Eleanor’s history is as fascinating as Henry’s and she is one of the greatest figures of the 12th century. Aquitaine, Gascony and Poitou were her inheritance, and although she is always referred to as Eleanor of Aquitaine, it was Poitou and particularly its capital Poitiers, that was her favourite residence. This area, although not as important politically as its northern neighbours, was a cultural centre of European significance. Eleanor as its heiress had been well known throughout Europe even before her marriage to two kings, but her actions as queen of France and queen of England would make her the most famous woman of the century.
Aquitaine had once been a kingdom and Charlemagne had his son Louis crowned its king in 781, but this honour had long since lapsed, and Aquitaine as a duchy was torn between its more aggressive neighbours in Anjou and Toulouse. By the 11th century Aquitaine had become a coherent region with a stable dynasty and more than a few connections to the Angevins. Duke William IX succeeded in 1086 and married Ermengarde, the daughter of Fulk Réchin48, though he had the marriage annulled when his wife showed signs of insanity. Perhaps she was only a typical Angevin – chroniclers are quite happy to write about Henry II rolling around on the floor chewing his bedstraw in fury without ever suggesting he was insane, but one suspects a woman behaving this way would have been treated differently. It was William IX who would elevate the duchy to European importance through his cultural influence as the first troubadour.
In 1100, the dominant form of literature in northern Europe was the epic chanson de geste, the tale of warfare and military courage that celebrated male virtue in an exclusively male milieu, seen most famously in the Song of Roland. In the south the taste ran more to lais or love songs, and William IX transformed this into a new style of poetry that celebrated love in a more earthy or even coarse way. The new interest in love fused with the knightly epic to form the signature literary form of the 12th century, the chivalric romance, best demonstrated by the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes.
William IX had chosen not to join the First Crusade, instead using the absence of Raymond of St Gilles to seize Toulouse in defiance of the Truce of God, which banned attacking the lands of an absent Crusader. After hearing of the stunning success of the First Crusade and the capture of Jerusalem, William reconsidered and led an army to Asia Minor, but it was completely destroyed in battle with the Turks. William visited Jerusalem and Antioch and may have been exposed to the literary traditions of Arabic poetry, and when he returned he began to write a new style of erotic poetry in the southern French dialect, the langue d’oc. Poitiers quickly became a literary and cultural capital, and William was highly influential in creating early ideas of chivalry, including the vital ingredient of knights doing daring deeds for ladies.49 Despite his literary and cultural credentials, political success eluded William and he failed to impose his authority on the rebellious lords of Aquitaine and Poitou.
While William IX celebrated the satisfaction of physical needs and earthly love, his wife Philippa devoted herself to higher concerns. She encountered Robert d’Arbrissel, an itinerant preacher who espoused a more sympathetic message about women than as mere vessels of sin, and she obtained from William land near the border with Anjou for Robert to found a monastery. In 1100 Robert founded Fontevraud as a double monastery for both men and women (though their lodgings were segregated), and under the patronage of Philippa an impressive stone church was started in 1119. This would become the most important monastery for the Angevins later in the century, and serve as the family necropolis. Robert decreed that the abbess should be a noble widow, and Isabella of Anjou, Fulk V’s daughter and widow of Henry I’s son William Aetheling, became one of the first abbesses. William IX’s cast-off wife Ermengarde of Anjou also joined the community at Fontevraud when her second husband died.50
William IX must not have shared Philippa’s religious preoccupations, because in 1115 he abducted the wife of one of his vassals and installed her in the Maubergeonne Tower at the palace in Poitiers, for which he was excommunicated. Gerald of Wales, writing much later, relates the story that a hermit prophesied that William and all the descendants of his sinful union would never know happiness in their children because of this crime, though this clearly is meant to be a comment on the tribulations of Henry II and Eleanor’s family. Certainly it ruined Philippa’s happiness because she retired to Fontevraud and died in 1118.
William IX had his son William X marry Aenor, his mistress’s daughter from a previous marriage, and these were the parents of Eleanor of Aquitaine, so named because she resembled her mother so much she was alia Aenor (‘another Aenor’). Like his father, William X struggled to assert his authority in his domains, and this unruliness would remain the defining characteristic of the region for another century. William X’s wife and son died in 1130, leaving Eleanor as heiress to all his lands, which amounted to about one-third of modern France.51 Women in Aquitaine did have a higher status than in other parts of Europe and could inherit and rule their own lands, though it would be unusual for a woman to rule such a large and wealthy territory. William X could have married again and tried to father another son, but perhaps out of genuine grief for Aenor he didn’t.
Connections between Aquitaine, Anjou and England-Normandy remained strong, and in 1133 William X’s younger brother Raymond of Poitiers, who had been raised by Henry I in the English court almost as his own son, was invited by Fulk the Angevin King of Jerusalem to be the ruler of Antioch. Eleanor’s uncle accepted this offer, with interesting consequences for Eleanor’s later happiness. Geoffrey Plantagenet invited William X to assist him in the conquest of Normandy in 1136, and William did participate in that ill-fated expedition, which retreated so ignominiously back to Anjou.
Perhaps fed up with fighting, William X decided to go on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in 1136, but he left careful provisions for his duchy. He had his vassals swear allegiance to Eleanor and commended her to the care of Louis VI of France, expressing the wish that she might also marry his heir, the future Louis VII. William reached Compostella in 1137 but had become ill on the way and knew that he was dying. He confirmed Eleanor as Duchess of Aquitaine and Gascony and Countess of Poitou, and appointed Louis VI as her guardian to rule in her name.52 William’s choice of Louis VI as guardian and the future Louis VII as Eleanor’s husband is interesting – why didn’t he fear the French would try to seize Aquitaine? Probably he did, but he had few other choices. Geoffrey of Anjou was preoccupied with the conquest of Normandy and either wouldn’t be able to devote any time to Aquitaine, or worse, in his expansionist mode might abandon Normandy for easier pickings in the south. The kings of Navarre or Aragon lacked the resources to manage such a sprawling territory, and the count of Toulouse was an enemy. France was the only choice, near enough to intervene yet not obviously greedy, thoroughly occupied with its dangerous neighbours in Anjou and Normandy and the impending civil war for the English throne, and able to provide a royal heir of the right age for Eleanor.
This is also another example of the obligations a lord owed to his vassal, and what to us may seem an act of folly was actually part of feudal custom, since Louis VI was obligated to protect Eleanor as his vassal. That said, William was still fearful that the French king would seize Eleanor’s patrimony, so he stipulated that Eleanor’s lands could only be inherited by her own children. From Louis VI’s point of view, an alliance was more desirable than ever, for after being overshadowed by the Anglo-Norman monarchs on his border he now faced the prospect of the union of Anjou, Normandy and England that would nearly surround the French domains.
Louis VI did not hesitate to cement the alliance, and Eleanor and Louis VII were married at Bordeaux in 1137. It was most likely as a wedding present that Eleanor gave Louis the rock-crystal vase that is now in the Louvre, and gives us a tangible memento of a (future) Angevin queen. The item survives because Louis VII later presented it to the abbey of St Denis and it was modified, yet it shows the kind of gift a 12th-century queen might consi
der an appropriate wedding present. It is also an example of the cosmopolitanism of the medieval world, since the rock crystal probably comes from Moorish Spain. There were many genuinely towering international figures in the 12th century, including Fulk V and Eleanor, and a pan-European aristocracy and ecclesiastical cultural elite were in contact with each other and travelled frequently. As the newlyweds returned to Paris, word reached them that Louis VI had died and Louis VII was now king. Louis had no need for another coronation because the Capetians always crowned their heirs in their own lifetime, but Eleanor was crowned at Bourges on Christmas Day of the same year.
Despite the fact that Louis VII loved Eleanor ‘almost beyond reason’53 and would be censured for his too fond devotion to his queen, Eleanor does not appear to have enjoyed her time as Queen of France. Paris, despite being the largest city in Europe and its intellectual centre, did not have a comparable social and cultural life to the court at Poitiers. Eleanor seems to have found the fortress-like palace on the Ile de la Cité dank and depressing, especially compared to her light and airy palace in Poitiers, where the ‘Hall of the Lost Footsteps’, so called because the sound of footsteps was lost in its vastness, was perhaps the largest hall in France at the time. Relaxed southern attitudes towards women and relationships between the sexes were also viewed as scandalous by the more puritanical French clerics and nobles, a stigma that would later attach itself to Eleanor more perniciously. Perhaps worst of all, Eleanor found she had little influence in the court, as Louis was dominated by Abbot Suger of St Denis, an adviser to Louis VI who would remain the most important figure in Louis VII’s court until his death.
It is impossible to judge Eleanor’s influence on Louis objectively because every contemporary and later source has quite strong views on the subject. The conventional clerical view was that women were instruments of the Devil, and humanity had been condemned to damnation because of the ‘sin of Eve’. From this perspective women were always seen as temptresses leading men astray, as well as being weak, foolish, vain and undisciplined. These adjectives are used time and again to describe women who have gone beyond their ‘appropriate sphere’ or tried to take a more active role in affairs. This was a view particularly espoused by St Bernard of Clairvaux, the most important religious figure of the century and a man who was not afraid to direct the spiritual power of the church against anyone who opposed him: he probably first met Eleanor at Sens in 1140, when the king and queen were present as Bernard secured the condemnation of the brilliant theologian Peter Abelard. Thus on the occasions when Eleanor seemed to influence Louis, or in situations where it was believed she must have been the instigator of his actions, condemnation was universal: she was a ‘foolish woman’, she ‘acted as a man’ (a ‘virago’ like Matilda), she interfered in events about which she knew nothing.
The most notorious example involved Eleanor’s sister Petronilla. She began an adulterous affair with Raoul of Vermandois, whose wife was the sister of Theobald Count of Champagne. Doubtless at Eleanor’s instigation, Louis supported the couple and found bishops to annul Raoul’s previous marriage and marry Petronilla and Raoul, for which the pope excommunicated Petronilla, Raoul and the bishops who performed the ceremony. Louis blamed Theobald of Champagne and invaded his territory, but when Louis’s troops assaulted Vitry sur Marne, they set fire to the town as standard medieval practice, only for the flames to spread too quickly and destroy the cathedral in which more than 1,000 townsfolk had taken shelter, killing them all. Louis was so horrified by this that he appears to have suffered a mental collapse, and when Bernard of Clairvaux added his condemnation to the chorus of disapproval, Louis’s personality transformed overnight. He abandoned his aristocratic lifestyle to become a penitent with close-cropped hair, wearing sandals and a coarse monk’s robe. That Bernard blamed Eleanor for the tragedy is perhaps indicated by Bernard’s first references shortly after this event to Louis and Eleanor’s consanguinity, and the fact that their marriage might be illegal.54
In 1144 the new abbey of St Denis was consecrated, and Suger’s lifework was completed. This was the first building in Europe completely in the Gothic style, and began the architectural revolution that would sweep the continent. Interestingly, it was also around this time (c1140) that another landmark of medieval culture was produced, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. Within thirty years Arthurian literature had captivated everyone, and the Angevins played a role in its dissemination. Geoffrey’s work was arguably the most successful history in the Middle Ages, and survives in over 200 copies. A third of these copies are found on the continent, showing the success of this Celtic, British story.55
Louis, Eleanor and St Bernard all participated in the consecration of St Denis, and Eleanor presumed to offer the saint a deal: if he would lift the excommunication of Petronilla and Raoul, she would convince Louis to make peace with Champagne. Bernard was horrified by her interference and rebuked her harshly, to which Eleanor replied that her marriage was unhappy and God would not bless her with a child. Bernard himself offered a deal saying that if she would cease meddling he would pray for her to conceive. Both sides achieved what they wanted, as Louis did now make peace with Theobald of Champagne, the pope eventually did recognize Petronilla and Raoul’s marriage, and Eleanor bore her first daughter, Marie. However, Bernard rather meanly prophesied that Petronilla and Raoul would have only a short time together and their children would never be happy, and obedient to the saint’s decree their only son was a leper who died young and their two daughters died childless.56
The Second Crusade
All these local concerns were swept away at the end of 1144 when Zengi, whose main threat had seemed to be directed at Damascus, suddenly captured the city of Edessa, which had been the first conquest of the First Crusade. This sent a shockwave through Europe, as after nearly fifty years the states of Outremer were firmly fixed as a part of Western Christendom and it was intolerable that they should be lost. By the end of the next year Pope Eugenius III had called for a Crusade. On hearing this, Louis, without consulting any of his advisers, agreed to go. Suger was highly critical of the king’s wish to leave his kingdom when he had no heir (Louis and Eleanor’s daughter Marie presumably not counting), and even more critical of Eleanor’s desire to accompany Louis on the Crusade, but this was ignored.
Louis wished to take the cross with fitting ceremony, so he invited Bernard of Clairvaux to preach the Crusade formally at the newly built abbey of Vézelay at Easter in 1146. Bernard obliged and before huge multitudes Louis and Eleanor took the cross, followed by legions of their vassals and ordinary people; the priests ran out of crosses and had to make more by tearing up their robes. Bernard was scathing about the usual pastimes of knights – raids, plundering and tournaments – and had punningly called them malitia (evil-doers) instead of militia (knights), so he had no doubts about the benefits of the Crusade:
O mighty soldier, O man of war, at last you have a cause for which you can fight without endangering your soul; a cause in which to win is glorious and for which to die is but gain. Are you a shrewd businessman, quick to see the profits of this world? If you are, I can offer you a bargain which you cannot afford to miss. Take the sign of the cross. At once you will have indulgence for all the sins which you confess with a contrite heart. The cross is cheap and if you wear it with humility you will find that you have obtained the Kingdom of Heaven.57
At the time, Eleanor’s participation in the Crusade did not attract particular opprobrium, and it was only after the Second Crusade failed that her presence was seized on as the reason for divine displeasure. Her presence did add a touch of glamour when the Crusade was launched in Vézelay, and near contemporary sources such as Gervase of Canterbury reported that Eleanor and her ladies dressed as Amazons and rode through the crowd encouraging men to take the cross, and a romance dedicated to Eleanor from around 1156 gives elaborate descriptions of Queen Penthisilea and her Amazons that may be a reference to this event.58 Eleanor als
o held tournaments to encourage knightly interest and the troubadours wrote Crusading songs.
Louis encouraged Geoffrey Plantagenet to join the Crusade, not least because King Baldwin III of Jerusalem was his half-brother, but Geoffrey was much more interested in consolidating his hold on Normandy. Geoffrey had completed the conquest of the duchy by 1144 and was recognized as Duke of Normandy by Louis, and he had attempted to build on his gains by proposing that his son Henry marry Louis and Eleanor’s daughter Marie. Louis prevaricated because in the absence of a son he did not wish to see Henry attempt to claim the throne of France through Marie, and Bernard of Clairvaux stated that the proposed marriage was prohibited because of consanguinity, so the matter dropped. It was also at this time, according to Gerald of Wales who wrote decades later, that Geoffrey and Eleanor had an affair. Gerald attributes the story to no less a source than St Hugh of Lincoln, who was meant to have had it directly from Henry II, so it is entirely possible that the beautiful Eleanor may have found herself involved with Geoffrey the Handsome.59
The Second Crusade set off in 1147, and consisted of the French-Aquitainian force under Louis and Eleanor and a German force led by the Emperor Conrad, which had set out earlier. When Louis and Eleanor reached Antioch, they were welcomed by Eleanor’s uncle Raymond of Poitiers in his lovely city that combined the sophistication and culture of the Poitevin court with the fabled luxury of the east.
Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500 Page 12