Eleanor of England, countess of Pembroke and Leicester

Eleanor of England, countess of Pembroke and Leicester (died 13 April 1275)

Eleanor of England,
from a fourteenth-century
genealogical roll

Probably born in the year 1215, Eleanor of England, named in honor of her grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was the daughter John, king of England, and his second wife, Isabelle, countess (in her own right) of Angoulême. 

In order to marry Isabelle of Angoulême, King John had to have his first marriage, to Isabel, countess (in her own right) of Gloucester, annulled--he not only dissolved this inconvenient marriage, he managed to keep his discarded wife's "person" and her lands in his control, but that is another story . . . 

And then, aside from disentangling himself from his own wife, John faced another small difficulty before he could marry Isabelle of Angoulême--she was already betrothed to Hugh IX of Lusignan and living with his family. But that too proved no problem for the determined English king. Isabelle's father "abducted" his twelve-year-old daughter in order for this more desirable match to be made. Isabelle married John on 24 August 1200 in Angoulême.

The marriage caused disaffection and rebellion among the Lusignan family and its allies, and although John eventually prevailed, he also wound up losing Normandy. In a peculiar twist, while John was fighting in France, his second wife seems to have been placed, at least for a while, in the care of his discarded first wife, Isabella of Gloucester.  

John thus spent much of his time during the first years of his second marriage, at least through 1206, fighting on the continent. (A final truce with Hugh IX of Lusignan wasn't settled until 1214.) Either because of their separations or because of Isabella's extreme youth at the time of her marriage, Isabelle bore no child until 1207, when a son and heir, Henry, was born. Four children followed: a second son, Richard, in 1209, and three daughters, Joan (b. 1210), Isabella (b. c. 1214), and Eleanor (b. c. 1215). 

King John died in October 1216, less than a year after Eleanor's birth. After arranging for the coronation of her son, Henry, Queen Isabelle promptly left England for Angoulême, which she held in her own right. The dower queen thereafter married Hugh X of Lusignan, son of the man to whom she had been originally betrothed. In one final note of weirdness, Isabelle had taken her eldest daughter, Joan, with her when she returned to the continent, and it was Joan, not Isabelle, who had been intended as Hugh X's bride . . .

With all that as a preliminary, we can now turn our attention to Eleanor, the youngest of the royal children. Very little is known of her early childhood. After the death of her father and the departure of her mother for the continent, Eleanor and her elder sister, Isabella, were placed in the guardianship of Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, one of King John's most loyal supporters. Payments for her household survive in the records of the bishopric of Winchester from the years 1217 to 1221.

As Eleanor's recent biographer, Louise Wilkinson, notes, little information survives about Eleanor's education, though she was literate and would have "received instruction in the Bible and other religious works." Letters to her, written in the 1240s by Adam Marsh, a Franciscan friar, contain references to many biblical passages as well as to "Christian models of acceptable feminine behaviour," suggesting something of the education to which she must have been subjected. I appreciate the succinct comment here of the great nineteenth-century historian Mary Anne Everett Green; writing about Eleanor's "early education," she notes, "Small, however, was the modicum of learning which was considered sufficient for females even of the highest rank."

Whatever her childhood upbringing, at some point before 1219 she was betrothed to the eldest son of William Marshall, first earl of Pembroke, her brother's protector and regent of England during the young king's minority. Eleanor was married to William Marshall, second earl of Pembroke, on 23 April 1224--she was nine years old, her husband, thirty-four. (Another one for "traditional marriage"!) Given her age, Eleanor remained at her brother's court, and her marriage was likely not consummated until 1229, when she was fifteen.

 

A thirteenth-century
depiction of
Eleanor of England,
as countess of Pembroke

As the sister of Henry III, Eleanor brought her connections to the royal family with her as a marriage portion, though the young king eventually settled upon her ten manors that were to provide her with a dower income in the case that she were widowed. This gift was made in 1229, probably at the time of the consummation of Eleanor's marriage. 

Although Eleanor accompanied her husband as he traveled throughout England, France, and Ireland, she did not bear him any children, and he died not long after their marriage, on 15 April 1231. 

The second earl of Pembroke's brother and heir, the third earl, sold Eleanor's estates in order to pay her husband's debts, and the various arrangements that had been negotiated for her support at the time of her marriage were not honored. Increasing tensions between Henry III and Eleanor's brother-in-law, Richard, also complicated matters.

Wilkinson suggests that Eleanor's subsequent vow of chastity, which she took in 1234, was perhaps made as part of her struggle over her dower rights. Green, more fancifully, attributes the "public and solemn vow" to the young widow's grief.

Eleanor spent the next years at her brother's court and at the castle of Odiham, in Hampshire, which the king gave her in 1237. But on 7 January 1238, Eleanor broke her vow of chastity and married Simon de Montfort in a secret ceremony in Winchester.

Although the couple married with the king's approval, the clandestine union resulted in a scandal--while a pregnant Eleanor remained in England, no longer at court but sent by her brother to Kenilworth Castle, Simon traveled to Rome in order to get a papal dispensation (after the fact). A victorious Simon de Montfort returned to England in October 1238, with time to spare before the birth of the couple's first son, Henry de Montfort, in November.

What survives of Odiham Castle,
Hampshire

In February 1239, Simon de Montfort was invested as sixth earl of Leicester, a sign of the king's favor, and a few months later, he was one of the godfathers named for Edward, Henry III's son and heir. On this occasion, Eleanor returned to court for the first time since her marriage.

But the couple were soon in conflict with Henry. In August, on the occasion of the queen's churching, the king, who seemed to have been enraged over the couple's debts, claimed that Simon had "seduced his sister" and that he had allowed their marriage only to avoid scandal. 

Eleanor and her husband left England for the continent. Simon de Montfort returned briefly to England in 1239, welcomed once more by the king, but in 1240 he left to go on crusade in the Holy Land. Eleanor does not seem to have returned to England at this time. While her husband was on his crusade, she gave birth to a second son, named Simon, after his father.

On Simon's return from crusade, the couple went back to England, and the earl joined Henry III's 1242 campaign against the French king. The queen and women of the court followed the men to France, as did Eleanor, presumably--she gave birth to a third son, Amalric, in 1242 or 1243.

Over the course of the next few years, Simon de Montfort served his brother-in-law, the English king, in a number of ways, fighting with Henry in Wales, acting as his representative in Gascony, undertaking diplomatic missions in France and Scotland, defending the king against his subjects' discontent in the late 1250s.

Throughout these years, Eleanor's principal residence was at Kenilworth, though she did travel with her husband at times (notably, her daughter, Joanna, was born in Bordeaux). She gave birth to four more children: Guy (b. 1244), Joanna (born and died between 1248 and 1251), Richard (b. 1252), and Eleanor (b. 1258). 

But the king's increasingly erratic behavior resulted in increasing baronial opposition, and by 1258, Henry had been forced to come to terms and signed the Provisions of Oxford, agreeing to a council of barons and to calling a parliament every three years. Although he sought--and was given--a papal dispensation, releasing him from this oath, civil war loomed. During the conflict, Simon de Montfort joined the opposition, and fled to France in 1262, returning in 1263 when civil war broke out.

Simon de Montfort proved victorious and took control of the government, becoming de facto ruler of the realm, but his victory was short-lived, and the king regained some measure of control. The ongoing conflict of the Second Baron's War lasted from 1264 to 1267.

It was during this period that Eleanor de Montfort took on a notable role beyond that of the medieval noblewoman. At times, from her manor of Odiham, "she acted as a communication hub between her husband and sons as they took control of key areas of the country while networking with supporters, including the Bishops of Lincoln and Worcester, and housing prisoners such as the royalist Sir Robert de Brus" (for the English Heritage discussion of Eleanor de Montfort's role during the Second Baron's War, click here).

Along with her husband, she also presided over a great Christmas court at Kenilworth in 1264, but by 19 February of the following year, she was in Wallingford. On the 21st, she was in Reading, and then back at her manor, Odiham. 

After learning that Prince Edward had escaped from custody on 28 May 1265, Eleanor moved quickly to Dover Castle, "where she could hope to influence the important Cinque Ports (the confederation of the five ports of Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Sandwich and Dover)." Surviving household records show the haste of her journey: she left Odiham, traveling all night to reach Porchester the next morning; she stayed in Porchester until 12 June, arriving in Wilmington on the 13th; she was on to Winchelsea on the 14th, and arrived in Dover the next day. 

There she remained, in control of the castle, shoring up its defenses by bringing in a siege engine and an engineer. But on 4 August, Eleanor de Montfort's husband and eldest son were both killed at the battle of Evesham by Prince Edward and his allies. Rather than surrendering the castle, Eleanor remained in Dover. She worked desperately to save her remaining children, securing Richard and Almaric's safe departure for the continent, for example,* and she did her best for her remaining allies. But she was soon under siege:

Attacked from both within and without, Eleanor negotiated a settlement in which she was exiled to the continent, all goods in the castle other than personal clothes and arms were handed over to the king, but her supporters would receive pardons. The success of her negotiations is shown by the fact that at least one of the men with her at Dover, the deputy constable Sir John de la Haye, had his lands returned to him as early as 9 November.

The great tower of Dover Castle,
the where Eleanor de Montfort held out against
Prince Edward and his army

Having secured her own safe passage, Eleanor of England, countess of Pembroke and Leicester, left England on 28 October 1265 and made her way to France, eventually entering into the Dominican abbey of Montargis, which had been founded by Simon de Montfort's sister, Amicie. By the terms of a settlement reached with Henry III, she received an annual payment of 500 pounds from her dower lands and financial provision for Simon, now his father's heir. Not satisfied, she continued her negotiations; eventually a further settlement was reached for herself and for her surviving children. Nevertheless, she continued to make claims about moneys owed to her at least through 1273.

Eleanor died at Montargis on 13 April 1275.

I've linked above to Louise J. Wilkerson's biography, Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England. I do have a great deal of fondness for Mary Anne Everett Green's multi-volume Lives of the Princesses of England, from the Norman Conquest (Eleanor of England's chapters are in the second volume)--with its exhaustive use of documentary evidence, it remains an impressive work of scholarship, and her account of Eleanor's life is full and detailed.

The letters written to Eleanor of England by Adam Marsh are found at Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters (click here). There is also a wealth of detail from surviving household accounts there, and if you want more, see Wilkerson's The Household Roll of Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Leicester and Pembroke, 1265: British Library, Additional MS 8877.

To listen to the English Heritage podcast episode "Woman at War: Eleanor de Montford at Dover Castle," click here.

 *Eleanor's son Simon de Montford was at Kenilworth when his father and elder brother died; he was besieged there for six months before escaping and leaving England for the continent. 

Guy de Montfort was held prisoner in Windsor Castle until 1266; he bribed his jailers and rejoined his family in France. 

Eleanor's daughter, also named Eleanor, was thirteen when her father and brother were killed; she left England with her mother and accompanied her mother to Montargis; her father had arranged for her marriage to Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, prince of Wales, and after her mother's death in 1275, the younger Eleanor was married by proxy and set off for Wales with her brother, Almaric. The two were captured en route by their cousin Edward, now king. She was held as a prisoner until 1278, when she was finally released to her Welsh bridegroom. Now princess of Wales, Eleanor gave birth to a daughter, Gwenllian, in June 1282, but she died during or shortly after childbirth, on 19 June 1282, just thirty years old. 

After Llewellyn ap Gruffydd's death in battle in December 1282, King Edward of England confined Gwenllian of Wales in Sempringham Priory (Lincolnshire). She remained there until her death, fifty-four years later, on 7 June 1337.

Ermengarde of Narbonne: "Into the Hands of a Woman"

Ermengarde of Narbonne, viscountess of Narbonne (letter to Raymond Trencaval, viscount of Beziers, 31 January 1163)

Most discussions of Ermengarde of Narbonne (1127/9-1197)) begin with a comparison to Eleanor of Aquitaine (c. 1122/4-1204), who was her almost exact contemporary. Both women inherited their titles when they were very young: Ermengarde became viscountess of Narbonne, of strategic importance in Languedoc, while Eleanor became duchess of Aquitaine, with its vast wealth and extensive territory. 

A small street memorial in Narbonne,
posted by Ilsa Andrag 

Both women exerted considerable political influence in the twelfth century, and both participated in the culture of troubadour poetry and "courtly love"--both women are patrons of the troubadour poets and both are cited by Andreas Capellanus in his treatise titled De Arte honeste et reprobatione inhonesti amantis (in English, The Book of the Art of Loving Nobly and the Reprobation of Dishonourable Love, more frequently referred to as The Art of Courtly Love). 

Capellanus claims that Eleanor, her daughter, Marie of Champagne, and Ermengarde were among the greatest ladies of France who had issued "various decisions in love cases" (to see one of the judgments Capellanus ascribes to Ermengarde, click here).

For whatever reason, Ermengarde of Narbonne is much less well known than Eleanor of Aquitaine--perhaps because she never became a queen of anywhere, much less queen of both France and then England. But in her own day, Ermengarde, viscountess of Narbonne was a powerful force, capable of ruling and defending her territory and widely recognized for "her legal and diplomatic skills."

Ermengarde was the daughter of Aymeric II of Narbonne and his first wife, Ermengarde of Servian.* When her father died in battle in 1134, he left two daughters, Ermengarde and her half-sister, Ermessinde. The elder of the two, but still only about five years old, Ermengarde was heir to her father's title and territory.

The county of Narbonne, located in the Occitan region of southern France, was placed--unfortunately--in the middle of the "Great Southern War," fought between the counts of Toulouse and the counts of Barcelona, along with their various allies, including the viscounts of Trencavel, the counts of Poitiers, Rodez, and Comminges, the lords of Montpellier, and the counts of Foix.

In the midst of this ongoing conflict, the two orphaned daughters of the viscount of Narbonne were highly prized objects of desire, not so much for their personal qualities (Ermengarde was just five, Ermessinde younger) but for their political significance. 

In 1139, Alphonse Jourdain, count of Toulouse, asserted his right to the guardianship of the two girls and seized control of the city of Narbonne with the support of the archbishop. Ermengarde and her sister seem to have taken refuge with his great rival, Raymond Berengar IV, count of Barcelona--whose father also happened to be Aymeric of Narbonne's half-brother. 

But in 1142, when Ermengarde had reached the age of consent (she was likely about thirteen years old), the count of Toulouse produced a marriage contract--it seems that Alphonse Jourdain's wife, Faydid of Uzès, had most conveniently (for him) died, or that she had been repudiated. And Ermengarde was somehow compelled to sign a marriage contract, dated 21 October 1142, though exactly how this happened isn't clear. Interestingly, the marriage contract ventriloquized Ermengarde's own voice:

Be it known to all present and future that I, Ermengarde, want you, Alphonse, for my husband and give myself to you as your wife. By the same donation I give you Narbonne entirely without fraud on the condition that we hold it jointly in our lifetimes and after our deaths it will belong to the children we have procreated. If we have none who survive us and you survive me, you shall have and possess Narbonne and all that goes with it as long as you shall live

Alphonse Jourdain's effort to secure Narbonne by forcing a marriage to Ermengarde resulted in an alliance against him--he was defeated in battle and imprisoned. The peace treaty he was forced to sign returned Narbonne to Ermengarde. The marriage to Ermengarde had evidently not been consummated because by 1143, she was married to a cousin, Bernard d'Anduze, viscount of Nîmes--described as "a widower with several children who . . . offended no one, and was not active in Narbonne."

For some fifty years, from the time of her marriage until 1194, Ermengarde ruled Narbonne in her own right with no mention of Bernard (who died in 1157). 

Coins issued by Ermengarde,
viscountess of Narbonne

She was also a constant presence in political disputes and conflicts in the Occitan. In 1148, she provided military support to Raymond Berengar in his siege of the city of Tortosa. In 1154, when Raymond I Trencavel was captured by Count Raymond V of Toulouse, he left his wife and children in the care of the count of Barcelona, but his son and his men to the care of Ermengarde of Narbonne. 

In 1157 she allied the county of Narbonne with Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, and the count of Barcelona in an effort to seize Toulouse. She served as a mediator in Provence and in 1162 led a force to besiege the town of Les Baux. In 1176 she was a mediator between Raymond of Toulouse and Alfons of Aragon, in 1182, she supported Henry II against his rebelling sons, and a year later, she was at the siege of Puy-Saint-Front with Henry and three of his sons.

In addition to her relentless political and military activity, Ernengarde's court was renowned for its learning--she supported the work of lawyers and doctors, in addition to patronizing a number of the troubadour poets, including Raimon de Miraval, who noted her generosity, and Bernard de Ventadorn, who praised her as "my lady of Narbonne," whose deeds were all "true." The trobairitz Azalais de Porcairagues directed that her "song" be carried to Narbonne, "to her whom joy and youth guide."

Ermengarde also supported many religious institutions, in particular giving a large donation of land to the Abbey of Fontfroide, which had been founded in 1093 by her father, Viscount Aymeri II. By means of her donation, Fontfroide became one of the most powerful abbeys in Western Europe.

Without a child of her own, Ermengarde named her half-sister's son, Pedro Manrique de Lara, as her heir. Unfortunately, Pedro could not wait for Ermengarde's death to succeed her--he had claimed the title of viscount by 1192 and seems to have driven her into exile by 1194. In her last letter, dated 30 April 1196, a letter that took the form of a final testament, she asked that he fulfill the bequests she had made. "And if he does this," she writes, "may God almighty and merciful pardon him on my account for all the injuries, damages, violence, oppressions, vexations, privations, calamities, and all the evil things that I experienced because of him and his."

Ermengarde of Narbonne, countess of Narbonne, died in Rousillon, and as she had asked in the letter she wrote as she was approaching death, she was buried in the Templar commandery of Saint-Marie de Mas-Dieu, near Perpignan.

The ruins of the Templar commandery 
of Mas-Dieu

For further information, I recommend the biographical essay posted at Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters. You will also find a number of Ermengarde's letters there, including a letter to Raymond Trencavel, viscount of Beziers, dated 31 January 1163, the date of which has been used as the occasion of this post. 

There is also a letter there from Louis VII to Ermengarde, written in 1164--I've drawn a phrase from this letter for the  subtitle of my post. Addressing the "hesitation in [her] area to permit judicial power to women in matters of imperial law," the king assures her that "the custom of our kingdom is far more benign, allowing women, if the better sex is lacking, to succeed and administer their inheritance." Do not acquiesce, he commands. Rather, 

Sit therefore in judgment of cases, diligently examining matters with the zeal of him who created you a woman when he might have [made you] a man, and in his benignity gave the rule of the province of Narbonne into the hand of a woman. By our authority, no person is permitted to turn away from your jurisdiction because you are a woman.

*Although most online sources indicate that little is known about Aymeric II's first wife except for her name, Ermengarde, she has been identified as Ermengarde of Servian by the  medievalist Jacqueline Caille. For the most accessible information, click here or here. Although the elder Ermengarde may have died between 1126, when her name is last mentioned in a charter, and 1130, by which time Aymeric has a second wife, Ermessende, Caille speculates that Ermengarde of Servian may have been repudiated.

Constance of Hauteville, "A Brightness Kindled by All the Light That Fills Our Heaven"

Constance of Hauteville, Queen of Sicily (born 2 November 1154)

The daughter of Roger II, king of Sicily, and his wife, Beatrice of Rethel, Constance was born nearly nine months after her father's death--Beatrice of Rethel had only been married to the king of Sicily for three years, and she was just a few weeks pregnant when he died on 26 February 1154.*

A twelfth-century manuscript illustration of
Beatrice of Rethel, queen of Sicily, and her infant daughter,
Constance, born posthumously
(from Peter of Eboli, Liber ad Honorem
Augusti, 1196)

But the succession in Sicily did not have to wait for the birth of the king's posthumous child. Beatrice of Rethel was Roger's third wife. His first, Elvira of Castile, had given birth to six children, including five sons. The eldest, Roger, died before his father, and had had no children with his wife, Isabella of Champagne, but he had two with his mistress, Emma, the daughter of the count of Lecce. (This illegitimate family will become important later.) Roger II and Elvira of Castile's second and third sons, Tancred and Alfonso, also predeceased their father.

So when Roger II died in 1154, he was succeeded by his fourth son, William, who became William I, king of Sicily. William and his queen, Margaret of Navarre, had four sons--but, just as William's elder brothers had died before their father, William's two oldest sons predeceased him. When William I died, he was succeeded on the throne of Sicily by his third son, who became William II of Sicily. William II ruled until his death in 1189. He and his queen, Joan of England (who was one of the daughters of Eleanor of Aquitaine) had no children. 

And that brings us back to Constance--because, it seems, Tancred of Lecce, one of the illegitimate sons of Roger, believed that he, rather than the legitimately born Constance, should succeed to the throne of Sicily. 

Tancred had already caused his share of trouble in Sicily. In 1161, he had rebelled against William I, taking the king, his queen, Margaret of Navarre, and their sons as prisoners. And then there was his involvement in a massacre of Muslims. Once order was restored and William I was back in control, Tancred was exiled to Constantinople. 

Pardoned on the accession of William II, Tancred seems to have behaved himself reasonably well until the king's death in 1189, when he once more rebelled and this time succeeded in seizing power. (And imprisoning Joan of England.) He settled himself uncomfortably on the throne, which he had to defend until his death in 1194. Tancred was succeeded as king of Sicily by his son, William, who reigned as William III of Sicily for only ten months, under the regency of his mother, Sibylla of Acerra. 

Throughout these decades, not much information is available about Constance. In 1168, when she was about fourteen, a rumor circulated that the chancellor had plans to depose William II, put his own brother on the throne, and marry him to Constance--he had to flee, his plot, if it were more than a rumor, coming to nothing.

Some two centuries later, the writer Giovanni Boccaccio would write, of Constance, that there was a monk present at her birth who predicted that Constance "would cause the destruction of the Kingdom of Sicily." Boccaccio claims that her father "believed this prediction." And so, in "amazement and terror," 

he began anxiously to brood on how this could be caused by a woman: the only possibilities he could visualize involved a husband or a child. Out of compassion for his kingdom, he formed a plan to prevent, if possible, this outcome. To remove all hope of marriage and children, he shut up the little girl in a monastery and made her promise God eternal virginity.

Boccaccio says that this "would not have been a reprehensible plan if it had succeeded." But, "powerless fools," our designs are frustrated. 

In her narrative study of Constance, Mary Taylor Simeti offers a version of Constance's life that is no less fanciful: "Constance grew up in Palermo amidst the gilded mosaics of churches and palaces, her youth blooming and fading among the flowers and fountains of Moorish cloisters and gazebos; as a potential heir to the throne, she was too valuable a pawn to international diplomacy to be ceded lightly."

Henry VI and Constance of Hauteville,
Holy Roman emperor and empress
(from Peter of Eboli, Liber ad Honorem
Augusti, 1196)

Whatever version of these years is closer to reality, it is true that no marriage was arranged for Constance until she was thirty years old, and her brother, William II, had no heir.

In 1184, Constance was betrothed to Henry of Hohenstaufen, king of the Germans, the second son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Boccaccio claims that Constance objected to the marriage--she "held fast to her religious vows," and she also thought her advanced age "seemed to pose an obstacle."

Nevertheless, because of the "deadly tumult" that might erupt in Sicily--and with the approval of the pope--Constance of Hauteville married in Milan in 1186. Or, as Boccaccio kindly puts it, "Thus did a wrinkled crone abandon the sacred cloister, discard her monastic veil, and, royally adorned, marry and emerge in public as empress." (Constance was only thirty-two at the time of her marriage, and Henry did not become emperor until 1190 . . . )

Recognizing that there would be opposition among Sicily's Norman elite to the influence of the Hohenstaufen family of Constance's husband, the childless William II, who had forged this alliance with the Holy Roman emperor, sought to have Constance's succession in Sicily recognized. 

Although Constance's rights to the succession were widely accepted, Tancred wrested control of Sicily after William's death, as we've seen. Because William II's widow, Joan of England, supported Constance, Tancred imprisoned her. (When he arrived in Sicily, Richard the Lionheart freed his sister--a story I related in an earlier blog post; click here and scroll down.)

After Frederick Barbarossa's death in 1190, Henry and Constance were crowned in Rome as Holy Roman emperor and empress. The two proceeded to Sicily in order to take the crown from Tancred. During the fight that followed, Constance was taken prisoner by Tancred--seeing the support for her among the Norman aristocrats and the people, Tancred's wife suggested he kill her. He did not, but he moved her to Naples, where she could be closely and securely guarded in the Castel dell' Ovo. 

The emperor found himself unable to liberate or ransom the captive empress. Pope Celestine III threatened Tancred with excommunication, so he finally freed Constance, who was reunited with her husband in 1192.

The couple returned to their imperial realm until 1194, when Tancred died. With the aid of the enormous ransom that had been paid for the captive Richard the Lionheart, who had been turned over to the emperor in 1193, Henry immediately turned his attention to Sicily and invaded, deposing Tancred's young son, William III. For her part, Constance followed Henry to Sicily, but she traveled slowly, since she was pregnant. Henry had himself crowned king of Sicily on 25 December 1194. 

Constance, giving birth to her son in front of witnesses

But Constance still wasn't queen of Sicily. She gave birth to her son, Frederick, on 26 December, the day after her husband had made himself king of Sicily. She was finally crowned as queen regnant on 2 April 1195.

(Boccaccio thinks Constance is far older than she really is--he thinks she's fifty-four when she is pregnant, and relates the story of the emperor inviting "all women in Sicily who so desired" to come to witness the birth in order "to remove any suspicion." And thus a multitude of women witness the birth of Frederick, "the monster and scourge not only of Sicily but of all Italy. Thus was the prophecy [made at Constance's birth] fulfilled."**)

Having at last secured the throne, Henry at first offered generous terms to Sibylla and her son, William III. But a conspiracy against the emperor and now king of Sicily was revealed, and Henry took vengeance on those who had supported Tancred, his wife, and his son. 

Henry is said to have had William blinded and castrated; that may or may not be true, but the boy was sent off as a prisoner to Germany, where he is believed to have died in 1198. Many of his supporters were burned alive, some hanged, including Sibylla's brother. Sibylla herself was imprisoned and sent to Germany with her other children, but she eventually escaped and wound up in France, where she died in 1205.

Henry, however, proved to be an unpopular ruler in Sicily, surrounding himself with German troops, who who occupied themselves by looting and pillaging, and he severely repressed the Norman elite who had ruled in Sicily. Nor could he bring peace to the greater Italian peninsula. Sympathetic to the sufferings of the people of all classes, and herself a member of the Norman Hauteville ruling dynasty, Constance rebelled against her husband--she turned the tables on all those who had held her captive and she besieged her husband, keeping him holed up in a castle, eventually forcing him to agree to a treaty.

Henry died in 1197--it was whispered that he had been poisoned, perhaps by his wife. In April 1198, with her son's election as queen of the Germans disputed, Queen Constance of Sicily had Frederick crowned as king and herself named as regent. She died just a few months later, however, on 27 November 1198. She was just forty-four years old.

Her son, Frederick, would marry another Constance, Constance of Aragon, who would also serve as regent of Sicily.

The quotation in the title--"a brightness kindled / by all the light that fills our heaven"--is from Dante's Paradiso, where he includes a few lines about "the great Constance" (Canto 3, 109-20). 

Constance of Hauteville's tomb,
Cathedral of Palermo
(photo by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro)

There are many translations of Bocaccio's Famous Women--I've used Virginia Brown's here. 

Much of the information about Constance of Hauteville can be gleaned from histories of Sicily, like Donald Matthews's The Norman Kingdom of Sicily and biographies of various men in her family, like David Abulafia's biography of Frederick II. 

Mary Taylor Simeti's Travels with a Medieval Queen narrates a year in Constance's life, her journey as Holy Roman empress from Germany to Sicily, beginning in May 1194 and ending with her coronation. I'm not crazy about this book--it's a combination of history plus Simetti's own travels with friends--but it does offer the most detail about a critical period of Constance's life. You may also want to consult Jacqueline Alio's Queens of Sicily, 1061-1266 for its chapter on Constance of Hauteville.

*Although Beatrice was only about twenty years old when Roger II died, she did not remarry--she survived her husband by more than thirty years, dying herself on 31 March 1185.

**I'm not sure why Boccaccio thinks Frederick was awful--by all accounts, he was an enormously successful ruler. Here's just one modern historian's view:

This Germany king who was born and bred a Sicilian . . . was one of the most remarkable monarchs in history. A man of extraordinary culture, energy, and ability--called by a contemporary chronicler stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche the first European, and by many historians the first modern ruler – Frederick established in Sicily and southern Italy something very much like a modern, centrally governed kingdom with an efficient bureaucracy. (Donald Detwiler, Germany: A Short History, 43)

Update, 6 February 2023: John Phillip Lomax's biographical essay on Constance of Hauteville is available online via Routledge Resources Online. Access is free (click here).

Update, 5 February 2026: The Lorax essay is no longer freely available. Sigh. I’ve left the link in just in case you might have access. There is an abstract, which you might find useful. 

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).

Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England

Eleanor of Castile, queen of England (died 28 November 1290)

First of all, Eleanor of Castile, queen of England, is not to be confused with Eleanor of England, queen of Castile. Got that? 

Eleanor of Castile's tomb effigy,
Westerminster Abbey

Eleanor of England (1162-1214) was the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine--Eleanor of England was married to Alfonso VIII of Castile in 1177.

Eleanor of England's namesake, Eleanor of Castile, is her great-granddaughter, the daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile and his second wife, Joan of Dammartin, countess of Ponthieu in her own right.

Our Eleanor (of Castile) married Edward of England, the son and heir of Henry III of England; when Edward succeeded his father as king of England, becoming Edward I, Eleanor of Castile became queen consort of England. 

(Interestingly, there were plans for Joan of Dammartin, Eleanor of Castile's mother, to have married Henry III of England, Eleanor of England's brother. Sheesh! All this gets so complicated! Not to mention that Eleanor of Castile and Edward of England were cousins--I'm not sure of the exact degree!) 

Eleanor of Castile was probably born in the year 1241, though the date of her birth is not recorded. On the first anniversary of her death, the commemoration included forty-nine candle-bearers, one for each year of her life--thus suggesting the year of her birth. 

As John Carmi Parsons writes in his study of Eleanor of Castile, "A single paragraph would suffice to state the year of her birth and all that is known of her life in Castile, but pages are needed for the negotiations preceding her marriage in 1254, and the sources thereafter fall silent again until Edward's accession in 1272."

About Eleanor of Castile's early life, Parsons notes that is is "unlikedly that Eleanor was raised like her half-brothers, in spartan conditions." She seems to have imbibed the values and ideals of chivalric culture in a royal court that was both cultured and cosmopolitan. 

As a queen, Eleanor gave birth to sixteen children between 1255 and 1284, six of them surviving into adulthood--the youngest, Edward of Caernarvon, succeeded his father as Edward II. She accompanied her husband to the Holy Land on the Eighth Crusade, leaving England in 1270.

Eleanor gave birth to two daughters while she was in Palestine, only one of whom, Joan of Acre, born in April of 1272, survived. The royal couple learned of the death of Henry III on November 1272 while on their trip back to England (they were in Sicily when they received the news in December). The couple were crowned on 19 August 1274. In 1279, Eleanor succeeded her mother as countess of Ponthieu.

As queen, Eleanor took up the business of queens, negotiating marriages for her royal family (mostly her maternal relatives), her "matrimonial ventures" avoiding the kinds of opposition and suspicion that her mother-in-law Eleanor of Provence had encountered. By contrast, Eleanor of Castile's arrangements were "businesslike," with the aim of generating loyalty to the crown through these marital alliances rather than personal gain. 

Eleanor had spent her childhood in "the most aggressively literary court in Europe"; as an adult, she established scriptoria for the production of books, was a patron of literature, and commissioned writing both secular (an Arthurian romance, for example, and the life of a count of Ponthieu) and spiritual--several noted psalters were produced for her. 

She was also a patron of the emerging universities at Oxford and Cambridge, supported the Dominican order and the foundation of numerous Dominican institutions, and popularized the incorporation of tapestries and carpets in domestic spaces and specially designed gardens in exterior spaces. 

After she died in 1290, her husband constructed a series of crosses to mark each day's stage as her body traveled from Lincoln to Westerminster Abbey. At each of the twelve overnight stops, an Eleanor Cross was erected (giving the name to London's Charing Cross). Three of the original crosses remain (Geddington, Hardingstone, Waltham). 

The surviving Eleanor Cross
at Geddington (Northamptonshire)

Given the limits of the evidence about Eleanor of Castile's life, Parsons's work is not a biography but, as I noted above, a study: Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England. Parsons focuses a great deal of attention on medieval queenship in his analysis of Eleanor's accounts and her administration of household, her wardrobe, exchequer, and treasury records, and her administration of her lands. 

While all "foreign" queens suffered from some degree of suspicion and gossip (as we have seen with Isabeau of Bavaria, queen of France, to name just one example), Eleanor of Castile's property deals caused controversy--providing another rich source of information about her. As Parson notes, the queen "acquired a great amount of land by means that were often questionable, and popular reaction was negative." 

In a wonderful section of his book, "Outcry and Gossip, Rumor and Scandal," Parsons analyzes correspondence (and the rumors, complaints, and gossip conveyed in these letters), petitions, contemporary verse ("The king desires to get our gold / The queen our manors fair to hold"), and chroniclers ("a Spaniard by birth, who acquired many fine manors") that were either addressed to the queen or were written about the queen.