaining unmarried daughters, Urraca and Blanche. Eleanor selected the younger daughter, Blanche. She stayed for two months at the Castilian court. Late in March, Eleanor and her granddaughter Blanche journeyed back across the Pyrenees. When she was at Bordeaux where she celebrated Easter, the famous warrior Mercadier came to her and it was decided that he would escort the Queen and Princess north. 'On the second day in Easter week, he was slain in the city by a man-at-arms in the service of Brandin'^[8], a rival mercenary captain. This tragedy was too much for the elderly Queen, who was fatigued and unable to continue to Normandy. She and Blanche rode in easy stages to the valley of the Loire, and she entrusted Blanche to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who took over as her escort. The exhaused Eleanor went to Fontevrault, where she remained. In early summer, Eleanor was ill and John visited her at Fontevrault.

Eleanor was again unwell in early 1201. When war broke out between John and Philip, Eleanor declared her support for John, and set out from Fontevrault for her capital Poitiers to prevent her grandson Arthur, John's enemy, from taking control. Arthur learned of her whereabouts and besieged her in the castle of Mirabeau. As soon as John heard of this he marched south, overcame the besiegers and captured Arthur. Eleanor then returned to Fontevrault where she took the veil as a nun. By the time of her death she had outlived all of her children except for King John and Queen Leonora.

Eleanor died in 1204 and was entombed in Fontevraud Abbey near her husband Henry and son Richard. Her tomb effigy shows her reading a Bible. She was the patroness of such literary figures as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-More, and Chrétien de Troyes.

In historical fiction

Eleanor and Henry are the main characters in the play The Lion in Winter, by James Goldman, which was made into a film starring Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn, and remade for television in 2003 with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close. The depiction of her in the play and film Becket contains historical inaccuracies, as acknowledged by the author, Jean Anouilh.

Eleanor appears briefly in the BBC production of Ivanhoe portrayed by Sian Phillips. She is also a major character in Thomas B. Costain's Below the Salt, and the subject of E. L. Konigsburg's children's book A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. Her life is chronicled in three books by Sharon Kay Penman When Christ and His Saints Slept, Time and Chance, and The Devil's Brood. The novel The Book of Eleanor by Pamela Kaufman tells the story of Eleanor's life from her own point of view. "Queen Elinor" appears in William Shakespeare's King John, along with other members of the family.

Although never portrayed directly onscreen, nor mentioned by name, Eleanor is referenced often in the Disney animated film Robin Hood. The comically spoiled Prince John is constantly being reminded of his mother by his scribe, Sir Hiss. In one memorable scene, Prince John sulkily states "Mother always did love Richard best," and proceeds to suck his thumb.

Notes

1. ^ The exact date of Eleanor's birth is not known, but the year is known from the fact that the lords of Aquitaine swore fealty to her on her fourteenth birthday in 1136. Some chronicles give her date of birth as 1120, but her parents almost certainly married in 1121.
2. ^ Chronique de Touraine
3. ^ William of Newburgh
4. ^ Roger of Hoveden
5. ^ Eleanor of Aquitaine. Alison Weir 1999
6. ^ Eleanor of Aquitaine. Alison Weir 1999
7. ^ Eleanor of Aquitaine. Alison Weir 1999.
8. ^ Roger of Hoveden

Biographies

• Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, John Carmi Parsons & Bonnie Wheeler (2002)
• Queen Eleanor: Independent Spirit of the Medieval World, Polly Schover Brooks (©1983) (for young readers)
• Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography, Marion Meade (©1977)
• Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings, Amy Kelly (©1950)
• Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen, Desmond Seward (©1978)
• Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life, Alison Weir (©1999)
• Women of the Twelfth Century, Volume 1 : Eleanor of Aquitaine and Six Others, Georges Duby