Encyclopedia
For other Eleanors of England, see Eleanor of England Eleanor of Aquitaine 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 the
twelfth 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, Eleanor's 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
the other Aenor in the
langue d'oc , but it became
Eléanor in the northern
Oil language is the linguistic and historical designation of the Gallo-Romance languages [i] which o ...
.
She was raised in one of Europe's most cultured courts, the birthplace of
courtly 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 and seven other countries. Her brother, William Aigret, died when he was but 3, along with their mother, and she had only one other sibling, a younger sister named Petronilla.
Marriage to Louis VII of France
William X died on
Good Friday, April 9, 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, the couple was married in the cathedral of Saint-André 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 . Her conduct was repeatedly criticized by Church elders 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. Much money went into building grand apartments just for Eleanor's sake.
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 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.
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
Vézelay, 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 fêted 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 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 , 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, which were the beginnings of what would become admiralty law. She introduced those conventions in her own lands, on the island of Oleron in 1160 and later in 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 Eleanor's flamboyant uncle, Raymond of Antioch , 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 , but there was no saving the marriage. On March 11, 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 March 21 the four archbishops, with the approval of Pope Eugene, granted an annulment due to consanguinity within the fourth degree . 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
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'. 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 . 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. At a small cathedral still stands the stained glass commemorating Eleanor and Henry with a family tree growing from their prayers. Away from Henry, Eleanor was able to center her court on
courtly love. Apparently both King and church expunged the records of the actions and judgmenets of this court. 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 . 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'. The Queen sent her younger sons to France 'to join with him against their father the King'. Once her sons had left for Paris, Eleanor encouraged the lords of the south to rise up and support them. 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 July 8, 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 . 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 began the liaison in 1173, supposedly contemplating divorce from Eleanor. Rosamund/Rosamond was one among Henry's many mistresses, but he treated earlier liaisons discreetly: he flaunted Rosamond. This notorious affair caused a monkish scribe with a gift for Latin to transcribe Rosamond's name to "Rosa Immundi", or "Rose of Unchastity". Likely, Rosamond was one weapon in Henry's efforts to provoke Eleanor into seeking an annulment . Had she done so, Henry might have appointed Eleanor abbess of Fontevrault , requiring her to take a vow of poverty, thereby releasing her titles and nearly half their empire to him. Eleanor was much too wily to be provoked into this, or to seek Rosamond's death: "In the matter of her death the Almighty knows me innocent. When I had power to send her dead, I did not; and when God wisely chose to take her from this world I was under constant watch by Henry’s spies.". Nevertheless, rumours persisted, perhaps assisted by Henry's camp, that Eleanor had poisoned Rosamund. 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 of Earley, 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 to England probably early in 1184. 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 July 6, 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 he demanded this. 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 August 13, 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.
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', 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. In 2004, Catherine Muschamp's one-woman play,
Mother of the Pride, toured the U.K. with Eileen Page in the title role. In 2005, Chapelle Jaffe played the same part in Toronto.
Eleanor appears briefly in the BBC production of
Ivanhoe is a novel [i] by Sir Walter Scott [i]. ...
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. She dictates her memoirs in Robert Fripp's
Power of a Woman.
Beloved Enemy, a novel by Ellen Jones, portrays her marriage to Louis VII and the first decade of her marriage to Henry II. "Queen Elinor" appears in
William Shakespeare's
King John, along with other members of the family. Author Kristiana Gregory explored Eleanor's early life in 2002 juvenile work "Eleanor Crown Jewel of Aquitaine".
Duchess of Aquitaine," a novel, was written by Margaret Ball in 2006.
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. Even an oblique reference to her renders John into an infantile, thumb-sucking state, probably because "Mother always did love Richard best."
Eleanor does appear as a recurring character in several episodes of the classic television program The Adventures of Robin Hood , whom Robin aids in her efforts to raise King Richard's ransom and thwart Prince John's schemes.
Notes
Biographies and Written Work
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, John Carmi Parsons & Bonnie Wheeler
- Queen Eleanor: Independent Spirit of the Medieval World, Polly Schover Brooks
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography, Marion Meade
- Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings, Amy Kelly
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen, Desmond Seward
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life, Alison Weir
- "The Royal Diaries, Eleanor Crown Jewel of Aquitaine", Kristiana Gregory
- Women of the Twelfth Century, Volume 1 : Eleanor of Aquitaine and Six Others, Georges Duby
...
External links
- dates almost 300 events before and during her life
- , historical fiction by Robert Fripp with by Duncan Long
