Beatrice of Lorraine, Regent of Tuscany

Beatrice of Lorraine, marchioness and regent of Tuscany (died 18 April 1076)

Before his death in 855 (and after decades of rebellion and instability within the Frankish empire that had once been ruled by Charlemagne), the Carolingian emperor Lothair I divided his kingdom among his three sons--the northern third was given to Lothair II. This region, known as Lotharingen (in German) or Lotharii regnum (in Latin, "Lothair's kingdom"), would ultimately become known as Lorraine. 

Beatrice of Lorraine,
from a twelfth-century manuscript of

Donizo's Vita Mathildis

(Vatican Library,

Codex Vat. Lat. 4922, fol. 30v)

In this act of partition, Lothair I followed a divsion of territory that had occurred after the death of his father, Louis I, "the Pious." Louis was the only surviving son of Charlemagne, inheriting the entirety of the Carolingian empire after his father's death in 814. But during his tumultuous rule, he faced a series of civil wars (he had four rebellious sons by two different wives). 

After his death and yet another civil war, an attempt was made to settle the conflicts among his three sons. By the terms of the Treaty of Verdun (843), the empire was divided: Middle Francia was inherited by Lothair, East Francia, by Louis "the German," and West Francia. by Charles "the Bald." (No territory needed to be given to Louis' fourth rebellious son, Pepin, who had predeceased his father.)

And so, as Lothair I approached his death--after years of further unrest--he too attempted to solve conflicts by means of partition. He divided Middle Francia, the portion of the empire he had inherited following the Treaty of Verdun. The Treaty of Prüm (855) did not establish peace, however, and the result was further instability and conflict. 

It was by the terms of this agreement that Lothair II inherited what would become known as Lorraine from his father.* Lothair II would marry twice, but his "marital" history was more than a bit complicated. Although he had several children (at least two sons) by his second "wife," Waldrada, they were all declared illegitimate. Thus, when Lothair II died in 869, the succession was disputed, with control of Lorraine swinging between his two uncles, Louis the German and Charles the Bald.

In 870, by the terms of the Treaty of Mersen, Lorraine was once again partitioned, this time along slightly different lines. (And, interestingly, one of Lothair II's "illegitimate" sons, Hugh, got the duchy of Alsace under the deal.)

But conflict continued until 925, when the Germany king Henry I conquered Lorraine, establishing the kingdom as a duchy under German control. In 953, Henry I's son and successor, Otto I, deposed his rebellious son-in-law as duke of Lorraine and handed the title off to his own younger brother, Bruno. As archbishop of Cologne, Bruno did not marry and have children, but he did have two important feudal commanders to support him in Lorraine, Frederick, count of Bar, and Godfrey, count of Hainault.

In 959, Bruno, divided Lorraine, creating Upper and Lower Lorraine. Control of Upper Lorraine and the title of margrave were given to Frederick. After Bruno's death in 965, Frederick became duke of Upper Lorraine, and it was Upper Lorraine that was inherited by his grandson, Frederick II--who was Beatrice of Lorraine's father. 

All of this just to get us through something of Beatrice of Lorraine's paternal background! 

As for Beatrice of Lorraine's mother. About the year 1012 or 1013, Frederick married Matilda of Swabia, a woman with her own relationship to the conflicts of this tumultuous geography. There had been some dispute about the validity of Matilda's first marriage, said to be consanguinous, though the couple remained together despite condemnation by the church.** After the death of her first husband, Matilda married Frederick despite very similar objections, that the two were too closely related to enter into a valid marriage. (Like her husband, Matilda of Swabia was a descendant of Charlemagne.)

Nevertheless, Frederick II and Matilda remained married and had three children: Sophie (born c. 1013-1018), Beatrice (born in Mantua c. 1013-1026), and Frederick (born c. 1017-1020). As you can see from the range of dates I've offered here, the birthdates--and, thus, birth order--of these children are not clear. Various dates and orders of birth are suggested by sources.

The seal of Beatrice of Lorraine
(reproduced in Nora Duff's Matilda of Tuscany,
La gran donna d'Italia)
 

Whatever the dates of their birth, the three children were still very young when their father died about the year 1026. Frederick's son succeeded his father as Frederick III, duke of Upper Lorraine, though I have found very little information about him. He seems to have died in 1033 because his sister Sophie inherited the county of Bar from him in that year. 

Meanwhile, after Frederick II's death and his son's succession, both Sophie and Beatrice were sent to the imperial household of the Holy Roman Emperor--their mother Matilda of Swabia's sister, Gisela, was married to Emperor Conrad III. (The marriage of Gisela and Conrad was also disputed because of their consanguinity--sheesh.) At the imperial court, the two girls were "nourished" by their aunt.

Matilda of Swabia was known to be at the imperial court with her sister and her children in 1030, but she died some time before January 1034. Her two daughters, Sophie and Beatrice, now "orphans," were "adopted" by their aunt.

It was at the imperial court of Conrad II and Gisela that a marriage was arranged for Beatrice with the the most powerful nobleman in northern Italy, Boniface of Canossa. From his father, Boniface had inherited the cities and counties of Mantua, Modena, Reggio, Parma, and Ferrara, among others. From his mother, he had inherited parts of Tuscany, including territory in and around Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia. Boniface supported the Holy Roman Empire in its various expeditions in northern Italy, and in 1027 Conrad awarded Boniface the lordship of Tuscany. 

In 1036, when Boniface attended the marriage of Conrad and Gisela's son, he seems to have met Beatrice. Recently widowed and childless, the fifty-two-year-old Boniface was soon married to Beatrice, then about seventeen years old, but perhaps a bit younger. In addition to her imperial connections, Beatrice brought her inheritance in Lorraine to the marriage: she was dame du château de Briey and "heiress of the lordships of Stenay, Mouzay, Juvigny, Longlier and Orval, all in the northern part of her family's ancestral lands."

After a magnificent marriage ceremony, Boniface and Beatrice took up residence in the ducal castle in Mantua, where the couple's "homecoming" was celebrated with lavish banquets and entertainments. Their court was known for its "brilliance and culture." 

Little documentation about Beatrice survives from the period, but during the years of her marriage, she seems to have spent most of her time in and around Canossa--there are references to her in Bologna (1040), Ferrara (1042), Mantua (1044), and Luca (1044).

During these years, Beatrice gave birth to three children. As with her natal family, the birth order and dates of birth of Beatrice's children are variously given, with only Matilda of Canossa's birthdate, 1046, generally agreed on. This year is derived from the epic poem about her life, Vita Mathildis, written by the monk Donizo of Canossa, who says Matilda was sixty-nine years old when she died in 1115. In addition to Matilda, Beatrice gave birth to a son, Frederick of Canossa (referred to in some chonicle sources, confusingly, as Boniface), and a third child, probably a daughter named Beatrice of Canossa, though some early chronicles indicate this child was also a boy, a younger son, "Beatricio." 

Boniface maintained his strong relations with the Holy Roman Empire after Conrad II's death in 1036, and received further territories, including Spoleto and Camerino, for his support for Conrad's son and successor, Henry III. In 1046, he hosted Henry, on his way to be crowned as emperor. But ultimately their relationship broke down, and the emperor may (or may not) have played a role in Boniface's assassination in 1052.

Boniface's son, Frederick, succeeded his father, with Beatrice of Lorraine assuming the role of regent for him. To protect his inheritance--to preserve what she could of Frederick II's lands and titles (as well as her own)--the widowed Beatrice needed to act quickly. In the words of a contemporary chronicler, Beatrice, having lost the protection of her husband, needed to find a new protector (Destitutam se priori marito desolatae domui patronuni paravisse). And so, Beatrice quickly married her cousin, Godfrey III, duke of Lorraine, probably in 1053.*** 

The marriage of Beatrice and Godfrey had, however, taken place without the permission of the emperor, Henry III, against whom Godfrey had already rebelled. Traveling to Florence in 1055 for a meeting with the pope, the emperor had Beatrice arrested--she and her daughter Matilda, then about ten years old, were taken as a prisoner to Germany. Her son, Frederick, remained in Tuscany. (It isn't clear whether Beatrice's third child was still alive at this point.)

But Frederick III did not survive for long, and it was rumored that the emperor had had both Frederick and Beatrice's third child killed, leaving only Matilda of Canossa as heir to Frederick II. (Beatrice of Lorraine would make a donation to the abbey of Santa Maria de Fenonica for the souls of of her husband, Boniface, her son, and her daughter, so perhaps that solves the question of her third child's sex).

As for Godfrey, he assumed control of Tuscany in the right of his wife and Matilda. The emperor died suddenly in October of 1056, succeeded by his son, Henry, a minor. The boy's mother, Agnes of Poitou, was appointed to act as the boy's guardian and regent--and she rather quickly reconciled with Godfrey of Lorraine. Beatrice and Matilda were released and reunited with Godfrey, who was recognized as margrave of Tuscany.

Beatrice of Lorraine, her husband, and her daughter, Matilda, were all in Rome in 1059, celebrating celebrating the election of Pope Nicholas II. Indeed, Beatrice played a role in three papal elections over the course of just a few years, those of Stephen IX (1057), Nicholas II (1059), and Alexander II (1061). Historian Valerie Eads notes that these elections were accompanied by a "turbulence" in Rome and that Beatrice "played an active role" in maintaining the peace, protecting the elections, and opposing the anti-popes supported by the empire. 

After 1060, Godfrey returned to Lorraine, leaving Beatrice in Italy, though the two were together again in Rome in 1062 and 1063. During these years, Beatrice took an active rold in papal politics and reform as well as governing Tuscany on behalf of her daughter. In November 1069, Beatrice returned to Lorraine with her husband and daughter, but by December Godfrey III of Lorraine lay dying. Before his death, Beatrice arranged for her daughter, Matilda, to be married to Godfrey's son, another Godfrey (he would succeed his father as Godfrey IV).****

Beatrice of Lorraine,

from a 14th century manuscript of 

Donizo's Vita Mathildis

(Biblioteca Panizzi, MS Turri E52)

Beatrice remained loyal to her second husband, commemorating their marriage in a seal (reproduced above) dating to 1073. The legend reads, "May you always be happy, dear Godfrey, Beatrix" (Sis semper felix, Gotfredo cara, Beatrix). But the younger Godfrey and Beatrice's daughter, Matilda, were not well matched, and after the birth and death of a daughter in 1071, Matilda left her husband and rejoined her mother.

Although Matilda of Tuscany was by now fully old enough to rule in her own name, Beatrice continued to exercise power as "dux of Tuscany." In her entry on Beatrice of Lorraine in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Margherita Giuliana Bertolini details Beatrice's "jurisdictional activity" (attività giurisdizionale) involving ecclesiastical institutions in the years from 1070 through 1076 in various locations, including Florence, Lucca, Siena, Perugia, Arezzo, and Pisa. Interestingly, given her past involvement in papal politics, Beatrice appears not to have played a role in the 1073 papal election of Gregory VII--she received news of the election by letter. 

During these years Beatrice also founded and endowed a number of religious institutions, including monasteries,  churches, and hospitals, in Siena, Arezzo, Luca, Florence, Parma, and Mantua, among other places (these are detailed by Bertolini).

Beatrice's daughter, Matilda of Tuscany, never reconciled with her husband, Godfrey. He was assassinated on 27 February 1076 while fighting on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV during what has become known as the Investiture Controversy--for her part, Matilda supported papal power against imperial power. 

On 18 April 1076, just two months after the death of her son-in-law (and stepson), Beatrice of Lorraine died. When he came to write his great epic poem about the life of Matilda of Tuscany, the Italian monk Donizo of Canossa noted the pivotal role that Beatrice had played during her lifetime: "She persuaded [the emperor] to peace with love for the pope, / And the the pious pope for love of the king" (Pontificis pacem regem suadebat amore / Atque pium papam de regis amore rogabat, quoted by Bertolini--my Latin is really bad these days, so I hope this translation is close).

The tomb of Beatrice of Lorraine,
Camposanto, Pisa

Beatrice of Lorraine was buried in a Roman sarcophagus in the cathedral church of Pisa, her burial arranged by her daughter. Her tomb was relocated inside the church in the fourteenth century, and then moved to its current location, in the Camposanto, in the nineteenth century. (For an excellent analysis of the tomb and its construction, click here.)

Letters from and to Beatrice of Lorraine are available at Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters (click here).

There is a full-length biography of Beatrice of Lorraine, Elke Goetz's Beatrix von Canossa und Tuszien :Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte des 11. Jahrhunderts (1995).

 

*For Paul B. Pixton's summary of all this, in Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, click here.

**Canon law concerned itself with the blood relationships among those who would marry. For a discussion of consanguinity as an impediment to a valid marriage, click here.

***Godfrey III, "the Bearded," duke of Lower Lorraine, was a member of the house of Ardennes-Verdun, Beatrice of the house of Ardennes-Bar. In her entry on Beatrice of Lorraine in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Margherita Giuliana Bertolini notes that after the death of Frederick II of Upper Lorraine in 1033, the House of Ardennes-Bar became "extinct," and  Gothelo, duke of Lower Lorraine, of the house of Ardennes-Verdun, was invested with Upper Lorraine, uniting the once-divided territories. After Gothelo's death, his son Godfrey eventurally succeeded to his father's role ("eventually" because there had been conflict and rebellion). Notably, Bertolini suggests that Godfrey had "probably" (probabile) administered Beatrice's holdings (dei beni) in Upper Lorraine. 

****Godfrey IV was the son of Godfrey III's first wife, Doda.

Rebecca Guarna and the Practice of Medicine

 Rebecca Guarna, doctor, fl. 1200 (1 April)

Like Trota before her and Costanza Calenda after, Rebecca Guaarna is one of the renowned mulieres Salernitanae ("women of Salerno") who were trained in medicine in that Italian city during the Middle Ages. 

Detail from a manuscript 
illustration of a female healer,
14th century
(MS 544, Miscellanea Medica XVIII,
from Wellcome Collection, London)

A reference to this long tradition was made by Antonio Mazza, prior of the Collegium Medicorum of Salerno, who wrote the earliest history of the institution. In Urbis Salernitanae Historia et Antiquitates (1681), Mazza noted that there had been "many erudite women" who trained at the school, women who "in many fields surpassed or equaled in ingenuity and doctrine not a few men and, like men, were remarkable in the field of medicine." Among the women he names is Rebecca Guarna.

In his multi-volume history of the the Scuola Medica Salernita, historian Salvatore de Renzi notes that, while much about Rebecca Guarna is "unknown" (her dates of birth and death, for example), she belonged a noble and noteworthy family whose members include Archbishop Romualdo Guarna, who had himself studied medicine at Salerno. (Romualdo Guarna died on 1 April 1182, so I've used the date of his death as the occasion to write about Rebecca.) 

Citing Mazza, Renzi lists the medical treatises which Rebecca Guarna is said to have written: De febris (On Fevers), De urinis (On Urines), and De embrione (On Embryos).

In addition to Mazza's reference to Rebecca Guarna and to Renzi's documentary research, she is mentioned by scholars who have written about the history of medicine, and in particular about the history of women in medicine, but there are, unfortunately, no further details. They span the decades: Henry Ebenezer Handerson's The School of Salernum: An Historical Sketch of Medieval Medicine (1883), James J. Walsh's Old Time Makers of Medicine (1911), Melina Lipinska's Les Femmes et le progrès des sciences médicales (1930), Muriel Joy Hughes's Women Healers in Medieval Life and Literature (1943), Kate Campbell Hurd-Meade's A History of Women in Medicine, from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (1973), and Leigh Whaley's Women and the Practice of Medical Care in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800 (2011)

I have been unbelievably excited to discover that there is a street in Salerno named in honor of Rebecca Guarna, the Via Rebecca Guarna. I am including a picture of the street, even though it's from an article with a headline about the "urban degradation" in Salerno! Sure, trees are falling, but THERE IS A STREET NAMED FOR REBECCA GUARNA!!

(Evidently the urban blight seen in Via Rebecca Guarna is a thing, because there are a couple of earlier articles, like this one, with photos of trash everywhere, but I'm still happy.)

Here it is, if you're ever in the area:

Let's Revive Childbed Fever! Back to the Future, Part 21

Yay! We're Reviving Childbed Fever! Back to the Future, Part 21

So, among all the other great news lately, there's this: in the two years since Texas banned abortion, rates of deadly sepsis, leading to maternal mortality, have skyrocketed.

Before the twentieth century, "childbed fever" (or "puerperal fever") was the name given to the septic infection that led to many women's deaths: "Before the advent of antiseptic practices—and, later, antibiotics to treat sepsis when it occurred—puerperal fever was almost always fatal. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were between six and nine cases for every 1,000 deliveries, resulting in a death toll during that span of as much as half a million in England alone. Puerperal fever was far and away the most common cause of maternal mortality and was second only to tuberculosis among all causes of death for women of childbearing age."

Eugène Devéria,

La Mort de Jane Seymour,

Reine d'Angleterre (1847),

Musée de Valence

But now, in one more example of "back to the future," childbed fever is back!

As reported by ProPublica's Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou, and Kavitha Surana, "Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion in 2021."

In their analysis of the life-threatening complications faced by pregnant women in Texas, the researchers focused first on rates of sepsis--infection--for women who were hospitalized after losing a pregnancy in the second trimester. 

Medical treatment is readily available for women in these circumstances: 

The standard of care for miscarrying patients in the second trimester is to offer to empty the uterus, according to leading medical organizations, which can lower the risk of contracting an infection and developing sepsis. If a patient’s water breaks or her cervix opens, that risk rises with every passing hour.

Sepsis can lead to permanent kidney failure, brain damage and dangerous blood clotting. Nationally, it is one of the leading causes of deaths in hospitals.

But in Texas, this medical treatment is now unavailable--doctors and hospitals are unable (or unwilling) to treat women for fear that their treatments will be regarded as an illegal abortion.

And so women are dying. The figures provided by the researchers are stark: In 2021, before the Texas abortion ban took full effect, "67 patients who lost a pregnancy in the second trimester were diagnosed with sepsis--as in the previous years, they accounted for about 3% of the hospitalizations."

But, those numbers have changed dramatically: "In 2022, that number jumped to 90. The following year, it climbed to 99."

Wait. There's more.

ProPublica zoomed out beyond the second trimester to look at deaths of all women hospitalized in Texas while pregnant or up to six weeks postpartum. Deaths peaked amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and most patients who died then were diagnosed with the virus. But looking at the two years before the pandemic, 2018 and 2019, and the two most recent years of data, 2022 and 2023, there is a clear shift:

In the two earlier years, there were 79 maternal hospital deaths.

In the two most recent, there were 120.

This is where we are now--a return not to the twentieth century or even to the nineteenth, but back to the eighteenth century and even earlier. While women have always died of childbed fever--it was recognized by the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates--the number of cases of childbed fever grew after male physicians began to take over childbirth and delivery from midwives and, in particular, when childbirth moved from home to "lying-in" hospitals in the early modern period. As one example, an "epidemic" of childbirth fever was recorded in 1646 at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris. (Laura Helmuth's "The Disturbing, Shameful History of Childbirth Deaths" is an excellent place to start reading if you're interested.)

So, you know, who needs all that modern medical treatment. Stuff like up-to-date obstetric care, sanitary practices, and antibiotics. Let's just go with bullshit and misogyny--what's the big deal if a few women die along the way, right?

I've written many entries in this blog noting women who died from childbed fever. Because of the popularity of the Tudors, I'll include a few names here. Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife, is one of the more famous women who died of childbed fever--within two weeks of giving birth to the son that Henry VIII had so longed for, Jane Semour died. Henry VIII's mother, Elizabeth of York, also died of childbed fever, as did the woman who had been his sixth wife (but managed to survive him). Katherine Parr died after giving birth to a daughter, whose father, Thomas Seymour, was Jane Seymour's brother. 

The tomb of Katherine Parr,
St. Mary's Chapel,
Sudeley Castle

I don't usually link to Wikipedia pages--not because I don't value the resource a great deal (I donate regularly, and I suggest you do too) but because it's easily accessible to all. But I am going to link here to the list of notable women who died during childbirth or from complications to childbirth--it's an eye-opener. 

But even as I link you to “notable” women, every woman who suffers a terrible, unnecessary complication is notable to us—a beloved daughter, wife, partner, sister, friend, neighbor, even perhaps a mother already. She is a singular human being. 

Isabelle, Duchess of Lorraine and Regent of Anjou

Isabelle, duchess of Lorraine and regent of Anjou (died 28 February 1453)

A seventeenth-century
imagined portrait of Isabella
by Ambito Fiorentino
(Uffizi)

Born about the year 1410,* Isabelle of Lorraine would inherit the duchy of Lorraine after the death of her father, Charles II ("the Bold). From 25 January 1431 until her death more than twenty years later, she was duchess of Lorraine in her own right (suo jure).

Isabelle's mother, Margaret of the Palatinate, was known for her piety, her confessor noting that she lived an "austere life," devoting herself to fasting and "wearing sack cloth." 

But Margaret didn't spend her entire life in prayer--she also appeared at the head of her husband's army, her support of the duke and her unexpected appearance credited with having scared her husband's enemies into running away. As Marion Chaigne-Legouy observes, the young Isabelle received "an extraordinary political education" (La princesse reçut vraisemblablement une éducation politique) from her mother.

In 1418, a marriage was proposed for Isabelle with René of Anjou. Negotiations for the alliance between Charles II of Lorraine and René's father, Louis II of Naples, were begun under the auspices of the cardinal of Bar (René's great uncle, on his mother's side, brother of the formidable Violant of Bar, queen of Aragon). Important, too, in the "matrimonial strategy" behind the alliance was Yolande of Aragon, duchess of Anjou, René's politically adept mother.

A treaty of marriage was signed in 1418 and ratified in 1419 after the cardinal designated René as heir to the duchy of Bar. It was hoped that the alliance would end conflicts between Bar and Lorraine. The young bride and groom were married in 1420 and began living in Lorraine, under the guardianship of Isabelle's father. 

Isabelle gave birth to her first child, a son, in 1424. He was quickly followed by a second son, in 1427, twins (a boy and a girl) in 1428, and a daughter, Margaret (who would marry Henry VI of England) in 1430. After Margaret, Isabelle of Lorraine would have five further children.

But in 1431, Isabelle's life took a slightly different turn. In addition to performing the role which she was expected to fulfill, producing an heir, she also gained a more public role. After the death of her father in 1431, she inherited the duchy of Lorraine. But her cousin, Antoine de Vaudémont (son of Duke Charles II's younger brother), disputed her inheritance and, allied with the duke of Burgundy, went to war. 

Fighting for Lorraine, Isabelle's husband René was captured at the battle of Bulgnéville and imprisoned, eventually transferred into the custody of the duke of Burgundy. Defending her rights and inheritance, Isabelle raised an army to free her husband and negotiated a cease fire. (Not to downplay René's imprisonment, but it doesn't seem to have been too tough--he received visitors, enjoyed "furloughs," and studied, painted, and pursued other activities of interest.)

Various concessions were made to free René, including one that indicated his two sons would be held as hostage for his good behavior. He was released from his imprisonment in 1432, though he had to remain in the Burgundian city of Dijon. 

After Isabelle's rights in Lorraine were recognized by the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund I, in 1434, René's parole was revoked, and he returned to his imprisonment. He would be held by the duke of Burgundy for two more years and released only after he paid a "punishing" ransom.

In the mean time, René of Anjou's elder brother died in 1435, and René inherited the duchy of Anjou and the county of Maine. He also inherited what historian Helen Castor has called "grandly empty titles," in particular "his ambitious grandfather's accumulations of paper claims to far-flung crowns," the kingdoms of Sicily, Naples, and Jerusalem. Still imprisoned, the new "king" of Naples sent his wife into Italy, where she was to act as regent on his behalf.

Woodcut illustration of Isabelle of Lorraine,

detail from Philippus Bergomensis, 

De Claris Mulieribus, 1497

(Harvard Art Museum, M5249)

Although Isabelle had supporters for her role in Naples, there were also opponents, including Alphonso of Aragon. Isabelle maintained under "difficult conditions" (condicions difficiles) her husband's claim to the crown of Naples until he was released from his imprisonment in 1437. The marriage of the duke of Burgundy's niece to John, Isabelle and René's eldest son, helped to effect René's release. (Unfortunately, Louis, the younger of the two boys held as hostages, died while being held as a hostage for his father.)

Once her husband was released from captivity and arrived in Naples in 1438, Isabelle of Lorraine left Italy and returned to her duchy of Lorraine. Back in Lorraine, the duchess focused her attention on consolidating her power. To that end, she was finally victorious over Antoine de Vaudémont, who agreed to give up his claim to Lorraine in 1441. Isabelle's eldest daughter, Yolande, became a "pledge of piece"--she was married to Antoine de Vaudémont's son.**

By 1442, having definitively lost Naples to Alphonso of Aragon, René of Anjou returned to France. His mother, Yolande of Aragon, who had governed Anjou in his absence, died in November of that year, after her son's return. While he remained in Anjou, Isabelle stayed in her duchy of Lorraine. 

In 1444, Isabelle's daughter, Margaret of Anjou, was betrothed to Henry VI of England. In 1445, Isabelle appointed her son, John, to act on her behalf in Lorraine. She would travel to Angers, to join her husband, in 1453. She died there, on 28 February, at the age of fifty-three, while René was preparing another expedition into Italy.

Information about Isabelle of Lorraine is found primarily in biographies of her husband, René of Anjou, and of her daughter, Margaret of Anjou. Mary Ann Hookham's The Life and Times of Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England and France, which I have linked to, above, has particularly detailed information about René, but it also has one of the most extended discussions of Isabelle that I have been able to find. 

The political role of Isabelle of Lorraine is the focus of Marion Chaigne-Legouy's "Reine «ordinaire», reine «extraordinaire» : la place de Jeanne de Laval et d’Isabelle de Lorraine dans le gouvernement de René d’Anjou," in Noël-Yves Tonnerre and Jean-Michel Matz's René d’Anjou (1409-1480): Pouvoirs et gouvernement.

*There is some uncertainty about the year of Isabelle's birth. A variety of online sources in Englsh offer the date of 1400 for Isabelle's birth, but standard reference sources like the Encyclopédie Larousse and the Nouvelle Biographie Générale indicate her date of birth as 1410. Scholarly biographies of René of Anjou, like Margaret L. Kekewich's recent The Good King: René of Anjou and Fifteenth-Century Europe, note that when René married Isabelle on 24 October 1420, he was eleven and she was ten. 

**Yolande of Anjou, born in 1428, would eventually inherit the duchy of Lorraine after the death of her nephew, Nicholas I (her elder brother John's son) in 1473. Yolande turned over the rule of Lorraine to her son, René II. When Yolande's father, René of Anjou, died in 1480, she inherited from him the duchy of Bar, and once again ceded power to her son.

Agnes Randolph, countess of Dunbar: "from the record of Scotland's heroes, none can presume to erase her"

Agnes Randolph, "Black Agnes," countess of Dunbar (siege of Dunbar Castle begins 13 January 1338)

When Agnes Randolph is remembered today, it is often for her soubriquet, "Black Agnes," which adds a bit of mystery or a hint of danger, even though it refers only to her dark coloring. More important than her complexion is her five-months' long defense of Dunbar Castle against besieging English forces under the command of William Montague, first earl of Salisbury. 

The ruins of Dunbar Castle
(from The Castles of Scotland)

Agnes Randolph was the daughter of Thomas Randolph, created first earl of Moray by his uncle, Robert I of Scotland ("Robert the Bruce"). 

Randolph fought in the Scottish wars of independence, attended his uncle's coronation in 1306, was taken captive by the English at the battle of Methven, was recaptured by the Scots in 1307, commanded troops at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and was regent of Scotland (1329-1332) for Robert I's son, David, who at the age of five succeeded his father on the throne. Through her father, then, Agnes was a grandniece of Robert the Bruce.

Agnes's mother was Isobel Stewart of Bonkyl, the daughter of Sir John Stewart and Margaret Bonkyl, the daughter of Sir Alexander of Bonkyl. 

Although the exact date is unknown, Agnes Randolph seems to have been born about the year 1312. A papal dispensation for her marriage to Patrick de Dunbar (b. c. 1285), ninth earl of Dunbar and second (or fourth, but who’s counting, huh?) earl of March, was dated 13 August 1320. (The dispensation was needed because Agnes and Dunbar were related "in the fourth degree.") A second dispensation, dated 16 January 1324, was issued, but the two had already married by that time; according to the dispensation, they could remain married, and any children, whether born or yet to be born, were legitimate. 

But there had been no children, nor would there be. If a woman's principal duty was to provide her husband with a son and heir, Agnes failed Dunbar (who, however, had a son by his first wife, though that boy, John, seems to have predeceased his father).

Though she may have had no children, Agnes Randolph served her husband well. Rather than providing him  with a child, she preserved his castle. 

Although Dunbar had given sanctuary to Edward II after the battle of Bannockburn (1314) and helped the defeated English king escape Scotland, he was reconciled with the Scottish king, supporting him, fighting for him, and asserting Scottish independence from the English. After the battle of Halidon Hill (1433), however, he paid fealty to the English king, Edward III. Dunbar's castle was razed, and he was compelled to rebuild it at his own cost and to garrison English soldiers there.  

But Dunbar soon renounced his (coerced?) support of the English, and by the end of 1434, he rejoined Scottish forces. 

And so, in January 1438, when the English laid siege to Dunbar Castle and Dunbar way away fighting, the castle's defense was up to Alice Randolph. I love Sir Walter Scot's account in his Provincial Antiquities of Scotland: 

This stronghold was left by the earl under the command of his heroic countess, Agnes Randolph. . . . This heroine, at a time when almost all the fortresses in the south of Scotland were subdued by the enemy, defended Dunbar with a zeal and magnanimity worthy the illustrious blood which flowed in her veins. . . . Dunbar, being of the utmost consequence to both parties, the English laid close siege to it, under the command of a renowned leader, Montague, Earl of Salisbury. But he met with a more than equal adversary. . . .

Scott's account of the siege of Dunbar castle is filled with delightful anecdotes about Alice Randolph's defense, but these incidents are repeated in more sober accounts as well, such as the entry on her in the Dictionary of National Biography and in Ben Johnson's essay at Historic UK.

Among her other acts of defiance, Agnes ridicules her adversaries by sending out young women with handkerchiefs to dust off the walls of the castle at the end of every day's battering by the English. She crushes a huge siege engine brought to the castle by dropping a giant bolder onto the machinery and smashing it. And when her captive brother, the earl of Moray, is brought before the castle and the besiegers threaten to hang him unless Agnes surrenders the castle, she tells them to go ahead--if they kill her brother, she will then inherit the earldom, becoming countess of Moray. Salisbury tries to bribe the gatekeeper to gain access by trickery, and he attempts to starve out the defenders, without success. 

Fanciful accounts of the siege or not, the English withdrew after the castle was relieved by Sir Alexander Ramsay, who avoided the blockade of the harbor and was able to resupply it. The English siege of Dunbar Castle ended on 10 June, when Salisbury and his army withdrew.

After the siege of Dunbar Castle, we lose sight of Agnes Randolph--or, at least, I haven't been able to locate much information at all about her life after 1338. When her brother--the one who had been threatened with death at the siege of Dunbar Castle--died in 1346, the earldom reverted to the crown, but Agnes and her sister, Isobel, inherited significant properties, including "the Isle of Man, the lordship of Annandale, the baronies of Morton and Tibber in Nithsdale, of Mordington, Longformacus, and Dunse in Berwickshire, of Mochrum in Galloway, Cumnock in Ayrshire, and Blantyre in Clydesdale." 

Interestingly, however, Dunbar seems to have claimed the title of earl of Moray in his wife's right. According to James Balfour's The Scots Peerage, "Some time after 1346 the Earl assumed the title of Moray, in addition to that of March, and he appears as Earl of March and Moray in Parliament, on 31 August 1358." In a 1359 charter, Dunbar is referred to as earl of Moray, and we see the same reference in a charter dated 24 May 1367: "Patricius de Dunbar, Comes Marchie et Morauie." 

Agnes Randolph's seal,

from Rachel Meredith Davis,

"Material evidence? Re-Approaching

Elite Women’s Seals and Charters

in Late Medieval Scotland"

(Proceedings of the Society

of Antiquaries of Scotland)

To this same document is appended the seal of Agnes Randolph, described in detail by Rachel Meredith Davis:

The slightly damaged seal features four shields arranged crosswise, coming to a point at the centre of the seal. The seal bears the arms of [Agnes's] natal and marital lineages. Reading the seal from the top, clockwise, it features the arms of Scotland, a lion rampant within a double tressure; the arms of Randolph (Moray), three cushions within a double tressure; and the arms of March and Dunbar, which were the same, a lion rampant in a border charged with eight roses, represented on two distinct shieldsh. The legend is damaged, but reads "…GNETIS CO[M]ITISSE MAR…ET MOR…" which suggests that the legend corresponded to the way in which she was named in the charter as "Agnes Countess of March and Moray [Agnes comitissa Marchie et Moravie]."

As Davis also notes, "The claims to Moray were perhaps exaggerated, as she was the daughter of the Earl of Moray but she did not have possession of the earldom."

This seal is the last documented reference to Agnes Randolph. Fiona Watson's entry for Patrick Dunbar in the online Dictionary of National Biography indicates that Agnes Dunbar died in 1369, at about the time her husband died.

During her life, she spent some time at Mordington House, owned by her father, and it is claimed that she is buried in a vault there. 

The description of Agnes Randolph in the title of this post ("from the record of Scotland's heroes, none can presume to erase her") comes from Sir Walter Scott.

There is an extended account of the siege of Dunbar Castle in John Parker Lawson's 1839 Historical Tales of the Wars of Scotland And of the Border Raids, Forays and Conflicts. Click here (this link takes you to the 1849 edition, available to read at Google Books).

There seems to be no book about Agnes Randolph, not even a work of fiction--if anyone deserves a historical novel, she does . . . 

Saint Isabel of Aragon, queen of Portugal

Isabel of Aragon, queen of Portugal and Catholic Saint (born 4 January 1271*)

Isabel of Aragon, born in Sargossa in 1271, was the third child of the Infante Peter of Aragon--after the death of his father in 1271, he became Peter III of Aragon and Valencia. Isabel's mother was Constance of Sicily, who inherited her father's claim to the throne of Sicily, a throne later claimed by Peter in his wife's right. 

A sixteenth-century painting of

Isabel of Aragon, queen of Portugal,

artist unknown

(Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro)

In addition to their daughter Isabel, who was to become queen of Portugal, the couple had five other children. 

Three of Isabel's brothers would become kings: Alfonso, who became king of Aragon and Valencia after his father's death in 1285; James, who became king of Sicily after his father's death in 1285 and king of Aragon and Valencia after his brother Alfonso's death in 1291; and Frederick, who was regent of Sicily for his brother James (after James became king of Aragon) and who then, in 1296, became king of Sicily (after James was willing to cede Sicily to France in a treaty, and the Sicilians refused to be ceded). 

Isabel's younger sister, Yolande, married Robert of Naples, but Yolande died before she could become queen when Robert became king of Naples in 1309; after his death in 1343, he was succeeded by his granddaughter, Joanna I of Naples. 

Isabel's youngest brother, Peter, never became king of anything--he eventually married Guillemette of Béarn in 1291, but he died in 1296, just twenty years old.

Isabel's father also had a number of illegitimate children with two different women. His children with  Maria Nicolau were born before his marriage, those with Ines Zapata during his marriage. 

So, that was Isabel of Aragon's family. As for Isabel herself, she was named for her great aunt, Elizabeth of Hungary, who had been canonized in 1235. Elizabeth of Hungary's sister, Yolande, had married to James I of Aragon and was the mother of Isabel's father, Peter. The name was appropriate for Isabel, who received "a strict and pious education." According to the brief entry on Isabel of Portugal in the Catholic Encyclopedia, she "led a life of strict regularity and self-denial from her childhood."

That "childhood" did not last long, however--Isabel was married by proxy in February 1282, when she was just twelve years old: "I, [Isabel], daughter of the Most Illustrious Don Pedro, by the grace of God king of Aragon, hereby bestow my body as the legitimate wife of Dom Dinis, king of Portugal and of the Algarve, in his absence as if he were present. . . . " By June, she was in Portugal, the wedding celebrated in the city of Trancosa on 26 June 1282.

This rather awkward full-length portrait of

Isabel of Aragon and her husband, 

Dinis of Portugal, dating to the 

mid-seventeenth century, hangs in the 

Sala dos Capelos in the University of Coimbra

In Portugal, Isabel fulfilled her most important duty as queen, giving birth to two children. Her daughter, Constance, was born in 1290, her son Afonso, in 1291. Constance would eventually become queen of Castile, marrying Ferdinand IV of Castile in 1302, while Afonso would succeed his father as king of Portugal in 1325. 

In addition to her reputation for piety, Isabel played a role in politics, acting as something of an intermediary in the negotiations between her husband and Ferdinand of Castile in 1297, and then between her brother James and Ferdinand in 1304. She also had to intervene in the deadly feud between her husband and her son, Afonso, during a civil war that pitted father against son between 1322 and 1324. Years later, in 1336, she would once again be needed to intervene in politics when her brother, now king of Portugal, went to war with Ferdinand of Castile's son, Alfonso, who had succeeded his father as king of Castile. For her diplomatic efforts, she became known as "the Peacemaker."

Isabel of Portugal died on 4 July 1336, shortly after her successful intervention in the conflict between her brother and Alfonso of Castile. As recounted in the Catholic Encyclopedia, "the exertion brought on her final illness; and as soon as her mission was fulfilled she died of a fever, full of heavenly joy, and exhorting her son to the love of holiness and peace."

Isabel of Aragon, queen of Portugal, was buried in the Convent of Santa Clara in Coimbra, which she had "re-founded" and to which she had devoted herself after the death of her husband. Known for her faith, piety, and good works during her life, she was credited with miracles by the faithful after her death. (One of these miracles is virtually identical to the "miracle of the roses" for which Elizabeth of Hungary is known.) She was beatified in 1516 by Pope Leo X and canonized in 1626 by Urban VIII. Her feast day is now celebrated on 4 July.

In 1677, because of frequent flooding at the convent, her body was transferred to the Convent of Santa Clara-a-Nova, also in Coimbra, built to replace the older convent. 

 

*Isabel's exact date of birth is not always cited--for the purposes of this post, I'm going with the date provided by the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints (Dicastero delle Cause dei Santi).