Berengaria "the Great"

Berengaria of Castile, queen regnant of Castile (died 8 November 1246)

The formidable twelfth-century ruler, Urraca of Castile and León, fought throughout her life to maintain the unity of her kingdom--her chief antagonist was her own husband, Alfonso I of Aragon.  She prevailed in the struggle, and after her death, her son inherited the throne, becoming Alfonso VII of Castile and León. 

An eighteenth-century sculpture
of Berengaria,
Madrid

But the kingdom whose unity Urraca had preserved was divided by her son: when Alfonso VII died in 1157, his older son became Sancho III, king of Castile, and his younger son became Ferdinand II of León. It was left to another queen regnant, Berengaria to reunite the two kingdoms.

Born in 1180, Berengaria (also known as Berenguela) was the eldest child of Urraca of Castile's great grandson, Alfonso VIII, and his wife, Eleanor of England. (Eleanor was the daughter of a woman we've met before, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the sister of another capable ruling woman, Blanche of Castile.)

Berengaria was her father's heir presumptive until the birth of Ferdinand in 1189. (Queen Eleanor of England had given birth to two boys, one in 1181 and another in 1184, but both had died soon after birth.)

Given her proximity to her father's throne, Berengaria was a very desirable match--a marriage contract between the princess and Conrad, one of the sons of Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman emperor, was agreed upon in 1187, and Conrad was knighted by Alfonso in 1188. 

But by 1191, the contract was dissolved--it may have been her grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who objected to Berengaria's marriage to the son of the Holy Roman emperor because of the political pressures such a union might place on her own French possessions.

The question became moot when Conrad was assassinated in 1196--perhaps by a woman he had raped, perhaps as a result of an infection from being bitten by the woman he was attempting to rape. In either case, Berengaria was lucky to avoid marriage to someone whose contemporaries described as "a man thoroughly given to adultery, fornication, defilement, and every foulness" (he wasn't totally condemned by this chronicler, however, who went on to add "nevertheless, he was vigorous and brave in battle and generous to his friends").

It was Berengaria's mother who seems to have been instrumental in arranging her daughter's marriage to Alfonso IX of León. It was an expedient choice: the king of León had invaded Castile (with the aid of Muslim forces, which had resulted in his excommunication).

Of course Alfonso already happened to have a wife--he had married Teresa of Portugal, his first cousin, in 1191, and by 1196, the couple had three children. In 1196, however, their marriage was annulled by Pope Celestine III. 

A manuscript illustration of Alfonso IX and
Berengaria of Castile

And so Alfonso married Berengaria, variously described as his first cousin, once removed, or his second cousin. Whatever their exact relationship, this marriage was also challenged on the basis of consanguinity, the kingdom placed under interdict by the pope.

Nevertheless, Berengaria and Alfonso remained together--they would have five children, despite their marriage being declared invalid in 1198. 

In 1204, although the couple had tried to secure a dispensation, the marriage was formally annulled, but the offending parties did manage to have their children declared legitimate. Berengaria returned to her father’s court in Castile.

The peace between Castile and León was disrupted by the separation of the royal pair. Alfonso attacked Castile again in 1204, though treaties between the two kingdoms were made in 1205, 1207, and 1209. The conflicts were exacerbated by Alfonso's efforts to disinherit his children by Berengaria in favor of his children by Teresa of Portugal.

When her father died in 1214, Berengaria became guardian and regent for the young Enrique I, her brother. (Enrique was born in 1204; Ferdinand had died in 1211). Although she was quickly replaced by disaffected Castilian nobles, when Enrique died in 1217 Berengaria herself became ruler of Castile. 

Her succession as queen regnant was problematic, however, in part because there was some question about whether she or her sister Blanca was the next legitimate heir to the throne, and in part because her former husband, Alfonso of León, was her son's closest male relative--and potential heir. After receiving the crown, therefore, Berengaria abdicated in favor of her son, who was recognized as King Ferdinand III

Berengaria's husband invaded Castile. Although he did not succeed in efforts to unseat the young king, Alfonso of León's opposition to Berengaria persisted; when he died in 1230, instead of naming Ferdinand to succeed him in León, his two daughters by his first wife were named as his heirs. 

Berengaria a advised her son "with great prudence," indicating how to gain León without shedding more blood. Negotiating with his half-sisters, Ferdinand exchanged rich dowries for the crown of León, thereby reuniting the kingdoms of Castile and León. 

Berengaria continued to play a significant role in the kingdom; she advised her son about military and political affairs until her death in 1246.

Berengaria's tomb,
Monasterio de las Huelgas de Burgos

There are two important new studies of Berengaria and her queenship: Janna Bianchini's The Queen's Hand: Power and Authority in the Reign of Berenguela of Castile and Miriam Shaddis's Political Women in the High Middle Ages: Berenguela of Castile and Her Family.

Eleanor of England, "Noble and Much Loved"

Eleanor Plantagenet, queen of Castile (born 13 October 1162)

The daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine and her second husband, Henry II of England, Eleanor of England, or Eleanor Plantagenet, was born in Normandy. She was the sixth child--and second daughter--of the English king and queen, though she had two elder half-siblings, the French princesses Marie and Alix, who had been born to Eleanor of Aquitaine when she was queen of France, the wife of Louis VII.* 

A thirteenth-century
miniature
depicting Eleanor,
queen of Castile

Eleanor Plantagenet's childhood was filled with movement, as the royal couple traveled through the extensive holdings of the Angevin empire, which included not only Henry's England and parts of Wales and Ireland, but also his continental holdings as well as Eleanor's vast inheritance--she controlled more of France than the French king.

In 1174, when the English princess was twelve years old, she was married to Alfonso VIII of Castile. By the terms of her marriage, Eleanor was granted political control over significant holdings throughout her husband's kingdom.

Perhaps aware of how crucial this power was to her life as queen of Castile, Eleanor was to negotiate similar terms for the first marriage of her daughter Berengaria, who would eventually rule Castile as queen regnant. (Her daughter Blanca, later Blanche, would come to serve as queen regent for her husband, Louis VIII of France.)

But that was in the future. As for Eleanor, her husband recognized her abilities, and in his will of 1204, he indicated that, if he were to die while his son and heir was still a minor, his wife was to rule as regent of Castile alongside of their son, Ferdinand. 

Despite his careful provisions and Eleanor's evident ability, she was never to rule Castile--or, at least, never to rule Castile for long. She did become regent, but she died less than a month after Alfonso, on 31 October 1214. 

Since Ferdinand had predeceased his father, the new king of Castile was Henry I, just ten years old. His sister Berengaria, well prepared by her mother, assumed the role of regent of Castile. After her brother's death, she inherited the throne of Castile, ruling as its queen.

Eleanor, queen of Castile, is buried Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, Burgos, Spain, her tomb right next to that of her husband, Alfonso VIII.

The tomb of Eleanor of England, queen of Castile
(just behind is Alfonso's tomb)

There is no biography of Eleanor Plantagenet, but a great deal of information about her can be found in biographies of her mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and of her daughter, Berengaria. There are several scholarly biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine, but I like Amy Kelly's Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings. There are fewer choices for Eleanor Plantagenet's daughter, but luckily there is Janna Bianchini's The Queen's Hand: Power and Authority in the Reign of Berenguela of Castile and Miriam Shaddis's Political Women in the High Middle Ages: Berenguela of Castile and Her Family.

Of these, Shaddis's work is a particularly good source for you if you're interested in her mother, Eleanor Plantagenet. Shaddis includes two useful chapters: "Mothering Queenship: Leonor of England, Queen of Castile, 1161-1124" and, focusing on the importance of marital arrangements for Berengaria's later success, "Documenting Authority: Marriage Agreements and the Making of a Queen." 

*The marriage between Eleanor and Louis had been annulled in 1152, after Alix's birth. Eleanor had sought the annulment, using the birth of her two daughters as the reason for ending her marriage to Louis: she had been married for fifteen years and had produced no male heir.  When the pope granted her request, finally, it was on the grounds of consanguinity--although the marriage was dissolved, the couple's two daughters were declared legitimate. Freed of her first marriage, Eleanor of Aquitaine immediately married Henry and promptly gave birth to a son, William, in August 1153.

Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Other Women

Eleanor of Aquitaine (crowned queen of England, 19 December 1154)

Eleanor of Aquitaine was intelligent, well-educated, well-traveled, charismatic, and powerful, and today she is one of the most well-known women of the twelfth century. She lived in a time of of remarkably gifted and memorable women, many of whom I have posted about already this year: Urraca of León and Castile, the Empress Matilda, Melisende of Jerusalem, Heloise of Paris, Anna Comnena, Hildegard of Bingen . . . 

Eleanor of Aquitaine's effigy,
Abbey of Fontevrault 

I am assuming that the broad outline of Eleanor's life story is familiar--born between 1122 and 1124, she was heiress to her father's county of Poitou and his duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony, a vast territory that occupies more than one-quarter of modern France. She inherited this wealth and power after her father's death in April 1137. 

By July, she was married to Louis, the son and heir of King Louis VI, who promptly died in August of 1137, so that, within four months of her father's death, Eleanor, duchess of Aquitaine, was queen of France. She bore the French king two daughters: Marie of France, born in 1145, and Alix of France, born in 1150. 

She traveled with Louis on the Second Crusade, from 1145 to 1149 (her eldest daughter was born right before Eleanor departed for the Holy Land, her younger daughter on her return). 

While on Crusade, and before the birth of her second daughter, Eleanor decided that her marriage was invalid and sought an annulment on the basis of consanguinity. Although her request was at first rejected (by Pope Eugene III), after a second daughter was born, leaving Louis still without a male heir, an annulment was granted on 11 March 1152. After fifteen years, the couple's marriage was declared invalid--although their children were declared to be legitimate.

Eleanor remarried almost immediately. On 18 May 1152, she married Henry, duke of Normandy. In 1154, he became King Henry II of England, with Eleanor's coronation taking place on 19 December. And, interesting to note: the marriage of Eleanor and Louis was annulled because, as third cousins once removed, they were too closely related; Eleanor and Henry were also third cousins.

The marriage was productive, certainly--with Henry, Eleanor gave birth to five sons and three daughters. It was also tumultuous; as I've noted elsewhere, Henry had Eleanor imprisoned for sixteen years, between 1173 and 1189. But after Henry's death on 6 July 1189, Eleanor was freed and resumed a rich and full life.

She was regent of England for Richard when he left on the Third Crusade later in that year, and she negotiated his ransom and release, traveling to Germany to meet with the Holy Roman Emperor in order to secure his freedom on 4 February 1194.

Eleanor of Aquitaine's seal

After Richard's death, her youngest son, John, became king of England. She served and advised him until her death on 1 April 1204, when she was in her eighties. 

I could write an impossibly long and detailed post about Eleanor of Aquitaine, since her life seems to have taken on mythic (and frequently fantastical) proportions, but, instead, I thought I'd a few details about some of the other women in her family--other women who add more to the on-going discussion of family values and traditional marriage in this blog.

I've already had a bit to say about Eleanor's period of imprisonment--even queens, when they became "inconvenient" for one reason or another, could simply be removed from sight and held captive. And I've already noted that among the many ways of discrediting women, accusing them of incest seems to be particularly popular (Eleanor was accused of incestuous adultery with her uncle, Raymond of Poitiers, a charge that still finds its way into a great deal of popular history today.) But wait! There's so much more:

Eleanor of Aquitaine's grandfather was the renowned troubadour William IX, duke of Aquitaine, whose wife, Philippa, countess of Toulouse, was forced to retire to the Abbey of Fontevrault when her husband refused to give up his mistress, the aptly named Dangerose de l' Isle Bouchard. Although Dangerose seems to have been a more-than-willing partner, William was excommunicated for having abducted her. (She was married to his vassal Aimery I de Rochefoucauld, Viscount of Châtellerault.)

While his wife Philippa was occupied in Toulouse, William had moved his mistress into the Maubergeonne tower of his castle in Poitiers--thus earning Dangerose the nickname La Maubergeonne. When Philippa returned to Poitiers from Toulouse, she found that her husband William would not move his mistress out. Despite appeals to secular and spiritual authorities, no one came to Philippa's aid, and she spent the last two years of her life in the abbey, from 1116 until her death on 28 November 1118.

The death of Philippa of Toulouse brought another inconvenient woman into the picture--Ermengarde of Anjou. Many popular biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine assert that Ermengarde was William IX's first wife--one whose marriage was dissolved after two years--but scholarly opinion seems to cast grave doubt on that part of the story.

But Ermengarde of Anjou does seem to have been in Fontevrault when Philippa arrived, and after Philippa's death, Ermengarde seems also to have demanded of the Council of Reims that it once again excommunicate the duke of Aquitaine and force him to renounce his mistress. That did not happen. 

In the mean time, the duke and his mistress arranged for the marriage of his son, William, to her daughter, Aenor de Châtellerault, in 1121--in this example of "traditional" marriage, then, Eleanor's maternal grandmother was her grandfather's mistress . . . 

Eleanor of Aquitaine's sister, Petronilla of Aquitaine, offers another interesting story about marriage and family. Born about the 1125, Petronilla accompanied Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1137 when she married Louis. In 1141, while on a progress through Eleanor's many territories, Petronilla became involved with Raoul of Vermandois, the seneschal of France--decades her senior and, inconveniently, already married. Raoul's wife was Eleanor, the daughter of Stephen of Blois and Adela of Normandy (who happened to be William the Conqueror's daughter . . . )

Despite the fact that Raoul of Vermandois had been married to Eleanor since 1125 (and she had dutifully given her husband a son and heir), and apparently with Eleanor of Aquitaine's encouragement and support, Raoul was able to annul his marriage and replace his first wife with Petronilla. 

Theobald of Champagne, the brother of Raoul's rejected wife, went to war over the insult to his sister--a war that lasted for two years, from 1142 to 1144, and that drew Louis into battle and, after the fiery and bloody sacking of the town of Vitry-sur-Marne, was said to "haunt his days and nights" and to have broken his spirit.

Meanwhile, Theobald had offered his abandoned sister his protection, and he protested to Pope Innocent III, who excommunicated both Raoul and Petronilla. The excommunication was lifted, the pope ordering Raoul to give up his relationship with Petronilla. After Raoul refused, he and Petronilla were excommunicated for a second time. 

Pressures continued, particularly on Louis, who was warned that he was endangering his own salvation--but, conveniently, Innocent III died and his successor, Celestine II, again lifted the excommunication and recognized the validity of the marriage. (Details about Petronilla's later life are extremely few, and those who claim she lived until 1193 are pretty much living in a fact-free zone. There are a few reference to a Petronilla in English financial records, the "Pipe Rolls" in the 1150s, which may be to this Petronilla, but it's not at all clear.)

As for the next generation, I've already noted, in a post earlier this year, about Eleanor of Aquitaine's journey with Berengaria of Navarre, who married Eleanor's son, King Richard "the Lionheart." 

Eleanor's eldest daughter with Louis of France, Marie of France, married Henry of Champagne. Interestingly, Henry of Champagne was the brother of Louis' second wife, Adela of Champagne. In other words, Marie of France was married to her stepmother's brother. And oh, by the way, Queen Adela and Marie's husband, Henry, were the children of Theobald of Champagne--the same guy Louis went to war with over the Raoul and Petronilla affair. 

Eleanor's youngest daughter with Louis of France, Alix of France, married Theobald V, count of Blois--who was also the brother of her father's second wife, Adela of Champagne, and of Henry of Champagne, her sister's husband.

Eleanor's daughters with Henry were Matilda of England (born 1156), Eleanor of England (born 1162), and Joan of England (born 1165).

Matilda, also called Maud, named after her paternal grandmother, was married to Henry, duke of Saxony and Bavaria. She was regent for her husband between 1172 and 1173, while he was on Crusade in the Holy Land. (Henry and Matilda were exiled from Germany on two occasions, when they took refuge in her father's court in Normandy.)

Eleanor of England was married to Alfonso VIII of Castile, becoming queen of Castile--by circumstances and undoubtedly by her own strengths, she wielded great power and influence in Castile as queen. Her daughter Blanca of Castile became queen of France--and, as I've noted in an earlier post this year, in 1199, when Eleanor of Aquitaine was in her late 70s, she traveled to Castile to select one of her granddaughters as a bride for Louis, the son of Louis VII. She was ambushed and held captive on her trip, but the indefatigable Eleanor negotiated her release and arrived in Castile in January of 1200. 

After deciding that Blanca was the right choice, Eleanor and her twelve-year-old granddaughter left Castile in March and traveled back over the Pyrenees and into Bordeaux, on their way to Normandy. Caught up in violence and bloodshed on the way, this was one journey Eleanor of Aquitaine could not complete--too ill to travel farther, she retired to the abbey of Fontevrault while Blanca continued on, becoming Queen Blanche of France. (I've also posted about Eleanor of Castile, queen of England, who was Eleanor of England's great granddaughter and Eleanor of Aquitaine's great great granddaughter.)

Joan of England, Eleanor's youngest daughter, was married to William II of Sicily in 1177 and was crowned queen of Sicily. After William's death in 1189, as I've noted in an earlier post, Joan was imprisoned by her husband's successor, Tancred. Ultimately released by her brother Richard, as he stopped in Sicily on his way to the Holy Land, Joan accompanied her brother and his wife, Berengaria, on the Third Crusade. 

Richard toyed with the idea of marrying his widowed sister to Saladin's brother, setting the two up as rulers of Jerusalem, but that plan didn't work out. Instead, Joan married the much-married Raymond VI, count of Toulouse, in 1196. This was not a happy marriage; nevertheless, while he was away fighting, a pregnant Joan had raised an army to counter a rebellion against Raymond in Toulouse. She was betrayed by some of her own men, barely escaping with her life. She had ridden north to seek help from her brother, King Richard, only to learn of his death while she was en route. She turned to her mother for assistance and wound up in the abbey of Fontevrault. She died in childbirth there, just thirty-three years old. 

There are many biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine, quite a few popular and exciting, some fairly scholarly. I'd recommend the chapter on Eleanor in Lisa Hilton's Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens, but if you're really looking for more--by which I mean something of the mythologizing of a life that really needs no embroidering, I'd take a look at Michael Evans's Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine. It's hideously expensive--interlibrary loan?--but really excellent. 

There's a wonderful selection of letters to and from Eleanor of Aquitaine at Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters.

Update, December 2019: For a new, myth-busting biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Sara Cockerill's Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and England and Mother of Empires, will be published in the spring of 2020. In the mean time, you will enjoy her conversation on the "myth and reality" of  Eleanor on the BBC's History Extra podcast (click here).

Isabella I of Castile, "the Servant of God"

Isabella I of Castile, queen regent of Castile and León, queen consort of Aragon (crowned 13 December 1474)

Isabella of Castile,
a portrait now in Windsor Castle

Isabella of Castile has figured in many of my posts this year, including the one just two days ago on Juana of Castile, her niece (the daughter of Isabella's half-brother, King Enrique IV) and "rival" for the throne of Castile and León.* 

And, next to the Tudor queens, the queen of Castile is probably the most familiar early-modern queen for American readers today--if for no other reason than her association with Christopher Columbus. 

Rather than rehearsing her biography here, I thought I'd write a bit about her crowning, which may be a less familiar story. 

As I wrote in my post on Juana of Castile, when Enrique IV died in December of 1474, the question of who would succeed him was not altogether clear.

When his daughter Juana was born in 1462, both the king and the Cortes had recognized her status as his heir, successor to the crown of Castile if no son were to be born. But in crisis and under duress, the king had been persuaded to name his half-sister as his heir and successor in 1468, disinheriting his daughter. 

Although Isabella had agreed that she would not marry without Enrique's permission, she did so anyway. She wrote to Enrique announcing her intention and seeking his permission. She began by reminding him of their agreement: "I agreed to submit to your wishes . . . in which it was agreed that the true succession of these said your kingdoms would belong to me as your legitimate heir and successor." Then she sought his permission for her proposal, asking that "Your Highness would . . . consent to the marriage with the . . . prince of Aragon." 

Despite the fact that Enrique's permission was not forthcoming, Isabella and Ferdinand were married on 18 October 1469. The terms of the marriage contract ensured Isabella's rights and her independence: Ferdinand would be prince-consort of Castile, not its king. Ferdinand had to promise "virtual obedience" to Isabella; among other "capitulations," he agreed to live in Castile, to seek permission before leaving the kingdom and before taking any children they might have out of the kingdom, to renew none of his father's claims to Castilian possessions, and to make no government appointments without Isabella's consent. Further, he agreed to provide Isabella a sizeable marriage gift and to serve as her military defender. 

By February 1470, Isabella was pregnant. At last, on 26 October, more than a year after his half-sister's marriage, Enrique replied. Declaring Isabella could no longer be considered his heir, he decided Juana was--once more--his legitimate daughter and, therefore, his heir. But, despite Enrique's assertions of Juana's legitimacy, the succession question had not been settled when the king died on 11 December 1474. 

Two days later, on 13 December 1474, Isabella was proclaimed "Queen Proprietess" of Castile. Ferdinand, "as her legitimate husband," was recognized as king. At the church of San Miguel in Segovia, the royal standard raised above her, Isabella took up an unsheathed lance, a symbol of sovereign authority; in the procession that followed, she was proceeded by a rider carrying an upraised naked sword, a symbol of royal justice. Neither ceremony had ever been performed by and for a queen. 

Ferdinand, meanwhile, was in Aragon. On 16 December he received a letter from Isabella telling him of Enrique's death but not of her coronation. The chronicler Alonso Palencia was with Ferdinand when he received a letter three days later, on 19 December, describing his wife's coronation and the ceremonies. 

According to Palencia, Ferdinand was surprised--"I have never heard of a queen who usurped this male privilege." His secretary Gonzalez registered more than surprise, shocked not only by Isabella's "insolent action" but by her appropriation of male symbols. He wondered aloud if there were "in antiquity" any "precedent for a queen to be proceeded by this symbol." "Everyone knows that these are conceded to kings," he continued," "but never was known a queen who had usurped this masculine attribute."

Isabella of Castile,

portrait by Antonio del Rincón

Ferdinand was nevertheless confident that he could assert his rights as king. Palencia wrote that Ferdinand felt he would conquer Isabella "with patience"; he "felt certain he would triumph through satisfying assiduously the demands of conjugal love, with which he could easily soften the intransigence that bad advisors had planted in his wife's mind." Speaking for himself, Palencia judged that Isabella was "after all, a woman." His reading of Castilian law led him to conclude that "in the marriage of a crown heiress, even though the husband be of inferior lineage, he must enjoy the scepter and the title of him together with her as well as all the other priorities accorded to males all over the world." 

Despite Ferdinand's hopes and Palencia's reading of the laws of succession, Isabella and the Castilian nobility persisted in asserting her role as queen regnant and Ferdinand's as king-consort. Isabella herself announced her position in a letter of 16 December to the towns of Castile, "inviting" them to recognize her as "natural queen" and Ferdinand as "the very illustrious and most powerful Prince . . . , [her] lord, . . . [her] legitimate husband." 

Fernando del Pulgar, the queen's secretary and chronicler, assembled historical support for Isabella's succession, citing the precedents of a number of queens regent, including Sancha of León (d. 1067), the wife of Ferdinand I of Castile, who became queen of León in her own right after the death of her father Alfonso V in 1037; Sancha's daughter Urraca of Zamora (1033-1101), who inherited absolute sovereignty over the city of Zamora and the title of "queen" (click here and scroll to the bottom); Urraca, queen of León, Castile, and Galicia (1079-1126), about whom I posted earlier this year; and Berenguela of Castile (1179-1246), who was regent of Castile for her brother, and then succeeded him as queen regent after his death in 1217.

Ferdinand and his allies in Aragon and in Castile, on the other hand, argued that natural and divine law gave precedence to a man over a woman; while law and custom might not exclude women from a throne, in practice, when a woman succeeded, it was her husband who ruled. They also argued that Ferdinand's independent claims to the throne of Castile gave him precedence over Isabella: Ferdinand was the nearest male descendant in the Trastamara line. 

There matters stood, unresolved even when Ferdinand joined Isabella in Segovia on 2 January. The king-consort was further provoked by learning that, should the queen predecease him, the Castilian throne would pass not to him but to their daughter Isabel, who had been born in 1470. Despite Isabella's efforts at conciliation, Ferdinand threatened to return to Aragon. At last the matter was placed before a council in Segovia on 15 January. About this confrontation Isabella's biographer Nancy Rubin writes: "That meeting proved to be one of the most extraordinary examinations of female inheritance rights in prefeminist Europe, one whose highly emotional tone would finally be resolved by Isabella's cool logic."

The subject of the succession, Isabella began, addressing Ferdinand,  "need never to have been discussed because where there is such union as by the grace of God exists between you and me, there can be no difference."  As her husband, Ferdinand was king of Castile: "Already, as my husband, you are king of Castile, and your orders have to be obeyed here. . . . But since it has pleased these knights to open this discussion, perhaps it is just as well that any doubt they have be clarified, as the law of our kingdoms provide[s]." 

Isabella of Castile,
portrait by Jan Flanders

As she reminded him, Castilian law preferred the inheritance of legitimate daughter in the direct line to a male in a collateral line. And beyond law, Isabella also reminded Ferdinand of the vagaries of male inheritance. If Ferdinand were to die, another, more distant, male relative might claim Castile if women were excluded from succession.

In the end, Ferdinand accepted Isabella's arguments, their agreement reflected in the motto, now famous, which they adopted: "Tanto monta, monta tanto, Isabel como Fernando--To stand as high, as high to stand, Isabella as Ferdinand." That he agreed is clear. Why he agreed is another matter. 

Motivated by self-interest, fear, or, perhaps, love, Ferdinand accepted the terms Isabella offered, and the two thus established what historian Rafael Altamira calls a "diarchy," a "joint government by two monarchs." There is a qualification to their shared arrangement, however. As Altamira notes, this equality "existed between husband and wife with regard to the Crown's government of Castile. That co-participation was in no wise reflected in the government of Aragon, which was exclusively Ferdinand's prerogative." 

But, while no similar shared rule was negotiated in Ferdinand's kingdom, he ultimately named Isabella his co-regent in Aragon.

. . . . 

Isabella and Ferdinand, the great monarchs, who succeeded in uniting Spain, were not very successful in their offspring. Isabella and Ferdinand did have one son, Juan, but he died before succeeding his parents on their combined Spanish throne. 

I've already mentioned Isabella's daughters on occasion throughout this daybook, none of whom had a particularly happy or successful life (click the labels below to read more). Their eldest daughter, Isabel, princess of Asturias, was married first to Afonso of Portugal and then, after his death, was forced into a marriage with Afonso's uncle, Manuel of Portugal. Born in 1470, Isabel died in 1496, just twenty-seven years old. 

The Spanish monarchs' second daughter, Maria of Aragon, was married to her dead sister's widower, Manuel of Portugal, in 1500. Born in 1482, she gave birth to ten children (eight of whom survived infancy) before dying in 1517, at the age of thirty-four.

The story of Catalina--Catherine--of Aragon is well known and hardly a happy one. Born in 1485, she married, first, Arthur of England, and then, after his death, Henry VIII. She gave birth to at least six children (and may have suffered miscarriagaes), but only one daughter, Mary, survived. Abandoned by her husband, her marriage disolved, Catherine of Aragon died in 1536, just fifty years old.

I've written a lengthy post here about Juana of Castile, whose bizarre and tragic life was certainly long--she died at the age of seventy-five--but not at all happy. 

I've also written here about Isabella of Castile's daughter-in-law, Margaret of Austria, Prince Juan's wife. His life was short--he died at age nineteen. The formidable Margaret lived a full, successful, and remarkable life, the only one of Isabella's "daughters" who seemed to profit from the model of Isabella of Castile.

. . . . 

Isabella of Castile was a formidable queen, though not entirely an admirable one, at least from a twenty-first century perspective. On 31 March 1492 she issued the Alhambra Decree, an edict of expulsion to be carried out against Spanish Jews, who were accused of posing a great danger to Christians: a "great harm" is enacted on Christians because of the "contact, intercourse and communication which they have with the Jews, who always attempt in various ways to seduce faithful Christians from our Holy Catholic Faith."

Jews were given four months to convert to Christianity or to leave the country; if they left, they necessarily had to leave behind all their property, though they were allowed to take with them what they could carry--except, of course, for gold, silver, or "minted money." The numbers of Jews forced to leave Spain was considerable, though estimates vary from 130,000 to 800,000. For those who "converted," between 50,000 and 70,000, the Inquisition was a constant danger. Added suspicions of the Jewish conversos was an ever-more-rigid view of the "purity" or "cleanliness" of Spanish--that is, not Jewish Spanish--blood.

While the terms of the 1491 Treaty of Granada, ending the Reconquista, had guaranteed rights and religious tolerance to the surrending Moors, there were increasing pressures on the Moors to convert. Revolts in 1499 and 1500 led to a change in policy, with the Spanish Moors, too, forced either to convert to Christianity or to face expulsion. Those who converted and remained in Spain, the moriscos, also faced the persecutions of the Inquisition. (In 1609, Philip III of Spain issued a final expulsion order for all moriscos.)

Despite these unpleasant realities, in 1958, a process of canonization was started for Isabella of Castile. In 1970 the commission of experts examining the case reported that "A Canonical process for the canonization of Isabella the Catholic could be undertaken with a sense of security since there was not found one single act, public or private, of Queen Isabella that was not inspired by Christian and evangelical criteria; moreover there was a 'reputation of sanctity' uninterrupted for five centuries and as the investigation was progressing, it was more accentuated."

In 1972, her case was submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Isabella of Castile was awarded the title "Servant of God" in 1974. (This title represents the first stage in the canonization process, followed by "venerable," "beatified," and, finally, "saint.")

*Parts of this post have been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan).

Berengaria of Navarre, Queen of the Lionheart

Berengaria of Navarre, queen of England (crowned 12 May 1191)

Even being the wife of one of the most famous kings of England, Richard I, "the Lionheart," is no guarantee that details of your life and accomplishments will be preserved. Such is the case for Berengaria of Navarre, the daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre and his wife, Sancha of Castile. 

Berengaria's tomb and effigy,
from the chapter house of the
Abbey of L'Épau 

Although she is known to be the eldest daughter of the Navarrese monarchs, the year of Berengaria's birth isn't clear--she may have been born as early as 1163 or as late as 1170.

Her father, who earned the name "the Wise" (el sabio) was able to to use his wisdom--or his canny sense of power and diplomacy--to defend Navarre's independence against the more powerful Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and cultivate a relationship with the Angevin empire, in particular with the English king, Henry II, and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Sancho was also a patron of the arts and interested in education, which may be why Berengaria was described not only as beautiful but as "learned" and "wise."

Even here, there is a bit of contradiction--at least one contemporary chronicler writes that she is "more wise than beautiful." And although we have no solid evidence about her education, there is a great deal of speculation--okay, nonsense--about the influence of troubadour poetry and courtly love as part of Berengaria's "education."

After Henry II's death in 1190, his successor, Richard I, needed a wife--in truth, he didn't so much need a wife as an heir. And, since he intended to go on Crusade, he also needed an alliance that would safeguard his vast territorial holdings in France (at the time he became king of England, Richard also became duke of Normandy and count of Anjou--he was already duke of Aquitaine). The marriage with Berengaria would assure the king of Navarre's support--and Berengaria's dowry would help Richard finance his dream of a new Crusade.

It was left to Richard's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, then nearing seventy, to meet the bride and escort her on her journey to Richard. To that end, Eleanor, traveling with her son on a progress through his holdings in southern France, separated from him at Chinon on 24 June 1190, then headed to Pamplona, where she met Sancho and his daughter, Berengaria.

Eleanor escorted Berengaria to Sicily, where the two women were supposed to rendezvous with Richard--they were faced with an extremely difficult trip, which included a winter crossing of the Alps, followed by a long journey down the Italian peninsula. Food was scarce, there were always outlaws, and the various heads of the various Italian powers were feuding. 

In February 1191, after months on their journey, the two women, now traveling by sea, finally reached the city of Messina, but they were refused permission to dock there, officials saying that their royal entourage was too big to be adequately provided for in the island city. (Since Richard had captured the city in 1190, looted it, and then burned it, the unwillingness of Messina to host Berengaria and Eleanor seems understandable.) The women were forced to sail south and then on to Brindisi, on the eastern coast of the Italian peninsula. 

They eventually met up with Richard back at Reggio (just across the strait of Messina from Sicily) on 30 March 1191, but by then it was Lent, and Berengaria and Richard could not be married. Since Eleanor left on 2 April, headed back to Normandy, Richard put Berengaria in the charge of his sister, Joan, the dowager queen of Sicily.

On 10 April, Richard's fleet left for the Holy Land, and the women were sent on in a galley of their own (by agreement, no women were supposed to be part of the Crusaders' army). But a severe storm shipwrecked Berengaria and Joan on Cyprus, then held by the Greek Isaac Comnenus. 

Rescued by Richard, Berengaria was finally married on 12 May 1191, in the chapel of St. George at Limassol, on the southern coast of Cyprus. Immediately after the marriage ceremony, Berengaria was crowned queen. 

Whether Richard and Berengaria ever consummated their marriage isn't clear. Historians continue to debate this question and the question of Richard's sexuality--there are ample contemporary accounts of his passionate attachments to men. But, while the status of Berengaria's marriage and the nature of her relationship to Richard are not clear, what is clear is that Berengaria and Joanna traveled with the Richard and his Crusaders at least as far as Syria; they spent the next months in the cities of Acre, Ramallah, and Jaffa, where one chronicler described the women's stifling existence: they were forced to live "like birds in a cage."  

Unsuccessful in his attempts to recapture the Holy Land for God, Richard was forced to come to terms with Saladin and return to Europe. On 29 September 1192, the two queens were sent back home, leaving Acre by ship; Richard would follow shortly after their departure, traveling by land.

The story of Richard's capture and ultimate ransom is well-known, so mythologized that it's become a glorious story in popular culture. Berengaria's story is not well known, and it's definitely not glorious. On their journey back home, Berengaria and Joanna first landed in Brindisi, the Italian port city where Berengaria had last been in 1191 on her journey to marry Richard. From Brindisi, Berengaria traveled north to Rome, where she spent at least the next six months. 

Wherever she might once have been headed in order to reunite with Richard, after his capture in December of 1192, Berengaria did not go to England--instead, she stayed on the continent, and she is known to have been in Genoa, Pisa, and Marseilles, perhaps helping to raise money for Richard's ransom, although whether she was involved in this effort isn't clear and is just one more detail about her life that is disputed. (Some historians describe her tireless efforts to raise money for Richard, others say she did nothing.)

During this time, Berengaria seems to have spent time in Maine, near Navarre, and to have resumed connections with her family. For his part, when he was ransomed in 1194, Richard went directly to England, where he was once again crowned at Westminster--his mother, Eleanor, was present, but not Berengaria. He seems to have made no effort then, or in the months to follow, to reconnect with his wife.

In fact, Berengaria seems never to have been in England, at least not while she was queen consort. Urged to recall his wife to his side or to rejoin her himself, Richard displayed no interest in doing so until he fell ill in 1195--and then he promised that if he recovered he would reunite with her. He recovered, and he seems to have spent some time with Berengaria at Poitou. 

For whatever reasons, the marriage never fulfilled its goal--Richard died childless in 1199. While he was dying, Richard sent for his mother, not his wife. He was buried in the royal abbey of Fontevrault, but Berengaria was not present.

After his death, she wrangled with Richard's successor, King John, over her dower payments, and she may have traveled to England in order to secure them. If so (and, again, this is disputed), that is the only time she was in the country where she had been--by title at least--queen. 

She was not very successful in securing her dower properties, so she lived with her younger sister Blanca, who had become countess of Champagne (and who would serve as regent of Champagne and then as regent of Navarre). After King John lost Normandy to the French king, Berengaria was given Maine in exchange for her now-lost dower property in Normandy.

She lived on for another thirty years, in Le Mans, where she founded the Cistercian abbey of  L'Épau. She also got herself involved in a variety of local political disputes, secular and sacred, and seems to have had no qualms about extorting taxes from the local Jewish population. Again, historians disagree about whether her attitudes and actions were typical for the thirteenth century or whether she was a notably unique persecutor of the Jews.

Berengaria died on 23 December 1230. She was buried at the abbey of  L'Épau, and though a rebuilt tomb, with an effigy, is in the chapter house of the abbey, her remains have been moved several times.

You can read letters from Berengaria at Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters by clicking here. (In addition to the four letters from Berengaria, there are letters written to her as well.)

Berengaria appears in a great deal of historical fiction--primarily because of Richard the Lionheart--but Rachel Bard's Queen without a Country is focused on Berengaria herself. There is one biography, Ann Trindade's 1999 Berengaria: In Search of Richard's Queen. I recommend the chapter on Berengaria in Lisa Hilton's Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens, though a great deal of this chapter focuses on Eleanor of Aquitaine rather than her daughter-in-law. Berengaria is also discussed, favorably and unfavorably, always contradictorily, in biographies of Richard the Lionheart and of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Update, 12 May 2025: Historian Gabrielle Story has published a new biography, Berengaria of Navarre, as part of Routledge’s Lives of Royal Women series. 

Blanche of Castile: Following in Her Grandmother's Footsteps

Blanche of Castile, queen of France (born 4 March 1188)

Blanche of Castile was the daughter of King Alfonso VIII of Castile and his English wife, Eleanor Plantagenet--who was herself the daughter of the formidable Eleanor of Aquitaine.* As queen of Castile, Eleanor Plantagenet had considerable influence, her political acuity and ability recognized by her husband, who specified in his will of 1204 that, should he die before his son and heir reached the age of his majority, Eleanor should act as regent of Castile.

Blanche of Castile,
from a contemporary ms. 

But Queen Eleanor did not live long enough to act as regent for her son, Enrique, when he became king--she died on 31 October 1214, just days after King Alfonso's death. Instead, her daughter, Berengaria, acted as regent for her brother, who was just ten years old.

Like her sister, Blanche would also prove to be a capable--and successful--ruler, when she was regent of France not once but twice, from 1226 to 1234, and then again from 1248 to 1252.

In the year 1200, the twelve-year-old Prince Louis of France was married to Blanca de Castilla, then aged eleven--in a historically fascinating note, Blanca's eighty-year-old grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, traveled to Castile in order to accompany her granddaughter on her journey to France. 

Now in France, where the Spanish Blanca was known as Blanche, she had her first child in 1205.

Over the course of the next twenty years, Blanche gave birth to at least eleven more children (and perhaps as many as thirteen--accounts vary). Her husband Louis became king of France in 1223. By 1225, aware that he was becoming increasingly ill, Louis named his wife Blanche of Castile as co-regent of France and as the sole guardian for his son and heir. When when Louis VIII died in 1226, his son was twelve years old. Blanche finessed any question of co-regency by having her son crowned as King Louis IX within a month of his father's death. 

Although she was to become one of the most long-serving and successful regents in France, Blanche was not the first woman to serve in this capacity--indeed, there was a long tradition of powerful women who had shared in government extending back to the time of Hugh Capet and his wife, Adelaide of Aquitaine (fl. 960s-1006), and Constance of Arles (c. 986-1032), the wife of Robert II, Adelaide's son.

The first woman to serve officially as regent of France seems to have been Adèle of Champagne (c. 1140-1206), the third of Louis VII's wives. During her twenty-year marriage to Louis, Adèle proved a "capable and energetic" queen. She attempted to take control of the government for her fifteen-year-old son, Philip, after Louis VII's death in 1180 but was unable to do so. Ten years later, in 1190, when he went on Crusade, Philip II appointed his mother as co-regent in his absence

But certainly one of the most successful and well-known women to have functioned as regent of France is Blanche of Castile. In his discussion of the long tradition of female regents in France, historian André Poulet indicates something of the breadth of her "absolute power" as queen-regent when it was her turn to take up the role: she "legislated, dealt with foreign powers, waged war, arranged marriages." "In short," he concludes, she "imposed herself as sovereign of the realm."

Although her son reached the age of majority in 1236, Blanche maintained her influence. As Poulet notes, although Louis IX was "under [his mother's] sway far longer than was stipulated by law," he nevertheless "respected her command of statecraft and recalled her to affairs of state when he went on crusade in 1248." 

Then, instead of appointing his wife, Margaret of Provence, to function as regent in the event a regency were needed, Louis IX turned once more to his mother. Although she opposed his crusading venture, Blanche again assumed her role as regent of France. After her son was captured in 1250, she added the job of raising his ransom to her responsibilities as regent. She died in 1252, while her son was still in the Holy Land.

Maubuisson Abbey, founded by Blanche of Castile,
and site of her burial

It is interesting to place Blanche of Castile in the of a powerful family of women--her grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine; her mother, Eleanor Plantagenet of England, queen of Castile; her sister Berengaria, who acted not only as regent of Castile for her younger brother, but who became queen regnant of Castile after his death (though her only way of maintaining power was to abdicate in favor of her son); her sister Urraca, who became queen of Portugal (named as regent, though she died before assuming the role); and her sister Eleanor, who became queen of Aragon. 

A new, full-length biography of Blanche of Castile is desperately needed, though Régine Pernoud's 1975 Blanche of Castile is very enjoyable. There is also an excellent assessment of Blanche of Castile, by Miriam Shadis, in Kathleen Nolan's Capetian Women.

Update: And here it is, a new scholarly biography, Lindy Grant's Blanche of Castile: Queen of France (Yale University Press, 2017).

*This post has been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan).