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BERENGUELA OF CASTILE (1180–1246) AND POLITICAL WOMEN IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
Miriam Shadis
BERENGUELA OF CASTILE (1180–1246) AND POLITICAL WOMEN IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
Copyright © Miriam Shadis, 2009. All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–0–312–23473–7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shadis, Miriam. Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) and political women in the High Middle Ages / Miriam Shadis. p. cm.—(The new Middle Ages) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978–0–312–23473–7 (alk. paper) 1. Berengaria, Queen of Castile and Leon, 1181?–1246. 2. Queens—Spain—Castile—Biography. 3. Castile (Spain)—History— Henry I, 1214–1217. 4. Castile (Spain)—History—Ferdinand, 1217–1252. 5. Leadership in women—Spain—Castile—History—To 1500. 6. Sex role—Spain—Castile—History—To 1500. 7. Power (Social sciences)—Spain—Castile—History—To 1500. 8. Women— History—Middle Ages, 500–1500. 9. Spain—Kings and rulers—Biography. I. Title. DP139.5.S53 2009 946⬘.302092—dc22 [B]
2009006874
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.
For Joe
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
xi
Acknowledgments
xiii
List of Abbreviations A Note on Names and Translations Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6
Mothering Queenship: Leonor of England, Queen of Castile, 1161–1214 Documenting Authority: Marriage Agreements and the Making of a Queen 1197–1217: The Limits of Power and Authority The Labors of Ruling: The Mothering Queen “The things that please God and men”: Berenguela, Conquest, and Crusade “Making Lament”: Death, Grief, Memory, Identity
xv xvii 1 23 51 73 97 123 149
Conclusion: A Perfect Friend of God
173
Notes
177
Bibliography
227
Index
237
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Genealogical Chart
xix Figures
1.1 1.2 3.1 3.2 3.3
Seal of Queen Leonor Signo Rodado of Queen Leonor Seal of Queen Berenguela (obverse) Seal of Queen Berenguela (reverse) Signo Rodado of Queen Berenguela
45 46 89 90 92
Maps I.1 1.1 2.1
Medieval Spain Arras of Queen Leonor Arras of Queen Berenguela
xx 30 65 Tables
1.1 1.2
Arras of Queen Leonor Queen Leonor’s Household
28 43
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A
nyone who takes as long as I have to produce a project like this will acquire considerable intellectual, professional, and social debts; one of the greatest pleasures of finishing is to ref lect upon the many friends and colleagues who helped me along the way. I wish I could thank them all, including the two anonymous readers for the New Middle Ages series, whose careful reading was extraordinarily generous and helpful. Berenguela may not be the book many of them would have written, but perhaps it is a book they might read, and I hope they see the fruits of their friendship in its pages. I apologize in advance for not taking all of their advice; the faults herein are all mine. Bonnie Wheeler’s fantastic patience, feminist politics, and critical eye have taught me a great deal. Cynthia L. Chamberlin, Lucy K. Pick, and Peter Linehan read the entire manuscript in earlier versions; Benita Blessing, Michele Clouse, Mariana Dantas, Joe McLaughlin, Theresa Moran, and Kevin Uhalde all read, and re-read parts. Their generous criticism kept me from my worst tendencies and encouraged what was best about this project. For help with language and perspective, I thank Kevin; for endless, intense, and gratifying conversations about Spanish, Spain, and motherhood, I thank Michele. Mariana has been an inspiring writing partner and an enthusiastic friend to the study of marriages, wills, and rituals; her kindness and liveliness have breathed life into an otherwise sometimes dull proposition. Other teachers and friends include Judith Bennett, Connie Berman, Josie Bloomfield, Caroline Bruzelius, James D’Emilio, Theresa Earenfight, Monica Green, Melissa Katz, Eileen McKiernan-González, Kristen Neuschel, Jean F. O’Barr, Beth Quitslund, Rebecca Winer, Ron Witt, Charles R. Young, and the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship. Each has contributed to the shape of this project in some way, from my earliest days as a graduate student at Duke University through my many years as an independent scholar to the present. The OU Department of History has provided a welcoming university home in which to teach and write. In particular, Sholeh Quinn and Katherine Jellison always encouraged me. Athenians
xiv
AC K NOW L E DGM E N T S
who supported me in countless ways include the Drabolds, the Bell/ Moran, Escobedo/Quitslund, and Fox/Scanlan families. I wish to thank the University of Georgia Press and Garland Press for permissions to reprint and revise earlier published material appearing in chapters 1, 4, and 6. This work would have been impossible without the professional help of Suzi Mingus of the Interlibrary Loan office at Alden Library; as well I thank the Hispanic Society of America and the late Rev. Robert I. Burns, S.J., for the use of his library at the Institute for Medieval Mediterranean Studies. Melissa and Michele chased down references and procured images in Madrid and Toledo. Sebastian Biot cheerfully and professionally made the maps and the genealogical chart and helped format and interpret images. Finally, I am blessed with a large and forgiving family. I treasure the unstinting love and unquestioning support of my parents Raymond and Patricia Shadis over many years of uncertainty. My siblings Matthew, Benedict, John, Caeli, and Gabriel cannot know how much I have learned from and admire them. All the McLaughlins, but especially Elaine, have enriched my life beyond measure. My children Henry and Emma fill me gratitude and wonder: putting up with a lot for very little return, they remain models of curiosity, creativity, and love for me. To know them is my life’s greatest pleasure. This book is for my husband Joe McLaughlin, in some small return for his steadfast and unselfish love, humor, wisdom, and support.
ABBREVIATIONS
ACT AHN Alfonso VIII Alfonso IX BN BRAH CL
CLCHM DRH
Fernando III
PCG
RHF
Archivo de la catedral de Toledo Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid Julio González, El reino de Castile en la época de Alfonso VIII. Madrid: CSIC, 1969. 3 vols. Julio González, Alfonso IX. Madrid: CSIC, 1944. 2 vols. Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia Chronica latina regum Castellae; In Chronica Hispana Saeculi XIII, ed. Luis Charlo Brea et alia. Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Medievalis 73. Turnhout: Brepols, 1997. Cahiers de linguistique et de civilisation hispaniques médiévales Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Historia de rebus Hispanie, sive, Historia Gothica, in Opera omnia. Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, v. 72, part one. Turnhout: Brepols, 1987. Julio González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III. Córdoba: Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros de Córdoba, 1980. 3 vols. Alfonso X, Primera crónica general de España que mandó componer Alfonso el Sabio y se continuaba bajo Sancho IV en 1289. Ed. Ramon Menéndez Pidal. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1955. 2 vols. Recueil des historiens des gaules et de la France. Ed. Bouquet. 1840-94. Reprint Farnborough: Gregg International Publishers, 1968–.
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A NOTE ON NAMES AND TRANSLATIONS
A
s far as the “actors” in this study are concerned, I tried to use the vernacular version of their names, except in the cases where a commonly held standard prevails (Eleanor of Aquitaine; Innocent III.) Thus, Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughter is known by Leonor, the name she was called most of her life; thus also, “Blanche” for Blanche of Castile, even though her family christened her “Blanca.” There is a surfeit of Alfonsos in this family, and I have tried to distinguish the kings consistently by their numbers and have taken advantage of the vernacular to identify “Alfonso” II of Portugal as “Afonso.” Past historiography has identified Berenguela as “of León,” revealing a supposition about the importance of marriage in forming identity. I have presumed to call her “of Castile,” in recognition of her status as heir and her brief queenship of Castile, but also more significantly in recognition of her clear personal orientation as a member of the royal family and body politic of Castile. “Berenguela of León,” then, refers to Queen Berenguela’s daughter, who was in fact a princess of the kingdom of León. Nearly all the primary sources used in this study exist in modern, printed editions easily consulted by the reader. To meet space limitations and to improve narrative f low, I have excised all original language quotations, except where reference to the original is essential to the understanding of my argument. All translations, except where noted, are my own.
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GENEALOGICAL CHART
Map I.1
Medieval Spain
INTRODUCTION
I
n the middle of Madrid, along the Paseo de la Argentina in the Parque del Buen Retiro, stands a woman made of stone; a queen, who gestures in a manner both imperious and open. It is Queen Berenguela, according to the inscription on her pedestal. Originating from the court studio of Felipe V, the statue was intended to be viewed from afar, one of eightyfour monumental statues depicting Felipe’s royal lineage placed on the balustrade of the royal palace in Madrid. These statues, completed between 1750 and 1752, decorated the balustrade until 1760, when they were removed and scattered throughout Castile. Originally intended to proclaim the great and consistent lineage of the kings of Spain, the statues included among their number five women whose role in securing that lineage was essential. Berenguela was depicted primarily as a wife, the spouse of Alfonso IX of León, rather than as the daughter of her father, Alfonso VIII of Castile, or as the mother of her son Fernando III. No other queen-consort found herself on the balustrade (with the exceptions of Felipe V’s mother and wife).1 Berenguela was there because of her understood place among the heroic members of the king’s lineage, and because she was essential to the continuation of that lineage. Relegated in 1916 to a byway of one of Madrid’s most popular public spaces, her statue is one of the few historical artistic depictions of Berenguela, but it still evokes her fame and importance to the passerby. A Medieval Woman Queen Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) was, in her lifetime and for some time thereafter, a dominant figure on the political landscape of the kingdoms of Castile and León. She typified the medieval elite woman whose ordained role in life was to be a wife and mother. The political circumstances of her native Castile, however, complicated and even enhanced Berenguela’s reproductive responsibilities. As the eldest daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife Leonor of England,
2
BE R E NG U E L A OF C A S T I L E A N D P OL I T IC A L WOM E N
Berenguela was at different points in her young life the presumed heir to the throne. The Castilians adhered to the Visigothic principle of partible inheritance. Although favoring sons, this principle meant that daughters had a claim to inheritance.2 Therefore, it was possible for a woman to inherit the throne when a male heir was lacking as had happened with Alfonso VI’s daughter Urraca in 1109 and with Berenguela in 1217. Berenguela’s awareness of and concern for her own lineage derived not only from a strong, involved identification with her natal family, based on her position as her father’s daughter, but also from her awareness of her own self as an element of that lineage. This attention to lineage provided Berenguela, and historians ever since, with not only a physical, biological context for understanding and ordering her life, but also with a political context. Both biological and political contexts were rooted in the reign of Berenguela’s forebear, Alfonso VI of Castile and León, who sometime between 1077 and 1079 began to use the title “Emperor of the Spains” to declare his dominance over the variety of kingdoms and counties making up Christian Spain in the late eleventh century. Alfonso VI’s grandson, Alfonso VII, however, seemingly frustrated this imperial plan by dividing his realm between his two sons.3 The elder, Sancho, was to inherit Castile; the younger, Fernando, received León. Sancho’s death in 1158 left his orphaned son, Alfonso VIII (1154–1214), as ruler of the relatively new kingdom of Castile. Despite a fraught minority, Alfonso became a successful king, leaving at his death a son, Enrique I, to follow him. With Alfonso VIII’s succession to the throne of Castile, the royal lineage seemed secure. His relationship with his uncle and neighbor, Fernando II of León, was difficult, and when Fernando died in 1187, little changed with the ascension of Fernando’s son, Alfonso IX. The new king of León was ambitious and eager to secure his place vis-à-vis his Castilian cousin; he considered himself, if not Alfonso VIII’s heir, then at least a legitimate claimant to the Castilian throne. The conf lict between the cousin-kings would be resolved only by marriage between Alfonso IX and Alfonso VIII’s daughter Berenguela. Berenguela’s life forms the core of this study. Berenguela always had a special status as her father’s potential heir. Her proposed and actual marriages present opportunities for teasing out ideas about the practical and philosophical applications of female rulership as they were conceived in medieval Castile. Berenguela’s first betrothal, to the German prince Conrad of Rothenburg, allowed the court to articulate her rights as her father’s heir. Although nothing came of the marriage, the surviving documentation served as an important source of authority for her later, when she did in fact inherit the throne. Berenguela’s later marriage
I N T RO DU C T ION
3
to Alfonso IX of León demonstrates the significance of marriage as a tool used by medieval rulers to achieve peace, and specifically how the hope of peace resided in the production of heirs, binding warring families together. Alfonso and Berenguela had five children before 1204 when they submitted to papal demands that they separate, on account of their blatant consanguinity. The marriage also secured for Berenguela a power base in León, lands that she used not only for her material support, but also to reinforce her claims to power and authority as a queen. Following her marriage to Alfonso IX, Berenguela reestablished herself at her parents’ court and struggled to maintain the regency for her brother Enrique I (r.1214–17). Ultimately, Berenguela’s motherhood was the most important aspect of both her hereditary and marital queenships. Her gender posed specific problems; however, Berenguela used her motherhood to legitimate and sustain her royal authority, going to great lengths to preserve family power. In 1217, she secured the throne of Castile for herself and her son Fernando; in 1230, she negotiated the abdication of the female heirs to the kingdom of León, Fernando’s half-sisters. Berenguela’s relationship to Fernando, which was biological and political, was key to the security of royal power in Castile and enabled the unification and expansion of the kingdoms of Castile and León. Throughout the early period of Fernando’s reign and well after 1230, Berenguela worked with her son to secure treaties with Christian and Muslim neighbors, to build and protect her family through the appropriate marriages of her children, and to promote and enable Fernando’s crusades. Her experiences and activities can be usefully contextualized by those of her numerous and important sisters, especially Urraca, Blanche, Leonor, and Constanza. They show ways in which Berenguela was like other elite women; indeed, her life could have turned out very much like one of theirs. Despite their individual circumstances, together they help demonstrate ways in which Berenguela was and was not alone in her experiences of family, marriage, motherhood, religion, and, above all, gender. Furthermore, the sisters were key elements of Berenguela’s family; throughout their lives, they remained in contact, if only for seemingly political reasons at times. Family visits, the fostering of children, and prayers for the dead suggest affective bonds as well as a deep sensibility of filial and sisterly piety among the members of this family. Berenguela’s sister Blanca (1188–1252) is better known as Blanche of Castile, queen of France, one of the most famous women of the Middle Ages. From the time of her marriage to the French heir Louis, Blanche was destined for significance, even if only as another female link in the seemingly miraculous chain of male inheritance that had secured
4
BE R E NG U E L A OF C A S T I L E A N D P OL I T IC A L WOM E N
the Capetian throne for generations. Three years after Blanche’s husband Louis became king, he was dead, and Blanche became regent both for her young son, Louis IX, and for the kingdom of France. Blanche became queen of France at a time when the institution of queenship seems to have undergone a shift, becoming increasingly relegated to the private, domestic world of the queen’s own household; at the very least, there is a change in the way documentation presented the queen’s activities at court.4 Although Blanche’s own political experiences were particular to her Capetian context, examining the several parallels between her experiences and those of her sister Berenguela points to certain consistencies in thirteenth-century royal motherhood and queenship. Three other sisters lived to adulthood: Urraca (1187–1220), Leonor (1200–1244), and Constanza (1201/02–1243). The details of Urraca’s life are little known, yet in many ways they offer few surprises. She serves as a foil to her sisters, as she is usually represented as a princess disappointed in competition with them for marriage offers. Most famously, a legend persists that Urraca was passed over as a bride for the future Louis VIII, because French ambassadors found her name infelicitous.5 Eventually Urraca married Afonso, the Portuguese heir, and fulfilled her role as a queen and mother, bearing four children. Two of her sons, Sancho and Afonso, became kings of Portugal. Urraca died young, leaving as a legacy her patronage of the new Franciscan Order and her special association with the Five Martyrs of Morocco.6 Had she lived long enough, she might have had more opportunities: her husband’s will of 1214 makes clear that he expected she would have a role to play in the regency of the kingdom and royal children in the event of his premature death.7 Urraca’s little sister Leonor also experienced a marriage and queenship that fit contemporary expectations: married to the young king Jaume I of Aragón in 1220, Leonor was repudiated by him eight years later, having produced the all-important heir, their son Alfonso. She spent the rest of her life in obscurity, mainly living at the female Cistercian monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos, Castile.8 Berenguela’s one sister who was not a queen was the nun Constanza. No evidence exists explaining how or when she made her profession as a Cistercian at Las Huelgas. It seems likely that she had done so during her parents’ lifetime, as chronicles mention her presence at court only before her parents’ deaths in 1214. Never abbess of Las Huelgas, instead she seems to have been the first example of the special figure of the “Lady of Las Huelgas,” a role established for royal women.9 She must have been aware of, if not involved in, Castilian politics, and she certainly spent a great deal of time with her sisters Berenguela and Leonor, who both lived at the abbey for extended periods of time. The abbey was used sometimes as a residence, and the family visited it often. Berenguela’s own daughter, also named
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Constanza, and her namesake granddaughter Berenguela joined the abbey as Cistercian nuns, and each took up in her turn the role of Lady of Las Huelgas. Despite these clear connections, we know little of Berenguela’s sister Constanza’s daily life, her contributions, or her experiences. Even though material for the lives of Berenguela’s sisters Urraca and Leonor is sometimes thin, it is their queenly status that allows us to know much of anything at all. The silences around Constanza and her life at Las Huelgas suggest how very little we know not only about her, but also about the affective relations and private lives of these medieval women as individuals and as a family. When we see these women, they are in public; in truth, whatever is private is unknown to us. When they emerge into public view, the women in Berenguela’s family—especially her mother and sisters (but also daughters, in-laws, and rivals)—form points of comparison and provide contexts for Berenguela herself. Because of Berenguela’s fame and importance, it is easy to be trapped into thinking of her as an anomaly in much the same way as historians regard her sister Blanche. Clearly this was not the case. Her mother and sisters provide evidence for aspects of royal women’s lives that are missing for Berenguela or help confirm patterns. They were important to Berenguela herself. As a group, these royal women enrich our understanding of medieval family life and the limits and possibilities of the political world in which such families—and such women—operated. The Evidence Berenguela was unusual among women of her time, but the special circumstances of her life did not override either the limits of her gender or the expectations of her class. Understanding her will help develop a fuller picture not only of elite women in the High Middle Ages, but also medieval elites and medieval women more generally. Above all, studying Berenguela contributes to our understanding of the potential and limitations of medieval queens. Historian of France Marion Facinger’s suggestion that medieval queens participated in an office “with prerogatives, norms, limits” is still a valuable reminder that queens had a special role to play within each monarchy.10 The number of sophisticated studies that have appeared in the last decade illuminating the varieties of queenship experienced over time even within one realm, such as England, point to the folly of generalizing about medieval queens and their experiences and demonstrate how historians must be more creative in excavating the details of medieval queens’ lives.11 Furthermore, the distinction between hereditary queens and queens-consort must be recognized, although these categories do not offer consistent models of medieval queens’ power
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and authority: the notions of the “mere” consort and the extraordinary “queen in her own right” are challenged by the cases of the many queensconsort (and even more dowager queens) who were recognized for their power and their authority to wield it, in contrast to the usually weak positions of hereditary queens. Inf luenced by the developments of social history, historians now challenge received ideas about the trajectory of national histories in regard to periodization, the analysis of sources, and the privileging of change over continuity.12 In the context of the study of Iberian institutions, such reexamination prompts an expansion of the category of “queenship” to the category of “royal women.” In earlier generations, powerful royal sisters played crucial roles in political and ecclesiastical developments.13 In Castile or Portugal, for example, even as late as the thirteenth century, the term queen could refer equally to daughters with no hope of inheritance, as to crowned consorts. Although this generalization suggests a dilution of the power associated with the title “queen,” the associated status of queenship may have elevated the authority of women who otherwise did not achieve either authority or power. Thus, it would be perilous to generalize about Iberian queens in the Middle Ages, who included Castilian, Leonese, Navarrese, Aragonese, and Portuguese women from the Visigothic to the early modern eras. Nor does any single scholarly work provide a point of departure for investigating this variety of Iberian queens in their specific historical contexts.14 Hispanists have tended to focus on individual queens, such as the hereditary queen Urraca and the spectacular Isabel, or on specific aspects of queenship, such as the relationship between theories and practices.15 The very recent work of Núria Silleras-Fernández and Theresa Earenfight on the late medieval queens of Aragon, María de Luna and María de Castilla, respectively, makes use of thousands of official records to understand the queenships of these women—sources simply not available either in quantity or quality for the study of monarchy in thirteenth-century Castile. The Crown of Aragon was unique in Iberia in prohibiting hereditary queenship, but from the thirteenth century on made use of the institution of the lieutenant, the king’s locum tenens, which often permitted a particularly powerful role for queens, such as the two Marías.16 The vast numbers of documents available to the historians of this region radically change their terms of inquiry but also help scholars theorize royal women’s potential power, particularly in terms of sexuality, motherhood, land holding, and gender ideology.17 The history of Castilian queens has followed a different trajectory, one perforce based largely on narrative sources, especially for queens before the late medieval/early modern era. In the seventeenth century,
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Antonio Lupián Zapata wrote the first biography of Berenguela, the Epitome de la vida y muerte de la Reyna Doña Berenguela, primogenita del rey D. Alonso el Noble, which highlights Berenguela’s career as her father’s daughter. Other historians such as Enrique Flórez, writing in the eighteenth century, offered pleasing portraits and thorough histories of Castilian queens, but their narratives were without synthesis and ultimately without argument. Recent scholarship on Berenguela has fit into the mold of synthetic traditions or has focused sharply on Berenguela’s place in medieval historiography.18 The historical material providing evidence for Berenguela’s life falls into three basic categories. The most difficult to interpret and the most diverse in nature, albeit the least in number, are those cultural artifacts— from tombs to poetry—produced in reference to her. The other two types of sources are those more traditionally used by historians: charters and chronicles. The archives for the crowns of Castile and León do not survive. Instead, royal charters have been collected from a variety of municipal, cathedral, and monastic archives (to name the most significant), reconstructing a very good, but incomplete picture of the royal chancery.19 Berenguela, who had her own majordomo, undoubtedly had her own chaplain and secretary, but surviving records indicate that she did not issue many charters on her own. Instead, she appeared more consistently in the charters issued by her son, Fernando. The charters themselves corroborate the contemporary medieval chronicles that form the third body of evidence. Three are most important, especially because all three were written in Berenguela’s lifetime by men close to her: the bishops Lucas of Túy, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, and Juan of Osma (or Soria). Lucas of Túy had a long association with Berenguela, begun when he was a deacon at San Isidoro in León and she the new queen of León.20 The author of several works, including Liber de miraculis S. Isidori and De altera vita (a treatise on heresy), Lucas composed his Chronicon mundi at the request of Queen Berenguela, beginning in the early 1230s and finishing between 1237 and 1239.21 “Compelled by the commands of the most glorious and most prudent queen of the Spains doña Berenguela, who ordered me to write books of chronicles about the history of the kings of the Spanish,” Lucas describes his commission from the queen and hints at her motivation in ordering the construction of “books of chronicles”—compiling the works of Isidore and “certain other skilled men.” Lucas (and Berenguela) expected the audience for this work to be “noble princes of famous Gothic blood” who, instructed by their history, would rule well and firmly.22 In torturous prose, Lucas describes his mission, conceived by Berenguela, to elevate the royal lineage and instruct royal posterity. Berenguela’s patronage of Lucas might suggest that he would supply the greatest amount of narrative information about
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her, but this is not the case. Possibly, her patronage served to reduce, or contain, commentary about the queen. Or, it may be that, while writers such as Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada preferred to proclaim Berenguela’s modesty and reticence, Lucas preferred to literarily cloister the queen: to effect her modesty and reticence. On the other hand, Berenguela’s patronage of Lucas of Túy, possibly begun when she was the young wife of Alfonso IX of León, specifically focused on securing the historical record through writing. The initiation of the Chronicon mundi, however, soon followed the unification of Castile and León in 1230, an event in which Berenguela played a key role. Lucas’s composition may have been intended to help weld the two kingdoms together. 23 A major historical figure in his own right, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, the archbishop of Toledo from 1209 to 1246, also wrote numerous works and also had a special agenda, namely, to promote the primacy of the see of Toledo.24 Rodrigo was a consistent presence at the Castilian court and a major actor in many of the events narrated in this study. He knew Berenguela very well and wrote at length about her and her family in his De rebus Hispanie, completed in 1243. The archbishop relied on his own personal knowledge, the cathedral archives, and, especially for the years before 1209 when he arrived in Toledo, the Chronicon mundi for his information.25 Historian Peter Linehan has pointed out that Rodrigo’s patron was not the queen, but her son, King Fernando, and Linehan’s assessment of the impact of the patron deserves notice: Rodrigo wrote more freely about Berenguela than did Lucas, and some historians have suggested more positively than did Juan of Osma, the author of our third chronicle.26 Despite his admiration for her, Rodrigo was occasionally confounded by a need to balance his own ideology about women with his lived experience of the queen. The third major chronicle was the Chronica latina regum Castellae, an anonymously authored work begun between 1211 and 1226 and continued until about 1239.27 The author has been identified as Juan, bishop of Osma, the functional chancellor of Castile after 1217.28 Joseph O’Callaghan, who has translated the Chronica into English, notes, “Queen Berenguela, whom [ Juan] named as one of the executors of his will, certainly was responsible for his appointment as chancellor of Castile upon the accession of her son Fernando III in 1217.” He further suggests that Juan’s initial patron was Berenguela’s father Alfonso VIII.29 Juan’s relationship with the court of Castile was therefore intimate, his perspective shaped by loyalty to the royal family but also by ecclesiastical mores. He writes frequently and admiringly of Berenguela, but confines her to her proper sphere. Finally, an important but highly problematic source for this period is the vernacular history known as the Primera crónica general, which was begun under the direction of Berenguela’s grandson Alfonso X “the
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Learned” and continued under his son Sancho IV.30 The taller alfonsí drew largely on Lucas’s Chronicon mundi and Rodrigo’s De rebus Hispanie; it made little or no use of the Chronica latina. However, because all three Latin chronicles were completed (or otherwise left unfinished) before Berenguela died, the Primera crónica general is useful for her later years. I have used it mainly as a source for the years following 1243, when Archbishop Rodrigo had completed his work, and occasionally to offer a vernacular, historical perspective on the Latin texts. The thirteenth-century historians and their literary-historical production have received a great deal of attention from modern historians, foremost by Peter Linehan. Linehan’s explanatory model is conf lict among personalities, the course of history being determined by the progresses of individual strength and decline. Thus, the historiography of the period is approached as a particular window onto the political life of the realm, especially inasmuch as the three chroniclers participated in it and were personally invested in the shifting political fortunes of their narrative subjects. Jealousy over the episcopal primacy of Toledo and León informs Rodrigo and Lucas’s literary relationship. Another conf lict, played out in the subtexts of the chronicles by Rodrigo and Juan, is control of the royal chancery and access to the king, a contest in which Rodrigo, along with Berenguela herself, was the loser.31 The idea that Fernando sought to separate himself from the power of his mother and the ambitions of the archbishop by elevating Juan as chancellor and in embarking on crusade compares with an old idea that Louis IX sought to do the same vis-à-vis his mother Blanche of Castile—even as he relied on her to achieve his ambitions as a crusader.32 This approach has led to some innovative and important, if at times highly speculative, appreciations of thirteenth century historiography. However, it is an approach in which the chronicler in the foreground threatens to overwhelm the history in the chronicles themselves.33 In Berenguela’s case, historian Georges Martin has declared, she has become “una construcción de palabras” [made of words].34 It is true that, after historical treatment and inter pretation, the person of Berenguela, and perhaps even more significantly her agency, may become obscured by the nature of the texts representing her, but taken too far, this approach threatens to enervate any study of the queen and the life she lived. This study assumes that all texts should be approached cautiously, with the expectation they can reveal much more about Berenguela than they conceal. Themes and Contexts The overarching theme of this study is motherhood, closely linked to the theme of marriage.35 A contingent theme is the medieval tradition
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of corulership—the necessary sharing of power between husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, and, above all in this case, mother and son. The intertwined institutions of motherhood, family, and monarchy were supported by f lexible legal traditions, the opportunities posed by necessity (especially in times of royal minorities and war) as well as a close relationship to the church and local authorities. These relationships were described in large part by the church authorities themselves—the bishop-chroniclers—and their language and the language of other historians about gender and power provide both context (discussed above) and a theme of this study. These sources demand constant attention to their rhetoric, the values demonstrated through language (both narrative and formulaic), and even in terms of what they do not say, especially regarding the phenomenon of women in power. In late twelfth-century Castile, the Christian conquest of Muslim-held lands exemplified the growing power of the church and led to changes in political organization. As the boundary between Christian and Muslim territory moved southward, the need to fund increased warfare as well as the process of repopulating war-torn and deserted areas, posed new challenges for government. In northern Iberia, as elsewhere in Europe, these challenges were met in part by the evolution of the cortes by the reign of Fernando III: protorepresentative bodies made up of a range of nobles, clerics, and important townsmen who would consult with the ruler and approve his or her actions. Indeed, Iberian kings established these processes well ahead of their continental counterparts. Another impetus to this development was the increased study and application of Roman law ( layered upon a vibrant system of customary law) throughout Christendom, providing a new theoretical framework for the practice of government.36 The Castilians knew a frequent state of war with not only the Muslim rulers to the south, but also their Christian neighbors and relatives, the kings of León, Navarre, and Aragón. The organization of defensive and offensive systems along Christian frontiers, notably between Aragón, Navarre, and Castile on one hand and León and Portugal on the other—but also between Castile and León—also markedly affected political relationships in this period.37 The deaths of Alfonso and Leonor’s sons and the major events of their daughters’ adult lives were all circumscribed by such legal, political, and military developments. In such circumstances, violence and disorder provided another role for women apart from reproduction and ruling: that of peacemaker. The role of women in securing peace, whether through marriage, motherhood, or negotiation, was not only legendary, but also real and well documented. Readers familiar with medieval Spain may be reminded at this juncture of the unique multicultural conditions of the peninsula.
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To varying degrees of intensity, success, and failure, and with debated significance, from 711 until 1492 Iberia was a place where Christians, Muslims, and Jews encountered one another at court and in the marketplace, as well as on the battlefield or in more mundane social conf lict, and exchanged values, ideas, goods, and cultural practices. This was despite—or because of—abiding religious difference balanced by shifting access to political power. Whether one adheres to the model of convivencia (“living together”) as a driving force in medieval Spanish history or the more recently proposed model of conveniencia (convenience), these differences must be acknowledged in any study of thirteenthcentury Castile. In the long run for Berenguela, I will argue in later chapters, such cultural negotiations would be highly modulated by the combination of her gender and class status. At the moment, however, I draw attention to the significance of this approach to medieval Spanish history in terms of my use of Iberia. Of course, Iberia in different times included different political powers and religions, as well as languages, cultural customs, economies, and so on. The Cordoban Caliphate of 929 was as Iberian as the Jewish call of twelfth-century Girona or the Christian hospices along the Camino de Santiago. By the twelfth century, however, Christians controlled the northern half of the peninsula and were expanding their dominion. The secular and religious institutions I refer to in this study are Christian ones, for the most part, albeit with strong Mediterranean as well as northern European origins. Thus, I use the term Iberia throughout to qualify these institutions in regard to their northern European counterparts. 38 This world of conf lict was kept in motion by multiple impulses operating alternately in conjunction with or opposition to each other. Over time, an increasingly militarized society guided by the precepts of a militant church and a Romanized legal system would seem to leave very little room for women’s participation (let alone agency). Women did not directly participate in war, nor could they find roles of authority and power equal to men within the church hierarchy; their participation in the cortes was circumscribed except at the most elite level. However, women like Berenguela and those in her family operated in this masculinized world of conf lict both on their own terms, liberated by their status as heirs (in Berenguela’s case) or as mothers, and on society’s terms. One clear way to see this mode of operation is in the sphere of patronage: the financial and political support of religious institutions and figures, including the construction and maintenance of church buildings, and of the writing of history. Elite medieval women held a special place as patrons of the church, as well as of religious and secular art. What did this patronage gain for
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women? Did women’s patronage confer on them a different kind of power than men’s patronage? Patronage was certainly a way for men to access power, and male patronage extended easily into the secular realm. For women, patronage was also a socially sanctioned way to cultivate power, bringing them into an arena where they might participate in society more equally and with as much legitimacy as men.39 Patronage also enhanced women’s authority in the more secular realms of family and government. Women’s patronage, then, was perhaps not different from men’s in effect—churches and monasteries grew in wealth and heightened visibility—yet the choices women made often differed from those of their male counterparts. The women in this study follow generally matrilineal preferences in their religious patronage, inf luencing generations of daughters and granddaughters, and they especially favored the Cistercian Order. Patronage of church building and patronage of historical writing equally put resources and attention into producing families (both past and future) as powerful institutions, at the same time making the family a significant place for mothers. Their efforts parallel a movement in history writing in the eleventh and twelfth centuries wherein the writing of genealogy became an important tool in constructing and affirming agnatic lineage. Gabrielle Spiegel’s remarks concerning the grounding of history in biology are particularly important here: human procreation, mapped out by genealogy, becomes an agent of historical change. A genealogy also articulates a specific place in the political world for the family described by it. Berenguela’s family used the building of necropolises and other forms of patronage to affirm and construct the power of their lineage.40 Women complicated the linear, male history used in standard medieval historical narrative. As mothers and daughters, they biologically interrupted the genealogies that connected otherwise masculine lineages to history. Berenguela placed herself squarely within a lineage, and she used her traditional role as a patron to assure her place therein. Lineage also supplied an important paradigm for the medieval historians who wrote about these families. Some medieval chronicles sought to explain Berenguela’s inheritance as a deviation from the male lineage of her father, a punishment of some kind; later historians focused on the question of primogeniture, rearranging the birth order of Alfonso and Leonor’s most famous daughters to bolster French claims to rule in Spain.41 Like patronage, marriage was an institution that also produced records supplying a great deal of incidental (and highly useful) information, and like patronage, the documents surrounding marriage—in Iberia notably the charters of arras—provide special evidence for women’s history. Berenguela and her sisters (except Constanza) all married. Although
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marriage was a dominant paradigm for these women, remarriage was not. The reasons why these women married, and then did not remarry, were based in the coherent principles aimed at the production of heirs and the preservation of the lineage—specifically the power and authority to which heirs (and a lineage) were entitled. It would not have been impossible for Berenguela or her sisters to remarry, but the consequences could have been severe, including loss of access to children with ensuing loss of political power, heightened friction among followers, and loss of personal status. Marriage was used and abused as a method to protect the king and his interest, but Berenguela and her sister Blanche found other women, their daughters or their political dependents, to use in this strategy: they did not offer themselves up. The fundamental purpose of marriage was procreation. Pregnancy, real or potential, heightened the status of any queen and, more than any other condition, differentiated the physical natures of the sexes. A pregnant queen was a reminder of the embodiment of the king, of generations, and of the future of the lineage; certainly she supplied one common image of a successful queen. Indeed, we might play with Ernst Kantorowicz’s notion of the king’s two bodies and propose a similar paradigm for queenship. If the queen did not have a second body supplied by her office, she had a sort of double-embodiment in her pregnant state, when she was not only herself, but also the physical link between generations in the lineage. This line of reasoning may be troubling because of its easy subscription to the notion of woman as a “vessel” or a placeholder, but no more so than for men, whom Kantorowicz’s theory described similarly as placeholders.42 Each king held the place for the next, so to speak. Some queens, such as the Aragonese queen-lieutenant, literally held the king’s place in government, but the pregnant queen held a potential ruler in her body. For queens who did not become pregnant, their gender might have spelled disaster; they could rarely transcend themselves. As for several queens in this study, a great deal of their observable activity was carried out while they were pregnant or newly delivered of a child. Berenguela was pregnant or had just borne an infant every year she was queen of León. Although Berenguela’s marriage ended relatively quickly, and thus her opportunity for legitimate pregnancy, she had established her fecundity, secured her heirs, and eventually made certain that her sons did the same. It seems important that her two periods of queenship corresponded to the two types of queenship, and in the first instance of married queenship, she absolutely fit the paradigm of the successful, fecund queen. In the second instance, of hereditary queenship, pregnancy was less important because she came to the throne with a coruling heir. Berenguela’s sister Leonor is the exception that proves the rule; caught
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in a mostly nonsexual relationship with her husband Jaume, with the potential of pregnancy always before her, she was dismissed as soon as she had produced a viable heir. Her queenship was decidedly unsuccessful in many respects, but she managed to fulfill this one obligation.43 But their mother, Leonor of England, was only exempted from the demands of pregnancy for the first and last decades of her forty-plus years of marriage, when she was at first truly too young, and later probably too old to bear children. Blanche had more children than any Capetian queen before her, and indeed was pregnant at the time of her husband’s death, when she faced down the barons of France over her regency. Pregnancy, like motherhood and all its contingencies, remained a crucial quality of successful queenship. Corulership is another theme. The growth of the centralized state in France, England, and even Castile notwithstanding, I argue for a more conservative vision of medieval rulership, which was shared to various degrees among members of the ruling family. This sharing often took place between the king and his wife or between the king and his eldest son(s). But, as dramatically attested to by the careers of Berenguela and Blanche, it was also shared between the queen and her son. This is not a new idea, having been applied to the early Capetian monarchy, “best understood as a cooperation among the king, the queen, and the crown prince, all of whom were elevated to their status by the ceremony of consecration.”44 A similar dynamic can be seen in Iberia, where kings were not consecrated but neither did they rule alone. Earenfight explains Iberian monarchy in this way: “it had a ‘corporate’ character that permitted a range of powersharing options.” Queens were partners—unequal or “junior,” but nonetheless, queenship was “an integral part of the dynamic of monarchical power and authority.”45 In Iberia, the element that enabled this status was not a shared ceremony of consecration, but something else. Historians have generally rejected the idea that Spanish kings saw themselves as sacral figures. The elements that held the royal family, and thus the monarchy, together, necessitating and even elevating corulership, were those of blood, lineage, and the marriage bond. This corulership served to push women to the fore of political consciousness: queens were consistently included in royal documents and acknowledged as ruling with their husbands in private ones. This in no way indicated any sort of equality for women, especially at the highest levels of society; women were always subordinated, and the preference was always for a male ruler. However, this f lexible practice may have served to lower the stakes for Berenguela when she brought her son to power in 1217. The habit of corule was one reason why she did not view her action as one of abdication, and neither should we.
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The momentous events at Valladolid in the summer of 1217 were complex and, although Berenguela’s action at this crucial juncture has typically been characterized as abdication, I argue otherwise: Berenguela’s motivations, decisions, and actions leading up to Fernando’s acclamation as king cannot be understood as a formal abdication, the renunciation of formal authority and power. Furthermore, her activities as queen after 1217 drain the word abdication of significance. Berenguela has been understood by previous historians as a pragmatic ruler who made great personal sacrifice to establish her son as king of Castile and as a “power behind the throne.” In “handing over,” “conceding,” or “giving” the throne to her son (all language used to describe the process whereby Fernando became king), however, she secured a political sphere in which she could act on her own and her son’s behalf, effectively preserving personal and familial power. It was as a mother that Berenguela had the most direct, socially legitimate access to power, but she could also exercise her privileges as a declared and recognized heir to the throne; this gave her authority. Subject to certain social restrictions, Berenguela took advantage of other norms to achieve her goals. As a female ruler, Berenguela threatened the social and political equilibrium. As a (female) link—a daughter and a mother—in a line of succession, however, she also restored equilibrium. Berenguela’s rise to and maintenance of power demonstrates the complicated relationship of power to authority and the way in which gender served as a mechanism through which medieval society legitimated both those phenomena. Even though as a Castilian woman Berenguela could hold royal authority, her gender did not entitle her to exercise the power that ultimately made such authority operable. Her strategies of seeming renunciation and collusion permitted her to circumvent these restrictions, and even to take advantage of her gender (as a mother) in securing her main goal, which was coherent and unified: the perpetuation of her lineage’s rule of Castile, through the kingship of her son. This problem of gender is intimately tied to the final theme to be addressed: the language of the historiography—both medieval and modern—about Berenguela. In particular, I grapple with the expectations of gender roles and appropriate behavior and the implied relationship between gender and power. The narrative sources remark Berenguela proudly but are hardly objective in these matters. What is the relationship between the way Berenguela and the other women in her family were understood in their own time, and the way they have been understood by scholars since? The fact of their sex and the qualities ascribed to the female gender, both then and now, suggest certain truths. We can see clearly, for example, that even these most powerful elite women had two choices laid before them from a very young age: they would join the world of men
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and marry, or they would join the world of women and profess as nuns. Even the women in this family about whom we know the least, such as Constanza, show us that much. But if uncovering more documentation on these women increases our understanding of them, there remains the ideological, methodological, and linguistic pitfall caused by the problem of gender. Georges Martin has paid particular attention to gender ideology regarding historical sources on Berenguela. Martin points out that Berenguela’s vaunted “prudence” is a quality typically assigned to royal women by medieval writers, but both Lucas and Rodrigo endow her with sapientia [wisdom], a kingly virtue.46 The two women in this study about whom the most can be said are the two most consistently characterized as manly, or virile. Berenguela and her sister Blanche have escaped their sex and thwarted their gender. They remain women who are “above all women,” “ladies among all ladies,” but they are imbued, by medieval chroniclers and modern historians alike, with a masculine spirit. Historians’ assessments derive from the chroniclers who themselves labeled Berenguela. Lucas of Túy first called her “most glorious” [gloriosissime] and “most prudent” [prudentissime]—and then did not give her much attention in his chronicle.47 The greatest ambivalence, however, came from the pen of Archbishop Rodrigo. To Rodrigo, Berenguela was an actor, an initiator; he was unable to present her passively. Despite this, he seems to have felt compelled to depict the queen in what he believed to be a more womanly light. Rodrigo’s explanation of Berenguela’s motivation for placing her son on the throne powerfully evoked one ideal of womanhood, as it focused on chastity and modesty: “she, confining herself to the limits of chastity and modesty . . . did not wish to keep the kingdom for herself.”48 The problem was that Berenguela was not at all confined. Archbishop Rodrigo, after the fact, needed to explain her achievement. She could not have been successful if she first had not been modest, chaste, and so forth, the hallmarks of proper femininity. Berenguela has been recognized by a variety of historians from the Middle Ages to the present as a very noble (nobilissima) woman, one who sacrificed her own power to the greater good and thus earned such epithets as illustrissima, prudentissima, the wise, or the great, and even inteligente y varonil [intelligent and virile].49 In the eighteenth century, Enrique Flórez debated with himself over the appropriate honorific: “Her prudence in the conduct of action exceeded the expectation of her sex, outstanding to such a degree that she merited the title ‘prudentísima. . . .’ I have come to vacillate in the title I will give her, as prudence and steadfastness seem the more outstanding praise in a woman; but . . . only the title ‘Grande’ seemed appropriate to me.”50 Berenguela merited this praise not because of her patronage of the church, nor because of her ability to
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govern Castile-León while her son added to his realm during the almost continuous conquests of Muslim territories in al-Andalus, nor because of her notable skill in negotiation. Rather, for Flórez and others, she was prudent, wise, noble, and valiant because of her apparent self-denial at a moment of great consequence: her “abdication” in 1217. Berenguela was heroic, but also a properly self-abnegating woman. It should not be assumed, however, that it was proper or necessary in her own view for Berenguela to deny herself access to power and authority. Berenguela’s seeming self-denial had great consequences for the achievement of the power that she sought for herself and for her family. It is at this juncture that a direct comparison with the historiography of Blanche of Castile becomes illuminating. Like Berenguela, Blanche has earned particular attention because of her role in her son’s life. However, for reasons that may have to do with fundamentally different cultural ideas about women’s legitimacy as rulers, Blanche’s contemporaries Matthew Paris and Jean de Joinville, as well as later authorities such as Christine de Pizan, often attempted to explain her ability to hold and build her personal power as a result of masculine qualities; her success as a woman could only be explained by manly virtue.51 This attitude was epitomized by the anonymous Chronicler of Saint Denis, who wrote that Blanche was “a woman by birth and sex, but imbued with a masculine spirit, [who] vigorously, powerfully and justly administered the law of the kingdom.”52 Blanche’s manliness explained her vigor, wisdom, and just rule. The trope was meant as a compliment, but it has also fueled a discourse of anomaly. Martin assesses Rodrigo’s understanding of Berenguela in much the same way, not only assigning the quality of virility to her, but also presenting her as a type of positive monster who transcended gender: a hapax or unique form.53 The comparison between the two sisters is helpful, then, to bear in mind not only in terms of the role of the medieval queen mother, but also in terms of the discourse of virility and anomaly that has grown up around them. If the case of Blanche is explicit, the discourse surrounding Berenguela is more subtle (and perhaps more modern). The case of Blanche seems to be informed in part by the French custom that women did not rule; because ruling was a manly attribute, and Blanche did it successfully, she was manly (and this was good). In Iberia, where women could legally rule, a woman like Berenguela was less likely to be characterized as virile because she ruled—until modern times. For the most part, this typology is used to explain Berenguela and Blanche’s undeniable successes and is expressed in a spirit of admiration. Not everyone, however, approved. Notably, the contemporary troubadour Sordello explicitly linked the two sisters, accusing them of emasculating their kingly sons and, by implication, assuming masculine privilege, that
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is, virility. In his “Lament for Lord Blacatz,” Sordello bewailed the loss of true virility in his time and suggested that the rulers of his day come to a banquet of “heart,” to restore their manliness: . . . let the King of France step up to the banquet, For he wants to win back Castile that he lost through foolishness: But if he thinks of his mother; he won’t touch a piece— It appears that, for his honor, he won’t displease her.
Sordello accused Louis of being faint-of-heart when it came to displeasing his mother and suggested that Blanche somehow defended Castile. The criticism remains clear: because Louis was afraid of his mother, he was less of a man. Sordello attacked Fernando even more explicitly: And that Castilian King! I think he should eat for two! For he holds two domains, and is not good enough for one! But if he wants a nibble, he should eat secretly, For if his Mamma catches him, she’ll f lail him with her rod.54
Sordello criticized Fernando’s greed, in ruling two kingdoms (Castile and León), but more so Berenguela’s domination of him. Any manly action that the Castilian king wanted to take, Sordello wrote, would have to be done on the sly or else his mother would punish him. Sordello also suggested that it was really Berenguela who was “eating for two” and ruling Castile and León; Fernando was denied even a nibble. The poet criticized Fernando for being an effeminate “Mama’s boy” and accused Berenguela of usurping masculine privilege with her phallic rod. Furthermore, he indicated that contemporaries (negatively) perceived her as ruling. Elsewhere in his poetry, Sordello expressed anxiety about keeping the sexes aligned with their appropriate gender attributes. Women who accepted weak and unchivalrous knights as their lovers degendered themselves: And if a lady should accept as lover This half-a-man, she herself becomes Half-a-lady, in the words of her acquaintances; For a lady cannot in truth Possess more virtue or honor Than her valorous lover has.55
Nor should a mother seem to possess more virtue—manly strength— than her son, and if she demonstrated such, she automatically unmanned him. For Sordello, it was a zero-sum game: the existence of virile women depleted male masculinity.
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Lucas of Túy took up a similar theme, although in a gentler manner, describing Fernando’s obedience to “his mother the most prudent queen Berenguela, even though he was elevated to the royal dignity, as if he were a humble boy under the rod of his master.”56 Lucas emphasized Fernando’s humility and filial piety, rather than his patroness’s gender inappropriate aggression, or even gender confusion, as she once again wielded the rod. At the same time, he acknowledged Berenguela as the source of Fernando’s kingship, and the metaphor of student/master is not lost on the reader—Berenguela was in charge, the (masculine) disciplinarian and the instructor. Despite his steadfast attempts to reconcile Berenguela’s actions with her gender by emphasizing her modesty and reluctance to leave the world of women, Rodrigo was also anxious lest Berenguela appear to make her son effeminate. When he described Berenguela on Fernando’s triumphant return from Córdoba in 1236, his language was an encomium to her virtues both as a woman and as a mother to a manly man. Rodrigo suggested that Berenguela had special female knowledge from which she protected her son, lest it contaminate his virility: “even though he has become a man and is confirmed in the age of majority,” Berenguela zealously urged “deeds that are acceptable to God and to men; so that she never persuaded him to commit any womanly action, but rather always [deeds] of magnificence.”57 Archbishop Rodrigo expressed, on Fernando’s behalf, the kind of “anxious masculinity” brought on by female sovereignty and explicated by Barbara Weissberger in literary treatments of sexuality and rulership before and during the reign of Queen Isabel I.58 Writers like Rodrigo and other historians were working against a perceived reality, as well as in tension with a potential degendering. Did a certain kind of motherhood require a degree of manliness? Did strong mothers benefit or threaten their sons’ masculinity? These texts reveal a dominant but complicated anxiety about an admirable woman’s virility emasculating her son. The historiography of Berenguela, and indeed of powerful women in general, is replete with anxiety about such emasculation, as well as thoroughly enmeshed with genuine uncertainty about how legitimate kings come to rule.59 This language about their virility or femininity consequently obscures what such women accomplished and reinforces the notion that they are anomalous. As historians have grappled with “anomalous” women such as Blanche and Berenguela, they have seen them as kings; they were varonil in Berenguela’s case, or even “one of the kings of France,” as Robert Fawtier described Blanche.60 With their power, if not their authority to rule in their own time challenged, these women were offered kingship historiographically. What does Berenguela teach us about the ways in
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which perceptions of power become gendered? Does power have a gender? The themes outlined above (motherhood, marriage, patronage, corulership, and historiography) all beg this question. If the view is taken that power is gendered as masculine, then we see how historians’ preconceptions inform their reading of Berenguela and other women like her. Gendered language is used to explain their actions, and they are defamed or defended accordingly. But if we view power as neither male nor female, but inherently neutral in absolute terms, we can ask how medieval men and women used different ways of achieving or expressing power and thus participated in the process of gendering power as a result. The women in this study lived in a patriarchy, albeit one with theoretical and structural f lexibility regarding women’s access to legitimate authority. This patriarchal context creates a seeming inevitability to the gendering of power as male. Women, however, participated in this gendering, as agents on their own behalf or on behalf of their families. Women had certain social prerogatives and obligations, linked especially to their biological roles, but also to their potential roles as patrons, dispensers of wealth, and participants in religious life. This study seeks to explain these prerogatives and obligations as they were performed or accomplished by Berenguela. Berenguela’s career provides a clear view of the roles of political women in the High Middle Ages, demonstrating the intersection of gender, power, authority, and legitimacy in successful state formation. The Plan of the Book This study is organized both chronologically and thematically. The first chapter is dedicated to the life and experiences of Leonor of England, Berenguela’s most important model of queenship. The chapter also introduces the study of the arras, or marriage endowment, as a significant source of information on secular women in Iberia. Chapter 2 explores Berenguela’s betrothal to Conrad of Rothenburg and her marriage to Alfonso IX of León. It especially interrogates the significance of those arrangements for Berenguela’s position as an heir to the Castilian throne and as a married queen. Chapter 3 proceeds chronologically through the years 1197 to the beginning of 1217. During this time, Berenguela was married to Alfonso IX, bore five children, and eventually was forced by Pope Innocent III to end the consanguineous marriage. She returned to Castile and became regent for her brother Enrique I in 1214, although she was compelled to relinquish the regency. The chapter explores her queenship in León and her potential as regent. Chapter 4 continues this political narrative; when Enrique I died in 1217, Berenguela found herself
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heir to the throne and facing continued rebellion. Grappling with the typical yet inadequate characterization of Berenguela’s “abdication,” the chapter analyzes her establishment of her son Fernando as king, the stabilization of Castile, and the eventual unification of Castile and León. The last two chapters explore the themes of crusade and memorial culture. Chapter 5 considers the essential roles of crusading and conquest in Berenguela’s life and her special role in legitimating and sustaining Fernando’s crusades. Chapter 6 examines the crucial function of royal women in mourning the dead and preserving family memory. The ritual functions of Castilian queenship in this “unsacred” monarchy are obscure; however, women’s role was to help maintain relationships between the living and the dead; at the highest level of society, this took on political significance.
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CHAPTER 1 MOTHERING QUEENSHIP: LEONOR OF ENGLAND, QUEEN OF CASTILE, 1161–1214
M
edieval queenship might be achieved because a woman was the wife or daughter of a king, but almost inevitably, a successful queen was a mother.1 Through her motherhood, she not only strengthened the royal lineage, but she also modeled and taught queenship and, therefore, one significant type of royal power. Thus, a queen who modeled her role for her children potentially had two gendered audiences. She demonstrated for her sons the queen’s expected roles as a wife, mother, helpmeet, and, in some instances, coruler. Her daughters might anticipate these roles as well, especially if they were to be queens themselves. But from their mother, daughters might also learn the art of intercession, management and protection of wealth, and the practice of patronage. Thus, Berenguela’s most intimate model of queenship was her mother, Leonor of England. By her direct example, Leonor demonstrated to her daughter, family, and wider Castilian community what could be expected of a certain kind of queen. She also, through her powerful natal family, reinfused Castilian royalty with their northern European identity and contextualized for Berenguela her place on the wider European stage. Leonor was, ultimately, a mother of queens, demonstrating the limitations of queens who did not actively mother reigning kings. As a daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England, Leonor was destined to serve them through her marriage; it would seal an alliance or bring prestige to her family. Her marriage to Alfonso VIII of Castile did both, at the same time that it served as the basis for her personal power. The experience of being a tool of such ambition must have been significant as Leonor prepared her daughters to be married women. Expecting no less of her own children, had she lived to see them become reigning queens, she would not have been disappointed.
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Leonor and her five daughters who lived to adulthood all spent their lives in the service of their natal, marital, and devotional families. Leonor’s life conforms to modern expectations of medieval queens, and that includes the difficulties that attend describing it. The first part of this chapter discusses what is known of her childhood and early married life, her marriage endowment, and her motherhood. The second part focuses on her activities as queen. She typifies many elite medieval women in that, through her patronage, her use of resources as well as her personal predilections become apparent. Despite the visibility of Leonor’s patronage, however, historiography and legend have worked to obscure her agency. This chapter concludes by examining the fictive competition between Leonor and a Jewish woman of Toledo for the affections of Alfonso VIII, as well as for a place in history. The enduring legend of Alfonso VIII’s improbable love affair with “Beautiful Rachel” has affected understanding of Leonor’s queenship and has broader implications for medieval women’s agency. Leonor’s life suggests a triptych of interwoven themes: natal family, marital family, and household. The first two themes of natal and marital family are easily dispatched in terms of what is known about her two families and their interrelations. Leonor’s natal family, with whom she spent less than ten of her fifty-three years, never ceased to be meaningful to her. Her attention to and awareness of her natal family and her personal lineage, as well as her devotion to her marital family, complicate received ideas about the dominance of male lineage in the High Middle Ages. Leonor worked to invest her children’s lineage with her own, as she was expected to do. The third theme, of household, is more difficult to grasp; the structures and operations of Leonor’s actual household can only be discerned in its barest outlines. The concept of household, however, and even the more essentialist concept of the hearth repeatedly appear in descriptions of Leonor and her social and religious investments. Even as natal and marital families intersected, so did the king’s and queen’s households, framing the ways in which the queen’s inf luence on, access to, and cooperation with her husband were sustaining elements of Iberian monarchy. A Plantagenet Prize: Wooing Henry II Leonor was born in 1161 at Domfront in Normandy. The chronicler Robert de Torigny, abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, stood as one of her godparents and followed her life with interest.2 The eighth child and namesake of her mother Eleanor, Leonor comes to notice largely on the occasion of her marriage, when Leonor was around nine years old and her husband fifteen or sixteen. For Alfonso, the Plantagenet alliance
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brought great prestige, as well as a wife to provide a legitimate heir. Alfonso especially needed a powerful ally at the time of his marriage because of his conf lict with King Sancho VI of Navarre.3 For Henry and Eleanor, Alfonso provided a suitable, that is, royal, husband for their daughter, legitimizing their own position as royal, not simply comital.4 It is possible that the Plantagenets thought this alliance would stabilize the Pyrenean frontier of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s domains.5 Furthermore, Castilian neutrality might aid in their continual maneuvering against the powerful Capetians. In the summer of 1170, Castilian ambassadors traveled to Bordeaux to contract the marriage with Queen Eleanor and her daughter; the bridal party then proceeded to Tarazona in the kingdom of Aragón, where they were met by Alfonso of Castile.6 There, in keeping with Iberian legal custom, Alfonso confirmed Leonor’s arras, or marriage settlement, in the presence of his near relative (and his wife’s distant one) King Alfonso of Aragón.7 From Tarazona, Alfonso and Leonor went to Burgos where the wedding was celebrated. By September 17, when Alfonso and Leonor made a concession to the bishop and prior of Osma, Alfonso acted “together with my wife Queen Leonor” [una cum uxore mea Alienor regina], a partnership that would be acknowledged throughout their lives.8 Leonor’s arras is a key document for understanding much of her queenship. When they survive, records like arras agreements are invaluable to the study of secular women, whose lives might produce very few documents of any kind, especially those unrelated to the patronage of the church. Arras agreements varied in formula and scope, but they consistently represent an endowment by a husband to a wife upon marriage, in the tradition of the ancient Roman donatio propter nupcias, which they were sometimes called. Castilian noblewomen in the thirteenth century could expect up to a third of their husbands’ wealth in their arras, but this was for their use in widowhood and was not alienable. Castilian wives might receive a cash gift as well, which could be spent. Regional custom varied the amounts given and the wife’s degree of control over her dower.9 Dowries, on the other hand—that is, properties or wealth brought to the marriage by the bride—were not essential in Castile, although later claims to a dowry for Leonor remind us that they did exist. Such practices were not common until the late thirteenth century when Roman law (and Roman dowries) began to overtake Castilian custom.10 Because Christian women in Iberia received an equal share in their parents’ goods and property, they were less likely than their northern counterparts to receive a dowry at the time of their marriage. Of Leonor’s daughters who married, only Berenguela and Leonor are known to have received arras endowments from their husbands, Alfonso IX of León and Jaume I of
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Aragón and Barcelona, respectively.11 The arras that the younger Leonor received described the lands and rights given to her as queen of Aragón and countess of Barcelona, articulated the Christian and legal bases for marriage, and, like her mother’s, described the status of the spouses.12 The arras emphasized the sanctity of marriage as an institution ordained by God and the church. In this respect, Leonor’s arras was unlike her mother’s, but was more typical of other Iberian arras records, which opened with a “sermon” on the virtue of Christian marriage.13 An agreement between Jaume and Leonor, the charter was formulaically like the arras given to Leonor of England by her husband Alfonso VIII, not like either of Berenguela’s agreements, neither of which addressed the bride directly, as we shall see. Because only the senior Leonor experienced any kind of widowhood— however brief—we cannot determine the extent to which these queens enjoyed full control over their assigned wealth: the divorces of her daughters Berenguela and Leonor complicated their access to and use of their arras. This was related to the essentially political and military nature of the royal arras, which consisted mainly of castles with their pertinent estates and which set royal marriages apart from more ordinary marital economic arrangements. Support of the queen’s person was important, but ultimately her lordship served as a linchpin in the political and military networks of the kingdom. Royal marriage agreements as a genre consistently articulate the queen’s status within her two families and within her conjugal partnership. The arras provided to Leonor by Alfonso VIII is explicit on these points.14 Leonor’s arras charter not only acknowledged the important and high status relationship of Leonor to her father Henry II, but also showed that Alfonso claimed that relationship for himself, as he referred to Henry as “the illustrious king of England and my father” and to Eleanor as “my mother Eleanor, illustrious queen of England.” This language suggests that the main goal of the marriage was to bind the young Castilian king to the most powerful ruler of his day. In elaborating the significant dower lands settled on Leonor, the charter characterized them as properties befitting a “daughter of the most unconquered and ever-triumphant king of England.” Furthermore, the arras acknowledged the requirements of the queen’s household, so the young woman could live in the manner to which her status entitled her and to which she was accustomed. The queen’s partnership in ruling was also acknowledged. At age fifteen, Alfonso was already expecting great territorial gains from war against his Muslim neighbors, and he promised a full half of these to his new wife. This promise was probably based on the legal expectation that Castilian wives of any class were entitled to an equal share in the ganancias,
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or acquisitions of marriage.15 Looking to the past as well as the future, perhaps Alfonso hoped to reclaim his grandfather Alfonso VII’s title of “emperor,” for he promised that if other titles of “king” or “emperor” should come to him, his wife would also receive those honors. As a partner in ruling, the queen was acknowledged as a lord being owed homage and fidelity, as well as rents, from those nobles in tenancy of her dower lands. Leonor’s arras was enormous and included many towns, castles, and rents. In 1188, eighteen years later, Leonor’s dower lands were protected in the so-called Treaty of Seligenstadt, which was really a marriage contract constructed for Leonor and Alfonso’s daughter Berenguela. By then, however, Leonor’s lands had changed (table 1.1). The notable discrepancy between the two charters prompts at least three questions: What happened to Leonor’s relationship to the properties that disappeared between 1170 and 1188? Where did the new ones come from? Why were these changes made? The Castilian queen’s relationship to the properties in her arras is important not only for understanding the meaning of a royal arras itself, but also for determining the degree to which, enabled by wealth and lordship, the queen may have exercised independent power. It is even more significant for understanding the ways in which the queen worked with the king. By associating certain properties with the queen, the king elevated his own status. Leonor and her marriage gift legitimated Alfonso’s control of resources and political power, much in the way any act of patronage did. Without a clearer understanding of the role of the queen’s dower, especially her access to it and use of it, and without further discovery of charters relating to these properties, it is impossible to fully explain either what happened to the original elements of the queen’s dower or where the new ones came from. It is, furthermore, unclear the extent to which kings were subject to their own laws governing personal property. Alfonso VIII promulgated many fueros, which could reveal the relationship women were supposed to have to their arras, but these were still only prescriptive and did not address the special case of royalty. Later, in the Siete partidas, Alfonso X drew upon customary law when he declared that husbands and wives each should possess the gift of the other (dower or dowry), but “nevertheless the husband should be the master and have control of all the property aforesaid.” A husband was not permitted, however, to wantonly “sell, dispose of, or waste the donation which he gave his wife, or the dowry which he receives from her.”16 Although the Siete partidas reveal the growing inf luence of the practice of Roman dowry, husbands were still limited in what they could do with their wives’ property. In the few instances where Leonor’s arras properties can be traced, it
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Table 1.1 Arras of Queen Leonor Leonor’s Dower from 1170–1188
Dower appearing only in 1170
New Dower indicated in 1188
In La Rioja, & borders with Navarre: Belorado Nájera Pancorbo
In La Rioja, & borders with Navarre: Calahorra Grañón Logroño Medria Piedralada Tudela Viguera
In La Rioja, & borders with Navarre: Cellorigo Cerezo Haro Pazuengos
In the Castilian Extremadura: Peñafiel Monasterio
In the Castilian Extremadura: Atienza Hita Medina del Campo Zorita
In Castile and Asturias: Aguilar (de Campóo)a Amaya Astudillo Burgos Carrión Castrojeriz Coriel Santander
In Castile and Asturias: Aurela Avia Briza de San Juliano Cabedo Cabezón Dueñas Monzón Osma [Burgo de Osma] Peña Negra Poza [de la Vega] Saldaña Tariego Viesgo Villa Escusa [de Roa]
In Castile and Asturias: Alba de Montes de Oca Arlanzón Cirannon Frómista Magaz [de Pisuerga] Muño Orcejon Palencia de los Condes Tovia Urval Villa Franca
Castilian/Muslim Frontier: Oreja
Castilian/Muslim Frontier: Belinchón saltworks
a
Aguilar appeared in Leonor’s arras in 1170, and then again belonged to her in 1183 or 1193, and in 1208 but was not in fact listed in the Treaty of Seligenstadt in 1188. Names in brackets indicate the most likely choice among like-named locations. Italics indicate locations not on map.
appears that Alfonso felt free, perhaps with his wife’s consent, to use her arras as he would. When Alfonso married Leonor, he was just emerging from a long and difficult minority, and his marriage was one marker of his adulthood. During Alfonso’s minority, his maternal uncle, King Sancho VI of Navarre, had seized—or, from Sancho’s perspective, reclaimed—a number of castles, towns, and lands in the region of La Rioja and elsewhere along
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the border of Castile and Navarre. Alfonso, however, claimed this territory as an inheritance from his mother, Blanca of Navarre, Sancho’s sister. This seizure represented only one in a number of episodes over the previous century during which the Castilians and Navarrese contended for control of the region. By the late twelfth century, both sides could claim a historical basis for such control and authority. However, by 1170, perhaps Alfonso could take the moral high ground, as Castile’s most recent losses had occurred during his minority.17 A significant portion of Leonor’s arras was to be found in this disputed region. Thirty-three castles, regions, or cities comprised Leonor’s arras of 1170 (see table 1.1). More than a third of the castles were located in or near the contested territories of La Rioja and Alava, along the Castilian border with Navarre. The Treaty of Seligenstadt in 1188 added to Leonor’s arras Cellorigo, Haro, Cerezo, and Pazuengos, important places in this contended region (see map 1.1). The treaty also protected the Riojan castles of Belorado, Nájera, and Pancorbo, which were an old and significant part of the contest between Castile and Navarre.18 Of the three territories in Leonor’s original arras found in Castilian Extremadura, Peñafiel and Monasterio were protected by Seligenstadt.19 The rest of the arras was located in the Castilian heartland or else in the northern region of Asturias. Of these, the most significant—Burgos, Carrión, Castrojeriz, Amaya, and Coriel—were protected in Seligenstadt. Leonor’s associations with the disputed territories near Navarre suggest that the queen’s dower had strong political currency. There was, however, no particular domain associated with the queen. The changes between 1170 and 1188 indicate f lexibility regarding the queen’s exercise of power, through her access to wealth and politically or militarily important domains, and her authority, through her command of her tenants’ fidelity. The properties of Leonor’s initial arras ref lect very clearly Alfonso VIII’s efforts to reclaim the disputed castles, towns, and regions from Sancho VI. Nor can Alfonso’s later appeal to Henry II to settle the matter be separated from his choice of Leonor as wife. Perhaps, in choosing Leonor, Alfonso hoped to invest Henry’s interest in his problem more securely. In settling on her those lands vulnerable to the dispute but nonetheless important—because of their military value and because of the agricultural fertility and consequential wealth of La Rioja—he hoped to gain Henry’s attention as well. Certainly Henry and Eleanor had carefully negotiated Leonor’s marriage settlement, and probably were more willing to approve the Riojan lands than those along the riskier frontier. The case of the Muslim frontier was one of conquest and not disputed reclamations; furthermore, alliance with Henry would mean less to Alfonso’s Muslim neighbors than it did to Sancho of Navarre. Nearly
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Map 1.1
Arras of Queen Leonor
three decades later, when Leonor and Alfonso’s daughter Berenguela was married to her father’s cousin, Alfonso IX of León, a similar rationale played out in the construction of Berenguela’s arras. Then, contested lands along the Castilian-Leonese border formed the bulk of the queen’s settlement. A significant difference was that Alfonso IX was forced to award Berenguela this arras by her father as the price of peace. At the same time, the marriage secured Alfonso IX’s access to these territories through his wife. On August 25, 1176, Alfonso VIII and Sancho VI submitted their quarrel to Henry II for arbitration, and in the spring of 1177, their representatives met with Henry at Windsor.20 Alfonso’s claims were based on his grandfather Alfonso VII’s conquests and his father’s possession, and he accused Sancho of illegally abusing the position of guardian during his
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minority. Alfonso also claimed certain towns, including half of Tudela, as an inheritance from his mother, Blanca. Sancho VI based his claims on historical precedent as well.21 Henry’s decision, given Easter Sunday at London, addressed only those claims relevant to the two kings’ recent seizures: it ignored other historical, hereditary, or seigniorial claims.22 His settlement seemed largely inf luenced by the unchivalrous nature of Sancho’s actions against Alfonso while the latter was a young boy and orphan. However, Alfonso, “our beloved son,” was to return certain cities and pay a large indemnity to Sancho.23 Henry’s settlement affected only one of Leonor’s arras properties (Logroño), and did not bring about the desired peace.24 Gascony Sometime around the year 1200, after thirty years of marriage, Alfonso VIII began to press the claim that he had been promised Gascony as Leonor’s dowry. When Alfonso had married Leonor, it was unlikely that he expected a dowry, for dowries were uncommon. Indeed, Alfonso’s daughters Berenguela, Urraca, and Blanche were all married by 1200— none with a dowry. Alfonso’s claim only appeared during the reign of Leonor’s brother, John, suggesting that Alfonso was taking shrewd advantage of John’s disinterest in and difficulties with maintaining his continental lands; he was also possibly provoked by Navarrese interest in Gascony and the assignment of Berengaria of Navarre, the new wife of Richard I of England, as governor.25 The death of Eleanor of Aquitaine on April 1, 1204, made clear the way for a military incursion and probably sparked the genesis of the unlikely claim that Gascony was also an inheritance for Leonor. The Chronica latina gives the impression that, for the first thirty or so years of their marriage, Alfonso and Leonor simply assumed their eventual rights in Gascony without discussion, but states that when Alfonso married Leonor, Henry promised Gascony “with her.” In 1205, Alfonso invaded and occupied nearly all of Gascony. 26 By 1208, however, Alfonso had had enough of the whole enterprise—the land was poor and the Gascons inconstant. The only thing that made him persevere, according to the chronicler, was “love for his wife” and the fear that she might “grow sad.” Finally, the king gave up, to the great relief of the chronicler: “O happy day, one always delightful to the kingdom of Castile, on which the glorious king ceased in his perseverance and quit this undertaking!”27 Of the few charters Alfonso VIII issued concerning Gascony, none attempted to justify his efforts there, unlike his earlier charters regarding Navarre. Notably, they made no claims on behalf of Leonor, such as might explain her “rights” there, although in confirming the royal
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privileges held by the monastery of La Grand Selve, Alfonso referred vaguely to a “legal right” (pro iure) and identified Leonor as queen of the realms of Castile, Toledo, and Gascony.28 Thus, the evidence does not point to Leonor guiding foreign policy or acting in her own interests, but rather suggests that Leonor’s relationship to the Plantagenets was a way for the author of the Chronica latina, writing some thirty later, to make sense of Alfonso’s ill-conceived claims to a northern kingdom. Leonor, the queen and beloved wife of a noble and otherwise prudent king, served as a convenient scapegoat as well as a model for the emotionally manipulative female. Leonor did however play a diplomatic role, linking the Castilian and English courts. In 1206, John granted her a safe conduct.29 It is unclear whether she actually traveled to meet John; if the siblings met, what did they discuss? The safe conduct may be read as an invitation to the Castilians to settle the matter of Gascony. Whether Leonor undertook, succeeded, or failed in her mission, whatever it might have been, the safe conduct demonstrates the perceived role of the queen as a peacemaker, and above all as her husband’s representative. Leonor’s role as John’s sister was important, but her role as a wife was essential: only with a wife could Alfonso claim a dowry. Alfonso’s entitlement to any claim was predicated on Leonor’s gender and the gendered notion of dowry: the claims to Gascony also correspond to a wider historical phenomenon of the resurrection of the dowry as part of marriage practice. Motherhood This military and diplomatic wrangling not only affected Leonor’s arras and her putative dowry, but it also demonstrated her education as a Castilian and as a queen. Moreover it coincided with her maternity; childbearing and providing for children became constant companions to Leonor as she carried out her obligations. Indeed, Leonor was either pregnant or had just given birth during most of the twenty-five years between 1179 and 1204. In Leonor’s day, this state of pregnancy or new motherhood fulfilled contemporary expectations. Leonor’s primary role as a queen was to be a mother, and motherhood was a companion to all her other activities. Motherhood was the main role that Leonor modeled for her daughters: for all of them, except the nun Constanza, motherhood was at the core of their identity. For Berenguela and Blanche, it was also a source of great power. Like her mother before her, Leonor had many children: at least ten, possibly more.30 Berenguela was the eldest, probably born in early 1180. Her birth was followed at fairly regular intervals by those of Sancho
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(1181), Sancha (1182?–84), Urraca (1187–1220), Blanca (Blanche) (1188– 1252), Fernando (1189–1211), possibly Mafalda (died 1204), possibly another Sancha (c. 1199), Constanza (1199?–1243), Leonor (1200?–46), and Enrique (1204–17).31 Berenguela was born when Leonor was around nineteen. Enrique, the last, was born in 1204, when his mother was forty-three. As the eldest child of Alfonso VIII and Leonor of England, Berenguela was precious, especially because the lives of subsequent sons turned out to be precarious. Sancho was born in the spring of 1181 but was dead by midsummer. Fernando died of a fever, and Enrique from a head wound. As early as July 1, 1181, Berenguela’s father demonstrated her status by including her in the intitulation of his charters.32 Berenguela appeared in this role in her father’s charters thirty-two times over the next eight years, when her brother Fernando was born in late 1189, replacing her as heir.33 It is true that this acknowledgment appears inconsistently in the extant charters, but two periods of emphasis can be discerned, hinting at the possibility that the frequency of Berenguela’s acknowledgment corresponded to the courts’ anxiety about or resignation to her status. Eight of the charters appear in 1181, after Sancho’s death.34 Over the years, Berenguela was joined by sisters Sancha, Urraca, and Blanca, demonstrating Leonor’s fecundity. Berenguela was acknowledged, sometimes along with her sisters, on a nearly annual basis, until l189, when a second cluster of fourteen charters appears.35 These come on the heels of Alfonso’s declaration of Berenguela as the heir to Castile in the Treaty of Seligenstadt, discussed more thoroughly in the next chapter. This emphasis on Berenguela’s status also appears, however, just after the birth of what may have been a mildly disappointing fourth daughter, Blanca. To all appearances, the court reconciled itself to Berenguela’s status as heir to the throne. Although born before Sancho, Berenguela only began to be recognized following his death in July of 1181, and this acknowledgment was emphasized when it seemed Leonor might not produce a son. Berenguela’s presence and consent in the charters reiterated the child’s status, and perhaps was even more important for a daughter, whose gender made her more vulnerable, than for a son. Leonor’s “mothering” of her children was shared, if not delegated—at least regarding her female children. On May 1, 1181, Alfonso and Leonor gave some land to Berenguela’s nurse, Estefanía, and her husband, possibly in return for Estefanía’s services as a wet nurse. Thus, this gift may mark an approximate age of weaning.36 In 1190, a gift to Blanca’s nurse, Sancha López, perhaps marked the occasion of that infanta’s weaning.37 It is difficult to know whether Estefanía and Sancha were wet nurses; in 1189, Alfonso and Leonor endowed one Doña Elvira with properties
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“at the request of my daughter” for her “nursing” of Berenguela. Elvira was described as “nutricis,” but since Berenguela was nine years old at the time, clearly Elvira was a sort of nanny or foster mother, not a wet nurse.38 A similar tutorial function must have been served by Urraca’s nurse, another Doña Sancha, rewarded for her services in 1203 with property in Castroverde, when her charge was around sixteen years old and may already have been married.39 The rapid rate at which Leonor bore her children suggests that she did not nurse them herself; the same patterns are apparent in her daughters’ lives. Notwithstanding the abundant contemporary rhetoric of the virtues of mother’s milk, it seems likely that none of these royal women nursed their daughters for any length of time. They remained healthy and appear to have had many healthy and long-lived offspring (although each lost at least one infant).40 Remarkably, there are no references to wet nurses for Leonor’s sons. There was, furthermore, an unusual hiatus between the births of the Infante Fernando and his next sister. More significantly, chroniclers like Rodrigo were exuberant in their assertions that Leonor’s daughters Berenguela and Blanche nursed their own sons. The claim that Berenguela nursed Fernando comes in the context of an encomium to her virtues as a mother, and the transference of those virtues to her son as an adult, and is not necessarily meant to imply that she actually breastfed him. However, the lack of information about nurses for Leonor’s very important sons suggests she may have nursed them herself. If she did, this would clearly indicate the high value set on sons. In the long run, Leonor’s mothering seems to have been very much limited to an almost spectacular fecundity; her physical experience of mothering very young children was marked by mortality and some degree of distance. That she had an intense interest in her children, however, is without a doubt. Her grief at her son Fernando’s death, discussed below, and her activity on Berenguela’s behalf demonstrate how her mothering was one element of her queenship, through which she promoted the interests of her family. Una cum uxore mea: Partnership and Family Rule Christian kings in Iberia did not present themselves as rulers alone; they incorporated their heirs as well as their wives into their public identity. Royal charters consistently invoked a royal “we”—a married couple, or parents and children—a family. That these kings had shared power with their wives and were still doing so by the thirteenth century is not surprising in a culture and political system dominated by Visigothic legal ideals regarding family life, shared marital acquisitions, and partible inheritance.
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Leonor was consistently acknowledged as ruling with her husband both within the court and beyond it. Their children were also frequently included, sometimes as mere infants, in the intitulation or dating of royal and private charters. Through this practice the king, his chancellors, and other (mainly monastic and clerical) authorities asserted the family, a specific moment in the lineage, as the ruling unit. Thus, in Alfonso’s charters from the time of his marriage, he most often acted “together with my wife Queen Leonor.” Nonroyal documents also frequently described a partnership between king and queen, widely acknowledging that they were made at the time when King Alfonso ruled “together with his wife, Queen Leonor, in Burgos and in Toledo and in Castile and in his entire kingdom.”41 Leonor herself confirmed a few royal charters early in her marriage, but this practice seems to have ceased completely after 1176. Nothing in the charters she confirmed (gifts to Silos, the Order of Santiago, and La Vid, respectively) shows a special relationship to Leonor.42 Rather, early in Leonor’s queenship, we may see a ref lection of earlier chancery practice. Leonor’s predecessor as queen of Castile should have been Blanca of Navarre, the wife of Sancho III and mother of Alfonso VIII. Although Blanca died before her father-in-law Alfonso VII and thus never became queen, she did regularly confirm a large proportion of her husband’s charters.43 After 1176, Leonor was included in the intitulation of the vast majority of her husband’s charters, as he acted una cum uxore mea. Since later queens did not regularly confirm their husbands’ charters, it seems that Leonor’s queenship witnessed a brief experiment in chancery practice. The cessation of her confirming does not signify a decline in the queen’s status, however. Rather, this shift from confirming to appearing in the intitulation provokes reinterpretation of the queen’s role in issuing royal charters. She did not need to confirm charters that she actually issued with her husband—in precisely the same way that the king did not witness them. Heath Dillard has suggested that such “routine” inclusion indicated the realities of a married partnership, whether royal or not: the king routinely included the queen in his charters of gifts, donations, exchanges, or purchases, because of his wife’s full partnership in ruling as well as in controlling their property.44 One pair of charters involving Leonor’s patronage of the cult of St. Thomas Becket—a cult that surely had personal meaning for a daughter of Henry II—demonstrates how Leonor’s activity might be obscured by charter practice. In April of 1179, Leonor took under her protection the altar of St. Thomas of Canterbury at the cathedral in Toledo and its properties.45 This chapel had been endowed initially in July 1177 by the powerful count Nuño Pérez de Lara and his wife, Teresa Fernández, at
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the siege of Cuenca; Nuño Pérez died at the siege soon thereafter.46 Why Nuño Pérez and Teresa Fernández chose to make this particular bequest is worth investigating. Although Becket’s cult had spread as early as 1171, even before his canonization in 1173, little evidence shows its presence in Iberia that early. However, another important participant at the siege of Cuenca was Bishop Jocelyn of Sigüenza, a native of Aquitaine, who endowed what may have been the first Castilian chapel dedicated to Thomas Becket.47 Did he suggest this innovative donation? Another clue to the impetus behind this gift lies in a charter issued by Alfonso VIII and Leonor one year after Nuño’s death, confirming the donations of Nuño and Teresa for the Toledan Thomas chapel and stating that kings ought to confirm their vassals’ donations “especially however these which for the remission of crimes against churches and ecclesiastical persons were lawfully given and conceded.”48 Although the particular crimes of the couple go unnamed, it seems likely that penitent donors might seek Thomas Becket as their special patron, especially with the encouragement of a local bishop of Aquitanian extraction and an English queen. Soon after this confirmation, Nuño Pérez’s widow Teresa Fernández married King Fernando II of León.49 This highly political marriage shifted the balance of power between Castile and León. Teresa’s sons followed her to León and became important political actors there; the Lara family’s traditional competitors, the Castro, replaced them at the Castilian court. It was at this juncture, perhaps, that Leonor either seized the idea or was encouraged to take over the protection of the Saint Thomas chapel in Toledo. The speed with which she did so and the fact that it was she who did it, and not her husband (despite his earlier confirmations), emphasize her personal connections to Becket’s cult and possibly to Teresa as well. Teresa’s husband Nuño had been an inf luential tutor and advisor to Alfonso VIII from the king’s childhood; Teresa certainly would have been an important figure at the court when Leonor arrived there as a young girl. Furthermore, Teresa and Nuño had a daughter named Leonor—a very unusual name in Castile before the advent of the Plantagenet princess. If this daughter was born after 1170, such naming might suggest an early patronage relationship, perhaps even one of godparentage, between the new queen and the experienced countess. Teresa may have suggested the young queen take over the chapel upon her departure for León. In 1181, Alfonso reiterated the protection.50 As historian Theresa Vann points out, the language of the two charters reverses the protagonists: Leonor initiated royal sponsorship with her husband; later, he acted in concert with her.51 This pair of charters demonstrates a queen in control of her resources and a continued attention to her family’s affairs in
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England. The first charter was written by Leonor’s chancellor, Gil, suggesting her more personal involvement. Although the charters state that she and Alfonso were acting “for the health and redemption of our souls,” their later gifts to Fontevrault also demonstrate their special concern for the salvation of Leonor’s father. Becket’s cult did not become as popular in Iberia as in England or even France or Germany, although a small number of altars and churches can be identified there before the year 1200.52 In the two cases above (of Bishop Jocelyn, and of Nuño Pérez and Teresa Fernández) when a founder can be identified, both an elite and an English-Aquitanian connection emerge. The timing of Leonor’s protection in the spring of 1179 furthermore roughly corresponds to the time she first became pregnant and surely recalled to the queen the interconnections between natal and marital family. It is doubtful that the pair of Saint Thomas charters is a unique instance of Leonor’s activity, and this doubt opens the door for interpreting Alfonso’s actions una cum uxore mea as something beyond the merely formulaic. Yes, such phrases followed chancery formulas, but they also described a political reality: one hinted at by the Toledan charters. How many other charters were similar reiterations of earlier donations initiated by Leonor? A 1203 Arabic record of the purchase of a house in Toledo made on Leonor’s behalf indicates that the house was then to be given to the female Cistercian monastery of San Clemente. Although the purchase charter exists, the donation charter does not. There are, however, at least two extant charters issued by Alfonso VIII una cum uxore mea, which put San Clemente and its belongings under royal protection; indeed, in 1179, the monarchs had committed the monastery to the Cistercians, presaging their foundation of Las Huelgas the next year.53 Perhaps Leonor’s demonstrated interest in the monastery of San Clemente prompted her husband’s promulgation of these surviving charters. That Leonor maintained a strong, consistent relationship with her natal family is without doubt. In addition to their protection of the altar of St. Thomas, she and Alfonso made gifts to Fontevrault where Henry II was buried. Leonor received a safe conduct to visit her brother John during the conf lict over Gascony; she received a visit from her mother Eleanor of Aquitaine when the latter came to choose a bride for the French prince Louis in 1200. From 1176 to 1193, Leonor’s cleric Juan attended the important studium generale at Northampton. In this period, the schools at Northampton rivaled Oxford, and the Pipe Rolls of Henry II and Richard reveal large sums spent there in support of Juan, “cleric of Leonor, queen of Spain.” Juan provides an early example of royal women’s patronage of education and underscores Leonor’s continued connection to her English origins.54
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Despite her international connections, none of the extant treaties between Alfonso VIII and the other kings of Iberia mentioned Leonor, nor did they assert that Alfonso acted in union with his wife. Likewise, Alfonso’s letters to other dignitaries, such as the pope or the king of France, did not mention Leonor. The one exception proves the rule; this was the Treaty of Seligenstadt, which arranged the marriage of Leonor and Alfonso’s minor daughter Berenguela to Conrad, son of Emperor Frederick I. In this so-called treaty, Berenguela was recognized as the heir to the throne of Castile. Leonor, as both her daughter’s guardian and as a dowered wife, was also invested in this agreement, which as discussed above, explicitly protected her arras properties. The probability that this treaty was prepared at the German court further exempts it from comparison with Alfonso VIII’s other political and military treaties, which were exclusively with other Iberian powers and prepared locally.55 Leonor was thus Alfonso’s companion in rulership in a domestic way; she was involved in religious donations, in rewarding followers, and in the futures of her children—none of which can be divorced from the political life of the kingdom. But the queen was not presented as the king’s companion in ruling when it came to foreign policy. Notwithstanding such limitation, Alfonso VIII relied on his wife. His will of December 1204 indicated that Leonor was to corule with their son Fernando if Alfonso died. While the kingdom was given to Fernando, Alfonso commanded that both his son and the kingdom should be in Leonor’s custody. This language of corule continues through the testament to the conclusion: “and I command this to be fulfilled by the queen my wife and by my son F[ernando] and by all of my vassals.”56 In 1204, Fernando was fifteen years old—about the same age Alfonso had been when he married and asserted his independence from his tutors. Alfonso’s insistence on Leonor’s full participation in executing his will and in governing after his death ref lects expectations of Leonor’s continued corule, as well as the premise that the realm was in the hands of a family and needed more than one person at its head. In this case, especially because the infante was unmarried (as well as inexperienced) his mother was to play a dominant role in this partnership. The first order of business of Alfonso’s will was to once again protect Leonor’s arras in its entirety; unfortunately, here the properties were not listed. The inheritance of Alfonso’s grandson, Fernando, son of Berenguela of Castile and Alfonso IX of León, was also protected. Queen Leonor and Infante Fernando were to fully correct any wrongs Alfonso might have committed in anger or hatred and were to restore a number of castles and territories to the king of Navarre, although none related to Leonor’s arras. “I know indeed,” confessed Alfonso, “all these properties belong to the
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king of Navarre.”57 Leonor and Fernando should restore various ecclesiastical properties and distribute gifts to the poor, including to the poorest Cistercian monasteries. Alfonso’s silver was to be turned into chalices, including four each for Las Huelgas and the cathedral of Toledo. Leonor and Fernando were to pay the king’s personal debts, including some very large ones to various members of his curia. Alfonso’s will refers to a list of debts “a copy of which the lady queen has,” suggesting a hands-on role regarding royal finances for the queen; as the king’s widow, she may have been liable for his personal debts.58 Later, in 1208, Alfonso issued a brief charter concerning the payment of debts in the event of his death from the rents of Toledo, Monte Magan, and his saltworks. Therein he decreed that Leonor was to control the rents and to use them to meet his debts “in whatever way she shall think best.”59 The king’s personal debts were the responsibility of his wife, and he was confident in her competence. The king’s will of 1204 was designed to lend stability to the next reign by meeting all financial, political, and spiritual obligations, and the queen was the person he most trusted to ensure that stability. Clearly, Leonor was intended to have a powerful widowhood. Patronage: Intersections of Wealth, Faith, Hearth, and Household Leonor met her obligations as the king’s wife, as a prolific bearer of children, and a partner in ruling. Her patronage, especially associated with the Cistercian Order and the city of Burgos, rounds out the portrait of her queenship. By the 1180s, Leonor and Alfonso began to seek ways to demonstrate their importance, naturally turning to their relationship with the church. They took special interest in the Cistercian Order and focused their patronage particularly on women of that order. The rationale and dynamics of their endowment of what became a royal pantheon, which established a long-lasting framework for Castilian royal women’s patronage, will be discussed below in the context of royal women’s grief and remembering. Here, however, Leonor’s life and queenship contextualizes her patronage, especially the foundation of Santa María la Real, more commonly known as Las Huelgas. Eleanor of Aquitaine’s favored institution of Fontevrault may have inspired Leonor’s initiation of Las Huelgas of Burgos.60 Leonor was aware of the ways in which Fontevrault served as both a family refuge and mausoleum, and she patronized the convent. On June 30, 1190, for example, Leonor and her husband conceded an annual rent to Fontevrault for prayers for the soul of Leonor’s father Henry.61 Leonor’s desire to patronize female religious houses culminated in the construction of the abbey of Las Huelgas. Archbishop Rodrigo reported
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that the monastery was built “at the insistence of [Alfonso’s] most serene wife Queen Leonor”; Alfonso X’s history noted that his great-grandfather built the monastery “because of the many pleadings and because of the great affection of the very noble Queen Leonor, his wife.”62 The passages from Rodrigo’s De rebus Hispanie and the Primera crónica general imply that Leonor had begun this project, developed “great affection” for it, and encouraged her husband to officially endow it. On June 1, 1187, Alfonso, Leonor, and their daughters Berenguela and Urraca thus endowed the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas on the outskirts of Burgos—a city that was part of Leonor’s arras. This royal convent was to become an occasional home for women of the court, as well as a family necropolis. Its endowment, unusual in that the abbess exercised very independent powers, became the most important donation of Leonor and Alfonso to the church, and in turn inf luenced the patronage of their daughters. Leonor’s patronage extended to the foundation of the “Hospital del Rey” in Burgos. The foundation charter for the royal hospital of Burgos is not extant, but probably the pilgrims’ hospice built along the Camino de Santiago near Las Huelgas was in full operation by the end of the first decade of the thirteenth century. Alfonso and Leonor’s charters of gifts, privileges, and administration consistently evoke three principles behind this royal foundation.63 First, the founders were keenly aware of the need, in Burgos, for the sustenance of poor pilgrims along the Camino, and many of the charters are explicit about this purpose: “for the reception and feeding of the poor.”64 The second important characteristic of Alfonso’s charters to the royal hospital is that, with one unremarkable exception, they begin in 1211 following the death of the Infante Fernando.65 Several charters, especially from November 1211, eloquently and pathetically evoke the parental and royal loss. Although all religious donations acknowledged the donors’ hopes of salvation for themselves and other family members, the series to the hospital in 1211 focuses particularly on the Infante Fernando who, the charters lament, was prevented by death from assuming his royal inheritance.66 Two of these charters mention that the infante himself had particularly favored this foundation, and thus his parents’ attention to the hospital after his death was especially appropriate.67 The third important characteristic of the charters is not remarkable in and of itself, but when combined with other evidence may sustain some new conclusions about the foundation of the hospital. It seems likely that the main supporter, and perhaps founder, of the hospital was not King Alfonso, the name “Hospital del Rey” notwithstanding, but rather his wife, Queen Leonor. Above all other characteristics—mentions of the poor or mourning the infante—the one consistent characteristic of the
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hospital charters is that Alfonso describes the hospital as that which “my dearest wife the queen and I built.”68 Consistently, the first person plural construximus is used, and consistently the subject is the king and his wife. This is not the proverbial “royal we”; rather, comparable to other charters evoking corule, it explicitly refers to Leonor’s full involvement with the foundation. Other sources not only substantiate this involvement but elaborate, identifying Leonor as the founder and main royal patron of the hospital. Donations in 1209 explicitly identify the foundation as the “Ospital de la Regina.”69 Gifts and sales of land to the hospital in 1210, moreover, show Leonor receiving properties on behalf of the hospital.70 One such transaction in 1212 explicitly identified Leonor as the “founder of this Royal Hospital.” 71 These qualifications of the hospital as “de la Regina domna Alienor” and of Leonor as a representative of the hospital continued up through 1214, the year of her death, ending with a purchase of some mills acquired by the queen for the hospital.72 In the public eye, it was Leonor who represented the royal couple to the hospital. What sketchy evidence exists from the fractious reign of Alfonso and Leonor’s son Enrique I does not reveal any royal interest in the hospital. By the reign of Fernando III, reference to the hospital as “de la Regina” disappears, although the king’s mother Berenguela remained involved with the institution, perhaps even as its primary royal representative.73 The three major chroniclers of Fernando III’s reign writing their histories in the 1230s and 1240s could only conceive of this foundation as “of the king,” and historians have followed their lead ever since, overlooking Leonor as the joint, or even primary, founder of the hospital.74 Until the discovery of more documentation, the nature of the early foundation of the royal hospital of Burgos remains an open question. The example of Leonor’s patronage of the hospital demonstrates how the cooperative agenda of the royal couple might obscure the queen’s agency. In a kingdom like Castile where royal wives and mothers actively partnered their husbands and sons, queenship did not require complete, identifiable independence, nor full equality, especially in the written record.75 Such practices have, in turn, suggested to historians a very different view of female spheres of action. Leonor’s patronage was intimately linked to her roles as a daughter and a mother and expressed itself most fully in the establishment of Las Huelgas, a metaphorical and practical home. In this regard, her patronage framed her household, which was itself a venue for expressing secular patronage; members of the queen’s household derived status from their association with her. The same problems appearing to obscure the queen’s independent activity in patronage attend a full description of her household; the queen did not often act separately from her husband and
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thus did not produce a number of documents that might normally mention her own officials. The historian Jaime de Salazar y Acha suggests that a separate queen’s household was an innovation in Castile with Leonor’s queenship and notes the decidedly domestic nature of the services supplied by her household: those associated with prayer, food, and accounts. The implication is that her household was not “political” but instead feminized and unrelated to governing. However it may be that Leonor was the first Castilian queen with a separate household, the king’s and queen’s households remained entwined. Thus, if the paradigm of corulership is extended to royal households, this perspective on an apparently “private”—that is obscure or invisible—household changes. If Leonor coruled and was intended to be a regent, it seems likely that her household was important to her exercise of power and that she had full access to and use of the king’s household.76 Although the queen was surrounded by a number of officials, they represented only a superficial group of those who actually served her, because her household was not entirely separated from the king’s. In this period, a royal or elite household was comprised of not only personal attendants but also noble officials who held specific honors. First and foremost was the majordomo, who was in charge of the household itself and was typically a great nobleman. Other officials included a chancellor, a notary, a chaplain (sometimes the same person), a porter, a merino (a deputy who represented the queen in her lands), a butler, and a dispensero (in charge of purchasing and expenses). The role of the queen’s majordomo was for a time the purview of one family, being filled first by Martín González de Contreras, and then by his sons García and Rodrigo. The privilege of serving the queen was great, and such a position would not be relinquished easily. Leonor’s last majordomo, García Fernández, continued to serve her daughter Berenguela and her grandson Fernando in this role. He was also the tutor of Fernando’s son Infante Alfonso, and his son Juan García became Alfonso X’s majordomo.77 Thus, García Fernández linked royal generations. The heritability of the office of majordomo supplied a potential power base within a family group. Not surprisingly, the individuals most explicitly identified with Leonor were men, presumably nobles or prelates who garnered great prestige from the queen’s service and who identified themselves accordingly in their own activities. The apparent infrequency with which Leonor’s noble associates confirmed royal charters suggests that when they did, it concerned a matter near the queen’s interest and perhaps under her inf luence or control. A number of individuals identified themselves expressly as being in her
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service, and significant provision was made in her arras for the operation of her chamber. However, many women and married couples involved in the criazón, or personal service of the king, may have had a special relationship with the queen as well. The most obvious example would be Juliana, who “did not cease to serve faithfully and most devotedly, both night and day” and was rewarded “for the love of and at the request of my beloved wife Queen Leonor” by the king in late January 1180.78 Was Juliana a lady-in-waiting? A midwife? The gift coincides with the presumed date of the Infanta Berenguela’s birth.79 Alfonso also rewarded Martín González de Contreras, Leonor’s majordomo, and his wife María for similarly described services on February 13, 1179.80 Other women, such as the infantas’ nurses mentioned above and the wives of men rewarded for their service to Alfonso, may have actually served Leonor. The greatest activity on the part of Leonor’s household, however, apparently took place not at the royal court, but in association with the convent of Las Huelgas. Charters from Las Huelgas reveal Leonor’s butler, dispensero, chaplain, notary, porter, merino, and scribe (table 1.2).81 The Las Huelgas charters provide a unique body of evidence and ref lect the very special nature of Las Huelgas as a type of royal, female household in and of itself. It may be seen as a special ref lection of the queen’s household as its very name implies: “Las Huelgas” seems to come from the word “holgar,” or hearth.82 In late September 1214, Alfonso, Leonor, their daughters Berenguela and Leonor, their surviving son Enrique, and grandsons Fernando and Table 1.2
Queen Leonor’s Household
Name
Position
Dates
Martín González de Contreras Martín García García Martínez de Contreras Rodrigo Martínez de Contreras Álvaro Pérez García Fernández de Villamayor a Gil Pedro, Archdeacon of Avila Martín Pedro Caro, merino of Burgos Esteban Pedro Martínez de Arconada Domingo Álvaro Rodríguez Aparicio
Majordomo Majordomo Majordomo Majordomo Majordomo Majordomo Chancellor Chaplain/Notary Merino Butler Dispensero Porter Scribe “of the queen” “queen’s man”
1179 1187 1188 1203 1207 1214 1179 1198 1207 1187 1197 1204 1207 1183 1202
a
Continued to serve Berenguela after 1214.
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Alfonso were en route to visit the Portuguese court, when King Alfonso became fatally ill. The party stopped in the small village of Gutierre Muñoz, near Avila, where the king died. The obsequies following his death will be explored in chapter 6. Leonor’s immediate, official role was that of regent; the eleven-year-old Enrique was now king. Leonor herself, however, died only weeks later, on October 30. Possibly succumbing to the same unexpected illness that had killed her husband, she may have been ill throughout her brief regency. Leonor’s only significant act from this period was to entrust the regency of king and kingdom to her eldest daughter, Berenguela, the former queen of León. How to See a Queen: Representations From the perspective of her near contemporaries, Leonor seems to have met, and even surpassed, conventional expectations.83 Indeed, Vann suggested that Leonor served as a model for the ideal queen described in Alfonso X’s Siete partidas.84 How Leonor would have represented herself is less certain, although it is likely that she too would have wished to project an ideal. The images of medieval queens projected through their use of seals have been a profitable avenue for the study of their self-image and practice of power and authority in medieval France and could be as well for Castile.85 Leonor’s extant seal, attached to the Toledan St. Thomas charter, fits with those described by Brigitte Bedos Rezak for French queens and noblewomen and may well have been produced in imitation of Leonor’s mother’s seal.86 Leonor’s seal presents a striking image of a crowned woman, whose f lowing, clingy robes suggest motion as well as a feminine body. Facing directly or striding forward, she holds in her right hand a plant or f lower, probably a f leur-de-lis. Rezak has explained such use of the f leur-de-lis as referring to the Tree of Jesse, signaling a Marian role for women as crucial links in a royal lineage. Such symbolism fits with a general pattern of women’s seals, depicting them as biological, not social forces.87 The state of Leonor’s seal complicates interpretation of the queen’s left hand: she is possibly holding her cloak or an object of some sort. French seals often show the queen holding a bird—a dove or a falcon. Leonor may also be holding a cup or a chalice.88 Alternatively, her left hand may be awkwardly raised facing the viewer—a reverse image of the signo rodado of the queen also found on the same charter (figure 1.1). The Iberian practice of sealing by means of the signo rodado, or the round seal, that was drawn on charters provides another avenue of selfdisplay. Royal chanceries singled out and developed consistent representations of the king, such as the castle of Castile or the lion of León; thus, the seal referred to royal image rather than to the content of a charter (figure 1.2).89 Leonor’s signo rodado uniquely depicts a hand with long,
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Figure 1.1 Seal of Queen Leonor
pointy fingernails and an elegantly draped wrist, surrounded by the simple motto “Sign of Leonor Queen of Toledo, Castile and Extremadura” (Signum Alionoris Regine Toleti Castelle et Extramature). The open hand was a heraldic symbol of liberality and largesse, and thus in this case the seal
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Figure 1.2 Signo Rodado of Queen Leonor
reiterated the content of the charter symbolically.90 Leonor is represented as a patron. The open hand, however, has other attributes. While the feminine hand with its distinct manicure signals Leonor’s gender, the image of a hand signified above all a measure of strength and authority.91 Leonor’s daughter Berenguela took a different route in her use of the signo, copying the seal used by her father, a cross within a circle, and adding her own motto. In the context of the increasingly elaborate and uniform royal signos, the drawings served as one type of articulation of these women’s self-image. The signo rodado and its interpretation make starkly clear the superficiality of any portrait of Leonor as an individual: such a portrait is bound to be two-dimensional, disarticulated, and speculative. The record of her motivations, personality, and self-concept is obscured by, even as it was formulated by, her performance as a queen, patron, and mother. No words, other than those formulaic few in the charters she issued or witnessed, are attributed to her. When she seems to have a voice in poetry or in chronicles, she is never actually quoted; rather, her interactions and requests are reported in the third person.92 In the spring of 1190, hoping to secure the patronage of Alfonso VIII and Leonor, the troubadour Guillem de Bergued addressed her in the courtly tradition: “You, lady, noble and kind queen, empress, do not believe that I abstain from loving you; rather I say openly that I am your man, openly and with abandon.”93 Through such performances Leonor and her children learned to appreciate praise and understand the obscure,
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highly refined discourse of courtly f lattery. More importantly, they were sensitized to cultural ideas of both female power and weakness; whether they felt constrained by such messages attempting to relegate women’s inf luence to their patronage and their sex appeal is doubtful. Although the marriage of Leonor and Alfonso may have occasioned a reinvigoration of Provençal poetry in Castile through Leonor’s inf luence on her husband as a patron, and Leonor herself enjoyed some fame among troubadours, it seems more fruitful to consider the impact of the troubadours’ descriptions of Leonor as an ideal queen than to try to discern her hand in shaping that image through patronage.94 “When the court was assembled, then Queen Leonor arrived, whose person none had seen before. She came closely wrapped in a beautiful and well-made mantle of silk cloth, which is called a ciclatón; it was red with a silver edge and was embroidered with a golden lion. She bowed before the king and then she sat to one side, a little removed from him.” 95 Thus, the Provençal poet Ramón Vidal de Besalú described Leonor’s arrival at court. She appears as a lady: wealthy, beautiful, and modest. She arrives without speaking, but makes her presence felt by waiting for the full court to assemble before showing herself. She defers to her husband King Alfonso and sits “a little removed from him.” Although her relationship to the king is ambiguous—she completes the court, but at the same time is a “little removed” (ad una part, lonhet de lui)—she demonstrates for all to see one source of her power: her connection to her natal family, the Plantagenets, through their symbol of the lion or leopard.96 Her body is appropriately covered in a luxurious cloth, but at the same time revealed by a form-fitting gown.97 In these respects, Leonor appears as an ideal of medieval queenship. The description lacks only reference to her maternity and her piety. Those queenly attributes already had been clearly demonstrated to the world by the time Besalú offered his tribute, most likely after Leonor’s death in 1214.98 The poet’s emphasis on Leonor’s relationship to the king and to her natal family ref lects important elements of Iberian queenly identity, perhaps formulated in Leonor’s own lifetime. Alfonso and Leonor’s court may have served as a sort of crucible for courtly culture, and both are credited with the patronage of court poets; through this patronage, they chose to be represented as having a close, personal relationship, if not a romance. The king and queen clearly cooperated with each other, and Leonor was able to inf luence her husband, even as he must have inf luenced her: mutual respect is evident. They appear to have spent most of their time together, responding to the needs of government and family life. Their tomb, a double construction, finished probably decades after their death, powerfully evokes closeness
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and perhaps even a loving relationship—a perception promoted by their family.99 That this perception endured is evidenced by Alfonso X, when he described his great-grandmother as “Queen Leonor, the very noble and much loved wife of King Alfonso.”100 While in his writings Alfonso habitually endowed his female ancestors with wisdom, strength, nobility, and greatness, among other virtues, he did not generally dwell upon their personal relationships. The true nature of the relationship between Leonor and Alfonso is unknowable, but it was held out as an ideal to successive generations—with one exception, as we shall see. Later historians saw in Alfonso and Leonor’s relationship an exemplar of marital fidelity and love, such as they would also remark in the relationship between their daughter, Blanche of Castile and her husband Louis VIII of France: “never a queen so loved her lord.”101 Such a companionate marriage probably originated in the education, or upbringing, of these couples, who were essentially raised together. Blanche and Louis were twelve and thirteen, respectively, when they married, and Leonor and Alfonso were also young, nine and about sixteen—although at six or seven years older than she, Alfonso must have seemed much more mature to Leonor. They were taught to “love” each other. This “very loving” and clearly productive relationship has, however, been subject to one historiographic shadow, and that is the legend of Alfonso’s adultery with a Jewish woman of Toledo, eventually endowed with the name Raquel Fermosa (“Beautiful Rachel.”) The legend does not appear in any contemporary chronicles, but was introduced into the historical record by Sancho IV around 1292 in his instructions to his son, known as the Castigos para bien vivir.102 Over time it became distilled as the story of Alfonso’s seven-year entanglement during the 1170s, resulting in God’s wrath expressed through defeat at the Battle of Alarcos and Raquel’s murder by the nobles of Castile, the deaths of Alfonso’s sons, and finally Alfonso’s repentance and construction of Las Huelgas. Historians have taken the story’s absence from early histories, such as Rodrigo’s, as a sign of the fictitious nature of the legend or, alternatively, as a sign of its repression. More concretely, extant charters belie the notion that Alfonso was ensconced in Toledo, absent from all demands of government for seven years; prosopographical examinations of the Jewish population of Toledo in this period do not enable the identification of Raquel, and the cause and effects of the wrath of God and Alfonso’s penitence do not fit with the dates of construction for Las Huelgas (endowed 1187) and the Battle of Alarcos (fought 1195).103 For these reasons, most historians have dismissed the story as legend, but it has continued a lively career in the realms of literature and drama. David Nirenberg has recently argued that the development of the legend
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ref lects a particular late-thirteenth-century anxiousness about private access to the king (including by powerful queens and royal favorites, privados)—personified by the Jewish Raquel.104 However, the legend’s endurance and amplification may also be understood in terms of historical ideas about women as purveyors of sin (the Jew Raquel) or salvation (the queen Leonor or the nuns at Las Huelgas), as well as postmedieval ideas about racial purity (in Spain the pursuit of limpieza de sangre, or cleanness of blood). Literature is permitted to say what history is not— the height of interest in the legend of beautiful Raquel seems to be in the Spanish Golden Age, ref lecting a political culture obsessed with racial purity and embracing the expulsion of Jews.105 The legend of Raquel Fermosa uniquely sheds doubt on the relationship between Leonor and Alfonso, and it does so spectacularly. It emphasizes, among other things, any queen’s vulnerability in the event of infertility: the legend is placed squarely in the years before Leonor began bearing children. It highlights the nature of woman as “other”—“Raquel” is Jewish, beautiful, and the cause of sin. And it removes Leonor from the role of patron of Las Huelgas—the abbey results from the king’s penitence for his adultery, which was primarily a sin against God, and then only secondarily against his wife. Historiographically, then, the legend serves to obscure women’s subjectivity, even as it places the essential woman, the other, as a central cause of sin. That the legend has continued to find appeal through literature and drama further substantiates this. The legend reduces the queen’s domain of power and authority to a domestic, sexual one, and may find its tenacity, if not its origins, in a rejection of female initiative. In Florián de Ocampo’s sixteenthcentury edition of the Primera crónica general, this rejection of female initiative was an elaboration of Sancho IV’s bio-genetic twist; the failure of Alfonso VIII’s purely male lineage, the eventual succession of his daughter Berenguela, and thus the feminization of the lineage, resulted from the king’s sin. After the murder of the king’s paramour, Ocampo’s version goes, an angel of God appeared to Alfonso saying, among other things “Fear God, for it is certain that he will demand payment of you for this sin that you have committed so heedlessly. There will be none of yours who will reign in this kingdom that you rule, but instead it will belong to the lineage of your daughter.”106 But even before this disaster of a feminized lineage, the construction of Las Huelgas must be explained. It becomes explicable only as the result of the king’s guilt; his faithlessness toward the queen’s domain (the marriage bed and hearth) prompts reparation by the construction of a new household, or domain, of holy women. This would be a positive result if the transgression had some basis in fact, but instead the legend serves to remove the queen
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from her role of the king’s partner and to deny her agency as a patron of Las Huelgas. By the end of the twelfth century, most queens in Europe became queens through marriage, and their most important function was dynastic. Leonor of England fulfilled her dynastic role by maintaining significant ties with her powerful natal family and producing many children. She lived a life virtually free of scandal and suspicion and generally conformed to cultural expectations of powerful women: she was beautiful and honorable, quiet, wise, pious, and generous. She served her husband well as a reliable coruler and the nobles of Castile as a significant intercessor. Leonor’s self-image may have been primarily as the mother of sons, and her expressed grief for the Infante Fernando certainly supports this; in this way, queenship may be linked as much to the mothering of a royal son as to the partnering of a royal husband. Having borne at least three sons, at her death she left the surviving one as king of Castile, which was a goal of her husband and herself. Leonor, however, did not ignore her daughters. Her efforts on their behalf—especially Berenguela’s—were no less significant. Although Leonor may have given more attention to her sons, her greater success—and that of the royal lineage—would lie with her daughters. Leonor of England was an active, powerful, inf luential woman, but she also conformed to gender expectations: she was never masculinized, and in a number of instances her agency has probably been obscured. The most titillating example comes from the legend of Raquel Fermosa, but such suppression is also suggested by the problems of charter survival, the questions posed by the surviving paired charters belonging to the patronage of St. Thomas, and the shifting records of the Hospital de la Regina/ del Rey. Finally, and most paradoxically, in charter acknowledgment of the Castilian practices of corule, assertions of togetherness contradict— but fail to overcome—expectations that phrases such as una cum uxore mea are merely formulaic and do not ref lect reality. Leonor’s queenship also provided the context for Berenguela’s early life. Modeling herself on her mother, Berenguela began her queenship with many of the same practices at hand. Circumstances, however, conspired to reveal Berenguela’s activity more fully and to shed new light on the formulas of corule. Like her mother, her greatest power and authority was achieved through motherhood; unlike her mother’s, that power and authority would come to be described as masculine and would be achieved much more through her position as a daughter than as a wife.
CHAPTER 2 DOCUMENTING AUTHORITY: MARRIAGE AGREEMENTS AND THE MAKING OF A QUEEN
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id marriage constitute an essential element of queenship or even rulership? If so, how? Kings themselves were seldom unmarried, for a variety of reasons: they needed legitimate heirs, and they might need to guard their chastity; historically, they needed partners in ruling. However, they did not need wives in order to be kings. For women the situation differed, especially because marriage itself was usually the avenue to queenship. As Pauline Stafford has suggested for early English queens, marriage legitimated access to the king’s bed and his body; this was an essential, if problematic, dynamic of queenly authority.1 This access, and the institution of marriage that legitimated it, certainly provided the framework for Leonor of England’s queenship and was expected to do the same for her daughters. When queenship was predicated upon inheritance, marriage could provide a stabilizing element to the queen’s authority; this was intended to be the case when Alfonso VI insisted on his daughter Urraca’s marriage to Alfonso of Aragón in 1109 and was probably behind various efforts to marry the daughters of Alfonso IX of León a century later. The strategy was clearly in operation when Berenguela was betrothed to Conrad of Rothenburg (discussed below). A husband might also prove a real liability, undermining a queen’s personal authority or providing a focus for noble rebellion. What a husband could provide—and the real reason marriage was so necessary for queens as well as for kings—was legitimate children. A hereditary queen might not need to be married, but she did need to be a mother. Marriage is also a helpful context in which to study elite women because the institution tended to produce documents and the documentation surrounding marriage negotiations and property exchanges clearly set out the terms of the women’s wealth and the motivations for their marriage,
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suggesting their political power. As we saw in the case of Leonor, such documentation might also articulate the individual woman’s status. Ultimately, dowries and dower agreements provided a form of protection for both the wife and her husband. In Christian Iberia, such documents were generally arras, or dower agreements, like the one given to Leonor of England when she married Alfonso VIII. Arras agreements were also uniquely and unilaterally gendered, being given specifically to women by their husbands. Arras agreements are extant for Berenguela of Castile—for her proposed marriage to Conrad of Rothenburg and her marriage to Alfonso IX of León— and for her sister Leonor, who married Jaume I of Aragón in 1220.2 Between 1198 and 1208, Alfonso and Leonor arranged the marriages of at least three of their five or six daughters who had been born by 1199/1200. The ways in which these marriages occurred and the level of detail known about them illustrate the varieties of experience available to medieval women; they ref lect the ways in which daughters were useful diplomatic tools. Their daughters’ betrothals contrast with Alfonso and Leonor’s relatively weak efforts to secure brides for their sons.3 With the exception of the marriage proposed by the discarded Treaty of Seligenstadt, all the daughters were at least twelve years old when they married; Berenguela, possibly Urraca, and Leonor were significantly older, at least seventeen. John Parsons observed Plantagenet resistance to marrying daughters too young, as well as to the too-hasty consummation of marriages that for political reasons had taken place when the bride was younger than fifteen years old. The motivation for this resistance seems to have been real concern for the physical well-being of the young women for whom childbirth was a risky—and politically significant— business. Leonor of England was among the women noted by Parsons in his study who experienced a long delay between her marriage and the birth of her first child. Although Leonor did not have a parent present to protect her, it is possible that her own daughters’ ages of marriage fit in with a more widely practiced familial strategy.4 The Cortes of Carrión While the charter was being drawn up for the great abbey of Las Huelgas, more immediately personal plans were afoot for Infanta Berenguela. In May 1187, when Berenguela was not quite eight years old, her father, King Alfonso, met with the “important men” of his kingdom in San Esteban de Gormaz, where he negotiated Berenguela’s betrothal to Conrad of Rothenburg, a son of Frederick Barbarossa.5 This prestigious arrangement was formalized in a contract drawn up in April 1188 in the German town of Seligenstadt, and the following July what came to be known as
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the Treaty of Seligenstadt was ratified in Carrión, where Berenguela’s official betrothal to Conrad must have taken place. These meetings, and the documents they occasioned, were significant to the development of the cortes as a parliamentary institution.6 The meeting at San Esteban de Gormaz provides one of the earliest examples of a kind of cortes at which the king explicitly acknowledged that he was acting with the consent of the governed, and that he depended upon that consent to carry out his will. The Treaty of Seligenstadt listed the important men of fifty towns in Castile, as well as bishops and nobles who swore to the terms of the agreement.7 One privilege dated May 21, 1187, mentions such a curia held at San Esteban de Gormaz, when “at the same time they dealt with the nuncio of the lord emperor contracting marriage between the illustrious [son of the Roman] emperor and the illustrious daughter of the king of Castile.”8 Although what records produced at this curia are not extant, others dated between May 8 and May 21, 1187, indicate an extended stay for the royal court in San Esteban.9 The negotiations, begun in 1187, were completed the next summer with the ratification of the Treaty of Seligenstadt. This ratification was not the only significant business of the July 1188 cortes, however. While Alfonso VIII betrothed his eldest daughter to one of the most powerful families in western Christendom and secured recognition for her as his heir, he also asserted his dominance over his cousin, the new king of León, Alfonso IX. The young Leonese king had succeeded his father in that year. He was about fifteen years old, was being squeezed on all sides by the Castilians and Portuguese (as well as ambitious Leonese nobles), and was anxious to prove himself.10 The Leonese king went to his cousin’s cortes in Carrión to be knighted and possibly to seek a bride. In the presence of “Galicians, Leonese and Castilians,” Alfonso IX donned the belt of knighthood and kissed his cousin’s hand “before everyone.”11 Alfonso VIII’s confirmation was crucial, argues historian Esther Pascua Echegaray, in enabling the Leonese king to secure his throne. However, by this apparent act of homage, Alfonso IX secured the fate of León, should he die without issue, reaffirming an agreement sealed between the kings of León and Castile in 1158.12 Furthermore, Alfonso of León recognized his cousin as his overlord, a relationship that proved onerous for the younger and subsequently resentful king. In Castile, while the besamanos (kissing the hand) might have signified homage, it derived more from Muslim custom than French feudal custom. More than a kiss of peace between equals, the besamanos signified personal submission.13 It is possible that Alfonso IX was also seeking a bride at his cousin’s court. Consanguinity, however, was a major impediment, and a marriage between a daughter of Alfonso VIII and his cousin Alfonso IX would
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clearly fall within prohibited degrees. The Chronica latina relates that such a marriage in fact was contracted, despite being “against divine and canonical sentences.”14 Alfonso VIII’s three daughters were very young at the time of this cortes, making them canonically ineligible to contract a marriage under any circumstances, the Treaty of Seligenstadt notwithstanding. Berenguela was about eight, Urraca around two, and Blanca (Blanche) an infant. Possibly Alfonso IX had hoped to win Berenguela’s hand; perhaps he was unaware of the impending contract with Conrad. Even if he were aware, marriage with the heir of Castile would be the only strategy through which Alfonso IX might rule Castile as a consort or through which his own heirs would have the prospect of ruling a united Castile-León, if this was indeed a desideratum. More likely, Alfonso VIII intended marriage to a younger daughter to reinforce Alfonso IX’s subordination and diminish his status vis-à-vis Castile even further.15 Although it makes sense that Alfonso IX’s marriage would have been discussed at a rite of passage such as knighting, it is possible that Juan of Osma and the notary of San Zoilo erred, in hindsight conf lating Berenguela’s betrothal with Conrad and Alfonso IX’s presence at the cortes because, ten years later, Berenguela indeed married Alfonso. Regardless, in 1188 Alfonso IX left Carrión without a bride but with an overweening sense of his inferiority to his cousin. He did not wait around to participate in the festivities surrounding the arrival, knighting, and betrothal of Conrad of Rothenburg.16 The Chronica latina describes the knighting of Conrad at the “magnificent curia” and tells how Alfonso VIII bestowed Berenguela upon the son of the German Emperor: “He gave his daughter the lady Berenguela, who was scarcely eight years old, to him and made him swear homage to him for all the realm so that the same Conrad would reign after him should he die without sons. At that time the glorious king Lord Alfonso had no son but only daughters.”17 The betrothal of an eight-year-old child to a foreign noble might have passed unremarked except for the fact that through this union, and its association with the cortes, Alfonso VIII explicitly recognized his daughter as his heir and had this recognition ratified by the important men of his realm. Alfonso used this occasion to secure her position. By including the townsmen, knights, nobles, and prelates in this event, Alfonso also ensured certain limits on Conrad’s personal power, making his rule dependent upon the consent of the people of Castile. The Treaty of Seligenstadt The Treaty of Seligenstadt has not been examined as a source for women’s history, yet that is what it is. This treaty, arranging Berenguela’s marriage
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to Conrad of Rothenburg, articulated one woman’s expected position and role and further served as a source of power for Berenguela long after the proposed marriage had been forgotten. The treaty supported Berenguela’s female rulership, especially at the crucial moment in 1217 when she came to inherit the throne. The treaty shows how female authority was established.18 Furthermore, this treaty set a precedent for future rulers of Castile who wished to secure the authority of their lineage when they named their daughters as heirs.19 The Chronica latina, written long after the fact, asserts that Conrad was to rule after Alfonso in the event that the latter died without an heir, but the contemporary treaty is more ambiguous. The Treaty of Seligenstad was “witnessed” by both Alfonso VIII of Castile and the Emperor Frederick I, as well as by Frederick’s son and heir Henry, Alfonso’s wife Leonor, and the betrothed couple, Conrad and Berenguela.20 The treaty promised that, some time during the next spring, Conrad would leave Germany, arrive in Castile, and marry Berenguela, awarding her an appropriate dower, or arras.21 For his part, Alfonso promised, with Berenguela’s consent, that she would marry Conrad and that, within two years, she would be sent to the imperial court, bearing a dowry of 42,000 gold maravedís (an exception to Iberian practice). The rest of the treaty was dedicated to articulating the terms of Berenguela’s relationship to Conrad, particularly should she succeed to the throne of Castile. Berenguela and Conrad, or their children, would succeed not only her father, but also any of her brothers who died without heirs. Despite the Chronica latina’s claim that Conrad would rule after Alfonso, the treaty demonstrates a Castilian interest in limiting Conrad’s authority and promoting Berenguela’s. Conrad would be able to claim authority only though Berenguela, or, if she were to die, through her children, and he could make no claims to the throne simply by virtue of having been married to Berenguela. Conrad’s status was that of Berenguela’s consort—a position of great power—but one that did not give him independent authority to rule Castile. Berenguela’s marriage did boost her authority to rule, however. Marriage might seem necessary, given her gender. But marriage was a marker of adulthood and legitimacy for both sexes. In the next generation, for example, Fernando III’s marriage took place within days of his knighting in 1219—both were delayed for some years after his acclamation as king—and his cousin Louis IX of France married upon attaining his majority in 1234. Thus, although Conrad would have been able to act only with Berenguela’s counsel, he was important for supplying Berenguela with the marital status and potential heirs key to her future success as a legitimate ruler. Conrad’s authority was minimized; yet articulating these terms on the occasion of Berenguela’s betrothal indicates
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that she would be more readily accepted as a ruler if she were appropriately married. Marriage might have been even more important for female rulers, who were denied knighting, the other ritual marker of adulthood. In Castile, the formal anointing and coronation of monarchs were also absent, and so there were even fewer opportunities to demonstrate female royal legitimacy.22 In the event that Conrad died without heirs by Berenguela, she would be returned without incident to the kingdom of Castile if she wished, retaining her dower lands in Germany. Most likely, she would have held her dower in usufruct for her lifetime, unless she had children by Conrad.23 Berenguela’s castles and estates in Germany, comprising her arras, were thus protected; the agreement also offered some insurance against the loss of the 42,000 maravedís, which undoubtedly would have been spent before Berenguela could dispose of her marriage endowment. Berenguela’s ability to return to Castile would be important if she remained heir presumptive. Should Conrad and Berenguela actually come to rule Castile, the Castilian nobility would hold land as benefices, for which the nobles were to perform the same homage they performed to the king or his son. In other words, Berenguela’s gender was not to impede her rule. In return for noble allegiance, Conrad and Berenguela would agree to uphold the Castilian customs of noble-royal relations. Thus, a balance of power was established between Conrad, Berenguela, and the nobles of Castile.24 This alliance was especially important because, in the absence of a male heir in Castile, Alfonso of León would undoubtedly press his claim to rule Castile as a descendent of the Emperor Alfonso VII. The emphasis on Berenguela’s future children established Berenguela as an essential link in rulership: her children belonged to Castile and vice-versa. One basis of her legitimacy as a ruler was her potential motherhood. If Conrad died, or both he and Berenguela died, their children were to return to Castile and be members of the court there. The agreement assumed that the German Empire would not devolve upon Conrad’s head and made clear the Castilian investment in this contract: the goal of this marriage was the reproduction of legitimate heirs for the throne of Castile. Conrad might exercise power as a regent for his children, but only temporarily; there was the somewhat naive assumption that if Berenguela were incapacitated from caring for her children, it would not be permanently. Conrad’s authority as a regent was temporary and limited; specifically, he could not alienate or exchange any royal lands.25 In Castile, Alfonso VIII proudly referred to this alliance in many documents, marking the years from this great meeting at Carrión. In a confirmation of a gift to the monastery of Sahagún, dated at Carrión on
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July 28, 1188, for example, it was noted that “this charter was made . . . in the year in which the most serene king, the above-named Alfonso of Castile, girded the belt of knighthood upon Alfonso, king of León, [who] kissed the hand of the said Alfonso, king of Castile and Toledo; in this same year, and in the days in which the above-named Alfonso, illustrious king of Castile and Toledo, knighted the son of the Roman Emperor, Conrad by name, and gave him his daughter Berenguela in marriage.”26 During the next few years, Alfonso’s chancery continued to issue documents with such a dating clause, while the king’s personal prestige and happiness were increased by the birth of a son, Fernando, in November 1189. As González pointed out, the birth of this prince must have dampened any of Conrad’s illusions about gaining power in Castile; Alfonso and Leonor were still relatively young and would, in fact, have several more children, including another son.27 By autumn 1191, the betrothal had been dissolved. That the alliance lasted only three years is not so unusual, but confusion surrounding the reasons for its dissolution stems from uncertainty about what was at stake in this alliance in the first place. What did it have to offer the Castilians, apart from providing a husband for Berenguela? What would the Castilians have gained by this alliance with the German Empire, and how would the Germans have benefited? Rassow suggested that, for the Castilians, a marriage alliance to a royal house outside of Iberia fit the historical pattern of their lineage, unlike those of the related and neighboring kings of Navarre, León, and Aragon, who tended to marry near neighbors.28 This marriage pattern was also dictated by the Castilian royal family’s close blood relations to the other ruling families of Christian Iberia (although restrictions against consanguinity were often ignored). If the Castilians desired to practice exogamous marriage, they were not always able to do so. The marriage of Alfonso VIII’s parents, Sancho III and Blanca of Navarre, shows at least one exception.29 Alfonso VIII’s marriage to Leonor of England is a good example of exogamous marriage, however, and so are the eventual marriages of Berenguela’s own children. The marriage of her son Fernando to Beatriz of Swabia (Conrad’s niece) particularly ref lects the desire of the Castilians to ally themselves with the immensely powerful and prestigious German Empire: Beatriz and Fernando’s son Alfonso X would later claim the imperial privilege through his mother, albeit unsuccessfully. Berenguela’s betrothal to Conrad may be seen as a step in a larger Castilian plan to reaffirm the monarchy’s own imperial identity, initially proclaimed by Fernando I in the eleventh century. For the Germans, Berenguela and Conrad’s union was consistent with their attempts to ally themselves to noble houses of Europe. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa
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carefully arranged such marriages for all his sons: Henry to Constance of Sicily; Frederick first to a daughter of Waldemar of Denmark and then to a daughter of Bela of Hungary; Philip to Beatrix/Irene, a daughter of Emperor Isaac of Constantinople; and finally Conrad to Berenguela of Castile. Alfonso VIII held potential as an ally because he was related by blood or marriage to the rulers of Sicily, England, Burgundy, Navarre, Aragón, and León, and thus the marriage might allow Frederick to extend his political inf luence.30 Furthermore, for a younger son such as Conrad, marriage to a likely heir to any throne elevated his own status. All in all, it seemed like a good plan on both sides. So why, after 1191, is nothing more heard about it? German sources fail to explain the dissolution of the betrothal.31 Even the Iberian sources say very little. Only Archbishop Rodrigo, writing some fifty years later, explained the dissolution of the engagement: “But, after Conrad had returned to Germany [after the cortes] the aforesaid young lady immediately spoke out against the marriage; and, once a divorce [divorcio] had been announced by Gonzalo the primate of Toledo and cardinal-deacon Gregory of Sant’Angelo, legate of the Apostolic See, the girl Berenguela remained unmarried.”32 Although the word divorcio might imply that a marriage had indeed taken place, Rodrigo says that Berenguela “remained unmarried” [innupta], and uses “divorce” to mean simply that the contract was broken.33 The treaty had stated that Alfonso VIII was acting with Berenguela’s consent; Berenguela’s reported objection to the betrothal once Conrad had left the scene became a key factor in the rationale for ending the agreement. Berenguela was only eight years old; whether or not her personal feelings were actually considered, the Castilian court exploited the theme of young women’s resistance to marriage, along with the canonical requirement of consent, to effect its dissolution. Probably the marriage, or betrothal, was dissolved around the fall of 1191, during the visit of the papal legate to Spain.34 By this date, Alfonso VIII’s chancery had ceased to note the marriage in dating clauses. The last document in González’s collection referring to Berenguela’s betrothal to Conrad is dated October 14, 1190.35 At the same time, the knighting of Alfonso IX ceased to receive notice. González suggests that this was because Alfonso IX had protested and retracted the homage he had performed to his cousin.36 Since the meeting at Carrión, relations between the kingdoms of Castile and León had significantly worsened. The birth of the Infante Fernando in 1189 assured for the time being the continued future of Castile as a separate hereditary kingdom and distanced Alfonso IX as a potential claimant to the Castilian throne. It may have seemed less necessary for the Castilians to commit their young princess to a foreign prince to protect their kingdom from a greedy neighbor
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and relative; Alfonso IX had in the meantime married his cousin, Teresa of Portugal. Still, the Treaty of Seligenstadt may have held, had another powerful player not seen her chance and taken it. Eleanor of Aquitaine had specific reasons for wishing to break the Castilian-German alliance, and if there is no concrete proof of her interference in her granddaughter’s marriage, there is nevertheless evidence worth considering, for it demonstrates the significant role of the Castilian royal family on the wider international stage. Eleanor outlived her contemporary, Frederick Barbarossa, but the strained relations between the Hohenstaufens and the Plantagenets did not die with him, and Frederick’s heir faced a practiced opponent. The plans forged by the Treaty of Seligenstadt should have continued despite the death of the emperor in 1190, as his heir Henry was a cosigner of the treaty. It was difficult, however, for Henry to fill his glamorous father’s shoes. Furthermore, soon after Henry’s accession, his wife Constance inherited the throne of Sicily, diverting his attention there. Sicily in 1190 was infested with crusaders, including Richard I of England; Queen Eleanor took the occasion of his stalled crusade to escort Richard’s new bride, Berengaria of Navarre, to Sicily; she then moved on to Rome, arriving there in time for the installation of Pope Celestine III, her old acquaintance Hyacinth Bobo. Eleanor went to the pope to discuss England while Richard was on crusade and to receive papal backing for her regency. Other probable topics of discussion include their mutual enemy, the emperor, as well as their desires for peace among Christians, along with effective crusades.37 In particular, Rassow suggests, it may have been Eleanor’s interests that prompted the church to look closely at the canonical improprieties of Berenguela and Conrad’s marriage. Eleanor wished to undermine whatever inf luence her son’s enemies, the Germans, might have had, in this case in Castile. Furthermore, the marriage of Richard and Berengaria added a new twist to the problem of alliances. Berengaria was the daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre—the same Sancho who had been Alfonso VIII’s enemy. Eleanor might have presented the problem to the pope in this way: peace in Iberia was necessary, both for her alliance system to work, and in order to achieve one of the main goals of Christendom: the elimination of Islam. Her son-in-law Alfonso’s alliance with the Germans was at odds with the Plantagenet alliance with Navarre; her goal was to ally Castile and Navarre. An important factor here also was Celestine III’s antipathy to the Germans and their hegemonic goals.38 It seems unlikely that the Castilians conceived the idea to marry Berenguela to Alfonso IX at this juncture because, in February 1191, the Leonese king married his cousin Teresa of Portugal, and Berenguela had lost her status as heir, making her a less-than-appealing prospect. It seems clear, however, that
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the breaking of the German alliance was linked to the potential for peace in Christian Iberia, to be followed by Christian expansion. The following time line improves the plausibility of this argument. At the end of 1190, Eleanor traveled to Navarre to fetch Berengaria, her journey coinciding with the disappearance of any reference to Berenguela’s betrothal in Alfonso VIII’s charters. Eleanor visited Celestine a few months later, after which the Roman legate toured Iberia in 1191–92. Possibly the old queen had seen, or at least contacted, her daughter in Castile and had persuaded Leonor and Alfonso to reconsider their commitment to the imperial marriage, while she pursued her goals with the papacy, which then sent its legates to bring peace to Christian Iberia, by any means available.39 Berenguela’s lack of consent was the preferred impediment, instead of consanguinity. Despite some effort to establish a pattern of exogamous marriage, consanguineous unions appear to have been quite common in Iberian dynastic patterns. Indeed, later in her career Berenguela herself used and abused canonical sanctions against this impediment with equal temerity: she objected to her brother Enrique I’s marriage to Mafalda of Portugal in 1216 on the grounds of consanguinity, but a few years later secured for her sister Leonor a marriage to their near cousin Jaume I of Aragón. Where they could, the Castilians preferred to accept canonical injunction dissolving a royal marriage on any grounds except those of consanguinity. The marriage of relatives was simply too useful a tool; by using the canons in this way the Castilians tried not to sabotage future consanguineous (and necessary) unions.40 Ultimately, the dissolved alliance with Conrad would serve Castile in one very important way: the Treaty of Seligenstadt explicitly named Berenguela as a legitimate heir to the throne of Castile.41 Her authority as such was recognized; the treaty itself was referred to by Juan of Osma when he described Berenguela’s ascension to the throne in 1217: “It was declared, furthermore, that this would have been the will of the glorious king [Alfonso VIII] by means of a certain charter, secured with his lead seal, that was made in the curia celebrated near Carrión, which was found in a chest in the church of Burgos.”42 In securing her own position and that of her son, it became vital that Berenguela’s authority had been legitimized by her father.43 The Treaty of Seligenstadt may be the first extant document that explicitly articulates or presumes a woman’s right to rule in Castile, thus setting a precedent followed by Alfonso X, Sancho IV, and Fernando IV.44 In 1255, Alfonso X used the occasion of his infant daughter Berenguela’s betrothal to Prince Louis of France to assert that, in the event that he had no male heir, Berenguela should be acknowledged as the rightful ruler of Castile. At this time,Evelyn Procter suggested, the cortes were called to do homage
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to the infanta.45 Sancho IV’s firstborn, Isabel (b. 1283), likewise received homage as her father’s heir before the birth of her brother, the future Fernando IV (b. 1285).46 Fernando IV subsequently secured similar homage for his daughter Leonor (b. 1307) before the birth of the future Alfonso XI (b. 1311).47 As adults, these women had special, or at least significant, status at their brother’s courts. Even after they were no longer heirs to the throne, they were important political players. As with the case of Berenguela of Castile, it would be a mistake to disregard the three later infantas’ own personalities and political savoir faire in their later careers, but these early statements of their right to inherit must have shored up their later status as well. The Treaty of Seligenstadt, which established Berenguela as part of the body politic, is an important addition to the corpus of documents articulating the limits and possibilities of female authority in the High Middle Ages. A Marriage Pro Pace Between 1190 and 1198, Berenguela, Urraca, and Blanche may have been joined by new sisters Mafalda, Constanza, and Sancha. The construction of Las Huelgas continued, as did intermittent warfare against Christians and Muslims alike, punctuated by the disastrous Christian loss at Alarcos in 1195. Pope Celestine commissioned his legate Gregory of Sant’ Angelo to negotiate a peace between the kings of Castile and León, and in 1194, he achieved a truce bound by the Treaty of Tordehumos. This treaty affirmed in a general way a hereditary principle regarding certain castles and territories in dispute between the two kings, recognizing that they both had legitimate claims because of their familial relationship. The treaty also protected the arras of Teresa of Portugal, now divorced from Alfonso IX.48 After his defeat in 1195, however, Alfonso VIII redirected his energies against his cousin, who despite the earlier treaty was attacking Castilian territory.49 Alfonso IX had in the meantime allied himself variously with other Christians and Muslims. In response to Alfonso’s alliance with the Almohad Caliph Abu¯ Ya’qu¯b, Pope Celestine urged the use of arms by Christian kings against Alfonso IX, offering an indulgence to those who fought against him, and he excommunicated the king, thus justifying warfare between Castile and León.50 In the long run, however, this situation could not be sustained: Pope Celestine, himself familiar with Spain from his days there as legate, desired the Iberian Christians to unite in their efforts against Islam. This desire may have overridden any doubts he had about the solution offered, which was a marriage between one of Alfonso VIII’s daughters and the king of León. The origins of this plan are attributed variously to the kings of Castile and León, respectively, the Castilian nobility, Queen Leonor, and
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miraculous intervention: it seems likely that Alfonso IX, excommunicated and threatened by Castile and Portugal, sought the marriage.51 Juan of Osma asserted that no peace was possible between Castile and León, “unless the king of Castile united his daughter the lady Berenguela to the king of León in de facto marriage, because it could not be allowed by law as these kings were related in the second degree.”52 Lucas of Túy described an image of the Virgin and her son in León that miraculously began to bleed, to the “terror and wonder” of those who saw it. “Wise men,” reading the signs, predicted a “most bloody war,” and the two kings thus piously agreed to a peace, sealed with a marriage.53 Rodrigo also attributed the marriage to the desire for peace, but assigned the intervention to another royal mother: Queen Leonor. Because of consanguinity, Rodrigo explained, King Alfonso initially rejected the proposal of Alfonso of León, but Queen Leonor persuaded him to act otherwise.54 The problem of consanguinity loomed large, however, and Archbishop Rodrigo went to some length to explain defiance of it as the responsibility of Leonor of England. Accordingly, for Leonor, the ends justified the means; peace was worth any price. Rodrigo explained that Leonor, being prudent and wise, and understanding the attendant dangers of continuous warfare, recommended that matters could be resolved by such a marriage.55 These claims suggest that, at the very least, Queen Leonor had some role in the decision-making and fit with the understood role of queen as intercessor.56 By December 17, 1197, at the age of seventeen, Berenguela was married to her father’s cousin, Alfonso IX, and became queen of León. Although it is likely that the kings requested a papal dispensation for the marriage, it does not appear that one was actually issued by Pope Celestine, who at the end of his papacy seemed inclined to let things take their course and neither condemn nor approve the action. The English chronicler Howden says that a dispensation was granted “for the sake of peace” [pro bono pacis], but he was probably assuming that, because the marriage did take place, it had in fact been given a dispensation.57 In any event, there was surely anxiety on the Castilians’ part about the legitimacy of this union, as well as hope that a new generation would keep the peace. Moreover, for the Leonese, as González points out, consanguineous relations were almost traditional. The blood relations between the Castilians and Leonese caused competition that could only be resolved by marriage, which was, of course, prohibited because of those very blood relations.58 Thus, Leonor was not only credited with promoting peace, but was also made responsible for what could be seen as a difficult, possibly unpopular, moral decision. Furthermore, as queen, Leonor was understood to have great inf luence with her husband. The
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chroniclers thus recognized an important and appropriate, if risky, political role of the queen. The royal wedding was celebrated at Valladolid and was attended by many “grandes omnes.” Rodrigo states that “marriage gifts were given, which were suitable to such a lady.” The phrase donatio propter nupcias invariably meant a dower, which, in Berenguela’s case, Rodrigo’s assertion notwithstanding, was not formalized and recorded in a charter for at least a year.59 When the wedding was over, Alfonso took Berenguela to León. “And thus,” the archbishop related, “peace, like a reformed son, was remade out of devastations and they were at rest.”60 This time, there is no record that Berenguela protested her betrothal. She did not seem to hesitate. González says that it is understandable that the solution for arriving at peace would have pleased Leonor, as it placed her daughter on the throne of León. But, he also points out, it is logical that Berenguela would have had no active part in the negotiations between the two kings, attributing this to her age; her junior status in her family should also be considered. Her mother’s active role in promoting and negotiating the marriage suggests that her gender would not have been that much of an impediment.61 Just before her marriage to Alfonso IX in 1197, Berenguela appeared with her mother in Burgos, witnessing a sale ordered by the abbess of Las Huelgas to the dispensero of Leonor’s household, authorized also by Leonor’s chaplain. The charter is unusual document, inasmuch as the only royal witnesses were Queen Leonor and Berenguela—perhaps they were staying at the monastery separated from the rest of the court.62 Berenguela was also mentioned at her parents’ court at Burgos in January of 1199.63 The inclusion of “Queen” Berenguela was no slip of the cleric’s quill, as this was a very unusual and important donation, including all the children of the king and queen as witnesses or patrons, even naming their newest infant daughter. Berenguela was recognized as a queen, in contrast to her sisters who were yet infantas, indicating her new married status. Possibly she was physically present at court, although her explicit consent may have been merely an acknowledgment that she was considered to still have rights to at least some of the Castilian patrimony. This document suggests that Berenguela may have visited back and forth between her husband’s and her parents’ courts. The questions it poses reveal how very little we in fact know about family life in this period, the quality of affective relations, or the significance of cohabitation in royal marriage.64 The marriage was celebrated in late 1197, but Berenguela’s arras was not drawn up until December 1198. This seems unusual, especially when compared to the care with which her previous contract with Conrad was
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drawn up before their betrothal. Differences between the goals of the two marriages and the spouses may account for this delay, as well as uncertainty about the legality of the marriage and noble ambivalence about the potential union of Castile and León. The most significant aspect of the Treaty of Seligenstadt, Berenguela’s confirmation as her father’s heir, was to live on. For the Castilians, Berenguela’s second, and successful, marriage attempt secured peace. For Alfonso of León, however, this marriage also held the (remote) possibility that through his wife or their child he might annex Castile. By December 8, 1199, when Alfonso IX endowed Berenguela with her arras in agreement with Alfonso VIII, the new queen of León was probably expecting her first son, Fernando, and probably had already given birth to a daughter, Leonor. In her pregnant state, Berenguela symbolized the future of León. Her worth to her husband had been quickly proven, and it was time for him to bind her to him with a dower of the contested castles on the border of Castile and León.65 These castles and seigneuries of Berenguela’s arras were found all over León, including in remote Galicia, but a majority were in the militarized border between Castile and León, primarily in the Tierra del Campo (see map 2.1).66 If the king of Castile wished to do so, however, he could exchange the Galician castles for five other Leonese castles, except for the castles of Santiago and others belonging to the church or monastic orders and except for certain cities. The arras was essentially a military agreement between the two Alfonsos. Later, even when Innocent III declared that if there was no marriage, there was no dower—thus, perhaps, inverting the usual canonical relationship between dower, dowry, and marriage, in which property exchange was a constituent element of marriage, not vice versa—the kings continued to negotiate their relationship in terms of these castles and Berenguela’s claim to them.67 These castles were to be held in Berenguela’s name, although they alone did not define the limits of her authority as queen of León. In fact, Salamanca, a city that was supposed to be immune from this treaty, was described as being under her control [sub manu domine Berengarie] in later documents. The kings’ later tenacity in persisting in Berenguela’s lordship was due to the ever-present threat of war between Castile and León and was linked therefore to the important role played by the great nobles who witnessed the arras and were charged with the tenancy of Berenguela’s properties. These lords were to hold these lands from the queen and to raise vassals from them with whom they promised to support the king of León.68 In the case of their deaths, or if they wished in some other way to relieve themselves of these obligations, or if Alfonso and Berenguela wished to change this agreement, the nobles could respond by taking their case to the king of Castile, his wife, or his heir. They could accept Castilian
Map 2.1
Arras of Queen Berenguela
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judgment or protection. Either king could go to the aid of the tenants of the arras if the terms of the agreement were broken without his being in contempt of the treaty. Alfonso of León promised to be a good lord to the tenants of the arras lands or face the loss of the castles. Likewise, Alfonso of Castile was constrained from seizing anything belonging to the castles named in the agreement. The noble tenants of Berenguela’s arras were not mere witnesses to the agreement or court functionaries, but participants, promising to keep the treaty or, they acknowledged, “then we shall be traitors and we shall not be able to save ourselves from being handed over.”69 Although Berenguela played the role of peace weaver in this marriage, this arras made her into a real lord with real economic and military power—based on the exploitation of estates and the sworn loyalty of her vassals—who could seek the protection of her father if threatened by Alfonso of León. At least one of these men, Rodrigo Pérez de Villalobos, accompanied Berenguela back to Castile in 1204–05, and it is possible that others continued to hold her tenancies well after that date.70 The other main points of the agreement concerned Berenguela’s relationship to the kingdom of León, although they also explicitly included the rights of her father and thus reiterated that her value and her power came from him. The political (and, by implication, military and economic) relationship between the inhabitants of the towns, the knights/ tenants, and the queen was made clear by the statement that those who lived in the towns and or castles of the agreement should do homage to the knights who were Berenguela’s tenants, who in turn were responsible for keeping the peace “because they should be faithful vassals of queen Berenguela.” 71 The arras agreement demanded that homage be performed and presumed that the keeping of the peace depended upon the personal relationship between the knights and their queen. Berenguela’s arras also dealt with the possibility that the marriage might not last, either because of death or because of divorce. In the event that Alfonso IX repudiated Berenguela, or worse, “held her captive and treated her evilly, beyond reason, and he shall not amend his behavior as the king of Castile or his wife shall command” or even if he had her killed, all the terms of the agreement were null and void and all the castles forfeit to the Castilians.72 Thus, both Berenguela and the peace were protected from Alfonso IX’s whim; this clause perhaps encouraged Alfonso later to resist outside forces (i.e., the papacy) in ending the marriage. Malam continentiam . . . preter rationem (evil treatment beyond reason) is a vague phrase that may be read in at least two ways, both of which suggest physical and social dangers to which married women might be exposed and about which parents might be concerned. The most literal reading would indicate repression or even physical violence. This is substantiated
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by the clause referring to the horrifying possibility that Alfonso IX might “kill his wife or have her killed.” It echoes the canonical expectation that husbands discipline their wives, at the same time demonstrating concern that a husband might go too far or abuse such a “privilege.” 73 In an alternative reading, continentia may mean repression of one’s own impulses: continence, or abstinence from illicit sex. Alfonso was being warned—in fact legally constrained—to observe chastity, within reason. (Apparently he was not expected to be completely faithful.) Alfonso VIII and Leonor, furthermore, reserved the right to chastise Alfonso IX if his behavior was too outrageous.74 In the event of Berenguela’s death, her dowry was to be returned to her father, or held in homage from her children (“ filio uel filia”), if she had any.75 The key to peace was Berenguela’s person and her offspring. The document ignored Alfonso’s children from his first marriage. Berenguela’s arras was promised to her for her lifetime, even if Alfonso IX were to die before her. This was a standard provision, recognizing the original purpose of a dower—the wife’s support—and may help clarify the arrangement made between Alfonso VIII and Leonor of England, in regard to Leonor’s access to her arras, whether it was for her support generally in her lifetime or specifically in her widowhood.76 The marriage contract was concluded between the kings of Castile and León in Palencia on December 8, 1199. Besides the usual noble and ecclesiastical witnesses, only the two Alfonsos signed; neither Berenguela’s mother nor brother, not even Berenguela herself, took part as they had in the Treaty of Seligenstadt. At the same time, Leonor’s role, described above, as a judge or protector of potentially disaffected tenants of the arras, as well as someone with the authority to reprimand Alfonso IX, suggest the absence of her signature is in this case meaningless. Thus, by comparison, it seems that Berenguela’s consent in the first treaty served to emphasize her authority, as well as the legitimacy of the contract. Furthermore, the Treaty of Seligenstadt was a promise to marry, which entailed arrangements for a dowry and dower, whereas Berenguela’s arras entailed gifts to a woman who was already a wife and possibly a mother; her consent by then would have been assumed. A Damned and Incestuous Union Berenguela’s marriage to Alfonso IX was followed by the accession to the papacy of Innocent III in 1198. Innocent’s defense of papal prerogative and wide-ranging political interests are well known, but he also devoted himself to the spiritual condition of marriage and the family, particularly as they affected the elite, and thus public marriages and families of
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Europe.77 Innocent immediately concerned himself with the unhealthy state of spiritual affairs plaguing the kingdoms of Castile and León, provoked by this consanguineous marriage. Berenguela and Alfonso might have seen Innocent’s thunderous attempts to separate them as a greater plague: the peace between Castile and León was so dependent on this marriage that the kings and their families were willing to suffer the spiritual consequences. In the spring of 1198, Innocent gave instructions to his legate Rainerius concerning the marriage of Berenguela to Alfonso. This was the first notice of Innocent’s intent to separate the couple: Let it be known that it has come into our hearing that our dearest son in Christ the king of Castile has presumed to place incestuously, beside the illustrious king of León, who is related to him in the second degree of consanguinity, his own daughter, the latter’s niece [sic],—let us not say “to marry her to him”—putting [her in] his f leshly embrace, imagining by means of this to escape imminent prosecution. He was not attending to the fact that [it is] a cursed man who puts his hope in human beings and that what is contrary to God is not good sense. Therefore we give a mandate to both of them that they should cancel so foul a contract, abominable in the sight of God and deserving detestation in the judgment of the faithful, setting aside all delay and excuse; and they should dissolve all impious connections which they have undertaken between them on the pretext of this incest.78
In 1199, Innocent demanded that the archbishop of Compostela and the bishops of the kingdom of León observe his sentence of excommunication of the couple and limited interdict on their kingdom, and he threatened the king and queen of Castile, demanding that “the king of Castile and our dearest daughter in Christ, the queen his wife,” swear that they were working to end “so illegal a marriage.”79 Innocent then addressed the double heart of the matter: property and procreation. Because, according to the pope, the marriage was a fiction, so was the dower: any exchange of property was nullified. Accordingly, as well, if “from such an incestuous and damned union” children should have been born, or should be conceived, they were to be considered “spurious and illegitimate,” and as such were to be denied any share in their father’s inheritance.80 Between the years 1200 and 1203, the pope did not address the kings and queens of León and Castile on the subject of the marriage directly, apparently preferring to let time and local ecclesiastical pressure achieve his ends. The English chronicler Howden described Alfonso IX’s attempt to dissuade the pope from his position with bribes, highlighting in his report the reproductive intent behind the marriage: “And although this
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king from Santiago offered the lord pope Innocent and the cardinals 20,000 marks of silver, and offered to pay the stipends of 200 knights for the space of one year toward the defense of the Christians against the pagans, on the condition that the lord pope would permit them to live together up to the time God would give them offspring, or at least for three years; the lord pope Innocent, nevertheless, did not wish to consent to them in this.”81 If Howden’s report is correct, this proposition must have been made in 1198, before the birth or after the death of Berenguela’s first child Leonor, and before Fernando’s birth. Alfonso’s reported offer of crusading support suggests a canny assessment of papal goals, but Innocent could not be bought. He himself later described a Castilian request for a dispensation, in a letter to the Castilian and Leonese bishops written in 1204, after the couple had separated: “Soon, however, this king of Castile . . . humbly begged that we should deign to dispense in any way this marriage. But when in this petition they had been quickly denied, you asked us that we at least relax the sentence of interdict,” which was endangering the whole kingdom.82 The space of three years between Innocent’s pronouncements on the marriage may suggest that while the pope explicitly refused to give the “damned and incestuous” union a dispensation, he was implicitly willing to let the couple achieve their ends—or at least that he understood their stated intent to stay together for at least three years to be unbending. By June 1203, however, Innocent had had enough, and he renewed his efforts to separate Berenguela and Alfonso, demanding that Alfonso VIII submit to the papacy and call his daughter home.83 In this letter, he accused the king of Castile of avoiding his responsibility to the church and imperiling not only his own soul, but also that of his daughter. The king honored God with his lips, Innocent declared, but his actions were far from the papal and divine mandate. The pope reiterated his sentence that Berenguela’s claims to any dower were void, and that her children—by that date numbering at least three—were illegitimate. The Castilian and Leonese reaction to papal censure initially seemed one of indifference. Berenguela and Alfonso continued to patronize the Leonese church during that time. The local clergy seemed to support their king and queen; no source remarks on problems posed by interdict in León, for example, as compared to the experience of both the French and the English under Philip or John in the same period.84 When the king and queen did separate in late 1203 or early 1204, it was only after the most important goal of the marriage had been achieved: the production of children who could potentially bind the two hostile kingdoms together. Berenguela and Alfonso remained married until she had
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borne five children. The castles that had been such a source of contention between the two kingdoms continued to play a role in the solution of that conf lict, for despite Innocent’s assertion that Berenguela had no legal claim to them, they were settled on her and her sons in later years. By May 1204, Berenguela had returned to Castile, as that is the date of Innocent’s letter replying to the bishops of Toledo and Burgos, who had requested absolution for her. Although she had “gravely offended her Creator, in that she presumed to cling to the illustrious king of León in a state of incest,” Innocent nevertheless absolved her.85 He followed his letter of absolution with a detailed letter to the archbishops of Compostela and Toledo, reiterating his position that any property exchange associated with this “abominable and unspeakable coupling” was null, and any children therein conceived were to be considered illegitimate and not heirs of their father.86 The next chapter will examine the ways in which this nullified arras was dealt with by the two courts, but it should be quickly noted here that in no way did the “spurious” condition of Berenguela and Alfonso’s surviving children—Fernando, Berenguela, Constanza, and Alfonso— ever affect their status within the kingdoms of Castile and León. Conclusion: Once Is Enough? Marriage was always an important element of queenship, and as an institution it produced documents that are especially suited to illuminate numerous aspects of women’s lives. The experiences of Berenguela’s sisters provide a particularly good perspective on Berenguela’s marriage(s) and queenship. Berenguela’s sisters who married—Urraca, Blanca, and Leonor—became queens. For those two who married Iberian princes, the presence or absence of marriage agreements frames our knowledge of their queenship. No arras exists for Urraca, married to Infante Afonso of Portugal at some point between 1203 and 1208, and consequently the intended extent of her power as a queen is nearly a closed book. Our knowledge of Urraca’s queenship is also circumscribed by the fact that she died in 1220 before her husband, and thus experienced neither widowhood nor regency, leaving few independent documents. Leonor, Berenguela’s youngest sister, received an arras that determined the parameters of her power. The power of Leonor’s queenship, however, existed in inverse proportion to her husband Jaume’s independence, and the number of documents that her marriage produced—that is, the acts she signed or participated in—declined precipitously after the first few years of her marriage. In this case, her arras might have given her the tools to build a powerful queenship, but as her husband reached maturity and independence, they were not sufficient.
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Finally, Blanca’s (Blanche’s) marriage to the French dauphin Louis in 1200 removed the princess from the Iberian sphere of legal traditions governing marriage and marriage agreements, and the contract attached to her marriage—the Treaty of Le Goulet—did not dictate the kind of queenship she was to have. Rather, Blanche’s queenship was formed by her personal relationship to her husband Louis and by the enormous power he left in her hands when he named her regent of France upon his death in 1226. Blanche’s case is a salutary reminder that it was not only charters and traditions that determined the nature of medieval rulership, and that determination, strength of personality, and sheer luck were all factors that she may have shared with her sister Berenguela as they both claimed power and authority as queens and queen mothers. All the Castilian princesses who married, in fact, married kings or princes who would become kings. All became mothers; none married a second time. It is unremarkable that all of these sisters made royal marriages, given their parents’ political abilities and ambitions, as well as the availability of royal husbands. It is also unremarkable that these marriages, with the exception of Urraca’s, ended with either divorce (Berenguela’s around 1204 and Leonor’s in 1229) or widowhood (Blanche’s in 1226). What is worthy of remark, however, is that none of these women ever married again. Berenguela was around age twenty-four when she separated from her husband Alfonso IX; her reasons for not marrying in the interim between then and the death of her brother Enrique I in 1217 must have been political as well as personal. After her divorce, she participated in her parents’ government to an extent, and she may have wished to remain in Castile to protect the interests of her sons Fernando and Alfonso in nearby León. She could have married a Castilian nobleman, however, but did not. Blanche’s widowhood began when she was thirty-eight—not too old to remarry, but too dangerous if she were to carry out her husband’s trust in her as regent. Finally, Leonor was a young woman of twenty-nine or so when she separated from her husband Jaume; in her case, her divorce settlement stipulated against remarriage.87 By the time of her divorce, her status was reduced to being merely the youngest daughter of the deceased Alfonso VIII and the aunt of a young king who by that time had children of his own to worry about and to pawn in the marriage market. The single life had something to offer these women because of their status, despite the documented difficulty of widowhood, including the possibility of sexual freedom. The relative youth of these women, and thus the potential that they might marry again, may also have been a source of power for them; their potential marriages may have been a source of concern for others. There are several other explanations for the absence of remarriage. Canonical sanctions against remarriage did exist. In part the relevant
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canons had been directed at preventing the ordination of previously married men: the purity of the priesthood was at stake. But these canons were also directed at widows, to protect them from family or seigniorial pressure; here the issue was consent.88 If Berenguela and Leonor were aware of these decretals, they may have resisted second marriages as a sign of the legitimacy of their first marriages, as well as the legitimacy of their children. In the study of medieval women, women’s personal preferences are not given enough attention as a source of historical causation.89 Their decision not to remarry was doubtless both pragmatic and personal. For Blanche and Berenguela, access to the king’s body meant access to their sons, as mothers. This access would have been cut off by a second marriage, a competing interest. In Leonor’s case, remarriage would have threatened her access to her dower lands in Aragón—her source of wealth—as well as jeopardized her son’s already threatened inheritance of the kingdom of Aragón.90 The ways in which women themselves used the institution of marriage to further their own power and that of their children can be seen in the later careers of Berenguela and Blanche, especially regarding their sons’ marriages and the marriage of Berenguela’s daughter Berenguela.91 Marriage was a constituent element of queenship; indeed, for the most usual kind of queen who achieved her status through marriage, it was the key element, as it enabled access to the king. Even for hereditary queens such as Berenguela and her ancestor Urraca, marriage confirmed and shored up the queen’s status. As Janet Nelson has written, “The heiress who was a king’s daughter temporarily embodied the realm, but her own body was, quite literally, the conduit through which the bloodline was transmitted to the next generation.” 92 Thus, even heredity queenship was also contingent upon motherhood, which permitted a different kind of access to the king’s body: not a sexual one, but one that was institutional and maternal.
CHAPTER 3 1197–1217: THE LIMITS OF POWER AND AUTHORITY
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rom 1197 to 1203, Berenguela was occupied with the main business of married queenship: becoming a mother. When her marriage ended, she was dedicated to the preservation of her children’s status; in the same vein, she served brief ly as regent for her brother Enrique in 1214–15. Her tenure as regent was not unusual in that regency was an anticipated role for many queens. Capetian queens like Blanche of Castile might expect to become regents, and Louis VIII’s testament and other confirmations show that he held the same expectation.1 The opportunity for regency was contingent upon the king’s absence through death, distance, or other incapacity: in general, a woman needed to outlive her husband (or father). Berenguela’s sister Urraca was designated as a regent by her husband Afonso II of Portugal to govern both children and kingdom, but she died in 1220 before Afonso.2 At the same time, Berenguela’s youngest sister Leonor was explicitly denied regency of her son Alfonso, the Aragonese heir, after her divorce from Jaume I. Because of Leonor’s presumed political identification with her natal family, when her queenship was over, so was her potential to be a regent.3 The sisters’ experiences show that regency could be a vocation open to queen mothers, but motherhood was not the only avenue to regency for women. Berenguela became a regent not through motherhood but because she was the heir to the throne, and the king’s oldest sister. From 1197 to 1217, Berenguela’s relationships to the king and realm, first of León, and then of Castile, were shaped by expectations of the role of the queen. Primarily, the queen was to be a wife and mother. However, her motherhood might extend to a kind of fictive maternity as a regent (e.g., for her brother). Berenguela’s power and activity as queen were revealed by her patronage, but also by her relationships with a number of
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cities, towns and institutions, and numerous references to her in charters produced by individuals and institutions in León and Castile. Berenguela’s Leonese queenship was enhanced by her status as a potential ruler of Castile. This potential was fortified by Berenguela’s substantial arras and her continued lordship over lands in León, as well as continued patronage and vassalage relationships in León after the dissolution of her marriage to Alfonso IX. Berenguela’s actual queenship of León was relatively brief, about six years. Her tenure as a married queen was shorter than the queenships of her sisters Urraca, queen of Portugal (1211–20), or Leonor, queen of Aragon (1221–29); comparison with her sister Blanche, technically queen of France only from 1223 to 1226, demonstrates that length of that office was not necessarily key to royal women’s power. Queen of León: Royal Patronage and Identity Berenguela’s first documented act as queen of León was a donation to the Order of Santiago on December 27, 1197. This is also the first Leonese mention of her, thereby helping to date her marriage. The language of her gift of a tithe from royal cellars reveals Berenguela’s approach to her new position and its prerogatives: “It is appropriate that kings and princes esteem and honor the religious places of the lands and their inhabitants. Therefore I, Berenguela, by the grace of God queen of León and Galicia, with the agreement and permission of my husband the lord king of León, and also for the sake of piety and mercy, and for my salvation and the remedy of my soul and of my parents’ souls, do make this charter . . . to God and the knights of Santiago.”4 Placing herself on the level of kings and princes, Berenguela was thus affiliated with her new kingdom and took up independent patronage of the church for the first time. Her generosity to the Order of Santiago shows Berenguela to be wealthy, in control of royal resources, pious, and politically attuned to the religious-military brokers of power in León. This donation to the knights of Santiago also expressed a commitment to crusade, which she shared with her new husband, and more significantly with her father and eventually with her son. A few days later, on December 30, she declared herself not only a patron but also a legitimate royal authority, when she confirmed the fuero her great-grandfather Alfonso VII had given the monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza and took the monastery under her protection.5 Eslonza traditionally had been held by a royal daughter; the last “lady” of the monastery probably was Alfonso VII’s sister Sancha (d. 1147). The next two generations of the Leonese royal family had no women in a position to take up this patronage.6 By adopting this monastery, Berenguela resurrected an important role for female members of the
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Leonese royal lineage. In mentioning her great-grandfather Alfonso VII, she claimed her authority to do so. She called attention as well, perhaps inadvertently, to her consanguineous relationship with her husband, who was a grandson of the same Alfonso VII. Around the same time, Berenguela authorized expenditures to enable Martín, a canon of San Isidoro (and future saint), to finish some books and sponsored the repair of the church of San Isidoro in León. According to Lucas of Túy: “Queen Berenguela knew the desires of the holy man, [who] asked her to give him all that was necessary to make and finish his books [volumina]. With these alms he made them and finished them.”7 Lucas also suggested that Berenguela constructed the chapel of the Holy Trinity there, seeing to the collection of a great number of relics, but this is doubtful. Historian Raymond McCluskey thinks that Lucas exaggerated or even made up Berenguela’s patronage, as Martín’s most important work, the Concordia, was begun in 1185, well before Berenguela’s arrival in León. However, a deluxe copy of that book—one that would require some funding—was made in the 1190s, and Martín wrote several works: the volumina that Berenguela helped him complete.8 The chapel of the Holy Trinity was probably completed before Berenguela’s arrival, but she may have helped furnish it and clearly took over the role of sponsor. In June 1199, at Martín’s request, Berenguela exempted that chapel from any fiscal obligations to the crown. In the charter of the privilege, which refers to the queen’s own chancery, Berenguela acknowledged her husband’s permission, explained her desire to benefit spiritually from her patronage, and established a substantial fine of 1,000 maravedís to be paid to herself personally in the event of an infraction of this privilege; she also called down the wrath of God and the king upon any transgressor.9 Berenguela’s patronage of San Isidoro was meant to bolster royal authority through association with the ancient basilica and its holy men: the deceased Saint Isidoro and the living canon Martín. By the time of Berenguela’s arrival as queen in León, San Isidoro had become a royal pantheon but was losing ground to Toledo over claims to spiritual and historical preeminence.10 Martín’s request to Berenguela, the new queen, reveals a deliberate strategy of seeking a royal, and Castilian, patron. By this time, as well, Berenguela’s first child, Leonor, had been born, had died, and was buried in the same necropolis. Although none of Berenguela’s patronage referred to the infanta explicitly, surely Leonor’s soul was among those “relatives’ souls” for whom Berenguela sought intercession. Lucas of Túy pointed out that Berenguela also patronized other churches: “This most serene queen was zealous to decorate the monastery of the blessed Isidore and the rest of the principle churches of the kingdom with gold, silver, precious stones and silk vestments.”11
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These included the cathedral in Astorga; her act of protection there in 1198 showed her to be a pious daughter of the church and a good lord (Astorga was in her arras) and reinforced Astorgan importance.12 Such gifts were pious, expected acts of royal largesse. In the case of Eslonza, her gift initiated a long-term political relationship with the monastery. Furthermore, at this point, Berenguela’s arras had not been formally drawn up. Thus, Berenguela’s early patronage not only fulfilled her appropriate duties but also asserted her rights to grant and confirm privileges, patronize the church, and eventually, restore cities and promulgate law codes—to act as queen. She did this in part by meeting the queen’s traditional role as intercessor, and in part by spending her own money. As Lucas summarized: “This she obtained when she first came to León by means of f lattering requests to her husband king Alfonso, that he should correct the customs and fueros of the Leonese cities and kingdom, and lift taxes. Queen Berenguela built a royal palace in León from stones and mortar next to the monastery of San Isidoro, and the towers of León which the erstwhile barbarian king Almanzor destroyed, she likewise restored with mortar and stone.”13 Finally, Berenguela’s early patronage relationships with these bishops and abbots and other “holy men” may have been an attempt to secure their loyalty against outside disapproval, as well as to reward them for their loyalty.14 Indeed, evidence of ecclesiastical concern over her irregular union with Alfonso IX comes mainly from outside the Iberian Peninsula, from the papacy itself. Queen of León: Documenting Power and Authority The inclusion of female family members in the Castilian and Leonese documents contrasts strongly with contemporary diplomatic practice in France. The purpose behind such Iberian practices, in part, was to legitimize a ruler’s potential heirs, whether they were male or female; it was also a way to assert the queen’s role as the king’s partner. Berenguela’s presence in Leonese charters thus ref lects Iberian diplomatic practice, as much as it suggests special inf luence or powers of the queen.15 On February 20, 1198, Alfonso IX began to include Berenguela in his charters, using the same formulas as Alfonso VIII did with Queen Leonor; he acted “together with my wife Queen Berenguela” [una cum uxore mea regina domna Berengaria].16 Between February 1198 and May 1204, Alfonso IX regularly recognized Berenguela in his documents. In Berenguela’s case, this constant usage was part of an attempt to legitimize her position in the face of papal opposition. By comparison, Alfonso IX rarely used this formula with his first wife, Teresa of Portugal, and had given up that marriage.
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A January 12, 1198, charter recording a gift to the monastery of San Vicente in Oviedo provides the earliest non-royal attestation of Berenguela’s queenship and notes that León was “under the king lord Alfonso with the Castilian queen lady Berenguela” The identification of Berenguela as the “Castilian” queen is unusual.17 Another early notice dated January 19, 1198, from San Pedro de Montes was more typical: “King Alfonso ruling with Queen Berenguela in León and in many other lands.”18 Berenguela was acknowledged in the dating clauses of Leonese documents as ruling with Alfonso throughout her reign until December 1203.19 At that time, she notified the council and alcaldes ( judges) of Castroverde that she was giving her estate in Barruelo to the monastery of Eslonza, as “queen, by the grace of God, of León and Galicia.”20 This marks the probable end to her marriage to Alfonso. Although Berenguela’s queenship was noted consistently in a variety of monastic and private documents, it was not acknowledged uniformly throughout the realm. For example, Berenguela made few appearances as Alfonso’s queen in Zamoran charters. An exceptional donation charter from the noblewoman María Vélaz to Bishop Martín and the church of San Salvador noted Alfonso ruling with Berenguela in León, in Galicia, and in Asturias.21 The charter also noted that Zamora, Toro, and Extremadura were all in the tenancy of Rodrigo Pérez de Villalobos. This charter’s special attention to Berenguela as queen of León may be attributed to two causes: the close connection of María Vélaz and her family to the Leonese court and the presence of Rodrigo Pérez de Villalobos, a Leonese noble and Berenguela’s vassal, who remained loyal to Berenguela even after she left León.22 Zamora was more characteristically identified with the former queen of León Urraca, Alfonso IX’s mother, who had held the lordship of the city since at least 1198.23 Even when Alfonso IX issued a charter conceding tithes to the cathedral of Zamora in 1202, he did so not only with Berenguela, as might be expected, but with Urraca also. In fact, of the two royal women, Urraca appeared first in the intitulation, ref lecting her local status.24 These practices suggest that place, as much as time, affected the construction of the queenship of individual queens, and that a queen herself helped construct the identity of a particular region, city, or town.25 Rulers often became identified with certain places, and perceptions of rulers from place to place could be f luid, as charters from the male Cistercian monastery of Villaverde de Sandoval, just southeast of the city of León, demonstrate. An early charter recorded a private sale of lands to the monastery and recognized both king and queen in Castile, but only the king in León: “King Alfonso together with Queen Leonor reigning in Toledo and Castile. King Fernando reigning in León and in Galicia.”26
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The practice of noting the king and queen of Castile as well as the king of León continued through the 1180s.27 In 1186, only King Alfonso and Queen Leonor were recognized, along with Alfonso’s majordomo Rodrigo Gutiérrez.28 But in 1201, the way in which rulers were recorded changed, suggesting a shift in perspective: King Alfonso reigned “with his queen, Berenguela, in León, in Extremadura, in Galicia, and in Asturias.”29 This recognition continued throughout 1202 and 1203 and into late 1204.30 The next charter from Sandoval that mentioned a reigning king or queen was dated 1208, and the king and queen were Alfonso of Castile and Queen Leonor.31 This continued in 1209 and 1210, when the Infante Fernando was included with his parents.32 In 1212, Berenguela’s parents were recognized as reigning in Castile, and Berenguela returned to the consciousness of the record keepers: a charter noted her possession of Valencia (now known as Valencia de don Juan), which was held for her by Gonzalo Rodríguez and Diego Avas.33 Berenguela’s tenancy of Valencia was remarked again in 1215 and in 1224, when King Alfonso of León was also recognized.34 This pattern may be understood geographically; the monks at Villaverde de Sandoval were oriented eastward toward the Castilian court, although they acknowledged the reigning kings and queens of both León and Castile. Into the 1180s, they focused on Castile and continued to do so until Berenguela became queen of León. At that point, their attention shifted to the Leonese rulers; but then, when Berenguela returned to her parents, swung back to the Castilian court. There it remained, except to acknowledge Berenguela’s possession of her Leonese lands, and only in that case to acknowledge Alfonso of León. This is of course a rough pattern because of significant lacunae in documentation. No documents acknowledge any ruler for the 1190s, nor do any in the years 1205–07. This monastery seems to have preferred Castilian rulers; Berenguela’s union with Alfonso IX drew the monastic gaze toward León—as long as the marriage endured. These practices indicate one way in which queens might bring loyalty and status to their husbands—or, at least, one small advantage accrued to Alfonso and the Leonese through associating with Berenguela. Berenguela could also claim special status in the city of Salamanca; in fact, she seems to have governed it. This “lordly” relationship is worthy of note, because Alfonso IX had explicitly eliminated Salamanca as a negotiable territory in Berenguela’s arras, along with other Leonese strongholds, including the cities of León, Zamora, Coria, and Benevente.35 Documents from the Cathedral of Salamanca, however, indicate that the city was sub manu, or under the power of Berenguela immediately after the terms of the arras were agreed upon. Thus, protecting
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Salamanca from Castilian inf luence did not preclude Berenguela from exercising authority there. From about 1199 through the first half of 1203, Berenguela held Salamanca, deriving prestige and probably income from her relationship with the city.36 In July 1203, Berenguela donated some houses in Salamanca to the Order of Salvatierra, noting, “I bought [these buildings] with my own maravedís.”37 Berenguela asserted a distinct sense not only of self but also authority and economic power. These charters distinguish between power and authority derived from the lands of Berenguela’s arras and power and authority derived from other sources that were inherent in her position as queen of León, as well as her identity as the king of Castile’s daughter. The case of Salamanca demonstrates that the queen’s wealth, power, and authority were not limited to the terms of her marriage agreement. There were precedents for Castilian involvement in Salamanca, and thus she might have had a personal, familial relationship with it.38 Her authority there and the reason for its exclusion from her arras therefore might derive from one source: it was necessary for Alfonso IX to articulate a provision that theoretically would exclude Berenguela from developing power in a town where she already carried some authority as an infanta of Castile. Unlike Salamanca, Berenguela’s relationship with the important town of Castroverde was based on her arras. Castroverde lay between Villafrechós and Villalpando on the Valderaduey River in the Tierra del Campo, very near the Castilian-Leonese border. A fuero conceded by Alfonso and Berenguela to Castroverde suggests the extent of Berenguela’s personal rule as queen, and perhaps her interest in policy and legal practice.39 Unusually, the fuero refers to the queen and to duties owed to her, as well as to the king, by the town. For example, half of the fines exacted for various crimes (e.g., failure to pay a fine or abduction and murder of a woman) were to be paid out for the “soul[s] of the king and of the queen” [pro anima regis et regine].40 Although it was usual for the promulgator of such fueros to receive a portion of collected fines when the laws of a fuero were transgressed, the stipulation that fines would be collected “pro anima” of the promulgator is very rare. The only contemporary examples I have found come, notably, from the Castilian court of Alfonso VIII in the years before Berenguela’s marriage to Alfonso IX, when Alfonso VIII gave fueros that dictated fines to be collected “pro anima regis.”41 The inclusion of the queen in the Castroverde fuero suggests that its promulgation was as much Berenguela’s doing as her husband’s, especially given the unusual disposition of the fines. The fuero was witnessed by Berenguela’s vassals Gonzalo Núñez, Fernando García (Alfonso’s majordomo), her majordomo Pedro de Benavides, and Nuño Rodríguez, who was Alfonso’s alférez (standard bearer) but also signed
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the charter as “tenant of Castroverde,” a tenancy with which he was charged in Berenguela’s arras.42 The fuero of Castroverde reveals the necessities and obligations of queenship; Berenguela needed an income, which Castroverde would provide. Berenguela and Alfonso also reserved the right to retain vassals from this town and to call up a militia. She had reciprocal duties, however; providing a fuero encouraged the town’s growth and goodwill by making it attractive to inhabitants. Berenguela showed herself here to be a good lord, in partnership with the king. In December 1203, Berenguela issued her last charter as queen of León, giving an estate in Barruelo, near Castroverde, to San Pedro de Eslonza.43 By May 1204, Berenguela had left the court. By that time, Alfonso ceased to include Berenguela in his intitulation, and by August, he ceased to mention their son Fernando as well.44 A royal charter of September 25, 1204, mentioned war between León and Castile, presumably over Berenguela’s arras.45 Berenguela’s return to her parents’ court can be corroborated by the presence of Rodrigo Pérez de Villalobos, her Leonese vassal, in Castile from August 1204 to February 1205. Berenguela’s marriage was over, although the Castilians continued to call her queen of León, and she continued in a lordly relationship with her territories there. One source for her power, her marriage, was eliminated, but others—motherhood, natal family, vassal loyalty, and land tenure—were as strong as ever and remained essential elements of her identity as queen. For example, one Leonese charter recording a sale noted that it was made in 1205, “The queen Doña Berenguela ruling in Castroverde. Rodrigo Rodríguez holding Castroverde under the power of the Queen.”46 Berenguela gave Castroverde to her son Fernando in the settlement made in Cabreros in 1206. In 1207, at Burgos, Alfonso IX conceded various rents to Berenguela, including those of Castroverde, reiterating the future rights of Fernando over the town.47 Thus, Berenguela’s title of queen was more than an honorific, as her rule in Castroverde, along with her son, persisted. However, the degree of power such recognition carried varied. We have seen how Berenguela established herself, immediately upon becoming queen, as a patron of the church in her gifts to the important abbeys of San Isidoro and San Pedro de Eslonza. The latter monastery consistently recognized Berenguela’s lordship over the town of Valencia throughout the 1220s and into the 1240s.48 Berenguela protected Eslonza on becoming queen of León, but the monastery’s diligence in recognizing her suzerainty may have stemmed initially from disputed jurisdiction. Valencia had been the subject of a resettlement campaign led by Fernando II of León, Alfonso IX’s father. Colonists were often promised extended privileges by kings eager to repopulate their territories; such freedom was attractive
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to those under any kind of personal obligation to a local lord (ecclesiastical or otherwise).49 As a result, people from the nearby towns of Algadefe and Santa Marina, which belonged to San Pedro de Eslonza, began to migrate to Valencia, without fulfilling their obligations to their lord, the abbot, who protested and probably impeded their efforts to move. The people of Algadefe and Santa Marina then challenged the abbot, and some time most likely in the 1220s, King Alfonso ordered an investigation into the matter. Alfonso’s appointed commission was made up entirely of churchmen: Abbot Martín of San Isidoro, Rodrigo Gutierrez, an archdeacon, and Fernando Alfonso, a canon of León. When the townspeople refused to answer a summons from what was essentially an ecclesiastical court, they were promptly excommunicated by it.50 The townspeople then appealed to Berenguela, who sent a written inquiry to the commission investigating the matter. From their response, we learn that the people of Algadefe and Santa Marina had complained to the queen because the abbot of Eslonza would not permit them to migrate to Valencia without paying the customary “tax and foro.” The commission told the queen that it had never been the intent of the abbot or his community to prevent the people from migrating, as long as they paid what they owed. Furthermore, this was a matter for ecclesiastical, not secular courts. Thus, the queen was implored “not to impede the apostolic mandate.”51 In other words, the abbot told the illustrious Queen Berenguela, “Mind your own business, please!”52 These castles, towns, and territories were identified with the person of Berenguela, not with the office of queen itself, much like the territories associated with her mother in Castile. Later in the thirteenth century, however, certain cities did become associated with the queen, such as the city of Valladolid, which occasionally had been in the hands of queens since the twelfth century. Berenguela was given the lordship of Valladolid after her return to Castile and governed the city in 1208, again in 1219, and maybe later.53 Berenguela’s relationship with Valladolid (and Salamanca) signaled the queen’s role as an administrator, such as also can be observed in the government of the city of León during the reign of Fernando III. León was often the responsibility of Berenguela and her daughter-in-law, Queen Beatriz: Beatriz held León in 1231 and 1232, but Berenguela resumed the tenancy in September 1236, around the time of Beatriz’s death.54 Fernando needed a special lieutenant in León, and he relied on first his wife and subsequently his mother to fulfill this role, especially when he was campaigning against the Muslims in al-Andalus. Berenguela governed León from 1236 through 1238, when she prohibited the city council from collecting taxes on the transportation of
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bread and wine to the cathedral and its canons.55 Although by May 1242, Fernando’s second wife, Jeanne de Ponthieu, was acknowledged as a coruler, there is no evidence that she ever held León. On the other hand, in July 1250, Infante Alfonso did hold that honor.56 By the time of Fernando’s marriage to Jeanne, and certainly by 1250, Fernando’s heir Alfonso was a grown man, and Fernando could rely upon him as a coruler, suggesting the gendered limitations of corulership. Jeanne did not replace Beatriz, or Berenguela, when the latter died in 1246. Rather, there was a seamless f low of authority from father to son, leaving no gap for Jeanne to step into. After Berenguela’s death, the preference was for a royal (adult) male to guard royal privilege. León was an important center of governance and kingly authority, or royal authority, but not of female authority. In earlier times, royal women served as necessary deputies for a king who could not be in two places at once.57 Return to Castile: Achieving León On leaving León in 1204, Berenguela returned to her parents’ court in Castile with her children. Throughout her tenure as queen of León, Berenguela had been tremendously successful by one standard; she was continuously pregnant, and the mother of small children. Berenguela and Alfonso produced five children: Leonor, Fernando, Berenguela, Constanza, and Alfonso.58 Access to these children became Berenguela’s main source of power after her separation from Alfonso IX. Of the five siblings, only Fernando received any notice in royal Leonese charters (in this regard, his siblings were unlike their royal aunts and uncles in Castile). If Fernando was indeed the eldest surviving child, born in 1200 or 1201, and Berenguela left her husband’s court at the latest in the spring of 1204 with her youngest child an infant or perhaps in utero, then all of her activities as queen between the years 1199 and 1204 were carried out in either a state of pregnancy or postnatal recovery. Her first child, Leonor, was born in 1198 or 1199.59 Fernando first comes to notice on August 5, 1201; lest there be confusion between him and his elder half-brother Fernando, Berenguela identified him in her own charters as “ filio meo” or “ filio nostro.”60 Alfonso IX ceased to act with this Fernando after August 1204, although he had regularly included him in charters between the time of his birth in 1201 and Berenguela’s departure in 1203–04.61 In 1212, Berenguela—referred to by Rodrigo as the “queen of the Leonese”—and her sons Fernando and Alfonso celebrated Pentecost with the Castilian court.62 Fernando and Alfonso remained with their mother, at least until 1214, when they attended the deathbed of their grandfather King Alfonso of Castile.63
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As discussed above, Berenguela’s marriage to Alfonso IX and her arras were designed as compromises to settle Castilian and Leonese claims over border regions. When the marriage ended, this peace was at risk. Pope Innocent had declared the dower null and void along with the marriage, and there was no longer a royal wife to guarantee Alfonso IX’s good behavior vis-à-vis Castile. New treaties had to be designed, and their final outcome placed the Castilian royal family in a better position than previously. Over time, Alfonso IX was forced to come to Castile and concede to his son and former wife a number of lands and privileges, greatly increasing their wealth and political power. Berenguela remained an important political figure at her father’s court, as the treaties of Cabreros, Burgos, and Valladolid show. These agreements determine, confirm, and reaffirm Berenguela and her son Fernando’s access to her arras, the territories and castles contested between Castile and León before her marriage; they also increased Berenguela’s estates and income. Archbishop Rodrigo believed that these contested lands were settled on Fernando and that the settlements regarding them had little to do with Berenguela.64 It is true that the treaty of Cabreros, for example, arranged matters so that Fernando (or his brother Alfonso, if Fernando died) would hold the contested castles, and Berenguela mainly had access to the properties for her lifetime. Lucas of Túy, however, perceived that the agreements of Burgos and Valladolid resulted in a peace under which “king Alfonso of León gave to his wife Queen Berenguela, who was then staying with her father in Castile [the castles of ] Villalpando, Ardon, Rueda, Argüello, Gordón and Luna.”65 Lucas’s consistent identification of Berenguela as the queen of León and sole beneficiary of the peace treaties fits with his Leonese perspective as well as perhaps a certain sympathy with his patroness, whereas Archbishop Rodrigo’s description of Fernando as the beneficiary of the treaties corresponds to his Castilian perspective. Archbishop Rodrigo foregrounded Fernando as the ruler of Castile and the subjugation of León to Castile.66 The treaties of Cabreros, Burgos, and Valladolid, however, clearly show that both Berenguela and her son benefited. These treaties reiterated Berenguela’s status as queen of León, the status of Fernando as her heir, and above all, her access to power through the lands she held. The first in this series of treaties was that of Cabreros, dated March 26, 1206. Most of the lands under the jurisdiction of the treaty were originally part of Berenguela’s arras, and these were granted to Fernando by his mother.67 Fernando also received a few territories from both his father and his grandfather. The treaty stated that Fernando ought to have all of these by law of inheritance, “por juro de heredad.”68 Alfonso IX reserved for himself the right of yantar in a few towns. This was the
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right either to be quartered upon the citizens of a town or to levy a tax they could pay in lieu of the actual occupation of the court. It was an important royal privilege, supplying the court with material support as well as symbolizing dominion. Alfonso also conceded to Berenguela a number of privileges, rents, and taxes in other castles and towns.69 In total, Berenguela was awarded an annual income of 8,000 maravedís in rents. Most importantly, the treaty of Cabreros stated that Fernando—or, if he should die, his brother Alfonso—would inherit the kingdom of León after Alfonso IX.70 The treaty also prohibited Alfonso from alienating all or any part of the kingdom of León. The treaty of Cabreros elaborately articulated the rights and obligations of the kings, the queen, and their vassals; it is noteworthy as well for being the oldest extant public document composed in Castilian Spanish.71 The treaty was intended to form the basis of Castilian-Leonese relations, presumably until Fernando came of age, but proved insufficient to that task. Berenguela’s concessions to Fernando did not mean that these properties no longer served as bases for the queen’s personal power; the subsequent treaties of 1207, prepared at Burgos, and 1209, prepared at Valladolid, demonstrate why this was so. In 1207, Berenguela received from Alfonso of León more castles and money: all the rents and services owed from Valencia, Castroverde, and Castro Gonzalo, half the king’s income from ten other towns, and more than 2,000 maravedís in annual privileges and rents, “according to the charter of peace made between [himself ] and the king of Castile.” This treaty also stated that certain castles would be held by the queen and that their tenants would recognize her, not King Alfonso, as their lord.72 Several of these castles had been given to Fernando in the treaty of Cabreros; these later treaties clarified Berenguela’s lifelong tenancy, and then her son’s inheritance. However, the treaty of Burgos also stated that these properties would return to Alfonso of León upon Berenguela’s death, but that after his death they would go to Fernando. Alfonso conceded to Berenguela not only new rents but also his previously reserved rights of yantar in the towns of Valderas, Villafrechós, Bolaños, and Siero de Riaño. In other words, he effectively ceded to all rights of lordship in those towns to her. In 1209, a “peace” treaty between the Castilians and Leonese issued at Valladolid further endowed Berenguela with various properties and reiterated the agreements settled at Cabreros. In this last treaty, Alfonso IX confirmed his earlier concessions, reiterated the agreements settled at Cabreros, and handed over to Berenguela the towns of Ardón, Rueda, and Villalpando.73 Villalpando had been like Salamanca, protected from Castilian control in Berenguela’s original arras, but nonetheless quickly became an important power base for her
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and remained so for the rest of her life. That Villalpando was thoroughly under Berenguela’s control after these settlements is demonstrated by a 1212 charter granted by the town’s archpriest, Miguel Felix. Even though it was a Leonese charter, it did not acknowledge Alfonso IX as ruler, but rather referred to “Queen Berenguela reigning with her son Infante Fernando.” 74 Berenguela’s vassal García Ordoñez governed the town for her and Fernando. Miguel Felix’s charter does not indicate that Berenguela was then present in Villalpando, and given events in Castile in 1212, notably the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, it seems unlikely that she was. Indeed, in his somewhat disorganized narration of the relations between Castile and León in this period, Lucas of Túy is clear about this much: it was to Berenguela, “who was staying then with her father in Castile,” that Alfonso of León gave Villalpando, Ardon, Rueda, Argüello, Gordón, and Luna.75 Much later, on February 28, 1231—by which point Berenguela had established Fernando as king in Castile, arranged his marriage to Beatriz of Swabia, and helped him secure León—a private charter of sale recorded that Fernando ruled Castile and León not only with Queen Beatriz, but also “with his mother the queen Berenguela, who is lady in Villalpando.” This charter was confirmed by a number of people from Villalpando, including the alcaldes of the town, and Don Lope Díaz who held Villalpando “from the hand of ” [de manu] Berenguela.76 Berenguela received important revenue from her lordship of places like Valencia and Villalpando. Although the inhabitants may not have benefited much from her actual presence, they carefully identified themselves with the queen and her lordship. Such lands and relationships constituted the bases for her power, and these documents and their language substantiated her authority as well.77 Berenguela would make good use of these connections in 1230 when she helped her son Fernando become king of León. Besides the treaties of Cabreros, Valladolid, and Burgos, scattered evidence points to Berenguela’s status as queen in her territories, as well as in her father’s kingdom. In 1207, for example, Pedro Franco and his wife Lambra recorded their bequest to Las Huelgas, and this was witnessed by Queen Leonor and “La Regina donna Berenguela de Leon,” and the Infanta Urraca.78 For the most part, however, chroniclers’ narratives are the best sources for her life between 1204 and 1217. When Berenguela returned to Castile in 1204, the rising star in that kingdom was her fifteen-year-old brother, Infante Fernando. Juan of Osma expounded upon the virtues of this prince, particularly in regard to his crusading fervor.79 In October 1211, however, the infante was struck by a fever and died.80 Infante Fernando’s death placed Berenguela once again very close to the throne: the heir was her only surviving brother, the seven-year-old Enrique. Soon thereafter,
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preparations began for what was later to be known as the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa; Alfonso VIII sent Leonor and Berenguela away to the seemingly invincible castle of Jorquera, and Archbishop Rodrigo received papal permission to preach the crusade in France.81 At the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, Alfonso VIII finally experienced victory over the Almohads and stretched the Castilian frontier well south of Toledo. Las Navas de Tolosa marked the climax of Alfonso VIII’s career; afterward, hostilities between Castile and León continued, distracting the king from further efforts at southern conquest. Two years later, the king of Castile was dead, followed by his queen.82 Castile was left with another minor king, the eleven-year-old Enrique I, and Berenguela was his regent. Juan of Osma states that Berenguela held the tutela, or custody, of her brother, while Archbishop Rodrigo and Tello, bishop of Palencia, shared with her the reins of government.83 Control over the person of the king himself, however, was the key to the regent’s power. Regent and Queen of Castile Alfonso VIII’s executors accepted Berenguela as regent. They included Archbishop Rodrigo, Bishop Tello of Palencia, the Countess/Abbess Mencia of San Andrés de Arroyo, and Alfonso’s majordomo, Gonzalo Rodríguez. In November or December 1214, these four made restitution of property illegally held by the deceased king to the monastery of San Andrés de Valbeni. This they did “with the counsel of Doña Berenguela, queen of León and Galicia, to whom her mother Queen Leonor had committed both the kingdom and her son and all the legal rights to the kingdom, just as the lord king of blessed memory had committed them to the same Queen Leonor.”84 The executors thus confirmed the genealogy of Berenguela’s authority and demonstrated that her responsibilities encompassed a great deal more than the mere custody and tutelage of her young brother, explicitly including the governance of Castile. The executors themselves, including Rodrigo and Tello, retained some power; Archbishop Rodrigo at least remained present at Enrique’s court throughout the young king’s reign, confirming royal charters.85 Rodrigo later praised Berenguela’s worthiness: “Her diligence was indeed apparent the entire time of her government, so that the poor, the rich, the clergy, and the laity were preserved in their status, just as they were in the time of the king [Alfonso VIII]; although the inconstancy of the barons brought about divisions caused by the resentment of jealousy.”86 Rodrigo was nostalgic for the “old days” under King Alfonso, the tenor of which Berenguela apparently preserved. Rodrigo’s
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tone is reminiscent of Lucas of Túy’s statement that Berenguela’s wise conduct was inherited from her father: “It seemed that the wisdom of her father f lowed through her.”87 Although at no point in her career can we see Berenguela explicitly making policy, in general she seems to have held a fairly conservative view and practice of government, continuing Alfonso VIII’s policies of preservation of the family lineage, patronage of the Cistercian and military orders, and extension of the realm (among the most significant). She may have been tutored in this view not only by her father, but also by the archbishop. The support of her father’s executors and her conservative inclinations notwithstanding, Berenguela faced active opposition to her regency (Rodrigo’s “divisions”) from a powerful group of Castilian nobles, led by her father’s former alférez, Álvaro Núñez de Lara. Álvaro remained alférez for Enrique, but his ambitions reached much higher. In the past, members of the Lara family had assumed the regency in Castile: his grandfather Manrique had been a regent during Alfonso VIII’s minority (1154–67), and Álvaro now wished to claim this privilege.88 Berenguela’s regency was also threatening because she herself was Enrique’s heir. Berenguela’s fraught relationship with Álvaro was aggravated by her inability to control nobles who took advantage of the regency to pillage the Castilian countryside and probably by her apparent willingness to submit to the inf luence of the bishops Rodrigo and Tello.89 Initially, a large proportion of royal charters from Enrique’s court record a variety of grants to the archbishop and see of Toledo. These undoubtedly resulted from Rodrigo’s inf luence and Berenguela’s acquiescence.90 Álvaro Núñez and his followers challenged Berenguela’s regency for a number of reasons: the Lara claim to regency based on historical precedent and the nobles’ antagonistic relationship with the royalist churchmen upon whom Berenguela depended were but two of the most clearly articulated and most obvious. Their ideological reasons for opposing Berenguela as a woman are difficult to appreciate; products of their time, they did not feel the need—or perhaps were unable—to articulate them as such. However, the gendering of their opposition merits some consideration.91 In Castile, even in the thirteenth century, the king was primarily a military leader, the first among equal sword-wielders. Despite historical precedent for female rulership, and Alfonso VIII’s insurance of Berenguela’s legitimacy as a potential ruler, female rulers were severely handicapped. In medieval Castile, women did not bear arms, and even queens did not rise above this rule. Thus, Berenguela could not, in the view of resistant nobles, fully perform the obligations of regent—to be a placeholder for their war leader. This was a purely ideological, not a practical, problem. Eventually, Berenguela took part
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in military endeavors, most significantly participating in Fernando’s knighting, and more practically, she attended sieges and supplied war materiel; her vassals came to her during the war that followed Fernando’s accession. This was possible in part because of the blurry lines existing at the top of the social hierarchy. But such social rules probably served as compelling rationale to pressure her into giving up the regency. Gender rules could bend in practice, but mentalités were less f lexible.92 It is unlikely that Enrique himself was in danger of losing his throne in these struggles. It was not the crown itself, but control of the young king, for which Berenguela and Álvaro competed. Enrique received the homage of his nobles immediately upon his accession, and for at least the first three months of his reign, Berenguela kept her brother under her tutelage and governed the kingdom with the aid of Archbishop Rodrigo and Bishop Tello.93 Royal charters surviving from this period are few, and in none of his did Enrique act “with his sister,” as might have been expected given the precedent of his father. On January 2, 1215, Berenguela and Enrique witnessed a donation from Fernando Sánchez and his wife Alda to the cathedral of Toledo for the souls of Alfonso VIII and Queen Leonor. In this case, Berenguela affixed her seal to the document, as did her brother, Archbishop Rodrigo, and the cathedral chapter. Berenguela’s seal offers a window on her selfimage and insight into her understanding of her own power and authority at that time. She represents herself explicitly as her father’s daughter. The obverse of the seal carries the traditional castle of Castile, representing her authority there, and quoting directly from her father’s seal. The reverse carries the lion of León, representing not only her lands in León, but also her status as the queen there. Not until 1230 under Fernando III would those two images be united again.94 (See figures 3.1 and 3.2.) The seal also ref lects the challenges of Berenguela’s gender status: unlike most women’s seals, such as her mother’s, it departs from the image of a woman as a sexual being, who biologically linked generations. Rather, Berenguela’s seal emphasized her role—like a man’s—as a ruler.95 At first glance this seal may seem a hastily adopted one, perhaps made with a handy matrix easily adapted for the queen’s use, but in fact, it was used to send a deliberate, specific message. Berenguela’s use of the castles of Castile and the lion of León declare not only her personal lineage but also the sources of her authority—queen in both kingdoms and regent by her father’s will. The chronology of Berenguela’s loss of authority at the Castilian court is not entirely certain; conf licting evidence from March and April 1215 suggests that the eventual transference of the regency from Berenguela to Álvaro Núñez was anything but smooth or easily accepted. Berenguela was forced to turn both the custody of Enrique’s person and the regency of the kingdom of Castile over to Álvaro, in return for his homage.
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Figure 3.1 Seal of Queen Berenguela (obverse)
Rodrigo explains that a trusted noble, García Lorenzo, had been proposed as regent and that Berenguela conceded the regency to him, afraid of the impending chaos promised by noble opposition. Upon her concession, García Lorenzo advised Enrique that Álvaro should have the regency.
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Figure 3.2 Seal of Queen Berenguela (reverse)
Berenguela realized the trick, but accepted Álvaro’s regency on certain conditions, attempting to limit the regent’s sphere of action.96 Álvaro promised to do nothing without Berenguela’s counsel and consent; he would not seize or alienate royal lands or enter into war with neighboring
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kingdoms or collect taxes.97 If they failed to consult Berenguela in all matters or to be loyal to Archbishop Rodrigo, Álvaro and his followers would be considered pernicious traitors.98 In the long run, Álvaro’s act of homage proved meaningless; his promises were empty, and Berenguela lost all inf luence at her brother’s court. Lucas does not discuss Berenguela’s relationship with Enrique, Álvaro, the regency, or any of the conf lict of this period. He simply notes Enrique’s reign, manner of death, and burial at Las Huelgas. This may be because of Lucas’s Leonese focus. Just as likely, however, we may see Berenguela’s inf luence as a patron here: she may not have appreciated the reiteration of her failures at this juncture in her history.99 One of Berenguela’s last acts as regent was to bring about a settlement between Castile and León. On March 15, 1215, she appeared at the monastery of Sobrado in Asturias (León), where she made a donation. The document was witnessed by Berenguela’s two sons, as well as representatives from both the Castilian and Leonese courts, most notably Álvaro Núñez de Lara, and Sancho Fernández, the alférez (and half brother) of Alfonso IX.100 Perhaps, under the watchful eye of Alfonso IX in the neutral environs of Sobrado, the transfer of power between Berenguela and Álvaro began to take place; it was possibly at this time that Fernando joined his father’s court.101 The donation charter recorded in the Tumbo de Sobrado is decorated with Berenguela’s signo rodado. Berenguela’s symbol copied that of her father: a circle enclosing a cross. The motto, however, was her own addition: “Lord, teach me to do your will” [Domine, doceme facere voluntatem tuam].102 Berenguela’s reference to Psalm 142 might indicate that she equated her authority with that of the Old Testament kings—a common medieval royal impulse—and wished to suggest that her actions ref lected the will of God.103 Such use when she was on the verge of transferring power to García Lorenzo or Álvaro Núñez indicated a dignified reminder to the new regent that Berenguela’s conditions (and Álvaro’s homage) were supported by a spiritual imperative: the will of God (see figure 3.3). However, an April 1215 charter recording the foundation gifts to the monastery of Santa María de la Vega (near Palencia) by Rodrigo Rodríguez Giron, Enrique’s chancellor, demonstrates that Berenguela was not completely eclipsed at her brother’s court and puts Berenguela and Enrique together at Carrión de los Condes. There, Rodrigo Rodríguez and his wife, Inés Perez, gave to Abbot Muño all the places that Enrique and Berenguela had given them. In the charter, Rodrigo and Inés noted that Enrique reigned “with his sister queen Berenguela in Toledo and Castile.”104 Normally we could attribute this inconsistency to monastic scribes being behind the times, but here the king’s own chancellor
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Figure 3.3 Signo Rodado of Queen Berenguela
supervised the charter. Since Rodrigo Rodríguez continued to serve as chancellor to Enrique until October 1216, it seems unlikely this was a mistake or a stubborn refusal to honor Álvaro’s claims.105 Álvaro began to style himself as “count” only on or around April 21, 1215, and it was probably around this later date that Berenguela left her brother in Álvaro’s care.106 Before becoming regent, Álvaro sought an alliance with the Leonese court, attempting to undermine Berenguela’s inf luence, but Alfonso IX may have been equally happy to support Berenguela, perceiving the unstable situation in Castile as advantageous for his own claims there. That Alfonso IX supported challenges to Álvaro’s regency is not in doubt; what is uncertain is whether Berenguela actually f led to the Leonese court after losing the regency of Castile. Between May 31 and September 29, 1216, Alfonso IX began to include his son Fernando in his intitulation; by then, Berenguela was unwelcome at Enrique’s court, and Fernando was probably taking up his position as heir to León.107 Although Berenguela may have returned to her domains in León—such as Villalpando or Valencia—no charter evidence places her anywhere in León at this time. The chronicle evidence is vague, but it suggests that Berenguela tried to stay as close to the Castilian court as possible. Once in power, Álvaro Núñez was not better able to control fractious and opportunistic nobles than Berenguela had been. Álvaro and his brother Gonzalo made themselves counts and, according to Juan of
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Osma, the condition of the kingdom began to deteriorate rapidly.108 Álvaro may have aggravated noble discontent by a policy of exclusion, eliminating the inf luence of previously powerful nobles from the court. The exclusion extended, of course, to Berenguela and her supporters, such as the chancellor Rodrigo Rodríguez Giron, who left the court after October 1216.109 The brothers Rodríguez Giron, led by Alfonso VIII’s old majordomo, Gonzalo Rodríguez, immediately after agreeing to Álvaro’s regency began to lay waste to the territory around Burgos, “humiliating the great and exhausting the wealth of the people, enserfing the monasteries and the churches.” “Similarly,” complained the alienated royalist Archbishop Rodrigo, “he began to confiscate the third of the tithes [the tercias], which was to go toward the building of churches.” The noble brothers’ “squeezing and exaction” of churchmen who normally enjoyed immunity gave Rodrigo the opportunity to excommunicate them.110 The depredations of the Rodríguez brothers were not the result of Álvaro’s regency (to which they had agreed), but rather protests against his policies. Álvaro also had to contend with the powerful Castilians Lope Díaz de Haro and Rodrigo Díaz de Cameros, and his brothers, as well as Alfonso Téllez (brother of Bishop Tello); after a failed meeting at Valladolid in the summer of 1216, these nobles formed an alliance and threw in their lot with Berenguela, and the conf lict erupted into a civil war.111 Archbishop Rodrigo called this meeting at Valladolid a “curia” and its participants those who (in his opinion) pitied the devastated state of the kingdom. These nobles approached Berenguela, asking her to have mercy on the poor of the kingdom—but more likely to reclaim the regency.112 Álvaro’s response was to attack; he occupied Berenguela’s lands “which her father had given her” and made demands that she leave the kingdom.113 It was perhaps at this point that Berenguela, if she had not done it immediately upon agreeing to the regency, sought papal protection for herself, her children, and her possessions, which was granted by Pope Honorius III in November 1216.114 Álvaro understood Berenguela’s tutela of Enrique to have been authorized by her father, despite its transmission through Leonor; he was asking for that royal sanction and asking Berenguela to relinquish her legitimate hold on that role. In the long run, Berenguela’s physical departure from Castile and concession of her rights there would be essential to Álvaro’s success. In the short term, however, Berenguela’s continued presence stabilized the situation; for, despite Álvaro, the magnates who met in Valladolid in 1216 and sided with Berenguela remained faithful to Enrique. Rodrigo suggests that, without her inf luence over those nobles, total chaos would have ensued.115
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In the winter of 1216–17, Berenguela, who was at Las Huelgas in Burgos, sent a messenger to “investigate secretly the state of her brother . . . She was indeed worried, that he was poorly cared for by the count Álvaro.”116 As the story goes, the count intercepted her letter, rewrote it to reveal a conspiracy between Berenguela, Gonzalo Rodríguez, Alfonso Téllez, and other nobles to murder King Enrique (Rodrigo specifies by poison), and forged Berenguela’s seal on it. Álvaro then had the false letter “discovered” and hanged the hapless messenger in an elaborate effort to besmirch Berenguela’s reputation. Both Juan of Osma and Archbishop Rodrigo describe Berenguela as a new Susanna, betrayed by false witnesses but proving her purity and innocence in the end.117 Historian Simon Doubleday questioned Rodrigo’s biased reporting of this event, seeing it as but one moment in the archbishop’s campaign to depict Álvaro as a “two dimensional villain.” The fact that Juan of Osma also reported it suggests that Rodrigo did not invent the tale. However, both authorities had good reason to exculpate Berenguela. Possibly, Berenguela tried to infiltrate her brother’s court in some way. While it would not be amiss, therefore, to consider Berenguela’s “messenger” a spy, it seems far-fetched to suggest that she contemplated actual assassination, especially by such inept methods. Poison, a weapon rhetorically associated with women, would be difficult to administer without direct, sustained, and private access to the king during mealtime.118 Alerted to this plot, Berenguela “understood the diabolical fiction, and knew that she and her sister, who was with her, were threatened with insult [contumeliam] and dishonor.”119 Probably threatened with a great deal more than insult (or physical violence, another meaning for contumelia) and dishonor, Berenguela and Leonor f led the convent of Las Huelgas, where they had been staying with their sister Constanza, for the castle of Autillo, which was held by their new ally Gonzalo Rodríguez. According to both Juan of Osma and Rodrigo, the royal women remained there until Enrique’s death. Álvaro, for his part, resumed military maneuvers against Berenguela’s partisans, but with no result.120 Rodrigo says that Álvaro’s partisans captured Rodrigo Gonzalvo de Valverde, who already held the trust (beneplacitum) of the king and had transferred himself to Berenguela’s side after the forgery, unbeknownst to Álvaro.121 They also attacked the town of Alva de Alcer, where they severely wounded Berenguela’s supporter Alfonso Téllez and seized his horses and arms, although he himself escaped. In the heightened conf lict, control of the young king was paramount, and he remained in Álvaro’s hands. The count, with King Enrique at his side, continued to move against Berenguela and her partisans throughout Lent and Easter of 1217. In the general stalemate, devastation and ruin continued.122
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Things did not look good for Berenguela and her followers, who remained secure but immobilized in the castles of Autillo and Castro Cisneros; the chroniclers relate that they were so anxious that they “did not know what to do.” They debated whether to give up their forces and castles to Enrique, and according to Juan of Osma, had decided to do so, but this option was rendered unnecessary by the king’s accidental death.123 This civil war obscured the potential of the young king, who was a true puppet. Initially, Álvaro attempted to confirm his control over Enrique by betrothing him to the Portuguese princess Mafalda. Because Enrique was a minor, the marriage was not consummated and, because of the young couple’s consanguinity, the reliable Innocent III intervened and dissolved the marriage.124 Rodrigo reports that Álvaro then wished to marry Mafalda himself “but she, being chaste, indignantly refused.”125 In the midst of increasing factionalism and social chaos, Enrique continued his knightly and political education in his war-torn and peripatetic court. He may have been willing to return to his sister, but Álvaro prevented this.126 In late May 1217, however, crisis struck in the city of Palencia. Playing some game with boys from his household, Enrique was wounded in the head by a loose roof tile accidentally kicked by one of his cohort.127 Despite efforts to relieve cerebral hemorrhaging by trepanning, the fourteen-year-old king died a few days later, leaving Berenguela heir to the kingdom, but Álvaro holding its reins and in control of royal forces. Álvaro moved quickly to hide Enrique’s body in the tower of Tariego, near Burgos, evidently trying to suppress the fact of the king’s death and buy enough time to rally his resources.128 Was this a convenient accident? Doubleday noted Berenguela’s succession, the possible disruption of another marriage attempt for Enrique (this time with another cousin, Alfonso IX’s daughter Sancha), and the speed with which Berenguela was apprised of the king’s demise.129 Any evidence that either side sought the king’s death is too circumstantial. Both Berenguela and Álvaro Núñez had a strong interest in the king’s well-being, as well as in their access to the boy. Despite Álvaro’s efforts at concealment, Berenguela heard immediately of Enrique’s death and acted quickly; she, too, wished to delay the news of his demise and her inheritance. Like Álvaro, Berenguela needed time to forestall enemies who might try to claim the throne, especially her former husband. She quickly sent her trusted advisers Lope Díaz de Haro and Gonzalo Rodríguez to Alfonso IX, with whom her son Fernando was staying. The Castilian nobles were to bring Fernando to her “by whatever trick or art,” away from the power of his father, without revealing the nature of the crisis in Castile, “having in mind, as indeed became evident after the fact, to give her elder son her father’s kingdom, which
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belonged to her, by reason of her being the oldest of the sisters, as there was no son of King Alfonso left.”130 The chronicler was being somewhat anticipatory as at that particular point, it was not absolutely clear what Berenguela meant to do.131 Berenguela needed Fernando by her side to demonstrate her successful motherhood and the continuation of Alfonso VIII’s lineage: her son was proof of the viability of that lineage and her own role in it. She therefore needed to draw Fernando away from León where he could have been hostage to Alfonso IX’s ambitions. As Berenguela might have surmised, Alfonso IX did interpret Enrique’s death as an opportunity to realize his dream of annexing Castile.132 Conclusion: The Limits of Marriage When Berenguela became queen of León in 1197–98, at the age of seventeen, she participated fully in the affairs of the realm, even before she officially received her arras. She showed herself to be a good patron, a good lord and queen, and notwithstanding the death of her first child, an immediately successful mother. In this regard, she was very unlike her sister Blanche, who in these years was just beginning her life in tutelage for queenship at the French court, and whose official queenship (1223–26) seems to comprise the least active years of her life.133 However, for Berenguela as for Blanche, the most important years of her life came after she moved beyond the boundaries of married queenship. In the decade between her return to Castile and her parents’ deaths, Berenguela reintegrated into her natal family and laid the foundation for her son’s inheritance. The regency of Enrique I and the civil war accompanying Berenguela’s loss of power disrupted the status quo and marked a turning point as Berenguela made a transition from one kind of queenship to another. Once she returned to Castile, Berenguela was actively involved with her natal family. Over time she participated in negotiations with her father and her former husband regarding her divorce settlement; she took responsibility for the burial of her brother Fernando in 1211, and in 1212, she corresponded with her sister Blanche. These latter developments will be explained more fully in chapters that follow. Here, the important point is that this activity took place within the appropriate, prescribed framework for a medieval woman: Berenguela did nothing to transgress gender boundaries. Relinquishing the regency of her brother, albeit unwillingly, kept her within the scope of appropriate female behavior. As events unfolded, Berenguela challenged these paradigms even as she took full advantage of her wealth and status accumulated in the first half of her life as a daughter of the king of Castile, as the queen of León, and as the mother of a son.
CHAPTER 4 THE LABORS OF RULING: THE MOTHERING QUEEN
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erenguela’s queenship was manifested through her roles as wife, heir, and mother. The nexus of marriage and inheritance made possible her motherhood, and as a mothering queen she had great power. Berenguela’s brief experience as sole ruler of Castile, lasting at the most a few months in 1217, was not unsuccessful; through her right to rule, the Castilian throne was preserved for her family and most immediately for her son Fernando. Berenguela’s complex queenship evolved throughout her life, as she ruled with her son, much as her sister Blanche did during the reign of Louis IX. As was the case for queen-wives, queen mothers had no specially designated office, and no evidence of a coronation or special ritual for queen-making in Castile exists, unlike France or England.1 As has been suggested for French queen-regents, an absence of office with institutional limitations meant that a woman such as Berenguela, with a legitimate hereditary claim to rule, theoretically had an almost unlimited political space in which to effect her power.2 However, to say that her power was merely informal fails to recognize the extent to which Berenguela’s authority derived from her place in her lineage, her position as a lord with an army, her great wealth and access to royal justice, as well as recognized status as an heir to the throne. “Informal power” implies a lack of authority and legitimacy, power vulnerable to the intrigue and favoritism that could characterize court life, and is often applied to the position of queens in the High Middle Ages, who held seemingly anomalous positions: without office, yet with access to the centers and machinery of government.3 Corulership could, as demonstrated in the case of Queen Leonor, Berenguela’s mother, and in the case of her sister Blanche of Castile, provide a better construct for understanding the otherwise vague framework for the operations of monarchy, especially in Christian Iberia.4
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At the same time, in the so-called “feudal” and “unsacred” monarchy where the official delimitations of all authority were vague at best, to seek to define any queen in terms of office will distract us from understanding what such queens were actually able to do. The ancient practice of corulership in Castile and León between kings and their consorts or sons, and Berenguela’s acute attention to her place and the place of her son within her lineage, coupled with authority as a legitimate heir to the throne, allowed her to maintain a position in the Castilian realm as its “head queen” until her death in 1246. Lady and Queen of Castile: Daughter and Mother With King Enrique’s sudden death, Berenguela inherited a throne she did not possess. To claim it, she needed her son Fernando—then in León— and so sent her partisans, the Castilian nobles Lope Díaz and Gonzalo Rodríguez, to bring him secretly to her. They succeeded in bringing Fernando to his mother in Autillo, from where all proceeded to Palencia, “where mother and son were honorably received with a solemn procession” by Bishop Tello of Palencia—the first ritual demonstration of Berenguela’s rule.5 From Palencia, Berenguela and her entourage made their way to the castle of Dueñas, which they occupied. This combination of ritual performance and military show of strength was calculated to pave the way for Fernando; at this point, Berenguela led her partisans in an attempt to reconcile with their enemies. Anticipating Berenguela’s inf luence over her son, or even perhaps her intent to rule, Álvaro Núñez de Lara would only agree to accept Fernando as king on his own terms— essentially, continued regency.6 Such an agreement would have insulted Fernando, given his age, and would have marginalized Berenguela as a force in government yet again. Mindful of the past, Berenguela refused to consent to Álvaro’s terms. She then proceeded to the city of Valladolid, where she was again positively received, from there crossing the Duero into Castilian Extremadura.7 The sources in no way indicate that she was preparing to give up power or transfer royal authority to her son, who shadowed his mother across this political stage but did not play a major role in any of these developments. Even the Chronica latina, which would eventually label Berenguela’s act at Valladolid as an “abdication”—albeit in a different context—does not suggest otherwise. On her way to Segovia, the people of the town of Coca refused to admit her, probably because of the approach of a Leonese army headed by Sancho Fernández, Alfonso IX’s brother.8 These regions were also the strongest bases of Álvaro Núñez’s support. Not everyone, then, especially in these border towns, was willing to accept Berenguela as
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a ruler. Their loyalty to Álvaro, anxiety about the interference of Alfonso IX, and ambivalence about a female ruler all likely played into their resistance. The queen and her party, in the face of such hostility, returned to her stronghold of Valladolid and waited for Sancho Fernández. In the meantime, Alfonso IX made an alliance with Álvaro.9 From their position of safety, Berenguela and her followers must have begun a series of negotiations; the Extremadurans, who had earlier resisted Berenguela and Fernando’s progression through their towns, were persuaded to come to Valladolid. There, on July 2, a number of people (most likely knights, but also possibly representatives from the clergy and other important townsmen) from Extremadura and Castile came to the marketplace and asked Berenguela to come with her son to a field outside the city gates, for there were too many people to fit in the royal palace.10 The queen, her sons Fernando and Alfonso, and her entourage (including the bishops of Burgos and Palencia, many other clerics, and nobles) went out to the crowd who was waiting for them. There, one representative, “speaking for all . . . recognized that the kingdom of Castile was owed by law to the queen, lady Berenguela, and that they all recognized her as the lady and queen of the kingdom of Castile.”11 Law, however, was not enough. The people gathered at Valladolid unanimously begged the queen to give the throne to her son, for, being a woman, “she could not bear the labors of ruling a kingdom.”12 This, according to Juan of Osma, whose text emphasized the “solace” of rightful kingship, she agreed to do.13 Is this what happened? Modern historians have argued that Juan of Osma wrote with an eye to elevating Fernando’s kingship and separating his identity as a ruler from his mother. Juan’s story of abdication was later fortified in his description of key events of 1224, when Fernando made an appeal to his mother and vassals to go on crusade, and described her action in 1217 as an abdication.14 Juan’s story is dramatic, appealing, and highlights the dilemma of Berenguela’s position: her legal right, and the perceived disability of her gender. Other evidence, however, suggests we should step back from Juan of Osma’s blunt narration of events and seek a more nuanced understanding of Berenguela’s actions at this key moment. The events at Valladolid are crucial to understanding how Berenguela was able to continue to act in her capacity as a queen por juro de heredad even as she elevated her son to the throne, cultivated his followers, and established him as a powerful ruler. The first evidence that this was not a classic abdication (the renunciation of formal power) comes from the pens of other chroniclers, who chose language emphasizing Berenguela’s gift of the throne to Fernando. Rodrigo says she did not wish to keep it for herself—that she was unselfish (sharing power), but not that she gave
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up power or relinquished authority. According to Rodrigo, Berenguela reminded the nobles of the fidelity they owed her and, although they agreed to fulfill their obligations, “She, confining herself to the limits of chastity and modesty—more so than all the ladies of the world—did not wish to keep the kingdom for herself.”15 Thus, with everyone’s approval, she handed the kingdom over to her son. In Rodrigo’s version of events, Berenguela alone decided to raise Fernando to the throne.16 She assessed her abilities, weighing them against the obligations of her followers; she did not withdraw because of popular request. Rodrigo’s Berenguela appropriately fulfilled the female role, but her ability to take on the labors of ruling was unquestioned. For Rodrigo, Berenguela’s unselfishness epitomized her preeminence among women; he recognized that her talents and potential were of the first order— greater than any other woman’s—and implied that she would have been a successful ruler regardless of the actions taken at Valladolid. Lucas of Túy, Juan of Osma, and Rodrigo also asserted Berenguela’s rights as the legitimate heir to the Castilian throne. Lucas declared Berenguela’s right as her father’s first-born; the other two also referred to the old charter from the curia held in Carrión in 1188, sealed with a lead seal and stored at Burgos—the Treaty of Seligenstadt—which made clear the will of Alfonso VIII.17 Berenguela’s decision to establish Fernando as king was her own. Whether it was prompted by the inhabitants of Valladolid, her own gendered sense of generosity, or, more likely, a savvy perspective on the gendered sensibilities of all parties involved, it was a strategy that ensured her route to power.18 Martin has suggested that at this moment she already had her eyes on the prize of León, whose heir Fernando had been named in the treaty of Cabreros.19 This fits with an understanding of Berenguela’s larger policy of promoting and protecting Castile for her lineage. She made no choice between herself and her son, preserved her legal status, and began to rebuild her dynasty. Having secured her son’s kingship, Berenguela proceeded with Fernando to the church of Santa María in Valladolid, where he received homage and became King Fernando III. 20 The reasons why Berenguela met the people of Valladolid outside their city walls warrant some investigation. The significant numbers of people present suggest not only a thorough complement of witnesses but also perhaps extensive representation, echoing a cortes.21 What happened at that moment was extraordinary, and it was crucial that everyone—the clergy, the nobility, the militia, and the people of the town could easily see it. Furthermore, Fernando’s subsequent procession into the city, presumably accompanied by some of the great crowd, suggests a geography of political ritual and the gendering of that space. Outside the walls of her city and away from the
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sacred space of the church, Berenguela performed her own ritual demonstrating her authority, but agreeing to share it as the heir to Castile, and making her son a king. Her counterparts in this action, the people of Valladolid, participated in this legal re-ordering away from the city center. The gendered qualities of their request and of Berenguela’s action and her potentially submissive posture were exterior to legitimacy, but once agreed to, the acclamation of Fernando could proceed within the sacred space, with notably fewer witnesses. Thus, woman, mother, queen, and this extralegal maneuver of seeming renunciation were exterior, on the outside, while man, son, king, and acclamation were interior to urban and sacred space. Despite Fernando’s new status, it was Berenguela who went into action, who energetically and effectively took on the “labors of ruling.” Here is the next bit of evidence that she did not, in fact, abdicate and that her apparent renunciation was on the order of something new: formulaic and without substance. She immediately sent messages to Alfonso IX—the archbishop explained, “with modesty bordering on shame” —and “humbly pleaded with him” to desist attacking Castile as their son was now king.22 Juan of Osma corroborates Alfonso’s advances and Berenguela’s message, but not her supplicant posture. That is Rodrigo’s addition. Berenguela’s reported strategy of shame and modesty may have been an effort to downplay her own “labors of ruling” (and thus remove any threat that she might actually wish to retain them), but more likely was the creation of the archbishop who persisted in trying to contain his remarkable subject within a gender-appropriate sphere. Alfonso IX, urged on by Álvaro Núñez, persisted in his invasion of Castile, but, according to Juan, his cause was hopeless, and he finally retreated to León.23 Having at least temporarily dealt with the Leonese threat, Berenguela demanded the return of her brother’s body from Álvaro’s keeping and received it. Berenguela, with a retinue of bishops and other clergy, took Enrique’s corpse to Las Huelgas and buried it with due honor beside her parents and her brother Fernando.24 Berenguela attended to Enrique’s burial, and then with her vassals “fighting powerfully and manfully,” joined Fernando at the siege of Muño.25 Accompanied by Fernando, Berenguela continued to restore order, deal with vassals, and to make military decisions.26 Rodrigo describes how, immediately after kingship was conferred upon Fernando, even before Enrique’s burial, Berenguela went to Palencia, where there came “numerous” knights from Extremadura—in fact Extremaduran town militias—offering their services to her.27 That the knights at Muño were Berenguela’s vassals and that the Extremadurans offered their services to Berenguela instead of Fernando reveals Berenguela’s hold on power and
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confirms that her actions at Valladolid were part of a strategy ensuring the continuation of that power, based on the loyalty of armed knights. After taking Muño, royal forces moved on to take Lerma and Lara and finally returned to Burgos, where Berenguela and Fernando “were received with great honor and infinite joy.” “There the lady queen, gave to the knights whatever she had, to be precise, she spent whatever gold and silver her father had left to her at the end of his life.”28 Because the civil war had impeded the collection of royal rents, Rodrigo tells us, monies to pay Fernando’s forces were running out. Berenguela gave whatever she could from her own resources—silver, gold, and gems that she had held in reserve—to aid her son. Rodrigo characterizes Berenguela’s action as one of “largesse,” or gift giving, and the Chronica latina describes her expense in the context of the royal family’s joyous and victorious entry into Burgos, when gift giving would have been an appropriate royal ritual. By means of these gifts, Berenguela ensured the desperately needed loyalty of the knights to secure Fernando’s kingship. She also assumed an age-old role of the queen: that of the controller and dispenser of wealth, who served as a crucial link between a king and his military followers.29 The restoration of order and the pacification of Castile could not be accomplished without eliminating the threat posed by Álvaro Núñez. The difficulties that Berenguela and Fernando faced in bringing the knights of Segovia and Extremadura into alliance were due mainly to Álvaro’s inf luence in that region, where he held a number of castles and towns. Still at large, Álvaro and his men embarked on a campaign of ruin within Castile, destroying the town of Belorado (near Burgos), “sparing neither age nor sex.”30 However, in September 1217, he was captured. Juan of Osma graphically described his subsequent humiliation: “Álvaro wished to enter the town with his men, but . . . they [Berenguela’s men] overtook him and restrained him, and they cast him down from his horse in the mud—it was raining—and thus they led the filthy unwilling captive before the lady queen. The queen, seeing then her mortal enemy, who had caused her and those who loved her so many and such great evils, gave thanks to God on high . . . for such a benefit bestowed upon her.”31 Álvaro was imprisoned in Valladolid, where “after a long discussion, in exchange for his freedom he gave the king and the queen all of his fortresses, that he held and all of those [held] by his followers” except two held by his brother.32 The Crónica de la población de Avila, written around 1256, imagined Álvaro’s state of mind during that “discussion”: “When they had brought him to a halt in front of her, he was out of his mind [with fear] that she would order him killed.” Then the Crónica
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adds an interesting detail, describing the intervention of a member of the militia from Avila, Muño Mateos: Lady, Count Álvaro rose up in rebellion against you, but God and your own good fortune and the rightful claim you possessed, willed that you should take him prisoner. But we beg and ask mercy of you, that you overlook the trespass the count has committed; and that instead you consider that you are the best lady in the world and the daughter of the best and most [unfortunate] lord who was ever in the world and have mercy. For although he [Álvaro] did you disservice in this case, if God wills it, other situations will arise in which he may serve you and your lineage. But, lady, let your mercy have this condition: that he and all those who are his supporters give you the castles and fortresses that they are holding.
Muño implied that Berenguela had God and her own good fortune on her side.33 He reminded Berenguela of her lineage, and her personal fortune, which was linked to the failure of the male line. Interceding for Álvaro, he switched traditional roles with Berenguela and reminded her of her obligation to be merciful, if she really was the “best lady in the world.” By showing mercy, she could elevate herself, especially as her father’s daughter and as a legitimate queen. Berenguela replied, thanking God for her good fortune, and promised to reward her loyal vassals. She agreed to show Álvaro mercy, but noted that “he ought to have been more sensible than to rise up against me.”34 Berenguela’s speech revealed confidence in herself and in her vassals. She demonstrated a sense of personal justice and the value of magnanimity (useful tools for any ruler) and, ultimately, her belief in the righteousness of her own authority. The proposal to exchange Álvaro’s life for his castles was so readily agreed to that it was probably worked out while he was imprisoned. He may not have known or anticipated the queen’s “compassion,” and thus he appeared before her shaking in his boots. However, regardless of Álvaro’s acceptance or rejection of Muños’s proposal, Berenguela had won: she could have her enemy killed, or she could, even better, legitimately acquire his strongholds. The Crónica de la población de Avila is a late source, but it offers a valuable perspective on a queen whose reputation formed soon after her death. It also reveals the extent to which the civil war that embroiled Castile from 1216 into 1220 was seen to be a continuous contest between Berenguela and Álvaro Núñez de Lara. Álvaro’s capture and the subsequent capitulation of the castles and towns under his power marked the final turn in Berenguela and Fernando’s quest to control Castile.35 There would be future rebellions during Fernando’s reign, but none really threatened the royal family’s hold on power. One instance of rebellion can be found in the French archives: not everyone
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agreed that Alfonso VIII’s will was recorded in the old charter at Burgos or, at least, that such a will had the power to dictate who would rule Castile.36 At least nine nobles responded to the ascension of Fernando III by appealing to Berenguela’s sister Blanche and her husband Louis of France to come and take the Castilian throne. They included Rodrigo Díaz de Cameros, who had been an important figure at Alfonso VIII’s court, and who had shifted sides between the Lara and Berenguela during Enrique I’s minority; by 1220, he was in dispute with Fernando and Berenguela.37 The Castilian nobles appealing to France claimed that, on his deathbed, Alfonso VIII presciently had insisted that should Enrique die without heir, Blanche, and specifically not Berenguela, ought to inherit the throne. This was, of course, false, as Alfonso VIII commended the kingdom to Leonor’s regency and made no mention of either daughter. At any rate, Louis and Blanche declined the invitation: at the time they were laying claim to English territories. This desperate maneuver had repercussions in later centuries, when French pretenders to the Spanish throne tried to use these letters as evidence that Blanche was the elder of the sisters, and that her descendants were thus the legitimate rulers of Spain, through laws of primogeniture.38 A separate rebellion over feudal rights was raised by Gonzalo Pérez Manrique, a member of the Lara family, at about the same time; Fernando and his mother besieged the fortress of Zafra, and eventually Berenguela negotiated a treaty, bringing Gonzalo Pérez and his family back into royal dependency; the treaty of Zafra will be discussed below.39 Despite these rebellions, both Juan of Osma and Rodrigo state that, within six months, mother and son had subdued all opposition to Fernando’s reign, Juan affirming that it was jointly with Berenguela that Fernando began to exercise his authority as king.40 Rodrigo also implies that Fernando acted, and continued to act always, with the counsel of his mother. This collaboration is corroborated by later royal charters, but it might have been particularly important in this period for dealing with Alfonso of León, with whom Berenguela already had some experience negotiating. Indeed, the first treaty between Castile and León in this era is specifically agreed to by Berenguela, Fernando, and Alfonso IX.41 As early as October 15, 1217, furthermore, nonroyal charters recognized Berenguela and Fernando’s corule, “King Fernando ruling with Queen Berenguela his mother, in Toledo and Castile.”42 This recognition continued throughout Berenguela’s life, even after Fernando married, and is to be found in one form or another in private and royal charters and chronicles.43 A Political Mother and a Governing Mother Berenguela’s ambition, piety, dedication to lineage, and political experience shaped the conduct of her motherhood even as she came into
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her full power as queen “by the Grace of God of Castile and Toledo.”44 Once Castile was pacified, the royal family embarked on a two-fold agenda, in which Berenguela played a key part: the continuation of the royal lineage and the territorial expansion of the kingdom. Berenguela used the marriages of her children to build and block alliances, to gain heirs and to prevent others from doing so, to control her children’s sexuality, and to maintain a level of propriety for the monarchy. Marriage was thus both a privilege and a tool that Berenguela used, as her parents had done, to secure the future of her family’s authority and power. Berenguela arranged the marriages of her children Fernando, Alfonso, and Berenguela; all played timely roles in confirming the Castilians’ place in local, peninsular, and European politics. Identifying reproduction as a political tool, Berenguela sabotaged the marriages of Fernando’s main political competitors, his half-sisters, through the marriage of her own daughter. This and the negotiations between Berenguela and Alfonso IX’s first wife, Teresa of Portugal, over Teresa’s daughters’ struggle for the kingdom of León illustrate how these mothers both defended and exploited their daughters. But Berenguela also observed Christian precepts about marriage to an almost astonishing degree when it came to arranging the marriages of her oldest son Fernando. Berenguela saw marriage as a remedy for (male) incontinence, and thus, secular reasons for contracting marriage intersected with traditional Christian teaching on the purpose of marriage, particularly regarding procreation.45 The king’s sexuality and his mother’s relationship to it were political matters; seeing royal mothers as active guardians of their children’s morality allows us to understand how the royal family was both literally and figuratively conceived. The most important marriages Berenguela arranged were Fernando’s. The king’s successive unions with appropriate women were key to the success of Berenguela’s lineage. Once Fernando had been accepted as king of Castile and his enemies subdued, his mother took it upon herself to find him a suitable wife. Juan of Osma says that Berenguela’s “total intent and desire was to procure honor for her son in every way possible.” She surveyed the available noblewomen of Europe and settled on Beatriz of Swabia, whom she considered to “surpass all of the others of Christendom in the nobility of her lineage.”46 Beatriz was the daughter of Philip, duke of Swabia, and the granddaughter of the Emperors Frederick I Barbarossa and Isaac II Angelos of Constantinople. The reigning German emperor, Frederick II, was her guardian; he kept Berenguela’s ambassadors waiting for four months while the marriage was negotiated in the autumn of 1218.47 The marriage of Fernando and Beatriz echoed the failed attempt to connect the two dynasties a generation earlier, when Berenguela was betrothed to Beatriz’s uncle, Conrad of Rothenburg. Thus, Berenguela likely hoped
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the marriage would strengthen the Castilian connection with the German Empire as well as provide heirs to perpetuate her royal lineage. The ability to command a spouse from a geographically distant and politically important family elevated Berenguela and Fernando’s status; Berenguela was not forced to choose a local wife for her son for the sake of local peace, as was the case in her marriage to Alfonso IX of León. The close kinship among the royal houses of Iberia meant, moreover, that the problem of consanguinity was virtually insurmountable.48 This marriage highlights Berenguela’s own shift in personal power. In 1188, she herself had served as a “trophy” in her betrothal to Conrad; her status shifted when she married Alfonso IX of León in 1197 for the sake of peace in the peninsula. Later, however, as queen of Castile, she was able to command an exotic trophy for her son—and herself. Thus, Berenguela perpetuated her father’s policies on the preservation of family power and dynasty building, and Fernando’s marriage furthered the Castilians’ international interest. Preliminary to his marriage, on November 27, 1219, Fernando knighted himself at the church of Las Huelgas. This ceremony and the wedding that followed it confirmed Fernando’s status as an adult and as a full-f ledged king; the two rituals went hand in hand for royal men entering adulthood. Berenguela took part in the knighting by unbuckling Fernando’s sword after he had taken it from the altar and put it on. Linehan also suggests that, by unbuckling Fernando’s sword, Berenguela took the role of chivalric godparent, or padrina. A significant social debt accrued with each stage of the knighting; Fernando had to be very careful about his choice of sponsor.49 Whom could he better trust than Berenguela? The traditional role of sponsor was complemented by her maternity: as Fernando’s mother, she literally and symbolically helped him to become king. Berenguela reprised her role as kingmaker as she again conferred her own sovereignty upon Fernando.50 Combining masculine and feminine roles, Berenguela stretched, but did not completely cross, gendered boundaries to achieve, preserve, and affirm the Castilian crown. Her participation in Fernando’s knighting demonstrated and confirmed the continued cooperation of mother and son and reminded those present of their permanent relationship. Fernando’s initiation into adulthood thus created no separation or independence from his mother. Three days later, Fernando and Beatriz married in the old Romanesque cathedral of Burgos. The knighting and the wedding provided an opportunity to assemble the important nobles owing allegiance, and after the wedding, a splendid cortes was held over which Berenguela presided. Again, her presence and involvement were essential to the processes of legitimation, and not only for the sake of ritual or ceremony; the chronicle descriptions of the cortes show Fernando under Berenguela’s direction and give us
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a glimpse of Castile’s political future and Berenguela’s place in it. These rituals—knighting, wedding, and cortes—served to reiterate to those present Fernando’s legitimate status as king of Castile.51 Fernando’s marriage to Beatriz, so carefully planned and orchestrated by his mother—it was she who greeted the bride on her arrival in Castile—in no way displaced Berenguela as a dominant figure at the Castilian court.52 In choosing a bride for her son, she continued her duties as a mother, ensuring the reproduction of her family. She herself could not, or would not, have more children, but she could make sure Fernando did. Beatriz’s reproductive task was far more important than any imperial goals harbored by the Castilians, and her fifteen-year marriage to Fernando produced at least ten children; Alfonso, Fadrique, Fernando, Enrique, Felipe, Sancho, Manuel, Leonor, and Berenguela lived beyond infancy. Beatriz died in November 1235, probably after giving birth to her tenth child, a daughter named María.53 In addition to her numerous children, and apparent success as the keeper of the king’s chastity, Beatriz associated Castile with the German Empire. Fernando and Beatriz named their second son Fadrique (Frederick) in homage to his German forebears, and intended that he should receive his mother’s inheritance. Later, Alfonso X’s bid to be Holy Roman Emperor was based on rights he argued were inherited through his mother. The imperial ambitions manifested by Alfonso X were already strongly in play at the courts of Alfonso VIII and Fernando III, and thus Berenguela’s choice of Beatriz is all the more significant as, through the marriage, Berenguela linked the policies of her father and son. As a mother, Berenguela was committed to her children’s marriages in ways that went beyond the purely structural aspects of political alliances. Her concerns reveal the degree to which her approach to mothering, queenship, and good government was imbued with a Christian ethic that matched her desire for power. Regarding marriage, this ethic was manifest in her concern that Fernando’s sexual behavior be appropriate to his status as a Christian king. Proliferation of natural children—particularly when a lineage was fragile—might “diminish the king’s nobility” not only by lessening his moral stature, but by threatening to fragment his patrimony among competing illegitimate offspring. This was not, however, the case in Iberia; kings such as Alfonso IX and his grandson Alfonso X relied on their natural sons and daughters when they could not always completely trust their legitimate children. It seems more likely, then, that Berenguela’s concerns were strictly moral. Certainly she was not alone as a royal mother in her preoccupation with her son’s continence; her sister Blanche was notoriously attentive to Louis IX’s personal life.54 Royal mothers were the (self ) appointed guardians of their sons’ sexual morality.
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Berenguela’s attention to Fernando’s morals assumed a political dimension, for despite Beatriz’s glorious ancestry, the perpetuation of the royal lineage was not the primary rationale for her marriage to Fernando. Rather, the marriage was to combat general anxiety about the king’s potential promiscuity, which, if left unchecked, might prevent him from carrying out his sovereign duties effectively. When Fernando first married, according to Rodrigo, Berenguela sought a wife for her son, wishing “to protect him from illicit women,” for it was “inappropriate for such a great prince to be dissipated in extraordinary wantonness.”55 It would be unsurprising if Fernando had some experience with “illicit women” before his mother remedied the situation. Rodrigo’s rationalization may seem odd, for marriage normally would be a matter of course for a young king eager to perpetuate his lineage and to secure his place as a serious participant in European affairs. Fernando’s status was enhanced by his distinctly exogamous relationship to Beatriz, and by her kinship to the Roman and Byzantine emperors. Instead of dissipating himself, Fernando would increase his status and that of his lineage through intercourse with her. Berenguela’s concern for Fernando’s sexual behavior was thus political and eugenic, as well as Christian in nature. After Beatriz died, according to the chroniclers, Berenguela was once again concerned that Fernando might diminish his nobility by consorting with illicit women.56 By then the Castilian succession seemed secure; Fernando had seven sons and two daughters when Beatriz died, and when he married Jeanne de Ponthieu a year and a half later in 1237, his heir Alfonso was aged sixteen. It is difficult to argue that this marriage was needed to guarantee the future of the lineage. Rather, Berenguela’s alleged concern for her son’s chastity emphasized Fernando’s behavior as king. Therefore, she again sought to marry Fernando appropriately; his new bride was Jeanne, the daughter and heir of Countess Marie of Ponthieu and her husband, Simon de Dammartin. In this arrangement, Berenguela did her sister Blanche a favor. A 1225 agreement between the countess and count of Ponthieu and Louis VIII stipulated that Marie and Simon not ever marry their children to the French king’s enemies.57 In 1234, Blanche put a stop to Jeanne de Ponthieu’s potential marriage to Henry III of England, and when Beatriz died, she may have proposed Jeanne as a suitable bride for her nephew.58 Cooperating, Blanche protected Louis IX’s interest; Berenguela preserved Fernando’s moral purity and status. The preservation of chastity was not usually a reason for medieval kings’ marriages. Furthermore, the desire for children was a standard motivation and would hardly be worth mentioning.59 The cases of Fernando and Louis IX reveal tensions between the requirements that the king perpetuate his lineage and present himself as a sacred, even saintly
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figure. Chroniclers confronted with this problem resolved their confusion by emphasizing the king’s mother’s arrangement of his marriages and her concern for his chastity. Next to kings’ crusades and efforts at “good government,” praising the monarch’s personal conduct demonstrated what a good Christian he was and thus served chroniclers’ rhetorical strategies. The effectiveness of Berenguela’s intervention in Fernando’s personal life is incontestable; unlike his father, Alfonso IX, and his son, Alfonso X, Fernando had no known children out of wedlock. The insistence of Alfonso VIII and Leonor of England, articulated in Berenguela’s arras agreement, that Alfonso IX of León observe a modicum of continence, and the fact that neither Alfonso VIII nor Fernando III had children out of wedlock, indicate that the Castilians were deliberately campaigning to present their court as a chaste one. Berenguela’s attention to Fernando’s sexual propriety is striking when compared to her lack of concern regarding the chastity of her younger son, Alfonso. Alfonso took no pains to follow his brother’s example: married three times, he fathered at least eleven children, more than half of them out of wedlock. Two of Alfonso’s natural children played significant roles in Iberian society; Juan Alfonso became bishop of Palencia, and Berenguela Alfonso was a mistress of Jaume I of Aragon.60 As an infante, Alfonso remained a loyal, active member of the court until he died in 1272. The scant concern shown by either Berenguela or Fernando over Alfonso’s sexual behavior throws into prominent relief Fernando’s obligation to be a chaste king. Alfonso did not, however, escape Berenguela’s attention. His first marriage signaled the end of a major rebellion and brought the royal family an important patrimony. Five years after his acclamation as king, Fernando III still had to contend with attacks and rebellions by the Lara family. In the autumn of 1222, after the successful siege of Zafra, Berenguela negotiated a peace with Gonzalo Pérez de Lara, lord of Molina. This peace was eventually sealed with the marriage of Infante Alfonso to Mafalda, Gonzalo Pérez’s daughter.61 Mafalda’s brother Pedro was disinherited, and Alfonso became lord of Molina when his father-in-law died in 1239. In 1242, Berenguela received the formerly Augustinian monastery of Buenafuente, near Molina, as a gift from Archbishop Rodrigo, on the condition that she found a female Cistercian convent there. She then ceded the monastery to Alfonso, as gift to the Molina patrimony; through her son she kept the monastery well within the royal sphere of inf luence. The whole process bound the Lara more tightly to the royal family.62 Berenguela retained her role as the matrimonial representative for her family. In 1234, Thibault, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne, proposed a potential marriage between his daughter, Blanca, and
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Berenguela’s grandson, Infante Alfonso. Martin has suggested that Thibault was seeking Fernando’s support, especially against Aragón, and that Blanche of Castile may have encouraged Thibault to approach the Castilians.63 Perhaps this was the case; most significantly, however, Thibault’s proposal primarily addressed Berenguela: he writes to her as the “Queen of Castile and León by the Grace of God,” only then addressing Fernando.64 This letter demonstrates not only Berenguela’s perceived role as a head of her family, and indeed the realms of Castile and León, but also suggests the extent to which she maintained authority in the kingdom for decades. Political Mothering: Achieving the Kingdom of León In addition to securing the throne of Castile and assuring the continuation of her lineage through Fernando, Berenguela faced one more challenge, which was to secure Fernando’s inheritance of the kingdom of León. Here, her primary strategies included marriage, the threat of war, and motherly intercession. The marriage of Berenguela’s eponymous daughter epitomized the issues the queen faced in assuring the success of her son and her lineage, and particularly emphasized the political roles of reproduction and the function of daughters as potential mothers and marriage pawns. After the events of 1217, the terms outlined in the previous treaties of Cabreros, Burgos, and Valladolid regarding Fernando’s rights in León changed, at least as far as Alfonso IX was concerned. None of those treaties had recognized that Fernando might become king of Castile. Although Alfonso IX had once hoped to obtain that throne for himself, he now seemed intent that León and Castile should never be united under his son, once his acknowledged heir. In 1217, after his unsuccessful military campaign against Fernando and Berenguela, Alfonso installed Sancha and Dulce, his surviving daughters with Teresa of Portugal, as his heirs. Alfonso IX disregarded the rule of primogeniture by naming both daughters as heirs; but even if he had named only one, it was unprecedented to choose an elder daughter over a living son.65 In January 1217, Alfonso endowed Sancha and Dulce with a series of properties and incomes. This measure ensured the sisters an income for life, should they not marry. At the time, the infantas were in their mid-twenties and, remarkably, single; in the event one married or died unmarried, the survivor would receive her sister’s share. If both died, or both married, everything would revert to the kingdom.66 Shortly thereafter, the infantas began to confirm charters at their father’s court. Their activity, attributable to their new status as landlords, coincided with their half-brother’s accession to the throne of Castile. Their first confirmations
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came within days of Enrique I’s death in Castile and Fernando’s departure for that kingdom and were part of Alfonso IX’s plan to establish them as his heirs in León. On May 28, 1217, Sancha and Dulce confirmed their father’s gift to the Order of Calatrava; their names appear immediately after Alfonso’s, above his seal, and above the list of clerical and secular witnesses. They confirmed again the next day, and again their names headed the list of nobles. This type of confirmation continued sporadically into 1228 and hearkened back to a previous era when royal daughters and sisters had a great deal of prominence as confirmants in Leonese royal charters.67 In the November 26, 1217, treaty made with Fernando and Berenguela, Alfonso IX made it clear that he considered Sancha and Dulce his heirs; in the event of Alfonso’s death, Fernando and Berenguela agreed to a fifty-day truce before entering León. Sancha and Dulce were bound to a similar pact vis-à-vis Castile (in the event, Fernando and Berenguela did not keep this promise).68 In May 1219, Alfonso included Sancha and Dulce in an intitulation in the same manner previously preserved for wives and sons.69 In that year, a treaty between Alfonso and the king of Portugal contained the first explicit indication that the king of León intended his daughters to rule after him. Alfonso made further statements that he expected his agreements to be kept with his daughters after his death, and twelve of Alfonso’s charters included the infantas in their intitulation between 1217 and 1230, when he died.70 It is unclear whether Alfonso expected Sancha and Dulce to corule; he made no provision for the division of the realm as had Alfonso VII for his coheirs Fernando II of León and Sancho III of Castile. Undoubtedly, Alfonso expected at least one of his daughters to marry and to legitimize her claims through her husband and offspring. In a concession to the Order of Santiago made with his daughters’ consent, he commanded that the order observe the agreement for “me and my above named daughters and their progeny, or the progeny of one of them if the other has none, progeny which (I emphasize) will obtain the kingdom of León.” 71 Despite the sworn support of various Leonese knights and nobles for Sancha and Dulce, Alfonso’s plans would be seriously jeopardized unless he managed to find a husband for at least one of them: this he endeavored to do. By 1224, a potential marriage had been negotiated with the famed crusader Jean de Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem.72 Jean was purportedly on a pilgrimage to Santiago when he was promised a royal wife and a kingdom in León. Alfonso’s careful plans, however, were destined to be thwarted by his former wife Berenguela, who arranged that, instead of marrying Sancha or Dulce, Jean de Brienne would leave Iberia married to her daughter Berenguela.73 En route to Santiago, Jean sought an audience with Queen Berenguela and Fernando. He went to Toledo, where “he was received
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with honor, and contracted a marriage with them, with the daughter of the queen and sister of the king Fernando.” Juan of Osma explained: “The queen doña Berenguela, looking into the future, as a prudent woman foreseeing the impediment that the said king of Jerusalem could cause her son the king don Fernando concerning the right that he had to the kingdom of León, if the aforementioned king [ Jean] contracted a marriage with either of the daughters of the king of León, whom he had by queen doña Teresa, and if he were to remain in that kingdom—chose to give the said king her daughter, Berenguela by name, as a wife.”74 Berenguela wanted to prevent the marriages of Sancha or Dulce to any man who might claim the Leonese throne or give them children. Jean de Brienne had already had a similar success with the kingdom of Jerusalem, whose heiress he married.75 Berenguela meant to enforce the treaty of Cabreros, which named her son Fernando as the Leonese heir. How to entice Jean away from another potential kingdom? Her daughter Berenguela came with no such bargain; in keeping with Castilian custom, she received no dowry.76 The young Berenguela was less than twentyfour years old, somewhat but not significantly younger than her halfsisters; perhaps her youth and royal status appealed to Jean.77 Jean must have realized that he was up against a powerful team in Berenguela and Fernando III with strong claims to the Leonese throne and that, as a foreign consort, his chances against them would be slim. Queen Berenguela promised Jean that they would conclude negotiations on his return from his pilgrimage.78 This escape clause suggests Berenguela’s ultimate goal was chief ly to prevent the marriages of her son’s rivals, rather than marry off her daughter. By usurping Sancha’s or Dulce’s intended bridegroom, Berenguela prevented them from producing legitimate heirs, thereby securing their claim to León. The Infanta Berenguela fulfilled her function as a royal daughter, as her mother had done before her, but at the expense of the Leonese infantas’ opportunity to assume that same function: to marry and perpetuate their lineage’s hold on power. Sancha and Dulce never did marry, but neither did they fade from the political landscape, next challenging the Castilians on the death of Alfonso IX in September 1230. Alfonso IX left his daughters to contend with their powerful half-brother and his formidable mother. Fernando had better military resources than his sisters and the support of most of the powerful men in the kingdom of León, despite their earlier promises to Alfonso. Nonetheless, Sancha and Dulce made a valiant attempt to fulfill their father’s plans and insist on their right to inherit. On hearing of his death, they went immediately to the city of Astorga but were refused entry. They moved on “indignantly” to León, where the bishop and the people of the town were willing to receive the persons of the infantas, but not their
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knights or armed retainers. They had a similar experience at Benavente (despite the fact that this was held by their mother Teresa), and finally went to Zamora—the domain of their paternal grandmother—where, with Teresa, “who always accompanied them,” they were taken in.79 They did have other supporters, but Teresa’s role as her daughters’ chief negotiator casts the struggle for the throne of León as a contest between mothers.80 In Castile, Fernando learned that Alfonso had died and went to Toledo to take counsel with Berenguela, Archbishop Rodrigo, and other nobles.81 Matching Teresa move for move, Berenguela urged Fernando with “maternal solicitude” to “hasten to receive his father’s kingdom,” lest “by chance delay would bring about some disorder.”82 Fernando, Berenguela, Archbishop Rodrigo, and a large number of nobles with their militias then quickly crossed the Sierra de Guadarrama and made their way through the borderlands of Medina del Campo and the towns of León, especially those held by Berenguela, such as Villalpando.83 The Leonese bishops, with their cities, accepted Fernando because, according to Archbishop Rodrigo, they had the interest of both the kingdom and the church (literally, the “priesthood” [sacerdocium]) at heart, but concerns about gender were also in play. The bishops insinuated that a father should be replaced by a son: “With the father dead, all of these men gave themselves with their cities to the son, nor was the contemplated rebellion able to grow stronger. For as quickly as we came to Mayorga and Mansilla, they gave themselves back straight away to the king.”84 Mayorga and Mansilla had been part of Berenguela’s original arras, and their quick submission was evidence of the authority she still held there.85 Fernando’s reception was not to be taken for granted, despite his large army and his gender. Although the Castilian chroniclers generally cast opposition to Fernando as “rebellion,” they also suggest that the Leonese were mindful of Alfonso IX’s plans and dubious about the impending annexation with Castile. Rodrigo described how Fernando and Berenguela’s entourage was approached by “knights and messengers coming from other cities, who seemed to be slightly uncertain about the king’s reception.”86 Notably, Fernando faced opposition from the important town of Toro. Up until the time of Alfonso IX’s death, Toro had been held by Alfonso’s majordomo, the Infante Pedro of Portugal—Sancha and Dulce’s uncle.87 The Chronica latina describes how men from Toro and other Leonese towns came to Fernando when he was near Medina, making “empty propositions” of which the king was “contemptuous.”88 Ignoring them, he continued on to Villalar and other Extremaduran towns; two days later, however, he was received in Toro as well. Rodrigo added that the men from Toro came to the king in Villalar “knowing he was their king and their natural lord,” and entreating him to come
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to their town. This, Rodrigo states, was “most wisely accomplished by the noble queen,” implying that she persuaded Fernando to go to Toro, despite the fact that the town had initially closed its gates against him.89 Ultimately, Fernando went to Toro where he received homage. Berenguela played an important role in securing these towns; having advised Fernando to act quickly and claim his inheritance, she remained with him every step of the way, smoothing ruff led feathers, giving advice on strategy, and showing her physical person as the royal escort moved from town to town, encouraging doubtful Leonese. Thus, she lent the weight of her authority, the loyalty of her vassals, and her history as sometime queen of León to Fernando’s claims. Fernando successfully entered the city of León and there “by the bishop and all of the citizens he was elevated to the highest dignity of the kingdom of León, the clergy and the people singing the Te Deum harmoniously and joyfully.”90 Lucas adds that the king entered the city “together with the most prudent lady Berenguela, his mother.”91 Meanwhile, the partisan Rodrigo sniffed, Sancha and Dulce “prepared their rebellion with their accomplices.”92 By the time Fernando and Berenguela arrived in León, Teresa, Sancha, Dulce, and their partisans had come to Villalobos. From there, they asked to meet Berenguela in her town of Valencia, to which she agreed.93 Rodrigo adds that, despite the fact that the nobles (presumably Fernando’s partisans) were not in favor of this, Berenguela so feared the consequences of war, especially for the poor, that she went to meet Teresa. In actuality, Berenguela permitted Teresa to come to her town, and there the stage was set for Sancha and Dulce’s submission. At Valencia, the two mothers negotiated a peace, which was signed December 11 in Benavente.94 The choice of Benavente was also symbolic. Benavente had been part of Teresa’s settlement from Alfonso IX, but he had also been forced to concede rents from Benavente to Berenguela in 1206; it was shared, if not precisely neutral territory.95 Fernando endowed Sancha and Dulce with the enormous sum of 30,000 maravedís annually for the rest of their lives, as well as various castles and towns. Provisions were made for the possibility that either one or both might marry, be widowed, repudiated, divorced, or join a religious order. For their part, Sancha and Dulce agreed to give up their claims to León and to release their noble supporters as well. They agreed, furthermore, to destroy any charters or other records in which Alfonso named them his heirs.96 The sisters were disabled from claiming any authority in León other than as the king’s sisters; the Castilians, for their part, demonstrated an acute awareness of the authority such documents might confer on female heirs, as had the Treaty of Seligenstadt done for Berenguela.97 The treaty between Fernando, Sancha, and Dulce reinforced Fernando’s position as a ruler who came by force of law and not simply by force of arms. Rodrigo
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compared Berenguela’s accomplishment here to that of 1217, emphasizing the legal propriety of her actions, which resulted in the coronation of her son first as king of Castile and then as king of León: “and in this matter the skillful attention of the noble queen engaged [itself ] so greatly that with no less grace did she give the king her son this kingdom than [she gave him] the kingdom of Castile, which belonged to her by law of inheritance.”98 He also emphasized her eagerness to settle the conf lict between Fernando and his sisters peacefully, without bloodshed. Lucas, suppressing any discussion of Berenguela’s negotiation with Teresa and her daughters, and indeed, any acknowledgment of Sancha and Dulce’s effort to claim León, noted instead Fernando’s life endowment of them, made with “great reverence.”99 Despite Fernando’s claims and military strength, his half-sisters pursued their inheritance. Sancha and Dulce surely did not think that they could prevail over Berenguela and Fernando, but by negotiating with them, the sisters hoped to retain at the very least their father’s initial settlement and perhaps some of their royal privileges. Like Fernando, Sancha and Dulce were guided in their decisions by their mother; it was Teresa who met with Berenguela and perhaps she who suggested and agreed to the terms of her daughters’ concession. Teresa’s role was especially important because neither Sancha nor Dulce was married, nor did they have any children. As unmarried women, Sancha and Dulce were vulnerable, not because they had no man to defend their interests but because they were not mothers, and as long as they remained unwed, they were unlikely to become legitimate mothers any time soon. The power of motherhood for medieval queens is demonstrated by Sancha, Dulce, and Fernando’s reliance on their own mothers at this crucial juncture. Furthermore, this moment of meeting and negotiation illuminates one of the duties of royal motherhood. Berenguela and Teresa not only produced the future as mothers, but decided it as queens when they negotiated the rights and privileges of their children. It must have been clear to them that Berenguela, the mother of a son, had the advantage; it remains an open question how Teresa saw the potential (and real) power of her daughters as she struggled to hand on her own power as a royal mother to non-mothers.100 Othermothering: The Queen, Her Family, the Church, and Court Berenguela extended her practice of motherhood to her roles as patron and intercessor. The management of marriage, reproduction, and sexuality had a chaste parallel in the oblation of royal children to the religious life, for such vocation served many of the same social functions. Berenguela’s
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daughter Constanza became a Cistercian nun at Las Huelgas. Three of Fernando and Beatriz’s children were slated for religious careers; in at least one case, and probably all three, it was Berenguela who offered the child, operating as the family matriarch and as a substitute mother for the children whose mother Beatriz had died in 1235, and whose stepmother Jeanne of Ponthieu never seemed able to exercise her maternal authority with them. Felipe, Fernando’s fifth son, was handed over to the Archbishop Rodrigo as an oblate by Berenguela herself. He entered the archbishop’s tutelage around the age of ten, in the early 1240s. Felipe was tonsured as a canon in the cathedral of Toledo and received further ecclesiastical prebends and benefices from Rodrigo.101 He later passed into the service of the royal chancellor, Juan of Osma, and was elected as abbot of Castrojeriz (in Burgos) sometime before October 30, 1243, around the age of twelve. He went on to receive multiple benefices (and papal dispensations), and eventually studied in Paris.102 Despite his frequent absences, by the mid-1250s Felipe was bishop-elect of Seville, and his path to clerical greatness seemed assured—exactly, probably, as his grandmother had hoped. However, his brother Alfonso X put an abrupt end to this ecclesiastical career by arranging Felipe’s marriage to the Norwegian princess Kristen in 1258.103 Sancho, Felipe’s younger brother (born around 1233), had a more conventional ecclesiastical career. He was also received as an oblate by Archbishop Rodrigo, starting out as a psalmist, holding prebends and benefices from Rodrigo, including as a canon.104 By 1248, Sancho was an archdeacon of Toledo, and eventually the archbishop-elect of that city and his brother Alfonso X’s chancellor until his death in 1261.105 Berenguela and her son Fernando intervened in the church hierarchy by placing family members in positions of power that were particularly important because of Fernando’s conquests in al-Andalus. Thus, Felipe was to serve as the bishop of Seville, and Sancho was to operate from the primate’s seat in Toledo. Their positions as procuradores, given because of their youth (and doubtful ecclesiastical vocation or suitability), were to enable the princes to administrate in the more secular affairs of the church, particularly in regard to the jurisdiction and administration that might overlap or bolster royal interest.106 In this way, they paralleled the position of the “Lady of Las Huelgas” held by royal princesses such as Berenguela’s sister Constanza, her daughter Constanza, and her granddaughter Berenguela. In these positions, the royal family was fully integrated into the church, which was in turn defended and exploited by the royal hierarchy. Such oblations, and the marriages described earlier, illuminate the character of government as a family business. Berenguela took, or was given,
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responsibility for forging and maintaining these personal bonds between the royal family, other elites, and the church. Fernando relied on Berenguela’s judgment and her representation of the monarchy. As a councilor and counselor, she was well placed to guide her son; she was also in a position to intercede with him on behalf of others. Berenguela attended cortes, both ceremonial and legislative, and judicial proceedings, ref lecting common Castilian practice.107 Janet Nelson has pointed out that such activity, “always rare,” virtually disappeared in France and England by Berenguela’s lifetime.108 Her unique position as heir to the throne and mother of the reigning king enhanced her authority in such proceedings. Berenguela participated in the cortes at her son’s knighting and wedding in 1219, and possibly two others in 1237 and 1239.109 A curia was held in 1224 to celebrate the wedding of the Infanta Berenguela to Jean de Brienne; Berenguela was present. This may be the same curia, held in July 1224 at Carrión, at which Fernando confirmed his intent to go on crusade, after another discussion with his mother, Archbishop Rodrigo, the bishop of Burgos, and all the great men of his realm.110 Berenguela’s presence was not merely ornamental. In 1222, Fernando noted that he granted a charter of absolvimiento e de franqueza (absolution and freedom) to the city council of Burgos “at the command of my mother the queen.” This charter is recorded in a collection of fazañas, or legal precedents, belonging to Fernando’s reign.111 In another case, Berenguela sat in judgment. After his election as abbot of the monastery of Sahagún, Abbot Guillermo found himself in dispute with the villagers of Sahagún, who claimed that they were under royal jurisdiction, not that of the monastery. Accordingly, Guillermo went before Fernando and Berenguela to plead his case, and they deliberated at length. “After a few days . . . the lord king and the queen his mother and the entire court recognized the liberties of the monastery of Sahagún, whose ancient privileges had been granted by emperors and kings and even by the fuero of the town . . . for those reasons the king and queen judged that these privileges were worthy of being enforced.”112 Abbot Guillermo worked closely with Berenguela, serving as her delegate and messenger to Rome in 1239, and it is not surprising that she sympathized with his cause as well as tradition in this case. Here, her authority as an arbiter of disputes and a deliverer of royal justice found its source in her position as a legal heir to the throne and not merely queen, for she superseded her daughters-in-law Beatriz and Jeanne in this role. Another of the fazañas described a quarrel between a young woman named Urraca and her uncle, García Pérez, el caballero. When a young nobleman was killed at Urraca’s prompting and his killers took refuge in a church, García Pérez and his companions commanded their men to go
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into the church, remove the killers, and kill them in revenge. This they did. This case was judged by Lope, the king’s merino, who fined each of the men substantially. The bishop also condemned them to a penance of walking barefoot to Rome, but Berenguela intervened and asked that this latter sentence be commuted in the case of Gonzalo Andrés, the father of the young man who was killed.113 Here, Berenguela’s role was not to sit in judgment, but to intervene in justice and to show mercy. The role of intercessor was an expected one, which some have argued was the main source of power for queens after about the year 1000.114 Berenguela’s potential as an intercessor was not her main source of power nor did it define her, but it was a role she was willing to play, one which helped form her historical reputation. A final instance of such intercession demonstrates its importance in the political machinery of court life. After the capture of Úbeda in 1233, Fernando returned to his mother and his wife in Burgos in order to attend to the affairs of the realm, especially to address the growing discontent of his alférez Lope Díaz de Haro.115 Lope Díaz, once a favorite of the court, allied himself with new friends through the marriages of his daughters, including his daughter Mencia to his relative Álvar Pérez. Mencia had been a member of Queen Beatriz’s household; her marriage took place in the fall of 1234 and occasioned a solemn convention of a council of bishops in Burgos, which excommunicated the newlyweds (who nonetheless remained together until Álvar’s death in 1239). This council was attended as well by Fernando and Berenguela. As the Chronica latina tells it, this marriage was a source of great friction because Lope had not sought the king’s permission to marry his daughter, which he should have done not only because she was a member of Queen Beatriz’s household, but also because Fernando was her uncle.116 In response to the building tension, Álvar Pérez retreated to his own town of Paredes de Nava, which he began to fortify. This thoroughly angered Fernando, who prepared to move against Paredes de Nava. At this point, Álvar Pérez thought better of his position and sought the protection and advice of the queens Berenguela and Beatriz. Their advice, informed by the counsel of “prudent men” was that Álvar leave the kingdom until he was restored (presumably by their intervention) to the king’s favor. In fact, the queens suggested, Álvar should seek asylum in the “land of the Sarracens.” Juan of Osma was careful to say that “this was done under no condition and no previous pact.”117 This was because not only did Álvar go to “the land of the Sarracens” but also because the queens used his presence there as a reason to sway Fernando from his anger, expressing concern that Álvar might ally himself with the Muslim leader Ibn Hu¯d. Would not it be better, the queens might have proposed,
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to forgive the wayward vassal and prevent a more serious disaffection? Álvar was eventually restored to the king’s favor and used his new connections to treat with the Muslims for the Castilian king.118 Berenguela and Beatriz, through their intervention, not only acted on behalf of Álvar and his wife Mencia, who was a member of their personal circle, but also on behalf of Fernando, who was being tempted to bad behavior. They furthermore opened a useful channel of communication with Ibn Hu¯d. Their strategy created a situation in which the king could honorably bring Álvar back to his side, now as a valuable diplomat.119 Conclusion: Tracing Power and Authority in Berenguela’s Queenship Berenguela’s rocky path to power began with the Treaty of Seligenstadt; her power and her authority were confirmed by the treaties of Cabreros, Burgos, and Valladolid, which were established between Berenguela, her husband, and her father, and with the regency of Enrique I. Within a year of assuming that regency, she was forced to concede it to her enemy Count Álvaro Núñez de Lara. Although she gave up explicit control, she did so on certain conditions, attempting to limit the actions Álvaro could take without her consent. She demonstrated not only a certain amount of authority in the conditions she imposed, but revealed power as well, seen in the perceptive anxiety of Álvaro, who went to great lengths to discredit Berenguela even after she had retired from her brother’s court. This experience undoubtedly shaped Berenguela’s policy when she came to inherit the throne. Her entitlement as an heir to the throne was insufficient to secure her rule, but by placing her son on the throne and ruling with him, she could preserve her lineage’s hold on royal power. Family structure also provided an avenue of power and authority. It was only through Berenguela’s role as Fernando’s mother and as the daughter, sister, and wife of former kings, that both mother and son were able to gain access to royal authority and fully exploit their power. Berenguela’s motherhood became the means to maintenance both of family and of self. Fernando himself acknowledged this, asserting in an early charter that he acted with the consent of “the lady queen, my mother, you who first gave this kingdom to me.”120 Fernando’s chancery (still operated by Rodrigo at this point) used the language of giving to describe Berenguela’s action, but did not suggest that she had renounced her own authority or power. As a queen, Berenguela had resources generally unavailable to other women (or other men), that is, law, force, wealth, and an illustrious lineage. She had direct access to the king and to the highest levels of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Berenguela was legally entitled to rule, as
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demonstrated by the Treaty of Seligenstadt, and could rely on the military force provided by her loyal vassals. Such force, however, was insufficient by itself to defend Berenguela’s legal authority when she confronted the military might of Álvaro Núñez or Alfonso IX, or the gendered ambivalence of her otherwise loyal followers. Yet Berenguela used the law to manipulate force. She frustrated expectations that she would lose power by placing her son between herself and her competitors; she then ruled jointly with him. Berenguela’s ability, as well as her personal relationship with her son, kept her in power. This relationship enhanced the force of law, as she had not only the means but also the desire to keep her hold on the Castilian throne, something she did not strongly exhibit during Enrique’s reign. Her power and even her authority were recognized by her family, chroniclers, bishops, abbesses, and others, including ordinary people in their day-to-day transactions. Fernando and other members of her family, as well as the chronicles noted above, recognized her as ruling jointly with her son. In February and July 1243, for example, Fernando’s heir, Infante Alfonso, made two gifts to the Order of Santiago, with his father and grandmother’s consent.121 The fact that Alfonso ignored his stepmother, Jeanne de Ponthieu, may be ref lective of the known tension between the two, but Jeanne’s exclusion also indicates that Berenguela’s consent was more than formulaic. Even more revealing are the many private documents that consistently note that Fernando was ruling “with his mother, Queen Berenguela,” even during periods when Fernando was married. In such periods, his wife (first Beatriz, then Jeanne) was often also noted, but frequently her name appeared after Berenguela’s. Such private documents indicate the extent of Berenguela’s publicly recognized authority and the power that went with it and challenge the theory that as Berenguela aged, she lost stature.122 Furthermore, like her sister Blanche in France, Berenguela was understood on an international scale to have great inf luence over her son. In 1225, for example, Pope Honorius III wrote to Berenguela, “Queen of Castile,” asking that she and Fernando permit one Bernardo to take possession of the bishopric of Segovia, and in 1237, Gregory IX urged Berenguela to use her maternal inf luence over Fernando to persuade him to come to a peace with Navarre.123 Like many public women of power, Berenguela needed to balance the facts of her power and authority and the public understanding thereof with a proper expression or recognition of the limits of womanhood. Even apparently direct expressions from the queen’s hand were mediated, therefore, by the men who recorded them. In 1239, Berenguela approached Pope Gregory IX with an unspecified problem, possibly relating to claims of an imperial inheritance for her grandson Fadrique. The queen preferred to relay the message via her ambassador, Abbot
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Guillermo of Sahagún; her letter to the pope was merely an introduction. She apologized for writing to the pope so infrequently, explaining her delinquency in writing as owing to “the modesty which the feminine sex contracts by nature.” Thus, her chancery helped the queen maintain her proper place as a modest woman even as she carried out her secret business.124 This is the same rhetorical modesty applied to Berenguela in the description of her decision to place Fernando on the throne of Castile, which has been inaccurately understood as a type of abdication, in part because abdication has been understood as a particularly female strategy, observed in literature either by or about women.125 A woman might renounce power (or claim modesty) for different reasons: either to subvert the dominant order by refusing power that she would lose anyway, or to retain inf luence and not face total loss. In either case, she restores a social equilibrium that is threatened by her personal power or boldness. Berenguela’s actions were more complex and less easily defined, but she does appear to have acquiesced to the gendered expectations of her followers in order to maintain power and authority and to use it more effectively than she might have otherwise as a female ruler in thirteenth-century Castile.
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CHAPTER 5 “THE THINGS THAT PLEASE GOD AND MEN”: BERENGUELA, CONQUEST, AND CRUSADE
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lthough the Chronicon mundi was written under Berenguela’s patronage, Lucas of Túy’s figure of the queen is relatively reticent, except when it comes to her support of Fernando’s wars against the Muslims. Like other chroniclers, Lucas especially celebrated Berenguela in the context of the 1236 conquest of Córdoba. Here, however, he described the queen’s role after the unification of Castile and León in 1230. Berenguela’s political and administrative ability afforded Fernando the opportunity to focus his energies on God’s enemies while she protected his f lock at home: Indeed his mother, Queen Berenguela, had such highness and wisdom that she wisely and nobly ordered all matters in the administration of the realm, on account of which King Fernando safely lingered at war against the Muslims; therefore, Queen Berenguela acted wisely in his stead in the kingdom of León and Castile. In both kingdoms [the people] enjoyed such peace and security, that no one, neither small nor great, dared to take anyone else’s things by force. She had struck such fear into all heretics, so that they all hastened to f lee both kingdoms. Queen Berenguela sent to her son King Fernando, while he was at war, knights, horses, gold, silver, food, and all the things abundantly that were necessary for his army.1
Lucas was particularly concerned about the pursuit of heretics, and he used Berenguela to demonstrate the virtues of a good ruler, which included the elimination of heresy. He presented Berenguela as a fairly strict ruler, who knew how to keep the peace as well as mobilize resources for her son. As this passage suggests, Berenguela especially enabled Fernando’s wars against the Muslims, which she used as political and religious tools to promote her son.2
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Because of his enormous talent, his historical situation, and the guidance and aid of his mother, Fernando III became the Castilian king destined to bring the greatest part of the Iberian Peninsula under Christian rule. The expansion of Castile-León to the limits of the tiny and thereafter tributary kingdom of Granada is often considered his greatest achievement; Fernando himself allegedly suggested as much on his deathbed.3 Fernando exploited the political disarray among Muslim rulers in al-Andalus; after 1230, he relied on the combined resources of Castile and León; he had a generally good relationship with the religious leaders of his realm and with the papacy. Finally, he had a tremendous advantage in his mother, Berenguela, whose personal inf luence on her son as well as her corule of Castile should not be underestimated elements of Fernando’s success. Conversely, Fernando’s success was considered Berenguela’s greatest accomplishment, and the Castilian expansion and religious warfare that went with it shaped her environment on a daily basis. By the early thirteenth century, crusading within Europe (including Iberia) had been clearly incorporated into the papal wars, replete with indulgences and papal protection, which historically were directed to the Holy Land. Iberian kings, however, did not always pause for papal blessings on their wars against the Muslims of al-Andalus. For Iberian historians, moreover, the practices of granting indulgences, taking vows, and recovering formerly Christian territory are especially vexing problems when it comes to identifying crusades. Even when vows can be identified, they are not always what they seem: Ana Rodríguez López shows clearly how Castilian noblemen took vows to crusade to the Holy Land precisely to garner the papal protection afforded crusaders, when they were in rebellion against the king.4 At the same time, Rodríguez López has argued, Christian kings like Fernando exploited the mechanism of crusading while developing their own power at the expense of the power and authority of the papacy; the clerically authored chronicles written in Fernando’s day also engaged or elaborated this discourse, promoting and legitimating the monarchy.5 By the thirteenth century, the ideology of crusading had thoroughly imbued Christian thought and practice, and the wars prosecuted by Fernando and his mother clearly incorporated the crusading spirit. When wars took place between Christians and Muslims in the name of God, they were obviously wars of religion; postdated indulgences and papal protection suggest they were meant to be crusades as well.6 Once Fernando’s kingship and their royal authority in Castile were established, mother and son turned to the expansion of the realm, even before the annexation of León, through conquest and crusade. To embark on crusade was both an extraordinary feat and a normative ideal by the thirteenth century. For women like Berenguela and her sister Blanche
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of Castile, however, there was an explicit tension between the crusading ideal and their goals as mothers. Crusade meant different things to the royal sons Louis IX and Fernando III, as demonstrated by their mothers’ contrasting reactions to their sons’ proposals to take up the cross. When confronted by Fernando’s desire to go on crusade in 1224, Berenguela’s reaction differed dramatically from Blanche’s two decades later when Louis confirmed his intent to go to the Holy Land. On the surface, Berenguela supported her son’s goals, while Blanche opposed Louis’s, devastated by his insistence on taking the crusading vow.7 Yet, each mother’s relationship to crusading was more complex than her initial reaction suggests. The difference between the queens’ reactions to their sons’ crusading corresponds to differences between the realms of France and Castile, and their relative histories of the crusading movement. For Berenguela, Fernando’s crusading efforts seemed a natural continuation of their mutual political plan, establishing and securing royal control over Castile and León, and elevating their lineage. Even if she, too, may have resisted her son’s departure at first, it was for different reasons than Blanche: Berenguela was more concerned about his timing than whether Fernando ought to fight Muslims. Berenguela’s relationship to the crusades was formed from the cradle. Her response to her father’s “glorious victory” at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 in the form of a letter to Blanche demonstrated her sense of the purpose of crusade and prefigured her later role as a promoter of her royal son. Las Navas de Tolosa was a formative experience for Berenguela. The battle contributed to her worldview, including a marked ideal of worthy kingship as pious, valorous, and generous, and contextualized her eventual confrontation with Fernando’s desire to go on crusade and extend his political dominion. The medieval historiography of that moment, although contradictory, reveals a stratified and possibly negative response from Berenguela, in whom different dynastic, political, and religious desires competed. Once Fernando embarked on crusade, however, Berenguela stood stalwartly behind him, exhorting him to victory, and sending him much-needed supplies, while governing in his place at home. Fernando’s capture of the city of Córdoba in 1236 was viewed as the fruition of Berenguela’s queenship and mothering by the medieval historians who chose descriptions of that event as the context in which to glorify her motherhood. Context: Conquest and Crusade in Iberia Fernando and Berenguela’s crusades took place in a developing tradition. For generations, Iberian Christians had fought Muslims; for almost as
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long, they had elaborated an ideology justifying their territorial expansion, linked to religious difference, and increasingly articulated as a “reconquest,” an inevitable and necessary Christian effort to reclaim formerly Christian lands and eject the Muslims from Iberia.8 By the twelfth century, wars previously motivated as much by territorial gain and political dominance as religious difference became increasingly identified with a church-sponsored movement to eradicate Islam: the crusades. That the crusading indulgence could be shared by those who did not go to Jerusalem is significant; and indeed, from the beginning of the crusading movement, the papacy was anxious lest efforts at reconquest in Iberia be diverted by the new impetus to the East. Pope Urban II had supported, as early as 1089, the restoration and defense of the Iberian city of Tarragona and encouraged Spaniards to focus their efforts locally.9 Notwithstanding a seemingly coherent approach to crusading throughout Christendom, the Iberian crusades differed from those to the east. Muslims and Christians had been in conf lict in Iberia since 711, but the evolution of crusading itself was linked to developments in Europe. Even before Urban called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the Council of Clermont in 1095, Pope Alexander II in around 1063 had promised remission of sins to knights headed for battle in Spain, and Christian forces comprised mainly of French warriors brief ly seized the Muslim city of Barbastro in 1064–65; the idea that the first crusaders to the Holy Land in 1095–99 cut their teeth in Spain has merit.10 Already experienced in religious warfare and reconquest, would-be crusaders in Iberia often took the initiative, achieving papal backing only after the call to arms. For example, Alfonso VII did this after the fall of Edessa (the first crusader state to fall) in 1144, responding by May of that year by seizing part of Córdoba; only in 1147 did Eugenius III issue a bull that included Iberia as a “legitimate crusading area.”11 Like Alfonso VII, Fernando III acted independently at first in 1224, but quickly achieved the necessary bull of indulgence that made his an official crusade. This was granted by Pope Honorius III on September 26, 1225, after Fernando’s initial success; Fernando’s family, including his mother, Berenguela, his wife, sons, and goods, also received the cloak of papal protection while Fernando was on crusade.12 Historian Lucy Pick argues that the transition to the crusading ideal in Spain was initially an episcopal one, located primarily in the agenda of the archbishop of Toledo, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, whose main concern was to extend the power and authority of the Toledan see. Rodrigo’s importance in promoting crusading ideology is incontrovertible, because he was a crusader himself, served as a papal legate for the Iberian crusades, and most crucially shaped historical understanding of events through his De rebus Hispanie. By the early thirteenth century, however,
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there had been several important Christian successes in Iberia, some of which were associated with crusading: the recapture of Toledo in 1085, the Portuguese success at Santarem and Lisbon in 1147, and the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. If these battles did not always extend Christian dominion permanently, they certainly weakened Muslim military strength, laying the groundwork for eventual Christian territorial domination. By 1217, Christians dominated more than half of the Iberian Peninsula and were about to begin their most successful campaigns against the Muslims. Building on Innocent III’s efforts to redirect Christian antagonisms toward Islam, in 1218, Honorius III named Rodrigo as his legate in Spain specifically for war against the Muslims, conceded the collection of the tithe to him, and exhorted León to make peace with Castile and war against the Muslims.13 Thus, Rodrigo the historian and crusader, Berenguela, and Fernando were poised to exploit past developments to bring Christian expansion and their own political authority to new heights through wars against the Muslims. Gendering the Crusade: Kings and Queens, Men and Women Christian success in Iberia led to increased crusading fervor and territorial expansion, whereas in France the crusades to Outremer tended to represent disaster, the most recent having been the Fifth Crusade of 1213–21.14 The relative outcomes of crusade in France and Iberia were tied to differing visions of crusading kingship. In France, the king went on crusade to Outremer primarily as a Christian, albeit one leading a large army, commanding great resources, and having access to a bully pulpit, as Louis IX did. In Iberia, however, kings and bishops sought to re-create the kingdoms and dioceses of the ancient Visigothic and Christian realms. All crusades were vehicles for “winning back” territory from the infidel, yet the French king did not intend to rule the Holy Land once he aided in its restoration.15 For Castilians, however, success in crusade meant extension of the realm as well as legitimation of the monarch.16 In this regard, crusades were political as well as religious and served to extend the power of the king. Any discussion of kingship in this study, however, should be subordinated to that of queenship: how did queens experience the crusade, qua queens? To the many differences between queenship in Iberia and queenship in the rest of Europe can be added the experience of Iberian queens such as Leonor and Berenguela vis-à-vis crusading. They were the corulers, wives, and mothers of crusaders who intended to rule their conquests, and they experienced an immediacy of the crusades that was foreign to their royal sisters to the north. For the French queens, crusades took
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place in faraway locations such as Occitania or Jerusalem, with different languages and customs bolstering the crusaders’ religiously defined sense of the other. In Iberia, the proximity of crusading and familiarity with the enemy made a marked difference in the queen’s experience. This was not just a difference in personal, emotional reaction, but in the way the queen approached her role, especially in relationship to the king. Iberian queens shared in the promotion and exhortation to crusade, as well as the spiritual benefits associated with the support of crusade. Berenguela, like Blanche, made her son’s crusades possible through material support and a willingness to govern in his absence, but her personal participation and interaction with her son throughout his crusades was much more extensive. This participation provides a window, as well, on the special political, cultural, and geographic environment of Iberian queens. Crusading and conquest were part of the daily, common experience of Iberian women. Crusading was—unlike their daily exposure to Jewish, Muslim, and Mozarabic languages, rituals, and art forms—an experience that Christian Iberian women shared in certain ways with their northern counterparts. When Pope Urban II first preached the crusade at Clermont in 1095, he tried to discourage women’s participation, especially by emphasizing the military nature of the endeavor.17 Despite Urban’s expectations, however, women participated in the crusade from the beginning, and they continued to do so over time as crusaders, fundraisers, sponsors, regents, and camp followers. Whether they personally went on crusade or not, women’s legal and other interests as wives entitled to intercourse were at stake from the outset. James Brundage describes how canon law on this point—which had held steadily that husbands could not take vows without their wives’ consent—was disrupted by Innocent III, who prioritized crusading over the marital debt. Innocent permitted people to take crusading vows that could be “commuted, redeemed or deferred if necessity or expediency required,” something expected in the case of women who could not fight. He also allowed wives to accompany their husbands on crusade.18 Although Innocent permitted husbands to take the crusader’s vow without their wives’ consent, he and his successor Honorius also found ways for women to participate more fully in crusading through local liturgical practice (e.g., by fasting, processing, and almsgiving) as well as by inf luencing and financing men whose military role was crucial.19 The legal, moral, and practical importance of spousal consent has implications for Fernando’s intention to go on crusade, especially when compared to his cousin Louis IX of France. There is no record of whether the kings consulted their wives; rather, consent was sought from their mothers. In Louis’s case, the famous conf lict between mother and son
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over the king’s determination to crusade suggests a premium was placed on maternal consent. Fernando’s dramatic proposal to his mother that he wage war against the Muslims was a key element in one depiction of the king’s mission—and its legitimacy. The royal consorts of France and Castile, however, were not deprived of the conjugality that the canon lawyers sought to protect; Louis’s wife Marguerite accompanied her husband on his first crusade and even gave birth in Damietta. Beatriz, and later Jeanne, may not have accompanied Fernando, but as his sorties never lasted more than a few months, they were never significantly deprived of his company and reproduction continued apace.20 Although the royal consorts maintained their conjugal privileges, then, they remained overshadowed by the royal mothers whose consent was so politically and materially important. In France, Blanche helped raise enormous sums necessary for his crusade and she was left as regent and guardian of three of Louis’s children.21 In Castile and León, Berenguela helped govern in Fernando’s absence and sent him men, money, and advice. Consent remained important to the legitimacy of crusading, but it was the consent of mothers, and not the wives canonists had envisioned. Las Navas De Tolosa: A Battle and a Letter The battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, fought on July 16, 1212, has been described variously as the “Triumph of Castile,” “Christendom’s greatest victory since the time of Charles Martel,” and the battle that “broke the back of Muslim power in Spain.”22 Berenguela was present at the Castilian court when her father began to prepare for the battle. Archbishop Rodrigo received papal permission to preach the crusade in France, where, despite his connection with the Castilian princess Blanche, he did not have much luck. Thus, Berenguela witnessed firsthand the planning for a crusade; its outcome surely helped form her opinion on the importance of such religious warfare. Christendom and kingdom expanded, and “crusader” was added to the vita of a successful king.23 Berenguela was an apt student, quickly absorbing and disseminating these ideas in a letter written to her sister Blanche. Berenguela participated in the crusade through relaying news of it and took on an exhortatory role even after the fact, preaching to Blanche (and the wider world) the glories of Castilian kingship, the plan and execution of the battle, and the outcome, paying special attention to the numbers of dead and the treatment of booty—both indicators of God’s special favor. Alfonso VIII’s victory against the Almohad Muhammad al-Na¯ s¸ir marked the climax of the king’s career. This battle, and the preparations for it, indicates a major shift in the way crusading was approached
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in Castile.24 Certainly it seems that Castilians seized the opportunity to promote their roles as crusaders across Christendom.25 The crusade integrated Castile into Christian Europe in a new way. How this happened is demonstrated by the historiography of the battle, most significantly by the work of Rodrigo, who preached the crusade, fought in the battle, and had the greatest control over the final story.26 But the traditional historiography should be more broadly construed and include the work of those who offered the first interpretation of the battle in their letters. There are many contemporary descriptions of Las Navas de Tolosa; upon his victory, Alfonso VIII immediately wrote to Pope Innocent III, sending him al-Na¯¸sir’s standard; the three main Iberian chroniclers of the era described the battle and its outcome in detail, and many others mentioned it. Berenguela herself took the opportunity to write to her sister Blanche in France; her letter is the only surviving correspondence between the two women.27 It is an interesting, rare document for the early thirteenth century—a letter by a woman to a woman. The authenticity of the letter has not been challenged by generations of historians, but its unusual epistolary style and vocabulary have given scholars pause. Recently, Theresa Vann has uncovered the thirteenth-century manuscript copy of the letter and argues persuasively that the version we have before us is either a later creation (unlikely) or a corrupted version of the original text. The facts of the letter that go unchallenged, however, are its unusual and particularly gendered elements.28 Berenguela describes the prosecution of the battle, which happened “just as in the way I wrote [sent] to you previously,” suggesting a more regular correspondence between the two sisters. The unusual letter is also precious for its contribution to comprehending the role of gender in the crusades. Finally, it sets the stage for appreciating more fully Berenguela’s relationship to the Iberian crusades themselves. The letter begins, naturally, with a greeting, which is formulaic but especially attentive to Blanche’s role as a wife and Berenguela’s claim to Blanche’s affection and loyalty as a sister: “To her beloved and esteemed sister Blanche, wife of Louis, firstborn of the lord king of the Franks, Berenguela, by the grace of God queen of León and Galicia, with fraternal love.” Then, Berenguela exclaimed over the miraculous nature of their father’s victory: “it was unheard of until now that the king of Morocco would be overcome on the field of combat.”29 Berenguela herself had not believed the news until she had seen her father’s own letters. She discussed the army’s maneuvers before the battle and the battle plan with particular attention to the valor of Alfonso VIII. Berenguela reported the number of dead and wounded to be, incredibly, over 70,000 men and 15,000 women, with Christian losses estimated around 200; the message was that, clearly, God was on the Christian side!
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These numbers, while greatly exaggerated, demand our attention for two reasons. First, Berenguela’s assessment differs from other historians of this battle. In Alfonso VIII’s letter to Innocent III (which Berenguela cites), the numbers are even more spectacular, especially regarding Christian and Muslim casualties. Alfonso asserted 60,000 dead and, even more unbelievably, 185,000 captured from the Muslims; in contrast, only twenty-five or thirty Christians died!30 The chroniclers’ reports are more vague, while still evoking tremendous bloodshed and destruction. The Chronica latina asks rhetorically “who could count how many thousand Muslims fell that day?” and later claims over 100,000 captives taken, noting Christian losses to be “very few.”31 Lucas of Túy answered grimly: “no one living could count the bodies of the dead”; later he too referred to many thousands dead.32 Finally, Rodrigo reported 200,000 dead Muslims and twenty-five dead Christians.33 Because Berenguela’s letter appears to be nearly unique as a medieval woman’s military report in its combination of subject and genre, it is impossible to be certain that she represents a gendered sensibility about war. Still, of all our historians, Berenguela’s assessment of Christian losses (around 200 dead) seems most believable (it is still low), perhaps ref lecting a female perspective on death. As a woman, Berenguela was especially responsible for caring for the dead, for burying, mourning, and remembering them. This will be elaborated in the next chapter, but here we should note that casualties, even in victory, carried a different meaning for those whose special role was to mourn the dead. Second, and more intriguing, is her reference to thousands of Muslim women among the dead. Other reports refer to female captives, and Berenguela may be extrapolating from that. It is unlikely that there were female combatants that were known at the time—even allowing for celebrated women warriors in disguise—and certainly not in those numbers.34 And yet, it is possible that Berenguela was referring to real women—or, at least, was aware of a literary and historical tradition of female warriors. Elena Lourie has shown that a reference to a Muslim female archery contingent at the battle of Quart in 1094 may have some basis in historical fact.35 The absence of any reference to female warriors in Berenguela’s immediate context may be attributed to the fact that there was little glory to be gained among Christian knights in killing women on the battlefield (or being killed by them). Berenguela’s reference to women most likely, however, acknowledges the deaths of noncombatants—local people and camp followers. It reveals a worldview that includes women and their (imagined) experience. Equal attention is given to the subsequent division of tremendous booty. Berenguela described the contents of the “thousands” of Muslim tents abandoned after the battle: immeasurable gold, silver, clothes,
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animals, and weapons, especially lances and arrows. According to Berenguela, Alfonso took none for himself but rather saw to the equitable distribution of the booty among everyone else—echoing here Alfonso’s letter to Pope Innocent, in which he claimed that “we did not wish to retain anything for ourselves nor for our men.”36 Berenguela’s attention to booty ref lects the traditional Castilian perspective on the purpose of military adventures: “quick booty and the destruction of enemy military potential”—over conquest and even religious motives. Simultaneously, she desired to dissociate her father from the greed of a plunderer. 37 Berenguela enthusiastically communicated the excitement of the victory that must have overwhelmed the Castilian court. She humorously relayed how al-Na¯ s¸ir was forced to move his tent before the battle because of shots taken by Christian archers and stone throwers. (This is another unusual reference, unconcerned with chivalric image.) Berenguela’s specific attention to military strategies and events betrays a strong understanding of them. Her sense of the Christian cause’s righteousness is indistinguishable from her sense of family, as she proudly related the news of her father’s victory to her important sister. Berenguela did not dwell on the battle as a crusade, although she did refer to its northern participants as peregrini (crusaders). She did not repeat the wellknown story of the lost Christian army being shown a secret mountain pass by a providential shepherd—a story relayed to Pope Innocent by Alfonso and repeated by the chroniclers. Rather, she celebrated the valor of her father, before whose standard the Muslims f led in fear for their lives. Interestingly, Berenguela also did not describe the standard itself. According to Alfonso, the standard carried an image of the Virgin Mary: this is a detail repeated by the chroniclers and one to which we might expect Berenguela to attend. She did, however, attribute the delay in battle from Sunday to Monday to her father’s piety, explaining that he would not wish to fight on the Lord’s Day. In sum, Berenguela’s letter previews her later attitude toward the relationship between war against Muslims and kingship. Her father’s valor was a blueprint for Castilian kingship; the religious war (here a crusade) was a family matter and a vehicle for promoting family glory, equated with the glory of Castile. Berenguela closed the letter by asking Blanche to relay all this information to Philip Augustus, who had not responded to invitations to the crusade. Although some French knights did come to Toledo and participated in preliminary excursions against Malagón and Calatrava, they left before the battle itself, complaining of the heat and the delay in meeting al-Na¯ s¸ir on the field.38 Berenguela’s letter thus played a particular role in articulating and negotiating a kind of politics of justification between the French and Castilian courts. She noted in her letter that although the
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French abandoned the field en masse before the battle, the knight Thibault of Blazon fought “faithfully” and “manfully.”39 This letter exemplifies the “new symbols of royal authority” that Teofilo Ruiz identifies as replacing sacral kingship in Iberia, particularly in regard to discussion of Castilian military capability and the martial valor “as compared to those of foreigners (above all the French).”40 In charging Blanche to relay the news of the battle to her father-in-law Philip, this letter shows how royal women created channels of international communication and especially the privileges they were expected to exercise as wives. Finally, it demonstrates a previously unacknowledged role for women in the crusades: the role of observer-reporter who participated in the development and dissemination of crusading ideology. Following this victory, in 1214, Alfonso VIII negotiated a peace with the new Almohad caliph, Yu¯suf al-Mu¯s¸tansir, which lasted through the tumultuous years of Enrique I’s reign.41 Further Christian efforts at conquest were stymied by Alfonso VIII’s death later that year; the chaos that characterized the reign of Enrique I and the need to pacify restive nobles early in Fernando’s reign were also distractions. After Enrique’s death, Berenguela may have sent an embassy to Morocco to confirm the treaty arranged by her father.42 Between 1217 and 1224, famine was widespread throughout Iberia, and in al-Andalus bad economic conditions were aggravated by the internal political fracturing of the Almohad caliphate.43 In general it was not a propitious time for Iberian Christians or Muslims to go to war. In the meantime, however, the memory of Las Navas was kept alive and, for Berenguela, was associated explicitly with her father, an ideal king. The Open Door and the Merciful Mother: Fernando III Embarks on Crusade When Fernando became king with Berenguela’s help, Castile thus had a long-term truce with the Almohads. Fernando continued to recognize the truce, protecting his treaties with the Muslims in a 1217 treaty between Alfonso IX and Fernando and Berenguela (identified as queen of Castile). He promised to help Alfonso, like a good son, against all his enemies, “except that, if the king of Castile still has in place his truces with the Muslims he ought to keep these; but at the end of these truces he ought to help the king of León against the Muslims as he would against all other people of the world.” Here, the Muslims were identified as a people “of the world,” and the treaty with them as an ordinary one. However, the complexity of a treaty with a group increasingly offensive to Christian leaders was made clear: “if any of the king of Castile’s people
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wish to help the king of León against the Muslims, it ought to please the king of Castile and the queen.”44 Not even filial piety should induce Fernando to break his treaty with the Muslims; Berenguela’s role in keeping the treaty was equally important. Individual Castilians not bound by Fernando’s treaty were free to fight for León. Berenguela oversaw the agreement, which implied that she as well as Fernando might be pleased by, or even permit, Castilian Christian action on León’s behalf. Berenguela held a number of important tenancies there, and thus her vassals might accompany Alfonso IX on his proposed expeditions: Castilian aid for this reason might interest her. The implicit appeal to Berenguela and Fernando’s Christian loyalty suggests a latent desire to undo the official treaty with the Muslims, while their vulnerability made them want to protect it. At any rate, this treaty shows Berenguela as a ruler in Castile, participating in these relationships, and whose importance and involvement were assumed by her son and acknowledged by her former husband. Despite possible misgivings, Fernando and his mother renewed their treaty with the Almohads. On October 24, 1221, Berenguela wrote to the vizier Abu Yahya Zakariya about a potential peace; she sent gifts as well as information with her embassy, and promised to punish anyone who hurt the Muslims during the truce.45 This directly contradicted the treaty with León, which implied that those acting independently would be favored. Examined together, the two treaties—one with a Christian king and one with a Muslim vizier—demonstrate the fine line walked by Berenguela and Fernando when it came to establishing relationships with their enemies. As long as their competitors, whatever their religion, remained strong, they would act cautiously. The renewed treaty with the vizier suggests that there had been some Christian action against the Muslims: Berenguela and Fernando appear eager to dissociate themselves from that, whereas according to the treaty with Alfonso of León, they should have been “pleased.” Although the king and his mother did not seem eager to renew hostilities against the Muslims, others’ attitudes were changing. Archbishop Rodrigo did not hesitate to take up the cross, taking three castles near the frontier with Aragón.46 In 1224, circumstances provided Fernando with the opportunity to reconsider his truce with the Almohads. The Castilians were well informed about the political world to their south through embassies, trade, traffic in captives, and contact with Christians in the service of the Almohads.47 In January 1224, al-Mustansir died in Morocco, leaving no adult sons and a generally weakened Almohad government. His great-uncle, ‘Abu al-Wa¯hid b. Yu¯suf, was elected caliph by senior members of their family. This deviation from the principle of hereditary
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monarchy raised opposition, creating opportunities for rival princes and administrators to seek power; one al-‘Adil eventually came, with his brothers, to control al-Andalus.48 Juan of Osma, who was probably an eyewitness, described what happened next. Fernando approached Berenguela, seeking her permission to go to war, choosing to consult her before his vassals or representatives of independent militias. Eventually, Berenguela herself consulted these groups, as was both proper and necessary. Primarily, however, Fernando needed his powerful mother’s consent. Fernando asked Berenguela for her permission to break, or not renew, Castile’s treaty with the Muslims and for her help. Fernando’s actions and the language attributed to him demonstrate that Berenguela’s royal authority continued well after 1217; Fernando was unable or unwilling to act without the legitimacy that she could confer.49 Thus, “one day [in June 1224] the king, unexpectedly, humbly, and devotedly, as an obedient son, because the Holy Spirit ran through him, spoke these words in the presence of his most noble mother, with all the magnates standing by, in this manner:” Dearest mother and most sweet lady, what should the kingdom of Castile profit me, which your generosity abdicated (for it was due to you by law) and conceded to me? What profits me a most noble wife brought to me from distant lands by your solicitude and diligence and united to me in marriage with indescribable honor? What good is it to me that you have with maternal sweetness anticipated my desires and accomplished them, with most famous result, even before they could be fully understood by me? [What good are all these things to me] if I languish with inactivity, if the f lower of my youth withers without fruit; if the light of royal glory that now has begun to pour forth, like beams, is extinguished and annihilated in itself? Behold, the time is revealed by almighty God in which— unless I as cowardly as I would be lazy, should wish to ignore [it]—I can serve the Lord Jesus Christ (by whom kings rule!) against the enemies of the Christian faith, to the honor and glory of his name. Indeed, the door is open and the way is manifest. Peace is restored to us in our kingdom; discord and the deadly crimes of enmity exist amongst the Muslims [and] encourage factions anew. Christ (God and Man) is on our side, and on the Muslims’ side, the infidel and damned apostate Muhammad. Therefore, what remains to be said? I beg [you], most merciful mother, from whom after God I hold whatever I have, let it please you that I should begin a war against the Muslims.50
The king fell silent and his court exploded with joy in response to his proposal. Thus, “unexpectedly, humbly . . . and publicly” before the queen and the great men of the kingdom, Fernando III inaugurated his crusade. At the same time, what followed has suggested to some historians
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Fernando’s first efforts to break free of his mother’s firm grip: ruling, authority, lineage they shared, but crusading would allow Fernando as a man to pursue the special military role of a king, to go where, theoretically, his mother could not follow.51 The chronicler’s use of the term abdicate (“Castelle . . . abdicauit mihi concessitur”) here particularly deserves attention: Fernando’s appeal to his mother may suggest a rhetorical positioning on the part of the king and the chronicler, emptying out Berenguela’s authority. But the use of the word in this context, with Fernando seeking Berenguela’s permission, equally suggests how meaningless any such “abdication” was. Fernando’s expressed motives, and Berenguela and the court’s response, ref lected the height of crusading ideology of the day: the obligation of Christians to eject Muslims from once-Christian territory. The potential territorial or financial benefits such expeditions might bring were not mentioned. All was to be done for the greater glory of Jesus and at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Fernando, preaching his own crusade, assumed this purely as a Christian and royal obligation. There was no hint that crusaders might seek remission of sins—nor that they had sins to atone for—unless it were to stand by idly, “languish with inactivity,” and, in Fernando’s case, squander all the advantages brought to him by his mother. Remission of sins, of course, was granted by the pope and not one’s mother, and the point may be made that if Fernando had truly intended to lead a crusade, he might have asked Honorius, not Berenguela. Berenguela’s role highlights the inescapably political aspect of royal crusading. Although the chronicler explained Fernando’s departure from protocol as the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Honorius had some years earlier granted the indulgence to anyone who would fight the Muslims in Spain.52 This bit of political theater situated Berenguela, her mothering, and her consent at the center of the “war against the Muslims.” She linked the king with his crusading ancestors, especially his grandfather Alfonso VIII, the hero of Las Navas, and helped her son broaden the scope for kingly behavior. Berenguela addressed Fernando: “Most sweet son, you are my glory and my joy; I have always from my soul desired your happiness and success, and to the best of my ability, I have procured [them.] Here stand your vassals, the court is in attendance, they counsel us as they are obliged, and we should follow their counsel in this matter.” The chronicler described how the king then withdrew from the court so that Berenguela and the assembled nobles could freely discuss his proposition, which they then unanimously approved. Then, “the king, knowing the will of his mother and hearing the response of the magnates, rejoiced in the Lord more than can be believed.”53 Berenguela’s direct speech, so rarely recorded, demonstrates very little new about
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her—rather, her words epitomize her maternal identity as her son’s advocate and evoke once again her legitimizing inf luence, as she reminded him of his obligation to consult with his nobles. We might wish that, in this instance, Berenguela had not been so economical of words, although the chronicler described this as “her way” [mos eius]. Once again, it is impossible to know, given the extraordinary attention of historians to Berenguela’s rare virtues as a woman, whether “her way” really was her way or another ideal portraiture of an appropriately reticent woman. Fernando acknowledged that his authority came from his mother. Berenguela’s essential consent and support for Fernando’s plan provided legitimacy, and we will see that she played a very practical role, governing Castile and León in Fernando’s absences and sending him supplies. Nevertheless, in the course of events, the chroniclers render Berenguela essentially inarticulate, even though this is not what must have been, in fact, the case. It is by deeds and not by words that she participates. The chronicler could not find, or imagine, words to put in her mouth. Crusading, as it was preached, fought, financed, and generally represented, was a male enterprise. Women participated, but as long as crusades were military endeavors, women in Castile faced an ideological glass ceiling. In Christian Iberia, women’s role in warfare was a supporting one; they even had difficulty inheriting military goods.54 Berenguela’s great-great grandmother Urraca had led armies; Berenguela herself may have done so during the civil war against Álvaro Núñez de Lara, and she certainly seems to have participated in the symbolically laden male ritual of knighting Fernando. Her status as a queen set her apart from ordinary Castilian women, but her gender nonetheless stymied the chronicler. What could Berenguela say, then, except to reiterate her motherhood of her son? It is possible that this was indeed “her way” and that Fernando had said it all in his highly rhetorical speech. Almost certainly this scene was entirely staged, and the terms—that Fernando should break the longstanding treaty and go to war against the Muslims—already agreed upon.55 It was necessary, however, for those involved to view this as a spontaneous Spirit-driven impulse to drive out the infidel with the full and open support of the body politic, led by Berenguela, the queen, daughter, wife, and mother to kings. In this version of history, Berenguela demonstrated no reluctance that her “glory and her joy” should embark on this venture. In July, the Chronica latina relates, Fernando and Berenguela, with the archbishop of Toledo, the bishop of Burgos, and the great men of the realm gathered in Carrión for a council in which they planned their war.56 Crusades arose specifically out of papal or episcopal encouragement— the offering of the indulgence for the remission of sins granted to those
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penitents who fought the Muslims. Becoming a crusader required some sort of declaration of intent—taking a vow and, perhaps, wearing the insignia of the cross—and crusaders in Iberia probably performed these rituals.57 The absence of a specific reference to a vow for either king or his mother—or any of his followers—need not diminish the crusading character of this effort, but it does qualify it. The language of the vow was not prominent in Iberian sources, suggesting that vow-taking was either insignificant (unlikely) or commonplace. O’Callaghan believes Fernando took the crusader’s vow, if not at the cortes in 1224, then almost certainly upon receiving the indulgence the next year. One can only speculate about the consequences of Fernando’s vow for Berenguela. The absence of a vow would suggest the king’s actions and motivation were purely political; as such, they would create a wider range of participation for the queen. In France, the division between the political and religious roles—articulated on the one hand by Blanche’s regency and on the other by Louis’s crusading vow—separated the king from his mother and the queen from her son’s project. In Castile, Berenguela was a full participant in her son’s activities. As such, she was as likely as he to have taken a vow. Certainly her future actions fit with the expected roles of female crusaders in the thirteenth century. Fernando’s request for Berenguela’s political and organizational cooperation compares with his cousin Louis’s later reliance upon Blanche of Castile. Blanche’s impotence at resisting Louis’s crusade ref lects not only the French king’s determination but the weakening of her political authority and underlines the distinction between a queen who achieved her status through marriage and motherhood, as did Blanche, and one who achieved it through inheritance, as did Berenguela. Ultimately, however, both kings relied on their mothers for material aid and help in governing their kingdoms as well as supervising the upbringing of some of their children in their absence. Mater Voluit/Noluit Fernando’s conquests that followed were arguably the most significant of any medieval Iberian ruler in terms of the vast territory and major cities he gained from the Muslim kingdoms; by the end of his reign, only the tiny kingdom of Granada at the southern tip of the peninsula remained under Muslim rule.58 However, certain chroniclers of Fernando’s reign looked back on this brilliant period of conquest and sought to explain why it took him so long—about seven years from the beginning of his reign—to resume the Castilian crusades against al-Andalus. They turned for answers to the king’s relationship with his mother. Rodrigo, although
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he knew and used the Chronica latina, did not suggest that Fernando sought permission to fight the Muslims from Berenguela. Rather, writing as a promoter of crusading for the benefit of the Toledan see, he presented Berenguela as a principal architect of Fernando’s identity as a crusader-king: “Indeed the noble queen Berenguela, the mother of the king, wishing him free from offenses against Christians, wished him to dedicate the first fruits of his knighthood to God and did not wish him to prolong further the treaty with the Arabs.”59 Thus, Rodrigo contextualizes Fernando’s conquests with the crusading ideal, of which Berenguela was the main promoter.60 This contrasts with the later Primera crónica general, which, while using Rodrigo’s work, reified as “la estoria,” directly contradicts his crucial point, asserting baldly that Berenguela in fact wished to maintain the treaty with Almohads. This has a basis in fact given Berenguela’s communication with the Muslim vizier in 1221, mentioned above. Ana Rodríguez López has suggested that the Primera crónica general’s variation was a deliberate manipulation of Rodrigo’s original text, intended perhaps to elevate the king’s independence from his mother and her nobles, the very court from which he sought permission in the episode described by Juan of Osma above. These tensions ref lect the chroniclers’ difficulties in reconciling the king’s legitimacy and its derivation from his mother.61 The Primera crónica general’s variation suggests however, a whole new interpretation of Fernando’s dedication of the first fruits of his knighthood. The first fruits were not a crusading vow, but a firstborn son, the future Alfonso X, patron of the Primera crónica general. When the Chronicon mundi, the Chronica latina, and Arab records noted above are considered, it seems that, in this instance, the Primera crónica general modulates Rodrigo’s vision and permits us to see the various, perhaps competing, stakes for Berenguela regarding her son’s crusades: “And the noble queen, Doña Berenguela, King Fernando’s mother, with love and good will towards her son, wishing to keep him from going to avenge the wrongs that the Muslims had done him, made him consecrate to God, as the history says, the beginnings of his knighthood, and prolong the truces he had made with the Arabs, and she did not allow him to move against them.”62 What would it mean for Fernando to consecrate himself and the beginning of his reign to God, if not to fight the infidel? The Primera crónica general suggests Berenguela may have had in mind something more than the pacification of rebellious nobles. Considering the contentious events of 1217, when her gender proved a significant stumbling block to her direct rule of Castile, Berenguela may have sought to secure the lineage before permitting Fernando to embark on military and extraterritorial adventures. She needed grandchildren, preferably grandsons.
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By 1224, when Fernando first proposed to go to war against the Muslims, he was the father of two or three sons and eventually would have seven who survived him. By 1224 also, Berenguela had successfully warded off the potential marriage of Fernando’s half sisters, which threatened Fernando’s claims to León. Indeed, even though Berenguela’s motherly role is so differently explicated there, in Rodrigo’s history the passage cited by the Primera crónica general is contextualized by a description of the seven sons and two daughters of Fernando and Beatriz.63 How was this God’s work? In twelfth-century Castile and León, bridegrooms were excused from a variety of obligations—labor, taxes, even military service—so that they could be with their wives. This was an inducement to marriage, but a side benefit was to encourage reproduction.64 By changing Berenguela’s noluit to voluit, Alfonsine historians placed Alfonso X’s destiny much more closely to the heart of Fernando’s career as a crusader. The compilers of the Primera crónica general were perhaps justifying a perceived delay in conquest after Fernando’s accession to the throne, and they revised Rodrigo’s “first fruits of knighthood” to explain it, emphasizing Berenguela’s responsibility in shaping Fernando’s decision making. Succession was a priority and shaped crusading policy. That Berenguela directed this policy is suggested by the chroniclers’ attention to her inf luence and by Fernando’s approach to his mother for permission when the time was right. The Chronica latina gives no hint of Berenguela’s desire that Fernando dedicate his reign to God, or delay crusade, but it nonetheless places Fernando’s proposition to fight the Muslims after the pacification of Castile, Fernando’s marriage and knighting, and the strategic marriage of Fernando’s sister Berenguela to the crusader Jean de Brienne—all developments in which Berenguela played a strong, even controlling hand. While history shows that these early stages of Fernando’s reign were crucial to his later success—and that Fernando remained thoroughly grateful to his mother—Alfonsine chroniclers, for whom Fernando’s military successes would have been immediately and outstandingly significant, saw his mother as an impediment to his destiny as a crusader. From Capilla to Córdoba: 1224–36 Berenguela and Archbishop Rodrigo spent the summer months of 1224 with Fernando, preparing for his initial expedition south; toward the end of September, their forces left Toledo. Among the Muslim leaders experiencing “discord and deadly enmity” was prince ‘Abd Allah, who seized the fortress of Baeza, thereby becoming known as al-Bayya¯ sı¯: the Baezan. Near the Christian frontier, al-Bayya¯ sı¯ sought a fateful alliance with Fernando.65 For Fernando, al-Bayya¯ sı¯’s overtures were timely,
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and Fernando immediately accepted his homage. To seal their alliance, al-Bayya¯ sı¯ gave Fernando his son as a hostage: this boy was sent to the court of Castile (under the supervision of Berenguela), baptized with the name of Fernando, and after his death, buried in the cathedral of Seville.66 The combined forces of al-Bayya¯ sı¯ and Fernando turned toward the town of Quesada, southeast of Baeza, which they seized and despoiled.67 Within about a month, the Castilians ended their campaign; bringing tremendous amounts of booty and numbers of captives, they returned to Toledo on November 11.68 In 1225, after Fernando’s initial foray, Pope Honorius III wrote a series of letters to Fernando, congratulating him and encouraging him in his crusading efforts. He issued a bull taking the king, his mother, wife, and children under papal protection while Fernando fought the Muslims, as well as a bull conceding a crusading indulgence and protection for Castilian crusaders equivalent to those for the Holy Land.69 The pope was gratified; since 1216 he had encouraged the resumption of crusade in Iberia; perhaps it had irked him that Fernando had waited so long. Honorius steadily endowed Rodrigo of Toledo with powers designed to encourage crusading, naming him a papal legate and allowing the collection of tithes and the commutation of Spaniards’ vows to go to Jerusalem in order to fight Muslims in Iberia. Several times Honorius conceded full indulgence or remission of sins for those who took up arms or gave financial support for the fight against Islam.70 With Honorius’s indulgence, Fernando began his acquisition of territory in earnest, embarking on a devastating campaign in al-Andalus, heading in the direction of Granada; the Chronicon de Cardeña reported that, in that year, Fernando took an incredible (and highly unlikely) 17,000 captives.71 Al-Bayya¯ sı¯ was able to establish himself as the ruler of Córdoba under Fernando’s protection. In exchange for Fernando’s support, he ceded three castles: Baños de la Encina, Salvatierra, and Capilla. Only Capilla put up a strong defense, and Fernando was occupied with its siege from June 7 to August 15, sustained by supplies and support sent from Córdoba by his Muslim ally. Berenguela kept a close eye on Fernando’s strategies and advised him from afar. The following story about the siege and capture of Capilla suggests a steady stream of communication between mother and son. In the midst of the siege, bad news arrived from Córdoba: al-Bayya¯ sı¯ had been killed by rebellious Cordobans, and his head sent to his mortal enemy, the caliph in Morocco.73 Given al-Bayya¯ sı¯’s death and the seeming invincibility of Capilla, Fernando was advised to give up and go to Córdoba, where he could avenge his vassal; but Fernando “ following the counsel of his prudent mother, who advised him that in no way should he retreat from the siege until he had taken the castle, persevering firmly and steadily in this intent,
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day and night did not give the besieged Muslims a rest.” 74 Finally conquering Capilla, Fernando’s forces evicted the people who were in the castle, converted the mosque into a Christian church, and then Fernando returned to Toledo, where his mother waited for him, “with great joy and honor.” 75 Berenguela’s exhortation to Fernando encouraged his success. She also fit an acceptable role for crusading women in urging crusade itself.76 His counselors and followers who wished to give up may have been thinking of the traditional limitations of their obligations to fight for their king.77 Berenguela, on the other hand, encouraged Fernando to persevere from a royal standpoint. Fernando’s return to his mother “with great joy” and honor intact suggests that she was the force sending him off to begin with. Berenguela’s participation corresponds to the feminine potential in crusading, in preparing, supplying, exhorting, and welcoming him home. His mother’s role served as well to highlight Fernando’s masculinity, defined here by a refusal to capitulate. Fernando’s siege and capture of Capilla, and the submission of Baños de la Encina and Salvatierra, were meant to erode Muslim strength as much as to extend Christian territory. Salvatierra was especially important as a castle previously held by the Order of Calatrava but lost on the eve of Las Navas de Tolosa. The military orders embodied the ideology and practice of crusade, but their entrenchment along the frontier region was crucial to the extension of royal dominion as well. Berenguela did her part to shore up their power when, on June 4, 1229, she donated her castle and town of Bolaños to the military Order of Calatrava.78 This property was almost certainly Bolaños de Campo, one of the important properties contested between Castile and León and that Berenguela held as a result of the treaty of Cabreros, demonstrating her continued domination of the region around Valladolid. Historically, this has been confused with a castle located in the Campo de Calatrava—that is, along the Castilian frontier with al-Andalus—that has come to be known as the “Castillo de Doña Berenguela.” However, this is a legendary and a late association.79 The military Order of Calatrava played an important role in the prosecution of crusade and the defense of the frontier; Berenguela’s gift not only accrued the spiritual benefits of supporting crusade for the queen but also reinforced one of her son’s most important alliances. Córdoba: From the Ornament of the World to the Jewel in the Crown Fernando continued his conquest of al-Andalus making annual incursions and a series of truces through which peace was exchanged for tribute.
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The political situation of the Almohads continued to be complicated by internal competition as well as social and economic disruption, no doubt aggravated by the Castilian threat.80 In 1228, the “anti-Almohad” Ibn Hu¯d replaced the caliph of Seville; two years later he was soundly defeated by Alfonso IX of León at Merida. Later, in 1230, Ibn Hu¯d was confronted with the dangerous fact that, after Alfonso IX died, León was united with Castile under Fernando, which meant combined resources for the Christians. Indeed, Fernando, “having summoned together a great army from León and Castile,” besieged and took Úbeda. In 1235, Ibn Hu¯d tried to stave off the Christians by making a peace, meant to last until the spring of 1236, at the staggering cost of 430,000 maravedís a year.81 In January 1236, however, a small, independent band of Christians seized and held part of the city of Córdoba, essentially breaking the treaty when they requested the aid of Christian frontiersmen and eventually the king himself; Fernando turned to his mother to help him gather the men and supplies necessary to respond to their call.82 When Fernando received the appeal from the renegade Christians of Córdoba, his determined response was described by Juan of Osma: “The strongest knight of Christ, King Fernando, departed from Benavente the following morning in great haste; he greeted his mother, who at the time was in León, from afar through a messenger, who told her faithfully for him of what had happened and of the firm purpose of her son, which for no reason could be changed.” The king went on to Zamora, then Salamanca, gathering men and arms. He sent his chancellor, Juan of Osma (the narrator of these events, and possibly the messenger alluded to above) to Berenguela for “generous stipends” for the knights volunteering to follow him.83 Berenguela was most likely drawing from the royal treasury in León to pay these knights; Fernando’s request implies that she controlled these funds. Recalling the reference to Queen Leonor’s possession of financial records in Alfonso VIII’s will, we glimpse an ancient role for queens brought forward in time. So much more than the household and estate management that was a major part of the early medieval queen’s duty, the thirteenth-century Iberian queens had real power and demonstrated the extent of their corulership through their control and disbursement of royal wealth. The weather was terrible—cold, wet, with f looding—the company small and the risks great, but Fernando’s gamble paid off; arriving in Córdoba in early February, he had taken the city by mid-June, after a difficult siege.84 The capture of Córdoba was the most significant achievement of Fernando’s crusades in al-Andalus to take place during Berenguela’s lifetime.85 Berenguela, in the interim, continued to collect and disburse stipends with which to pay the knights already in Fernando’s
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service, as well as to attract more men to go to Córdoba to support the siege. As well as money and men, a continuous stream of supplies had to be sent to the army—this was also Berenguela’s job. Berenguela’s role in the conquest of Córdoba was the same she had played with consistency throughout Fernando’s years of campaigning in al-Andalus. The chroniclers used the occasion, however, not only to highlight her key role, but also to expound on the queen’s greatness in raising her son. The conquest of Córdoba was therefore the crowning achievement of her motherhood and of her queenship. Upon capturing the city, Fernando processed into Córdoba with his bishops and followers; Bishop Juan of Osma immediately converted the main mosque into a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Then, Fernando “rescued” the bells of Santiago de Compostela, which had been removed to Córdoba by al-Mansur in the eleventh century.86 Lucas of Túy celebrated Fernando’s political act of forcing his Muslim captives to carry the bells to Santiago: “Oh how blessed this king, who removed the shame of the Spanish people overturning the throne of the barbarians and restoring with great honor to the church of Saint James the Apostle its bells, that so long had been kept at Córdoba to the injury and dishonor to the name of Christ!”87 What otherwise might have been just one more seizure of booty was endowed with religious significance. Lucas equated the earlier loss of the bells of Santiago with shame and dishonor—or sin. Fernando, who was blessed, thus restored the Christian community to a state of grace. Although Lucas does not dwell on Berenguela’s role in this accomplishment, Archbishop Rodrigo, recounting the queen’s delighted reception of her son in Toledo, gave her equal credit for the victory. Berenguela, “made joyful by an equal victory—namely that she had brought everything to pass by her advice and help [literally, military subsidy, “consilio et subsidio”], albeit in absence, gave tearful thanks to God, that the ancient dignity, erased by the indolence of princes, was restored to Spain through her wisdom and the zeal of her son.”88 The restoration of previously lost grace and honor was attributed directly to the queen and fully developed the connection between Fernando’s success and Berenguela’s motherhood. Rodrigo took this opportunity to laud the queen’s life’s work: Indeed, this noble queen, Berenguela, so nourished her son in good deeds that she did not cease to pour wholesome studies into his heart—this noble queen was neglectful of no virtue, devoid of no gift—like milk imbued with the honey of graces; nor at any time did she wean him from the fullness of virtues. So, even though he has become a man and is confirmed in the age of majority, his mother has never ceased, nor does she cease now,
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to urge with watchful zeal deeds that are acceptable to God and to men; so that she never persuaded him to commit any womanly action, but rather always [deeds] of magnificence.89
Berenguela not only supplied her son with encouragement and materiél, she was the very source of his manly virtue. Berenguela’s wisdom and continued inf luence over her son was considered a good thing: she was Fernando’s moral and political teacher. However, the passage betrays an anxiety about the potential emasculation of the king due to such feminine inf luence when it clarifies that Berenguela never taught Fernando things belonging to the world of women (quia nec umquam feminea, set semper magnificencie opera persuasit).90 In that context, the physicality and heightened gendering of the Primera crónica general’s vernacular adaptation of Rodrigo’s encomium is remarkable: “with breasts full of virtues she gave him her milk in such a way so that, even though King Fernando was now a man grown and confirmed in the age of full power, his mother Queen Berenguela did not cease (nor had she ever ceased) from telling him and teaching him diligently the things that please God and men. Everyone considered it good; and she never showed him the habits and matters that pertained to women, but rather those that led to greatness of heart and to great deeds.”91 She has taught him through nourishment—her breasts full of virtue—and so she continued, if not through literal breast-feeding, then through supply lines—to feed Fernando and his men and supply them with the physical necessities to make their expedition successful. Conclusion The death of his mother caused Fernando to pause on the warpath; like his cousin Louis IX, the devoted son decided against returning home.92 After Berenguela’s death in November 1246, Fernando feared losing his advantage along his expanding frontier, for it had been a long time since he had been in Castile, and there were “many misdeeds and complaints” that would demand his attention there, which previously he had been excused from attending because of “the help of his mother . . . wherever she went.”93 Her loss forced him to weigh the internal peace of León and Castile against the expansion of his realm. He chose the latter, in part because he was able to rely on his brother Alfonso de Molina and his nowadult son Infante Alfonso to manage at home, continuing the practice of corule.94 This was possible in 1246 but would not have been twenty years earlier without Berenguela’s permission and help. Berenguela played a crucial role in the expansion of Castile through war against the Muslims of al-Andalus and used her queenship to promote and enable her son.
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Berenguela’s primary activity supporting Fernando’s wars was to gather and send money, supplies, and men. But these crusades also brought about a reverse traffic, in which Berenguela participated and from which she benefited. Fernando’s conquests enormously expanded the territory of his kingdom and the number of people under his—and his mother’s—rule. They also resulted, like all successful wars, in the acquisition of booty: weapons, horses, clothes, gold, deluxe household items, and more. As an active participant in conquest, Berenguela could expect a share in the booty. In earlier descriptions of successful campaigns against the Muslims, Christian acquisition and disbursement of booty had been emphasized; examples include Berenguela’s letter to her sister Blanche discussed above, and the consistent emphasis on the distribution of booty in the Poema de mio Cid, composed in the early part of the thirteenth century. At the same time, this was a period of transition: Berenguela resisted the image of her father gathering booty at Las Navas, Fernando did not mention booty in his proposition to go to war, and, above all, the historian Archbishop Rodrigo avoided the concept in his effort to establish crusade and reconquer territory for the Toledan see. Rodrigo instead emphasized the symbolic and ritual differences between the enemies, which had to be obliterated and purified with water and bloodshed.95 The shift of attention from booty to purity was an ideological, not a practical, one; booty remained an extremely important element of the economies of conquest and repopulation at every level of society. Iberian warfare was inherently violent and religious, with damage to orchards and fields, seizure of booty, “purification” of mosques into Christian temples, overwhelming bloodshed, and the enslavement of captives. Despite claims to a culture of tolerance, even by Fernando, the self-described “king of three religions,” Berenguela lived in a time of increasing cultural separation. Her promotion of the Cistercians and the military orders, the persecution of heretics, and the investment in Fernando’s crusades contributed to that widening gulf. At the same time, she felt free to make alliances with Muslims when expedient. The material culture that crossed boundaries as both commercial goods and booty, epitomized and made real the values and aesthetics shared by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. Even as these three groups became more distanced, they daily consumed common objects. To a great extent, we can only imagine what sorts of goods Berenguela herself used daily or to enhance her status through display and gift-giving and must speculate even more so about what items came into her hands as a result of crusade and conquest. We can be quite certain that they did, however, because of the sumptuous clothes used to wrap the royal dead, discussed more thoroughly in the next chapter. Such use and display not only enhanced the
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royal family’s status, but explicitly, visually integrated Fernando’s conquests into the realm of Castile and León. Furthermore, in receiving booty, as well as sending weapons, food, and goods, Berenguela participated fully in the economy of crusading. Her connection to the material prosecution of her son’s crusades was an intimate one. Thus, booty set Berenguela’s experience apart from that of her sister Blanche, as did other differences between their sons’ crusades. Although Blanche was a powerful regent, she was radically separated from her son and his experience. The material wealth that f lowed north and south in Iberia through the machinery of war contributed to Berenguela’s integration into Fernando’s crusading project. Berenguela’s material role paralleled social and ideological ones. In her social role as the king’s mother, she granted permission, governed at home, and welcomed him on his safe and victorious return. Her real power lay in her position as heir and coruler, which gave her access to administrative tools and a treasury. Her hands-on government and disbursement and collection of royal wealth supplied the structural underpinnings of Fernando’s crusading. Berenguela’s ideological role as a Christian, hereditary queen, and mother not only justified Fernando’s crusade but strengthened perceptions of his masculinity and his kingship. Fernando’s gender threw Berenguela’s into high relief, posing problems for chroniclers who wrote about her: a woman making a successful man. Moreover, Berenguela’s recorded actions as the king’s mother lent another level of rationalization for Fernando’s initial hesitation and subsequent spectacular success. The complex portrayal of her role as a nurturer was shaped by the chroniclers. In hindsight, it reveals not a contradiction but consistency in her political concerns. First, she firmly established her lineage’s political control over Castile and León by ensuring the next generation. Second, she helped Fernando strengthen his political claim to his kingdom through its extension and the confirmation and protection of his masculinity. Her promotion of the crusades enabled her to completely establish her son as a man and a king.
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CHAPTER 6 “MAKING LAMENT”: DEATH, GRIEF, MEMORY, IDENTITY
Moreover, concerning the petition of Lady Blanche the illustrious queen of France, it is established by the Chapter General that a mass for the dead is to be said by each priest throughout the entire Order, for the celebrated memory of Lord Louis king of France her late husband, and for Lord Alfonso the late king of Castile her father, and for the lady queen her mother and for her sisters and other friends [amicis].1
Remembering By 1251, when Blanche of Castile petitioned the Cistercian Chapter General for the memorial masses described above, she was the sole survivor of her natal family: her parents, sisters, and brothers were all dead, Berenguela most recently having died, in 1246. Blanche’s memorialization of her family—repeated in 1252, in anticipation of her own death—was proper and expected, consistent with her acts of filial piety throughout her long association with the Cistercian Order.2 The petition exemplifies the link between memorialization—ensuring remembrance—and family identity. Blanche was a spouse, but also a daughter, a sister, and a friend. She fulfilled her obligations in remembering these people, including sisters born after she left Spain for France. The memorialization, sweeping in scope on first reading, is also noteworthy for whom it does not include: Blanche remembered neither her brothers, nor her own dead children in any specific way. Later memorials did not name specific family members, apart from her parents, but oddly, only her sisters [sororibus]. Late in life, Blanche also included her “friends.”3 One of her very last requests was for masses for the soul of Fernando III, who died only months before his aunt.4 Throughout her years as queen and regent of France, Blanche consistently
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remembered her deceased parents, and later her husband. The Cistercian Order regularly offered prayers for the deceased royalty of Europe, but statutes such as one from 1241, which mentions the memory of Philip Augustus and his son Louis, King Alfonso of Castile and Queen Leonor, and their ancestors, as well as King Richard of England, were likely prompted by the powerful inf luence of Blanche of Castile.5 Blanche also made a point of memorializing her deceased sister Leonor, the former queen of Aragón, who died in 1244. Blanche may have been behind the Cistercian prayers offered for her sister Constanza, a nun at Las Huelgas, identified in the statutes as “Lady Constanza, the nun, sister of the lady queen of France,” when she died in 1243.6 Of all of Blanche’s sisters, Constanza and Leonor led the most politically marginal lives, especially after Leonor’s divorce from Jaume I. Blanche’s tributes were thus not to great or famous figures, but to blood relatives. Surprisingly, there is no recorded memorialization of her sister Berenguela, except for the generic “sisters” mentioned above. Berenguela had a presence of her own in the Cistercian statutes: in 1217, Berenguela requested that the Chapter General excuse the abbot of Matallana for failing to attend that year.7 In 1244, Berenguela requested, together with her daughter-in-law the countess of Molina, that the monastery of Buenafuente be incorporated into the order.8 In 1245 the Chapter General ordered a mass of the Holy Spirit to be said by each priest of the order for Fernando, Berenguela, and Jeanne.9 Despite this history, and despite her political relationship with Blanche, Berenguela was not remembered by Blanche in the Cistercian statutes. Blanche also never specifically memorialized Urraca. Urraca’s death occurred in 1220, before Blanche became associated in prayers with the Cistercians and before she was a queen. Blanche must have remembered this sister, closest in age to herself, and surely familial duty prompted her to bring her nephew Afonso, Urraca’s younger son, to the French court to be raised. Leonor, on the other hand, and perhaps Constanza as well, were born after Blanche had left Castile for France. Blanche’s memorialization of these unfamiliar sisters, then, takes on a new meaning. Perhaps the very fact that she did not know Leonor and Constanza prompted her to remember them in this way. Christian and filial (or sisterly) obligation was satisfied through ritual memorialization in the absence of real personal grief. This does not explain why Blanche would not remember her two brothers, Fernando and Enrique. At first, Blanche’s desire to remember only her parents and sisters seems a highly gendered choice and implies a provocative familial identity. However, if her goal was to ensure the memorialization of unknown members of her family, and especially members associated with the Cistercian Order—as Constanza definitely was, and Leonor may have been—then the memorialization of famous
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royal brothers by the Cistercians became less essential. Regardless of Blanche’s reasons for apparently omitting certain members of her family from her petitions for prayers for the dead, this much is clear. By specifically including those two sisters whom she did not know, Blanche distinguished between the twin processes of remembering the dead and mourning the dead. Except in the most abstract way, remembering and praying for the souls of her dead sisters were acts that must be distinguished from an emotion of grief and mourning at their loss. In remembering her sisters, Blanche was not performing the same kind of political act that mourning represented. Remembering was a family affair, and Blanche’s scrupulous attention to her dead sisters foregrounds her Castilian identity. Remembering might be made public; indeed, such prayers were meant to be, but mourning belonged to the political sphere. Mourning Mourning and the burial of family members were political roles played by the queens of Castile. The desperate, public grief displayed by Leonor and Berenguela on the deaths of the Infante Fernando and King Alfonso VIII, respectively, followed the ancient Mediterranean custom of dramatic lamentation for the dead, in Spain called faciendo llanto [making lament].10 Displays of excessive grief were repeatedly condemned by Spanish church councils from the sixth through the fourteenth centuries, because they suggested doubt about eternal life and because they were perceived to originate in pagan ritual.11 Alfonso X’s Siete partidas reiterated these prohibitions in a law titled “What punishment those who mourn for the dead are liable to, according to the Holy Church.” To injure the face and disfigure it, on account of the dead, is something which the Holy Church regards as very irrational. For this reason certain of the Holy Fathers imposed special penalties upon such as did these things; forbidding priests to administer to them the Sacraments of the Holy Church . . . until they had recovered from the marks which they had made on their faces, and compelling them to do Penance for this . . . [and] they ordained that when a dead person was brought into the church . . . no one may disturb the divine service especially while mass is being said, and the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ consecrated . . . Anyone who acts contrary to this, whether he be priest or layman, must be ejected from the Church. They also directed that if anyone should make a disturbance while the body was being removed to the Church or to the grave, the priest must stop the burial service until the service was silent. They also ordained that if anyone should kiss a corpse, or throw himself upon the bed with it, he must fast eight days upon bread and water, and should not be received in the Church for the space of one month.12
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Nonetheless, such lamentation remained a dominant theme in literature, art, and historical writing, taking form in poetic eulogies (the planhs of the troubadours), tomb sculpture, and chronicle records—forms all produced by men. It is not irrelevant that some of these latter were written, as was the De rebus Hispanie, by prominent clerics or under the patronage of the king. Another reason excessive lamentation may have been discouraged was that it was a fundamentally female practice. By the reign of Fernando III, court poets had evolved the planto into an art form. For example, in the Pranto for Queen Beatriz, the poet officially expressed, in a refined manner, the grief of the court upon her death in 1235: “God made no one better than her in the world, apart from his Holy Mother!”13 Nonetheless the written llanto ref lected an actual historical practice, observed in remote areas of the Mediterranean into the twentieth century.14 When women’s grief was displayed, however, it was not a refined performance but conversely an inarticulate, uncontrollable, and self-destructive one. Women were not depicted as mourning with words, praising the dead, but with actions: tearing their hair and clothes, scratching themselves, and weeping and wailing copiously, while men lamented more articulately.15 Because the practice of faciendo llanto was usually female, it also hints at a female ritual apart from the ecclesiastical rites for the dead. As the Siete partidas pointed out, such lamentation disrupted, and should have even stopped church ritual, a very male practice: the two practices could not, or rather should not, coexist. Patrick Geary has analyzed the representations of women’s disruptive grief in the illuminations of the early eleventh-century Sacramentary of Bishop Warmundus of Ivrea; here, too, women mourn by tearing at themselves, crying out, and interacting with the corpse.16 Georges Duby noted for twelfth-century France the essential role of women who sat with unburied bodies: “They should be seen to weep, to tear their hair, to pull it out by the handful, and to scratch their cheeks, and they should proclaim their grief at the tops of their voices.”17 Despite official disapproval, then, it was expected that extravagant female mourning would take place, and indeed, that it was necessary for a proper funeral. The first chronicled instance of Queen Leonor’s grief occurred after 1211, when her oldest living son, the Infante Fernando, died unexpectedly at the age of twenty-one.18 This death devastated the king and queen of Castile; according to the Chronica latina, Leonor especially despaired: “The most noble queen Leonor, hearing of the death of her son, wished to die with him and lay down on the bier on which her son lay, and placing her mouth on his mouth and folding her hands over his hands, she strove either to bring him to life or to die with him. Thus, those who saw it claimed that such a grief as this never had been seen.”19 Rodrigo elided Leonor’s individual role in grieving for the infante, focusing on
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both inconsolable parents and the loss of a boy who was the “hope of the people”—a politically significant death that invited the specter of the despairing queen. Instead, Rodrigo focused on Alfonso’s decision to go to war in response to Fernando’s death. The archbishop’s decision not to report (or imagine) Leonor’s behavior here may be read in light of the prohibition of kissing corpses and throwing oneself on the funeral bier related above in the Siete partidas.20 Whether or not Leonor really threw herself upon her son’s body is unimportant for assessing the role of queens as mourners. In all of the examples of mourning and funeral rites given herein, the presence of the chronicler is always in the foreground. Other archeological and cultural evidence, such as tomb sculpture and the literary genre of the planctus, substantiates her behavior as consistent with contemporary demonstrations of grief in the region—that is, the llanto. Enough evidence of female involvement with royal burials offsets the possibility that Leonor’s response was purely an idealization of queenly behavior on the chronicler’s part, ref lecting literary, if not historical, expectations of female mourning. Leonor’s physical interaction with her son’s corpse, however, goes beyond the “usual” mourning practices of wailing, weeping, and tearing of hair. She seems to perform a tableau vivante of a pietà, and indeed, Rocio Sánchez Ameijeiras has asserted that the passage “is inspired by the Planctus Beatae Mariae tradition.”21 Did such association with the Virgin Mary make this extreme exhibition, condemned by the church but consistently described in clerically authored chronicles, acceptable? Certainly it was incumbent on the queen to grieve for her dead son. This was how the chronicler thought it appropriate to represent the queen, as she demonstrated personally the significance of this public loss. Although this demonstration of grief might be evidence of an unusually close relationship between mother and son, and certainly Leonor devoted a great deal of resources to Fernando’s memory after his death, such an interpretation obscures the political role of Leonor’s grief.22 The chronicler’s characterization of Leonor’s lament promoted an ideal image of the dead infante; it emphasized Castile’s loss and idealized queenship as well. The infante was also lamented—and idealized—by the court poet Guiraut de Calansón, whose planh mourned the loss of a prince who was a model for all the world; who resembled his dead Plantagenet uncles Henry, Geoffrey, and Richard “in body and deeds”; who had been destined to become a “new Arthur.” Embedded in this lament was a strong connection to Leonor’s natal family as the source of the infante’s virtues, magnifying Leonor’s loss.23 Furthermore, Fernando’s death, as the chronicler well knew, writing with hindsight, seemed to signal a series of disasters complicating the political life of Castile throughout
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the reign of Fernando’s younger brother, the future Enrique I. That Leonor’s documented activity after 1211 seems limited in favor of her dead son’s remembrance may not be significant. Leonor did not need to record her “activity” on behalf of her youngest son, Enrique, because the seven-year old was presumably still in his mother’s care or under her supervision. It is true that Leonor focused on the soul of her dead son in her charters; the context for this memorialization was the foundation of the royal hospital of Burgos, also known as the Hospital de la Reina. This major foundation had wide-reaching social and political effects beyond the memorialization of the dead infante. It is perplexing to realize, however, that Leonor did not accompany Fernando’s body to its burial at Las Huelgas. Berenguela, the former queen of León, assumed this responsibility. Evidently, Leonor was needed among the living. Fernando was buried at Las Huelgas in Burgos by the archbishop of Toledo, with “his most excellent sister, Queen Berenguela, to whom the succession of the kingdom of Castile would later come, carrying out nobly and appropriately the funeral duties and honors, with sobs and sorrow. In this, her virtue indeed shone fully, so that her prudence surpassed the piety of her devout sex, and her generosity in the giving of alms [surpassed] the donations of princes.”24 Berenguela’s actions all redounded to her own high status in the eyes of the archbishop. She made sure that her brother’s body was accompanied by great men (“episcopis et magnatibus secularibus et religiosis”) and herself, a member of the royal family, to its final and appropriate resting place. She ensured that the funeral office was carried out with appropriate obsequies, including “sobs and sorrow,” and she distributed copious alms in her brother’s honor. Once again Archbishop Rodrigo explicitly identified Berenguela’s behavior as exceeding the expectations of her sex; there was an appropriate amount of “sighing and sorrow,” but it was contained, only brief ly mentioned. What received more attention was pious almsgiving. The Primera crónica general emphasizes her mourning and lament, speaking of “llanto,” “dolor,” and “duelo,” and adds the idea that Berenguela’s behavior gave honor to her lineage: “and thus was shown, and God made clear the fullness of her virtues and of her education, as well as her nature, humble before God; as a result of which she was surpassing in piety and in almsgiving, in that she outdid all the others of her lineage with her generosity in giving and in good deeds.25 Thus, both the archbishop and the compilers of the Primera crónica general praised Berenguela’s behavior in the highest of terms. The apparent contradiction with the law governing mourning from the Siete partidas suggests an unresolved tension between a powerful cultural practice that was generally female and increasing church strictures that were generally male.26
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More than once, Berenguela assumed the responsibility for the appropriate burial and mourning of her family members. Berenguela’s attentiveness to the dead became an important part of her interpretation of the responsibility of power, as well as a way to ensure constant reference to the strength and legitimacy of her lineage. Berenguela, in fact, seems to have been assigned the role of chief mourner for her family, at least by Rodrigo, who introduces her lamentation into the historical record. After attending her father Alfonso VIII on his deathbed in 1214, Berenguela accompanied his body to Las Huelgas, where it was buried by the important bishops of the realm. There, her grief was so great that she reportedly disrupted the funeral rites, in the tradition of faciendo llanto: “His daughter Queen Berenguela, being so devoted to the official duties [the Mass] of the funeral, that she completed the funeral service with her very great sorrow, that by her tearing of her own f lesh and her tears she nearly killed herself. And just as in life the kingdom took to itself his virtues, thus in death all of Spain [Castile], indeed the world, was drenched by tears.”27 Leonor’s absence from this scene was probably due to her own illness; she died about three weeks after her husband. Juan of Osma, who likely first recorded these events in the Chronica latina, did not give Berenguela a specific role, but instead related that upon Alfonso’s death, “All the women began to wail and the men threw ashes on their heads and wore sackcloth.”28 Thus, Rodrigo’s elaboration of Berenguela’s role was significant; her grief also illuminated Rodrigo’s gendered vision of the world: she represented once again, par excellence, all the Chronica latina’s generic “women.” Berenguela’s grief completed the funeral. That is, it may have come at the conclusion of the Mass, thus circumscribing the limits placed on female involvement and the disruption associated with the llanto, or, just as likely, Rodrigo meant that Berenguela’s grief completed the funeral service in the sense of making it whole, perfecting it. In either case, Rodrigo brought together the tradition of female lament and the strictures of liturgical practice to express the significance of Alfonso’s death. Berenguela’s grief, in this case appropriately expressed, nonetheless completed the funeral Mass. The representation of Berenguela’s extreme grief for her father suggests a deeply affective relationship between father and daughter. Read literally, Berenguela’s grief may also reveal unmitigated fear, even panic, over the prospect of Castile under regency. If, in fact, her mother was already gravely ill and not likely to survive, Berenguela faced enormous responsibility as well as opportunity. But her grief also served Rodrigo as a vehicle for underscoring the loss of a king who was characterized as possessing the virtues of “strength, generosity, courtliness, wisdom and modesty” to an ideal degree.29 Berenguela’s demonstration was, in this
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respect, a public service. As a royal woman she articulated the worthiness of Castilian kingship, and this Castilian king in particular. Her tears represented the tears of all Castile, “indeed, the entire world,” at the loss of such a ruler and the virtues that seemed buried with him. A coincidental feature of Berenguela’s participation in these funerals was that, in both instances, the body of the deceased had to be transported a significant distance before burial at Las Huelgas. Each time, Berenguela was accompanied by the Archbishop Rodrigo, who not only later recorded these scenes, but who also undoubtedly discussed with Berenguela the political as well as religious implications of the situation. One can only speculate on what these conversations were like, but it is true that Rodrigo remained loyal to Berenguela and characterized her regency positively, as one that preserved her father’s policies and philosophy.30 Rodrigo may have inf luenced Berenguela’s own ideology of rulership. As a friend, advisor, and even mentor, Rodrigo may have taken these opportunities to teach some lessons on royal politics, as well as ecclesiastical ambitions. Once Alfonso was buried, eleven-year-old Enrique was elevated to the kingship of Castile under the regency of his mother. Leonor outlived her husband by only a few weeks, and as we saw previously, on her deathbed commended the care both of Enrique and of the Castilian kingdom to Berenguela.31 The above demonstrations of grief may have been spontaneous, socially mandated, or chroniclers’ idealized dramatic renditions bordering on political allegory—or all of the above. The next example of a queen managing the dead shows a dispensation of mourning. It greatly emphasizes, however, the politics of death for queens and reiterates female responsibility in caring for the dead, as well as a proprietary mentality about the dead. Burying the dead was not only a duty, but also a political advantage. This particular example also suggests that the burial and control of the dead were important features of Castilian political life. In the early summer of 1216, the young king Enrique I, still a minor and under the contested tutelage of the noble and self-designated Count Álvaro Nuñez de Lara, died from a wound to the head. His body was prepared for burial, apparently embalmed and then dressed, and then hidden in a tower at Tariego by Álvaro, who tried unsuccessfully to suppress word of the boy’s death.32 Berenguela, although in exile, quickly heard the news and immediately sent for her son Fernando, then with his father in León. For Berenguela, there was no time for grief. She stepped out of her “womanly” role as a chief mourner and went into action as a claimant to the throne. After achieving the throne with Fernando, but before the entire kingdom had submitted to their royal authority, Berenguela sent Bishops Mauricio of Burgos and Tello of Palencia to retrieve Enrique’s
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body in order to transfer it to Las Huelgas.33 Álvaro permitted or ordered this, although at what point he agreed to the transfer of the dead boy’s body is not clear, nor is it clear why the queen sought his consent in the first place.34 But this negotiation, in the midst of rebellion, warfare, and political uncertainty, suggests that possessing the king’s body was of both personal and political importance and had to be managed with careful propriety. If the tide had already turned against Álvaro when he agreed to give up Enrique’s body, perhaps his acquiescence was intended to stave off further attacks from Berenguela and her supporters. For Berenguela, however—who probably could have absconded with the body anyway or simply waited for the dust to settle—possessing the body of the king helped to reinstate her in her role as queen and reasserted the continuation of the royal Castilian lineage. The dead and the living were returned to their proper physical and political places. The Primera crónica general introduces the idea of mourning for Enrique, describing how Berenguela took the body to Las Huelgas. “She caused to be put there a very nobly adorned coffin, and she buried him there, near her brother Infante Fernando, performing the offices of the holy Church thoroughly and very honorably in his burial, with great lament and sorrow and many offerings, all royally and accomplished with much nobility.35 The Primera crónica general’s addition of the performance of the llanto (“grandes llantos et duelos”) at Enrique’s funeral underscores that this behavior was considered necessary to funeral obsequies, and that possession of the body was a necessary element of the entire ritual. That Rodrigo did not include this suggests that Enrique’s burial was not a significant act to him. However, when the Alfonsine chroniclers remembered these events, they assumed that the llanto would have taken place and that Berenguela would have done her queenly, female duty in performing it. Ultimately, Berenguela entombed her younger brother’s remains in the place she believed they should be, honored in such a way in her presence that her family’s control over and association with the king were reestablished. Ensuring Enrique’s burial at Las Huelgas also affirmed that institution’s special relationship with the royal family. Nearly the first order of business for Queen Berenguela, once Fernando was recognized as king, was to turn her attention to her brother’s proper burial. She fulfilled a gendered function in doing so, not only as Enrique’s sister, but also as the ruling queen. Only afterward did she join her son, who was besieging the castle of Muño, and then, later, secure the fealty of her own vassals and followers for Fernando. It is highly unlikely that no one prayed for Enrique, but no bequests or requests for prayers for his soul have come to light. He was properly buried, but then apparently promptly forgotten.
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The politics of grief, and this special ritual role, continued to be significant for Castilian queenship. In 1303, Berenguela’s granddaughter, Queen María de Molina, saw to the proper burial of her elderly cousin, the troublesome and much disliked Infante Enrique, even though his own vassals could not be bothered: Only a very few came to his burial; nor did they cut the tails of their horses, as is the custom of the gentlemen of Castile whenever they lose their lord. When they brought him to Valladolid, [his coffin] did not bear any candles or any cloth of gold, which befits a person of such estate. When the queen learned of this, she commanded many candles to be made and gave a very noble piece of rich cloth for the coffin. She caused all the clerics of the town, and all the men and women of the order, to gather in [the church of ] San Francisco; and the queen and her daughter the infanta Isabel and [her son] the infante Pedro made their lament in an orderly fashion, as they ought to do. They buried him in [the church of ] San Francisco; and at the end of forty days, the queen caused his office for the dead to be performed completely.36
Enrique had, in his day, a contentious and exploitative relationship with the crown. This description was composed three or four decades after the event, under the patronage of Alfonso XI (María’s grandson); thus, the chronicler’s negative views of Enrique were significant to this description of what the infante came to in the end. Of equal or possibly greater significance is the chronicler’s portrayal of Queen María’s behavior. By taking charge of Enrique’s burial and ensuring its proper decorum, María emphasized appropriate royal control over even rogue members of the royal family. The queen’s “grief ” was practically nonexistent; but by “weeping in an orderly fashion,” she restored the Infante Enrique once and for all to his appropriate public place. She also confirmed her special role as a royal woman, in this case, mourner-in-chief. That burial could be used by queens to demonstrate political power is underscored by a story repeated by Berenguela’s seventeenth-century biographer Antonio Lupián Zapata. Citing the sixteenth-century historian Gonzalo Argote de Molina, Zapata explained that, because Álvaro Núñez de Lara died completely impoverished, “Queen Berenguela, using the goodness and charity of her merciful heart, gave a cloth of brocade for carrying him to be buried at Uclés, because he was a knight of that order, and she commanded that they pray for his soul.”37 The queen’s mercy toward her dead enemy cannot be substantiated, but the story has a longer history than Zapata suggests, as it appears in the Galician translation of the Primera crónica general (La traducción gallega), prepared during the reign of Sancho IV (1295–1312), precisely when María de Molina
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buried the Infante Enrique. Álvaro, the story goes, died of dropsy: “He died so poor that there was no money to have him borne to Uclés, where he had willed he should be buried, or for candles. Therefore the queen commanded that he be given whatever he needed and also a cloth of gold be placed over his coffin.”38 The parallel details of the story, specifically the donation of a noble brocade or cloth of gold pall for the impoverished deceased, suggests that María’s acts formed a paradigm of queenly behavior that was then read back onto Berenguela’s life, in particular her merciful relationship to her dead enemy. The story thus reiterates the idea that this is something a queen ought to do—showing charity toward the dead, especially acknowledging the noble status of Álvaro—even as Berenguela reasserted her authority and power over him, even in death. Communion with the Dead: Organizing Memory and Care The construction and maintenance of necropolises served as a way to perpetuate inf luence indefinitely, gaining power for self and for family. These queens’ establishment of such burial places for themselves and their families would remind all who saw them—especially future members of their family—of the power of their lineage. The iconography surrounding such monuments to the dead, and the dead themselves, was an important part of how this power was represented. As patrons of such monuments, the queens literally set their relationship to the dead in stone. These relationships included those to their natal family and ancestral past as well as to their future, not only the future of dead children but more importantly to the future of the deceased’s souls. Also at stake was the patrons’ own salvation; these monuments ensured the intervention of the dead and claimed the attention of descendents who would pray for the patrons. In around 1198, Berenguela’s association with the Leonese mausoleum at San Isidoro had enabled the new queen of León to carve out a political identity; at the same time, it provided an appropriate space in which to bury her infant daughter. The building of mausoleums and the rituals associated with mourning and memorialization were important avenues for queens to exploit in the creation and preservation of political space, as well as for them to assert status as members of a lineage. The dominant practice of these women’s patronage—that of royal mausoleums—and the ideals of family and lineage as well as piety expressed thereby made this relationship to the dead concrete and organized their care of their memory. In her construction of the female Cistercian abbeys of Maubuisson and Lys, Blanche of Castile further provided for the repose of her own remains in a way that harkened back to her natal family tradition, attending to her
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salvation while building on filial piety. Indeed, all the women in this family were buried in Cistercian foundations and, with one exception, their remains were given to the care of women. Their patronage often turned on attention to family necropolises, namely the royal female Cistercian monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos, the Portuguese Cistercian abbey of Alcobaça, and the French Cistercian female abbeys of Notre-Dame la Royale (Maubuisson) and Notre-Dame de Lys. The convent of Las Huelgas of Burgos was the first in a series of female Cistercian convents constructed specifically as royal necropolises, begun around 1187 at the instigation of Queen Leonor. As early as 1194—but just as likely, significantly later, perhaps as late as 1211 or 1212—Las Huelgas received its first royal remains, with the reburials of the Infante Sancho (b. & d. 1181) and at least one of his sisters, Sancha (1182 to 1184–85).39 Apart from the tiny, elaborate sepulchers, there is no specific record of parental grief, no description of burial or mourning rituals for these young children.40 Until 1204, Leonor was nearly constantly pregnant; the deaths of such children would have been sad, disappointing events, but not occasions for despair. The other children of Alfonso and Leonor who had died earlier were reburied in Las Huelgas, but the Infante Fernando was probably the first identifiable member of the family to be buried there directly. A donation of Alfonso VIII dated November 29, 1211, to Las Huelgas was given with the purpose of securing prayers for the infante’s soul, as well as for the decoration of his sepulcher.41 The explicit motivation for much of the patronage of female institutions such as Fontevrault, Las Huelgas, and later, Blanche’s abbeys of Maubuisson and Lys was their dual purpose as both retreat and final resting place. This was complicated by Cistercian restrictions regarding burial within their monasteries. Throughout the twelfth and into the thirteenth century, abbots were reprimanded by the Chapter General for burying secular people in practices contrary to the Cistercian rule. As late as 1222, the chapter tried to reassert its early restrictions. This allowed the burial of founders only, prohibiting the burial of children, other relatives, or even other patrons.42 Not until 1227 did Pope Gregory IX consent that others who wished it (except usurers and the excommunicated) might be interred in Cistercian monasteries.43 In the interim, despite this prohibition, Alfonso VIII and Leonor intended to be buried, along with other family members, in their Cistercian project. Interestingly, no reprimands regarding secular burial were handed down by the Chapter General to Cistercian abbesses. Given the nuns’ ambiguous relationship with the order, this is unsurprising, but it may provide another clue as to why a female foundation would be attractive to patrons such as Leonor and her daughters: with
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no reprimands issued to abbesses, burial in female houses was not technically forbidden. At any rate, an architectural solution to this prohibition was found: raised tombs were used. These above-ground sepulchers, removed from contact with hallowed ground by stone pedestals carved in the shape of lions, met the letter of the law.44 These royal pantheons were specifically entrusted to the care of women. The foundations under discussion here were intended to house the remains of all members of the family, male and female, but the question of why they were given to the care of women persists. The patrons’ insistence on female foundations cannot be divorced from their intention to use the institutions as necropolises. This insistence was probably related to a wider medieval cultural perception that, as in the case of lamentation, women were especially endowed for this role. In the case of Blanche of Castile, her choice was especially significant given the established royal mausoleum at Saint-Denis. Art historian Kathleen Nolan, in her study of Adelaide of Maurienne, has argued that “French queens maintained dynastic memory through their burials in a manner significantly different from that of kings.”45 The preexistence of a French royal mausoleum at Saint-Denis did not mean that all queens of France wanted to be buried there; some preferred to establish their own traditions, wanting to continue ties “at once spiritual and financial, that medieval society saw as bridging the gap between the living and the dead.”46 Despite the existence of Saint-Denis, then, well established for the same purpose as Las Huelgas, Blanche set out her own version of a legacy of family power, one that more than any other foundation in France ref lected her heritage originating in Fontevrault and Las Huelgas. Thus, Blanche’s actions may be seen in the light articulated by Nolan regarding Capetian queens’ freedom to maintain institutional and spiritual ties in their own way. In Blanche’s case, furthermore, the choice was informed by a matrilineal tradition of institutions dedicated to female care of the dead, institutions modeled one on the other. Blanche thus followed a tradition begun by her grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine at Fontevrault and continued by her mother at Las Huelgas.47 In Castile, queens had no particular traditional burial site to contend with, but the impulse Nolan describes of establishing burial traditions combined with the inf luence of Fontevrault, the gendered responsibility of caring for the dead and the need for a pantheon combined to inspire Leonor’s foundation.48 Las Huelgas deviated from the French model by including both kings and queens; this makes sense in light of the obligation of women to care for the dead—including men. Leonor of England’s daughters Berenguela and Blanche continued patronage of the Cistercians through sustained attention to Las Huelgas,
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the construction of the abbey church at Matallana, and the establishment of the Cistercian Order at Buenafuente in Castile, as well as the construction of the female abbeys of Maubuisson and Lys in France.49 The royal family of Castile patronized a great many churches, cathedrals, and monastic foundations. Two Cistercian monasteries stand out, however, as they ref lected both physically and philosophically the goals of Berenguela and her family. The male institution of Matallana, founded between 1173 and 1175, became the site of a tremendous building project undertaken by Berenguela and her daughter-in-law Beatriz of Swabia. Later, in the 1240s, in conjunction with her daughter-in-law Mafalda de Molina and Archbishop Rodrigo, Berenguela established a female convent of Cistercians at the previously male Augustinian abbey of Buenafuente. The physical plant there was subsequently rebuilt in the Cistercian fashion. A provisional church was built or the renovation of an old one most likely served the Cistercian monks who were first installed at the monastery of Matallana.50 Not long after her marriage to Fernando, however, Beatriz of Swabia began to build a massive abbey church. In 1255, Alfonso X confirmed earlier privileges to the monastery, identifying Beatriz as the main patron of the abbey church; however, a Cistercian statute from the Chapter General of 1217 indicates an early interest that Berenguela took in this monastery, when she obtained an excuse for its abbot regarding attendance at the Chapter General.51 Most likely Berenguela encouraged Beatriz to construct the abbey church, incorporating the new queen into the patronage projects of her marital family. Thus, Berenguela continued to promote the interests of her natal family and personal lineage. The new church at Matallana, built between 1224 and 1234, followed the plan of that of Las Huelgas, with the exception of massive pillars needed to support the much larger building.52 It seems very likely that Beatriz—and Berenguela, who continued the project when her daughter-in-law died—chose Las Huelgas as a model for the new church, which physically imitated Las Huelgas and was intended to house remains of the royal family.53 Although Las Huelgas continued as the institution of choice in this regard, it is believed that members of Berenguela’s son Alfonso de Molina’s family were buried at Matallana. The tombs that remain belong to the Meneses family, the family of Alfonso’s third wife, Mayor Alfonso de Meneses, and appear to date from the end of the thirteenth century. Certainly the nature of Las Huelgas as a royal pantheon inf luenced the construction of sepulchers there. By the time of the construction of Matallana’s abbey church, Cistercian restrictions had become artistic custom: the tombs at Matallana were also freestanding, above-ground, and resting on lions. Unlike the tombs at Las Huelgas, but similar to those at the cathedral of Burgos, recumbent effigies decorate
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the tops of these sepulchers.54 The lack of surviving physical remains prevents further speculation concerning the royal agenda for this abbey. Berenguela and her sisters Leonor and Constanza were buried at their family foundation of Las Huelgas, almost inevitably. Historians such as Flórez and Amancio Rodríguez López accept that Berenguela’s testament specified that her sepulcher be plain and humble, unlike those of her siblings and parents. The evidence for this, however, is the assertions of the nuns at Las Huelgas contemporary to these authors.55 In fact, two thirteenth-century tombs at Las Huelgas have been attributed to Berenguela. One is completely plain, bereft even of paint; the other is adorned with elaborately carved scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary, culminating in her coronation in heaven by her son Jesus. Although these scenes could depict the early life of Christ, the allusions to the motherson relationship are too important to be overlooked. These scenes include the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of Christ, the Angels greeting the Shepherds, the Adoration of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Presentation in the Temple, and the Flight into Egypt.56 The scenes arrive at the heavenly coronation of the Virgin, and not Calvary or the Resurrection; they are intended to ref lect the life of the royal mother. The coronation of the Virgin in heaven reverses Berenguela’s “abdication” to her son, Fernando, an abdication that gave her as much power as if she had herself been crowned by him. There is an explanation for the two tombs. Berenguela’s namesake granddaughter, the nun Berenguela, apparently commissioned the elaborate tomb for her grandmother; presumably this was the one into which Queen Berenguela’s remains were translated in 1251.57 This infanta, furthermore, petitioned Pope Innocent IV for an indulgence for all those who assisted with the translation ceremony. Innocent then granted an indulgence of forty days, which was also extended to those who visited the sepulcher during the next ten years. Those who prayed the Pater noster for Queen Berenguela’s soul were to receive another ten days. In 1253, Innocent extended this indulgence to all penitents who visited the tombs of any king or queen buried at the abbey on their anniversaries.58 The church itself—with the altars, the chapter room, and the cemetery—including the royal tombs was consecrated in early September and November 1279.59 Upon the Infanta Berenguela’s death around 1286, however, the nuns of Las Huelgas, deciding to respect Queen Berenguela’s wishes, and wishing to honor their recently deceased “lady,” reburied the former in a simple tomb and buried the younger Berenguela in the decorated tomb. No written evidence can corroborate which tomb actually contained which woman: furthermore, evidence of polychromy on other uncarved tombs suggests that the original tomb may not have been entirely plain
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either. Rodríguez López cites as proof for this switch the opening of the tombs in 1844 and the discovery, in the more elaborate tomb, of an “uncorrupted cadaver, dressed in the Cistercian habit.”60 Only the younger Berenguela is known to have become a nun; the uncorrupted corpse is offered as proof of identification because of the younger woman’s generally recognized sanctity, although it is more easily explained by successful embalming and the dry Castilian environment. The tombs have not remained undisturbed, and while many have been painted, a large number of them have no iconographic clues as to the identity of the remains intended for them. Notables such as Enrique I have currently plain tombs. Since Enrique was a king, it seems probable that his tomb was originally decorated somehow: indeed, the Primera crónica general describes Enrique’s tomb as “very nobly adorned” [guisado muy noblemientre].61 Therefore, why would Berenguela’s tomb not have been painted, however simply? In terms of iconography and personal expression, the fact that her tomb is undecorated literally signifies nothing.62 The images on the carved tomb were intended, regardless, to evoke the memory of Queen Berenguela. Her granddaughter clearly associated her with the Virgin, especially in her role as royal mother. Marian devotion was a venue through which the power of mothers was explained and expressed; it supplied an appropriate iconography for the sculptural program on Berenguela’s sepulcher in Las Huelgas. Although Berenguela herself did not commission this work, the image of the Queen of Heaven receiving her rightful crown commissioned by Berenguela’s granddaughter surely reinforced, as well as historicized, the legitimacy of Berenguela’s inheritance of the throne of Castile, and thus her claims to and use of power. Mary’s acceptance of the will of God and her adoption of a “behind the scenes” kind of mothering were among the qualities that made her such an icon in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, both for women in general and for others who were always developing and refining their image and ideology of “woman.” But her royal status and supremacy among the saints, and above all her motherhood of God, were what made her an accessible and appropriate patron with whom Berenguela could be identified. The Death of the Queen The medieval queen’s reproductive body was an essential element of her being qua queen. Without motherhood, real or potential, her role was severely limited; this was true even for hereditary queens. Queens, both as women and as members of a royal family, also had a special role to play in negotiating the relationship between the living and the dead members of their lineage.63 When it came to her own death, however, the body of
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the queen had little consequence for the continuity of her status or office. Her status did not necessarily pass on with her death—although some royal daughters-in-law may have hoped differently—as each queen’s status seemed to be highly individualized. The queen did not have, in this regard, “two bodies.” This does not mean her remains were unimportant. When Berenguela’s granddaughter Eleanor of Castile died, her body was the focus of a “splendid,” “lavish” funeral procession and interment that helped establish Westminster as Plantagenet burial ground.64 This ref lects the potential importance of individual queens’ bodies, as when Alfonso X saw to the translation of his mother Beatriz’s body to Seville, or when French and English queens’ bodies were divided.65 In large part, the deaths and the treatment of the bodies of the women in this study have gone unremarked in the historical record. When they have been discussed, it has been because of the special reference that their deaths had to royal men: the cause and conduct of the deaths of Leonor and her daughter Blanche were examined specifically to elaborate the worthiness of Alfonso VIII and Louis IX. Juan of Osma describes Queen Leonor as suffering from a quartan fever, but dying from a broken heart after her husband’s demise in October 1214: “When the body of the glorious king had been buried with magnificence and honor, his noble wife, Queen Leonor, destitute of the solace of such a man, because of her sorrow and aff liction of spirit desiring death, suffered without ceasing [on her] deathbed.”66 On Alfonso’s death, the queen lost the will to live. According to the chronicler, life itself was not worth living without King Alfonso; once again, Leonor’s grief served as a lesson in appropriate political attitude. The death of the most powerful woman in this study, Berenguela of Castile, on the other hand, is a closed book: she may have been suffering from some long illness, but the manner of her death is not described in any source, nor is any testament extant. The Primera crónica general devotes a brief chapter to the last time “this very loving mother and son,” Berenguela and Fernando, saw each other, spending six weeks at Pozuelo (Villa Real). After this, Fernando departed with his wife Jeanne for the frontier, and Berenguela returned to Toledo, whence she had come to see her son.67 The chronicle implies that Berenguela (and her son) knew that her death was imminent. The Primera crónica general, the sole narrative source for the end of her life, offers a type of llanto for the queen. It is considerably controlled and praises Berenguela and her service to God; it is not a lament accusing God of depriving the living. Fernando, at Alcalá when he received the news of his mother’s death, “was deeply aff licted and very broken [-hearted] as a result of the great sorrow he bore; but the strength of his heart made
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him bear it and hide his sadness . . . She was mourned throughout Castile by town councils and by all the people of every religion; she was greatly mourned by the poor knights for whom she had done so much good.” The “lament” closes in praise of Berenguela’s good deeds and piety, in the form of a prayer: “She was, completely, a perfect servant and friend of God. The renown of her goodness and of her good deeds and of her nobility was spread throughout the entire world; for this woman was an exemplar of total goodness. May God, whose true servant and friend she was, show mercy and pity to her and make her an heir with His faithful in His kingdom; amen.”68 An anniversary mass established for Berenguela at the cathedral of Córdoba after 1250 identified her as the daughter and mother of conquering kings.69 In 1238, Rodrigo established a chaplaincy at the cathedral in Toledo “for the souls of the lord king Fernando and his mother, so that chaplains celebrate mass for their health while they live, and after their end celebrate the mass of the dead.” 70 Berenguela’s life and death were intertwined and equally connected with the life and death of her son. Although the Primera crónica general noted that she was greatly mourned and the masses said at Córdoba and Toledo, combined with the attention to her tomb attributed to her granddaughter at Las Huelgas, demonstrate that she was mourned, missed, and remembered, in contrast to her deeds in life, her death receded in importance. In part this was due to the surviving legacy of Fernando’s accomplished kingship. Berenguela’s sisters’ deaths also received little notice, with the wellknown (in every regard) exception of Blanche of Castile. Of all her sisters, Blanche’s experience most closely paralleled Berenguela’s—in sum, she was a coruling mother of an (eventually) saintly son. In contrast with Berenguela’s case, this corulership predetermined the way in which the queen’s death was recorded: Blanche’s death in late November 1252 seems to have been at the same time highly orchestrated and public, yet intensely personal.71 At the time, Blanche was regent of France, coruling with Louis in the most generously imagined way: in Louis’s absence, she ruled France. In a deposition given during the canonization process for Louis, Blanche’s youngest son Charles of Anjou described her death to which he was a witness in detail. Charles, however, was also highly motivated to give the impression that Louis’s entire family was marked by a special sort of sanctity and thus anxious to present his mother’s last moments in a specific light. Charles reported that Blanche had been taken to Maubuisson, where she asked for the Cistercian habit. She received the sacraments, and as her death approached, she herself began to chant the prayer for the dead. Charles proclaimed: “[She was the] holy root from which are sprung such holy branches, the king above all, but also the comte d’Artois, martyr in deed, and the comte de Poitiers, martyr in
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desire!72 As regent of France, Blanche was the only one of the women under study here who can be said to have governed her realm independently. It may be for this reason that so much attention was given to the ritual, propriety, and pious care surrounding her last days and especially her funeral.73 We have no such record for her mother and sisters. Blanche was the last of her sisters to die. Apart from those who died in infancy and those such as Mafalda, whose very existence is uncertain, they all lived well into adulthood and seemed to have survived even the perils of childbirth quite well. The first of the five sisters to die was Urraca, succumbing to an unspecified illness in 1220, when she was about thirty-eight years old. Her death became the stuff of legend, and as she left a controversial will, her death also provides a window into some of the circumstances of her life.74 Urraca’s death was followed two decades later by those of her sisters Constanza, in 1243, and Leonor in 1244. Berenguela died in 1246. As described above, Berenguela, Leonor, and Constanza were all buried at the monastery of Las Huelgas, and Urraca was buried at Alcobaça. Caring for the Dead: The Context and Economy of “Living Together” Mortuary practices demonstrated the immediacy of the religious wars, crusades, and conquests that punctuated Berenguela’s life and informed her royal practice. The treatment of her body after her death (and presuming her participation in the burials of her siblings) at Las Huelgas in Burgos furthermore confirms the significance of the uniquely multicultural social environment of medieval Iberia in her life. There are many ways to describe Las Huelgas. The convent, Santa María la Real, founded by Berenguela’s parents as a retreat and necropolis, as well as a Cistercian monastery for elite women, was also the primary context for royal women’s ritual roles in preserving lineage, especially through mourning. The convent also documents the problematic nature of Iberian crusading in the thirteenth century. It was the final resting place for crusaders buried in Andalusi silks, with an Islamic battle f lag f lying over their sepulchers, until the death of Fernando III: he chose to be buried in his conquest of Seville. The legends linking it to the failure of Alarcos in 1195 and the myth of Alfonso VIII’s infidelity with the Jewish woman Raquel, and subsequently his penance, remind us of the penitential aspect of crusading. In building a monument such as Las Huelgas, the founders sought to create memories and to control the discourse surrounding those memories; they did so not by ejecting or erasing the signs of the “infidel” in their culture but by incorporating them.
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Here, Las Huelgas is to be understood as physical evidence for the vexed concept of convivencia. The polemic and violence that were integral to Berenguela’s world, and that she supported, have been shown also to be essential elements of the fraught experience of “living together” with Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula. Berenguela’s physical remains, and their context, bear witness to the problems posed by a shared aesthetic and economy with “the enemy.” Furthermore, paying attention to this context forces awareness that the practices of memorialization were as much for the living as for the dead. When it was laid to rest in its tomb at Las Huelgas, Berenguela’s body was surrounded by many physical reminders of the crusades themselves, the aesthetic apparatus of crusading.75 Undoubtedly Berenguela, her parents, brothers, and sisters Constanza and Leonor were buried with all the considerations due Christians of their status, and anniversaries were established for them not only within the city of Burgos but as far away as Cîteaux, France. But their burials also signify the rich, culturally complex context of their daily lives. Although Berenguela’s tomb itself may have been plain, the sculptural programs of the other tombs displayed decidedly Christian themes in a Mudejar style.76 The women’s bodies were wrapped in the finest cloths and laid upon sumptuous cushions probably woven in Andalusi workshops.77 The rich scarlet and gold cushion associated with Berenguela’s tomb, for example, shows what might be a courtship or entertainment scene. Two figures with dramatically kohled eyes dance together, and one plays some sort of musical instrument, perhaps a tambourine.78 The cloth’s relationship to similar and similarly recovered funerary textiles suggest that the scene is meant to depict the delights of paradise.79 Surrounding the roundel is a woven Naksh script, very common in such Andalusi textiles, declaring “There is no God but God,” the shahada, or Islamic declaration of faith. On borders woven at the ends of the pillow the script reads “the perfect blessing,” a prayer echoed in carving over the door leading from the cloister of San Fernando to the sacristy of the church at Las Huelgas.80 The earlier Kufic script of the cap associated with Berenguela’s brother Infante Fernando reads “In the Lord is our solace.”81 Gómez-Moreno describes Berenguela’s clothes decorated in Arabic with the words “happiness and tranquility,” and those of her sister Leonor with “happiness and power.”82 Without mention of Islam or Allah, these perfectly Christian sentiments appropriately adorn these royal bodies. Furthermore, the luxurious nature of these silk brocade and taffeta materials, worked in gold-wrapped threads and dyed with expensive dyes, was an essential element of display for these royal bodies—living as well as dead. Art historian María Feliciano has argued, indeed, that it was the luxury of these materials, appealing to an established “pan-Iberian taste,” which made them appropriate garments.
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Feliciano argues that the Arabic script woven into these cloths, which were then manufactured into Castilian-style costumes, were “deemed complementary to the richness of the materials and their overall effect,” and thus carried no religious significance for the Castilian consumers. This was not, she points out, due to “Castilian cultural illiteracy” or “lack of awareness of epigraphic information.”83 Rather, these aspects were simply irrelevant and might have the same significance for an elite Muslim patron, who might not care what the script said as long as it was suitably well made.84 Certainly this might be true if the consumers could not read Arabic, and there is no evidence that the royal people under consideration could. But the delimitations of the Arabic epigraphy—for example, the absence of reference to Muhammad as God’s prophet— suggest a strong awareness on the part of the manufacturer, at least, of the religious differences between producer and consumer—and perhaps even an insistence on the part of the consumer that the material be ritually acceptable. Although this was a common phrase and might equally have been produced for a Muslim or Christian patron, and thus these conclusions are admittedly speculative, the point is more strongly made when these household items are compared with material clearly derived as booty, such as the banner traditionally associated with Las Navas de Tolosa, but now thought to have been brought to the convent by Fernando III.85 The epigraphy on that silk banner affirms not only the worship of God but the importance of Muhammad: “There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet.”86 I agree with Feliciano, however, that association with royal bodies completed the materials’ acceptability.87 By their very use, they became entirely Castilian, purified of any religiously unacceptable contaminants, much as the mosques of al-Andalus were transformed into Christian churches through ritual—their art and architecture not only acceptable, but indeed deeply appreciated and familiar.88 The form—the Arabic script—was most desirable as an element that completed the luxurious quality of the cloth, but the content mattered as well. If a Muslimmade cloth or architecture or pillow or theme or script was used by a Christian, it became Christian. Purification, whether through contact with royal bodies, religious ritual, or conversion, was a major alienating force in and of itself, and because it could be carried out in any number of ways, it was continuously available to remind Christians and Muslims alike of their abiding difference. Beyond the tombs themselves, in the same cloister of San Fernando, elaborately carved plasterwork exhibits crowing peacocks, popular symbols of eternal life in Christian iconography since antiquity, but arriving at Las Huelgas through the handiwork of Mudejar craftsmen in the second quarter of the thirteenth century. The peacock, a sacred bird in
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Islam, was the most widely represented animal in Spanish Islamic art.89 In her study of contemporary Iberian synagogues, Jerrilyn Dodds noted that Christian Mudejar use of stucco decoration, like that found at Las Huelgas, was believed to be the best way to express luxury and power.90 Dodds argued for later Christian kings such as Pedro I (r. 1350–66), “Islamic developments in stucco ornament and even certain building types were viewed as emblematic of high court culture, of a certain level of erudition and craftsmanship that were signs of strong kingship . . . For Peter, the adoption of Nasrid style was part of the appropriation of the mythic power of Islamic culture, which had come to mean wealth, power, refinement, and sophistication to all Spaniards.”91 The textiles, texts, and architectural elements from Las Huelgas suggest that this adoption considerably predated Pedro I. The cloths at Las Huelgas, while difficult to attribute unequivocally to individual tombs, have been traced to the early and mid-thirteenth century and thus confirm the exposure to and use of such material by Berenguela and her sisters.92 Did they approach them in the way Dodds argues Pedro did, considering that this was the finest their world had to offer, and naturally choosing to use it? Berenguela and her family would have appreciated the origins and significance of the signs, symbols, and very text surrounding them. As luxury goods, these cloths may well have been imported by Christian or Jewish merchants and perhaps even created for Christian consumption in the textile factories of the Muslim world.93 But they would have also had the effect of being—if they were not in fact—spolia, the spoils of war, brought to Las Huelgas, or to Berenguela herself, as a portion of Fernando’s booty, collected on one of his sorties to al-Andalus, as has been suggested for the putative battle f lag of Las Navas.94 Thus, the materials announce not only northern appreciation for the goods of the south, but also Christian domination and Muslim subjection.95 Inasmuch as these textiles and sculptural elements ref lect a pan-Iberian aesthetic or taste shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, they give material witness to a level of cultural comfort and ease of movement across frontiers. At the same time, however, the practice of convivencia has been shown to sometimes require the disruptive, conf lictual practices of violence and polemic, and the use of these deluxe materials was not immune to this unappealing side of Iberian community.96 Conclusion Leonor, Berenguela, Urraca, Blanche, the younger Leonor, and Constanza lived in a world in which there was a profoundly open, thoroughly natural relationship between the living and the dead, in which women, and
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queens, played an important part. This relationship contextualized everything about their lives, including practices of mothering. The genealogy of Fontevrault, Las Huelgas, Maubuisson, and Lys makes explicit one way in which Leonor taught her daughters their roles, including cultivating the relationship between the living and the dead, and it seems probable that the younger queens similarly taught their children. Indeed, the fact that the young Alfonso of Aragón, the son of Leonor and Jaume I, turned to the Cistercian Order to remember his cousin Fernando III, despite the new fashion for patronizing the mendicants, shows how strong this inheritance could be.97 Blanche’s son Louis has been celebrated, of course, for his piety and sanctity, and the king’s piety revolved in part around an appreciation of his obligations to the deceased. Joinville related that King Louis heard the requiem mass daily, and if he could find the time, he also would hear the regular mass; his day ended with a private recitation of the Office for the Dead.98 Louis’s practice of piety was regularized by attention to the dead, not only prayers for them, but beseeching their aid as well. Did status—class, political strength, caste—or gender have greater importance for negotiating the relationships and transitions between the medieval worlds of the living and the dead? We “see” these women remembering, mourning, and dying because they were queens. They inspired chroniclers, left records, and led kings and kingdoms in appropriate behavior. They were politically significant. They themselves remembered and mourned—and experienced death—however, because they were women, and it is likely that they shared the activities of memory and grief with other women as well. They did what they did at a highly visible level because they were wealthy and had status, and particular activities were ascribed to them by chroniclers for the same reason; but it was to their gender, more than to their status, that these roles belonged.
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CONCLUSION A PERFECT FRIEND OF GOD
This noble queen preserved these things with such zeal and extended the gifts of graces she had received to such an extent, that every age, every sex, every condition, every calling, every people, every tongue would feel deep emotion and, without diminishing her stock of virtues, her deeds of mercy were shared with all. A forward-looking manager of her father’s works, she was found even more generous with the kingdom and affairs than with her virtues. Rightly does our age admire her, of whom no modern age nor our ancestors had the like. For her we pray the Lord that he deign to keep her more richly and grant that her future abound in good deeds, until her spirit may reside in her Redeemer.1
N
o one knew more, perhaps, about the ancestors of the kings and queens of Castile and León than Archbishop Rodrigo, and no one would have had a greater appreciation of Berenguela’s lifelong effort to preserve and extend the accomplishments of her lineage, even as she surpassed her ancestors in virtue, generosity, and works of mercy. Having grappled over and again with the problem posed by Berenguela’s actions vis-à-vis expectations about her gender, here Rodrigo finally paints an unambiguous portrait of an ideal queen: Berenguela was endowed with grace and foresight; beloved by all, she was generous and merciful, yet uncompromising in her virtue. She protected the kingdom, her ancestral goods. In this penultimate paragraph of his De rebus Hispanie, Rodrigo closed with a prayer, asking for God’s blessings on her and that she continue in her good ways and deeds. Berenguela died in 1246, soon after Rodrigo had completed his work, at the age of sixty-six. She was not an unprecedented person, of course, as her maternal and paternal lineages boasted many powerful ruling women, but her queenship marked a pivotal moment for Iberian queens. As it happened, no queen inherited the throne until Isabel the Catholic in 1474; but María de Molina (c. 1265–1321) brilliantly followed her grandmother Berenguela’s footsteps in managing a series of
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regencies, able in part to claim authority based on her lineage as a direct descendent of Berenguela herself. Furthermore, as noted above, Castilian kings consistently secured the rights of their female heirs to rule. These rights were shored up by the expectation of corule and the particularities of the Iberian context, especially the practices of marriage endowment and partible inheritance. The church and the Catholic religion framed every aspect of Berenguela’s life, from her ritual practices, to her patronage, to her promotion of crusading, to the historians who are our greatest source of knowledge about her. In her own time and ours, they represented her to the world. One final observation remains to be made regarding the relationship of royal women to the special status of sanctity in the High Middle Ages. When Louis IX of France and Fernando III of Castile and León were canonized in 1297 and 1671, respectively, their efforts at crusade formed the focus of the canonization process.2 Louis and Fernando were both royal men, active in the public sphere and able to bear arms; these qualities were key to their eventual canonization. Although there were many female saints to be acknowledged in the later Middle Ages, historians of sanctity have observed that the opportunities for women to be recognized as saints diminished over time and that the qualities attached to sainthood also diminished in scope. Sainthood was largely dependent on visibility, and as the gap between the public and private spheres widened—as has been theorized for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in regard to queenship—fewer opportunities for women to act publicly meant fewer opportunities for sainthood.3 Although Berenguela and her sister Blanche were highly visible women and even women who conformed, in their mothering, personal conduct, and religious patronage, to the ideals of female sanctity of an earlier day, in their own time they were too conventional in their piety to be considered saints. They did not profess virginity, tend lepers, or live in a notably austere manner.4 However, Innocent IV’s indulgence to visitors to Berenguela’s tomb suggests popular and institutional recognition of a special kind of piety bordering on sanctity.5 Blanche’s demeanor, especially at her death, was expressly linked to her son Louis’s sanctity. Because Berenguela and Blanche were associated in rule with their sons, they were also associated historiographically with their sons’ sanctity. In the final analysis, however, women like Berenguela and Blanche were more likely to mother saints than to be identified as saints themselves, especially when saints were generally identified in a context of extreme actions, radical innovations, severe asceticism, or crusading. The gendered nature of crusading limited opportunities for female sanctity, whereas male saints more naturally evolved from crusading kings.
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Berenguela’s actions as a queen and mother and her ideology of rulership were keys to Fernando’s success as a king and sometime crusader, and thus, ultimately, to his sanctification. The historiography recording Berenguela’s ambitions, concerns, and strategies also worked to enhance her son’s reputation as a saint. Military valor and Christian identity fit well with Berenguela’s expectations of strong kingship, with her promotion of family and royal ideology. Sources close to her knew of her enthusiasm, at least in the long run, for crusade; the only hesitancy, reported by the Primera crónica general, comes in the context of preservation of the throne through securing heirs. She demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the needs of crusaders—who also happened to be extending the political power of her son, and thus her family. The twinned experiences of womanhood and queenship, with their nexus of motherhood, go some way to explain Berenguela’s experience of crusading. This is modified by the special environment of Iberia with its close proximity to Islamic kingdoms and familiarity with Islam, as well as the special nature of rulership in Castile itself, which permitted Berenguela’s personally powerful role as heir, queen, mother, and coruler. This study has in a sense broken up Berenguela into her various parts: Berenguela as a daughter, following certain models of queenship; Berenguela as a wife, whose queenship was constructed through the institution of marriage; Berenguela as a mother; Berenguela as presented by public and private documents in the realm of land transfers; Berenguela on crusade; Berenguela in mourning, and so on. But she most likely did not divide herself into these parts; what to us appear various strategies, modes of behavior, or practices of exploitation were all facets of a consistent individual, one who changed over time with age and experience, but one who nonetheless strove to use her position as queen and royal heir to its full advantage for the sake of herself, her son, and her lineage. Whether her approach(es) became a model for later queens remains to be seen. Berenguela’s status as an heir set her apart; this status did not eliminate her vulnerability during the civil wars of Enrique I’s reign and thereafter, but the authority that was her inheritance, empowered by her motherhood, turned the tables in 1217. What do we learn from Berenguela? A queen in her own right merits study in her own right, by virtue of her rarity, but especially because being queen in her own right was not enough: por juro de heredad was insufficient. Her authority was insufficient to effect her claims to power, but it was not ineffective in combination with her success as a mother and within the Iberian traditions of corule. Corulership, like the institution of regency, supplied a potential role for medieval queens, and in Castile it remained an institution in practice, evidenced by Berenguela’s career
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(among others).6 There were limits to corule, to be sure: Berenguela’s daughters-in-law, the queens Beatriz and Jeanne, played significant roles as royal mothers and diplomatic ties and seemed to have been happy companions to Fernando. But they did not replace their mother-in-law in her governing roles, even though it may have been imagined that they one day would. Beatriz, at least, seems quite willing to have been tutored by Berenguela in the family’s practice of patronage and did brief ly hold the tenancy of León for Fernando. Corule was thus a possible, but not a necessary, role for royal women. Berenguela maintained her role because of her unassailable effectiveness and because of her legal right as an heir to the throne: in more than one way, she was brought up to rule. Toward the end of her life, she may have receded from view, satisfied with her son’s kingship and the promise of her grandchildren. Historian Ana Rodríguez López shows how the castles that were part of Berenguela’s arras served an important role in the process of articulating the frontier between the kingdoms of Castile and León while they were separated—even as they became increasingly enmeshed through Berenguela’s marriage and her ensuing motherhood.7 In much the same way, Berenguela herself participated in the process of articulating Castilian (and eventually Leonese) monarchy through her own person, her actions, and her mothering of Fernando III.
NOTES
Introduction 1. Elías Tormo, Las viejas series icónicas de los reyes de España (Madrid: Blass y Cía, 1916 [1917]), p. 191. 2. Isabel Beceiro Pita and Ricardo Córdoba de la Llave, Parentesco, poder y mentalidad: la nobleza castellana, siglos xii–xv (Madrid: CSIC, 1990), pp. 68–71; Heath Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest: Women in Castilian Town Society, 1100–1300 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 26–29. 3. See Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, 1065–1109 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), and The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 1126–1157 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998). 4. Marion Facinger, “A Study of Medieval Queenship: Capetian France 987– 1237,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 5 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1968), pp. 3–47. See also Miriam Shadis, “Blanche of Castile and Marion Facinger’s ‘Medieval Queenship:’ Reassessing the Argument,” in Capetian Women, ed. Kathleen Nolan (New York: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 137–161. John Parsons showed a similar phenomenon for England, like Facinger linking the decline of the queen’s official power to Eleanor of Aquitaine’s queenship; John Carmi Parsons, Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), p. 72. 5. The oldest version of this story appears to be in Florián Ocampo’s sixteenthcentury edition of the Primera crónica general, the Crónica ocampiana. [Full title: Las quatro partes enteras dela Cronica de Espana, que mando componer el serenissimo rey don Alonso llamado el Sabio . . . ] ed. Florián Ocampo (Zamora: 1541), pt. 4, folio 390r. 6. Urraca was an early patron of the Franciscans in Portugal, especially sponsoring a group of missionaries martyred in Morocco. Luke Wadding, Annales Minorum seu Trium Ordinem A.S. Francisco Institutorum T. 1: (1208–1220), ed. Joseph María Fonseca de Evora (Florence: Quarrachi, 1931), pp. 393–94. See also Atanasio López, La provincia de España de los frailes menores (Santiago: El Eco Francisco, 1915), pp. 47–48 and 52–53; Frederico Francisco de la Figanière, Memorias das rainhas de Portugal
178
NOTES
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
(Lisbon: Typographia Universal, 1859), Appendix 5, pp. 235–38; and Andrés Ivars, “Los mártires de Marreucos de 1220 en la literatura hispano-lusitana,” Archivo Ibero-Americano 14 (1920): 344–81. A critical edition of Afonso’s testament is published in Ivo Castro et alia, Curso da história da língua portuguesa (Lisbon: Universidade Aberta, 1991), pp. 197–202. See also de la Figanière, Memorias das rainhas, pp. 71–81 and Appendices 5 and 6, pp. 235–42. Leonor was approximately twenty to Jaume’s thirteen when they married. In 1228, Alfonso was born; in 1229 Leonor returned to Castile. Gerónimo Zurita y Castro, Anales de la corona de Aragón ed. Antonio Ubieto Arteta and María Desamparados Pérez Soler, 3 vols. (Valencia: Editorial Anubar, 1967), v. 3, pt. 1, p. 51. For Jaume’s perspective, see The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon; A Translation of the Medieval Catalan Llibre dels Fets, trans. Damian Smith and Helena Buffery (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), ch. 18–24, pp. 33–41, and ch. 140, pp. 146–47. See also Zurita, Anales 3: pp. 18–19 and 68. Andrea Gayoso, “The Lady of Las Huelgas: A Royal Abbey and Its Patronage,” Cîteaux: commentarii cistercienses 51.1–2 (2000): 91–116; Miriam Shadis, “Piety, Politics and Power: The Patronage of Leonor of England and Her Daughters Berenguela of León and Blanche of Castile,” in The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. June Hall McCash (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996), pp. 202–27. Facinger, “Medieval Queenship,” p. 3. See also the work of Theresa Earenfight, especially “Absent Kings: Queens as Political Partners in the Medieval Crown of Aragon,” in Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain, ed. Theresa Earenfight (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 33–51. For example, Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma & Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-Century England (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997); Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons eds., Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady (New York: Palgrave, 2002); and Parsons, Eleanor of Castile. The historiography of English queenship has usefully challenged periodization and the master narrative, as well as the interrogated sources and paradigms such as “public and private.” See Kimberly A. LoPrete, “Historical Ironies in the Study of Capetian Women,” in Capetian Women, pp. 276–80 [271–86]. John Carmi Parsons “Family, Sex, and Power: The Rhythms of Medieval Queenship,” in Medieval Queenship ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), pp. 1–2 [1–12]; LoPrete, “Historical Ironies,” in Capetian Women, pp. 272–73. For example, the tenth-century Leonese princess Elvira, and Sancha, sister of Alfonso VII. See Lucy K. Pick, “Dominissima, prudentissima: Elvira, First Queen-Regent of León,” in Religion, Text and Society in Medieval Spain and Northern Europe: Essays in Honor of J. N. Hillgarth, ed. Thomas E. Burnham et alia (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2002), pp. 38–69; Roger Collins, “Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent in
NOTES
14. 15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
179
Tenth-Century León and Navarre,” in Medieval Queenship, pp. 79–82 [79–92]; Reilly, Alfonso VII, pp. 139–41; Luisa García Calles, Doña Sancha, hermana del emperador (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación “San Isidoro,” 1972). See, however, the essays in Queenship and Political Power, ed. Earenfight, as well as the studies mentioned below. Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under Queen Urraca, 1109– 1126 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982); Therese Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-Century Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Barbara F. Weissberger, Isabel Rules: Constructing Queenship, Wielding Power (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004); Peggy K. Liss, Isabel the Queen: Life and Times, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2004); Theresa M. Vann, “The Theory and Practice of Medieval Castilian Queenship,” in Queens, Regents, Potentates, ed. T. M. Vann (Dallas: Academia Press, 1993), pp. 125–47. Núria Silleras-Fernández, Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship: Maria de Luna (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); pp. 41–50; Earenfight, “Maria of Castile, Ruler or Figurehead: A Preliminary Study in Aragonese Queenship,” Mediterranean Studies 4 (1994): 45–61; also Theresa Earenfight, The King’s Other Body: María of Castile and the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). As an example of the theoretical potential of this material, see Earenfight, “Without the Persona of the Prince: Kings, Queens, and the Idea of Monarchy in Late Medieval Europe,” Gender and History 19 (2007): 1–21. Antonio Lupián Zapata, Epitome de la vida y muerte de la Reyna Doña Berenguela, primogenita del rey D. Alonso el Noble (Madrid: 1665); Enrique Flórez, Memorias de las reinas católicas de España, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (1761, repr. Madrid: Aguilar, 1959); Fray Valentín de la Cruz, Berenguela la grande; Enrique I el chico (1179–1246) (Gijón: Ediciones Trea, 2006); “Berenguela la Grande: una mujer excepcional,” in Vicenta Márquez de la Plata and Luis Valero de Bernabé, Reinas medievales españolas (Madrid: Alderabán Ediciones, 2000), pp. 163–81; Georges Martin, “Berenguela de Castilla (1214–1246): en el espejo de la historiografía de su época,” in Historia de las mujeres en España y América Latina, ed. Isabel Morant (Madrid: Cátedra, 2005), pp. 569–96; Martin, “Négociation et diplomatie dans la vie de Bérengère de Castille (1214–1246). La part du facteur générique,” e-Spania: Revue interdisciplinaire d’études hispaniques médiévales 4 (December 2007; online March 2008). URL: http://e-spania.revues.org/index562. html; Accessed October 31, 2008. Joseph F. O’Callaghan, “Origin and Development of Archival RecordKeeping in the Crown of Castile-León” in Discovery in the Archives of Spain and Portugal: Quincentenary Essays, 1492–1992, ed. Lawrence J. McCrank (New York: Haworth Press, 1993), pp. 3–18. Emma Falque Rey, “Introducción,” Lucae Tudensis, Chronicon mundi, ed. Emma Falque Rey (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003) Corpus Christianorum.
180
21.
22. 23. 24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29. 30.
31.
32. 33. 34. 35.
NOTES
Continuatio Medievalis v. 74. T. 1, pp. vii–viii; Peter Linehan, “Dates and Doubts about don Lucas,” CLCHM 24 (2001): 205 [201–17]. Rey, “Introducción,” CM, pp. xviii–xxi; Bernard F. Reilly, “Bishop Lucas of Túy and the Latin Chronicle Tradition in Iberia,” The Catholic Historical Review 93:1 (October 2007): 768 [767–88]. CM, praefatio, p. 4. Reilly, “Bishop Lucas,” 771–72. For Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, see Lucy K. Pick, Conflict and Coexistence: Archbishop Rodrigo and the Muslims and Jews of Medieval Spain (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), especially chapter two, “Conquest and Settlement,” pp. 21–70. See also the numerous works of Peter Linehan, cited throughout. Peter Linehan, “On Further Thought: Lucas of Tuy, Rodrigo of Toledo and the Alfonsine Histories,” in The Processes of Politics and the Rule of Law: Studies on the Iberian Kingdoms and Papal Rome in the Middle Ages, ed. Peter Linehan (Variorum Collected Studies Series) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), p. 417 [415–36]; Reilly, “Bishop Lucas,” 769. Linehan, “On Further Thought,” p. 427; see also Peter Linehan, History and the Historians of Medieval Spain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 298–99; Peter Linehan, “Don Juan de Soria: Unas Apostillas,” in Fernando III y su tiempo (1201–1252), ed. José Manuel Nieto Soria (León: Fundación Sánchez-Albornoz, 2001), pp. 375–93; Francisco Javier Hernández, “La corte de Fernando III y la casa real de Francia. Documentos, crónicas, monumentos,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, pp. 103–55. Chronica latina regum Castellae, in Chronica hispana saeculi xiii, ed. Luis Charlo Brea et alia, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis 73 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997); The Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, English trans. Joseph F. O’Callaghan (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), pp. xxviii–xxx. Derek Lomax, “The Authorship of the Chronique Latine des Rois des Castille,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 40 (1963): 205–11; O’Callaghan, Latin Chronicle, pp. xxxiii–xxxv. O’Callaghan, Latin Chronicle, pp. xxxiii and xxxvi. Alfonso X, Primera crónica general de España que mandó componer Alfonso el Sabio y se continuaba bajo Sancho IV en 1289, ed. Ramon Menéndez Pidal (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1955), 2 vols. Linehan, History and Historians; Linehan, “Unas Apostillas,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, pp. 375–93; Hernández, “La corte de Fernando III,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, p. 115. William Chester Jordan, Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). Reilly critiques these trends in “Bishop Lucas.” Martin, “Berenguela,” in Historia de las mujeres, p. 589. The field of study of medieval motherhood, both as an experience and as a religio-cultural construct was inaugurated by Clarissa W. Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
NOTES
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
181
University Press, 1991); this work was quickly followed by a series of more specialized studies appearing in collections such as Sanctity and Motherhood: Essays on Holy Mothers in the Middle Ages, ed. Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker (New York: Garland, 1995); and Medieval Mothering, ed. John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Garland, 1996). Carlos Estepa Díez, “Curia y Cortes en el Reino de León,” in Las Cortes de Castilla y León en la Edad Media 1, ed. Carlos Estepa Díez (Valladolid: Cortes de Castilla y León, 1988), pp. 23–103; Joseph F. O’Callaghan, The Cortes of Castile-León, 1188–1350 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), p. 15. For the effect of these developments on women, see Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest. Esther Pascua Echegaray, Guerra y pacto en el siglo XII: la consolidación de una sistema de reinos en Europa occidental (Madrid: CSIC, 1996), pp. 288–317; Ana Rodríguez López, La Consolidación territorial de la monarquía feudal castellana: expansion y fronteras durante el reinado de Fernando III (Madrid: CSIC, 1994), pp. 137–39, 197–98, 313–22. The famous polemical debate between the twentieth-century historians Claudio Sánchez Albornoz and Américo Castro over the fundamental characteristics of medieval Spain drew scholarly attention to the explanatory power of convivencia, problematizing especially its potentially static view of medieval Spanish culture. For recent discussions of the meaning and use of the term, see the work of Lucy Pick, Thomas Glick, Jerrilynn Dodds, and María Judith Feliciano, cited throughout, especially in Chapter Six. See also David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 9. Brian Catlos challenges the usefulness of the term, arguing instead for the idea of “convenience” to understand the relations between Christians and Muslims in the Crown of Aragon, but his argument is based on the very particular economic and social relations that existed in the Ebro valley. Brian A. Catlos, “Contexto y Conveniencia en la Corona de Aragón: Propuesta de un modelo de interacción entre grupos etno-religiosos minoritarios y mayoritarios,” Revista d’Història Medieval 12 (2001–2002): 259–68. Penelope D. Johnson, Prayer, Patronage and Power: The Abbey of La Trinité, Vendôme, 1032–1187 (New York: New York University Press, 1981), pp. 11–13; Erin L. Jordan, Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 61–84, articulates very well the clear link between religious patronage and secular power, as does Silleras-Fernández, Power, Piety, and Patronage, pp. 115–37. Gabrielle M. Spiegel, “Genealogy: Form and Function in Medieval Historical Narrative,” History and Theory 22.1 (Feb., 1983): 43–53; “History, Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text,” Speculum 65.1 ( Jan., 1990): 59–86. Crónica Ocampiana, pt. 4, fol. 387v; La Traducción gallega de la crónica general y de la crónica de Castilla, ed. Ramón Lorenzo (Orense: Instituto de Estudos Orensanos Padre Feijóo, 1975), 2 vols., v. 1: ch. 502, p. 732; Lupián
182
42.
43. 44.
45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.
55. 56. 57. 58. 59.
60.
NOTES
Zapata, Epitome de la vida y muerte de la Reyna Doña Berenguela, pp. 33–47; Juan de Mariana, Historia de España in Obras del Padre Juan de Mariana, 2 vols. (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1950), v. 1, pp. 350–51; The French scholar Le Nain de Tillemont also claimed Blanche’s seniority; see Hernández, “La corte de Fernando III,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, p. 113. Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957). See also, Theresa Earenfight, “Partners in Politics,” in Queenship and Political Power, pp. xiv–xv, [xi–xvii], citing Kantorowicz. This was not a given. For Queen Urraca, and her sexual conduct while an unmarried queen, see Reilly, Queen Urraca, especially pp. 46–47. Lois L. Huneycutt, “The Creation of a Crone: The Historical Reputation of Adelaide of Maurienne,” in Capetian Women, p. 30 [27–44], citing Achille Luchaire, Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capétiens, 987–1183, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (1891 repr. Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1964), v.1, pp. 133–34 and 183–85, and Andrew W. Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies in Familial Order and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 21, 43, and 54–55. Earenfight, “Partners in Politics,” in Queenship and Political Power, pp. xiv, xv, and xvii. Martin, “Berenguela,” in Historia de las mujeres, p. 588. CM, praefatio, p. 4. DRH 9.5, pp. 295–86. Alfonso IX 1, p. 92; Élie Berger, Histoire de Blanche de Castille, reine de France (Paris: Thorin et fils, 1895), pp. 30–31. Flórez, Las reinas católicas, v. 1, pp. 449–50. Shadis, “Blanche of Castile,” in Capetian Women, pp. 142–46. Louis IX, Gesta Sancti Ludovici Noni, auctore monacho sancti Dionysii anonymo, RHF 20, p. 46. Martin, “Berenguela,” in Historia de las mujeres, p. 589. Sordello, “Lament for Lord Blacatz,” The Poetry of Sordello, ed. and trans. James J. Wilhelm (New York: Garland, 1987), p. 109. Sordello’s reference to Louis’s loss of Castile is fascinating, but inexplicable; perhaps, he was vaguely aware of the nobles who approached Blanche and her husband Louis about the Castilian throne. See Chapter Four. Sordello, “The Instruction in Honor,” The Poetry of Sordello, trans. Wilhelm, p. 203. CM 93, p. 332. DRH 9.17, p. 300. Weissberger, Isabel Rules, especially Chapter One, “Anxious Masculinity,” pp. 1–27. Ana Rodríguez López, “Sucesión regia y legitimidad política en Castilla en los siglos XII y XIII. Algunas consideraciones sobre el relato de las crónicas Latinas castellano-leonesas,” Annexes CLCHM 16 (2004): 21–41. Robert Fawtier, The Capetian Kings of France, trans. Lionel Butler and R. J. Adam (London: Macmillan, 1960), p. 28; see also Jordan, Women,
NOTES
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Power, and Religious Patronage for a discussion on the relationship between perceptions of women’s power as potentially real but always anomalous, pp. 33–34.
1
Mothering Queenship: Leonor of England, Queen of Castile 1161–1214
1. Queens who did not become mothers might be forced to overcome that deficit by refiguring their rhetorical position vis-à-vis the king. Thus, Queen Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor, recast herself as a chaste daughter-figure to the saintly king, “glossing over a barren union.” Stafford, Queen Emma & Queen Edith, p. 47. Much later, María of Castile, queen of Aragón, was neither a mother nor a regular sexual partner nor a fictive daughter to her husband Alfonso V of Aragón. María could refer to a powerful extended family, and the particular institution of the queens-lieutenant of Aragón to secure her political role. Earenfight, “Absent Kings” in Queenship and Political Power, pp. 40–47, and Earenfight, “Without the Persona of the Prince,” 4–6. 2. Robert de Torigny, Chronica, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. Richard Howlett, 4 vols. (1882, repr. Weisbaden: Kraus Reprint, 1964), v. 4, p. 303. See also Miriam Shadis and Constance Hoffman Berman, “A Taste of the Feast: Reconsidering Eleanor of Aquitaine’s Female Descendents,” in Lord and Lady, pp. 182–85 [177–211]. 3. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 185, 787–89, and 793; Joseph F. O’Callaghan, History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975), pp. 235–39. 4. W. L. Warren, Henry II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. 223. 5. Vann, “Castilian Queenship,” in Queens, Regents and Potentates, pp. 128–29. 6. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 188–90; Flórez, Las reinas católicas, v. 1, p. 504; Robert de Torigny, Chronica, p. 247. 7. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 192b provides a photograph and transcript of this charter of arras. 8. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 148. 9. Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, pp. 47–51. Castilians (and the Leonese) were slower to adopt the changes described by Diane Owen Hughes for the rest of the Mediterranean, although the reasons why—possibly a longer retention of partible inheritance—remain unclear. “From Brideprice to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe,” Journal of Family History 3:3 (1978): 262–96. 10. Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, pp. 27, 47, and 69; Simon Barton, The Aristocracy in Twelfth-century León and Castile (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 54–55. 11. Blanche’s dowry came from her uncle John of England as part of his settlement with Philip Augustus in the Treaty of Le Goulet. Although
184
12.
13. 14. 15.
16.
17. 18. 19.
20.
21. 22. 23. 24. 25.
26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
NOTES
Urraca was likely dowered by her husband, Afonso of Portugal, no arras agreement exists for her. Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón, ed. Ambrosio Huici Miranda and María Desamparados Cabanes Pecourt, 5 vols. (Valencia: Anubar, 1976), v. 1: no. 27; see also Jesús Lalinde Abadia, “Los pactos matrimoniales catalanes,” Anuario de historia del derecho español 33 (1963): 188–91 [133–266]. Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, p. 48. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 192b. Alfonso X, Fuero real, ed. Azucena Palacios Alcaine (Barcelona: Promociones y Publicaciones Universitarias, 1991), p. 65; see also Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, pp. 69–70, and Barton, Aristocracy, p. 71. Alfonso X, Las siete partidas, trans. Samuel Parsons Scott, ed. Robert I. Burns, S. J., 5 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 4.11.7, pp. 933–34. Although Alfonso X described the theory and practice of dowry, he noted that it “rarely happens because women are naturally greedy and avaricious.” Partidas 4.11.3, p. 932. A more logical explanation would be that even by Alfonso’s day, legal custom still followed the old ways. Alfonso VIII 3: no 769. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 278; see also Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 802–3; Reilly, Alfonso VII, pp. 37–38, 45, and 206. In 1188, Leonor was recognized as “Lady of Peñafiel.” Documentación del monasterio de Las Huelgas de Burgos, ed. José Manuel Lizoain Garrido, 10 vols. (Burgos: Ediciones Garrido y Garrido, 1985), v. 1 (1116–1230): no. 18. Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, Benedicti Abbatis: The chronicle of the reigns of Henry II and Richard I A.D. 1169–1192; known commonly under the name of Benedict of Peterborough, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (1867, repr. Wiesbaden: Kraus Reprint, 1965), v. 1, p. 139; Alfonso VIII 2: no. 279. Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 277 and 278. Gesta Henrici II, p. 144; Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 810–11. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 279. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 834–35; CL 14, p. 48. Echegaray, Guerra y pacto, p. 301. González points to a rumor of Alfonso’s interest in Gascony as early as the reign of Richard I (1188–98), supplied by the poet Bertran de Born. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 866; “Miei Sirventes Vuolh Far Dels Reis Amdos” in Los Trovadores: historia literaria y textos, ed. Martín de Riquer, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1975), v. 2: no. 138, pp. 734–36. Although the date is uncertain, the sirventes surely indicates anxiety about Castilian intervention in France. CL 17, p. 51; Echegaray, Guerra y pacto, pp. 319–20. CL 17, p. 52. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 1030; see also no. 765. Foedera: conventiones, litterae, ed. Thomas Rymer, 3 vols. (London: Record Commission, 1816–1830), v. 1, pt. 1, p. 94. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 195, n191.
NOTES
185
31. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 674. No contemporary charter or chronicle evidence attests to Mafalda’s life, although she appears in La traducción gallega, v. 1, ch. 503, p. 733. The only other evidence for her is a very late, possibly postmedieval tomb inscription in the “old” cathedral of Salamanca, asserting that Mafalda died in 1204 “as yet unmarried” [finó por casar en Salamanca el año de 1204]. 32. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 373. 33. Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 373, 374, 377–82, 386–90, 399, 419, 442, 472, 499, 520, 522, 524–31, and 533–36. Charter no. 537, dated December 1189, notes Alfonso ruling with his son Fernando, signaling the infante’s birth. 34. Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 373, 374, 377–82. 35. Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 520, 522, 524–31, 533–36. 36. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 367. 37. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 549; Francisco Simón y Nieto, “La nodriza de doña Blanca de Castilla,” Bulletin Hispanique 5 (1903): 5–8. 38. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 530. 39. Alfonso VIII 3, p. 865. 40. For contemporary discussions of the benefits of mothers’ milk, see William F. MacLehose, “Nurturing Danger: High Medieval Medicine and the Problem(s) of the Child,” in Medieval Mothering, pp. 3–24, and Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation, pp. 59–61. 41. For example, Documentación del monasterio de San Juan de Burgos, 1091– 1400, ed. F. Javier Peña Pérez (Burgos: Ediciones J. M. Garrido Garrido, 1983): no. 49. 42. Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 165, 168, 248, and 249. 43. See Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 5, 7–15, 17–19, and 21–23; and Reilly, Alfonso VII, “Annotated Guide to Documents,” nos. 817, 821, 837, 842, 881, 883–84, and 892–93. 44. Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, pp. 76–77. 45. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 324. 46. Simon R. Doubleday, The Lara Family: Crown and Nobility in Medieval Spain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 38–43; Barton, Aristocracy, Appendix 3: no. 17. 47. Felipe-Gil Peces Rata, Paleografía y epigrafía en la catedral de Sigüenza (Sigüenza: Gráficas Carpintero, 1988), p. 51; also Charles Rudy, The Cathedrals of Northern Spain (Boston: L.C. Page, 1905), p. 338. 48. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 307. 49. Julio González, Regesta de Fernando II (Madrid: CSIC, 1943): no. 37, and pp. 129–30, 457, and 460–66. 50. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 355. 51. Vann, “Castilian Queenship,” in Queens, Regents and Potentates, pp. 134–35. 52. In 1175 the English brothers Richard and Randulph, canons at the cathedral of Salamanca founded a church there dedicated to Becket. Pablo Núñez Paz et alia, Salamanca. Guía de arquitectura (León: Colegio Oficial
186
53.
54.
55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.
61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.
70.
NOTES
de Arquitectos de León, 2002), p. 89. See also Documentos de los archivos catedralicio y diocesano de Salamanca, siglos xii–xiii, ed. José Luis Martin et alia (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1977): no. 74. Other early examples of the Becket cult include a cathedral chapel in Burgos endowed around 1202, and a church in Toro, by 1206. Tancred Borenius, St. Thomas Becket in Art (1932; Reprint Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1970), pp. 48–51; See Documentación de la catedral de Burgos, 1184–1222, José Manuel Garrido Garrido, ed. 4 vols. (Burgos: Ediciones J. M. Garrido Garrido, 1983), v. 2: no. 363. Angel González Palencia, Los mozarabes de Toledo en los siglos xii y xiii, 3 vols. (Madrid: Instituto de Valencia de don Juan, 1926–28), v. 1: no. 326; Alfonso VIII 2: no. 215; Alfonso VIII 3: no. 797. The Great Roll of the Pipe, ed. Pipe Roll Society (1955, repr. Nendeln, Kraus Reprints, 1974), v. 25, p. 47; v. 26, p. 89; v. 27, p. 49; v. 28, p. 61; and v. 29, p. 81; also vols. 30, 34, 36, and 37; Alan B. Cobban, The Medieval English Universities: Oxford and Cambridge to c. 1500 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 29–30 and 33; H. G. Richardson, “The Schools of Northampton in the Twelfth Century,” English Historical Review 55 (1941): 597 [595–605]. See Chapter Two, n7. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 769. Italics added. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 769. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 769; Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, p. 100. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 824. Compare Rose Walker’s argument that Alfonso VIII was primarily responsible for the foundation of Las Huelgas, inspired by the old CastilianLeonese institution of the infantado—lands set aside for royal women who were dedicated to God. “Leonor of England, Plantagenet queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In imitation of Fontevraud?” Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005): 346–68. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 551; see also Shadis, “Piety, Politics, and Power,” in Cultural Patronage, pp. 203–4. Las Huelgas 1: no. 12; DRH 7.33, p. 255; PCG 1006, p. 685. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 894. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 923. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 843. Alfonso VIII 3: nos. 885 and 887; See also Alfonso VIII 3: nos. 886, 917, and 923. Alfonso VIII 3: nos. 885 and 886. For example, Alfonso VIII 3: no. 887. Notably those recorded in the Libro Tumbo in the Archivo del Palacio Real, Documentación del Hospital del Rey de Burgos, 1136–1277, ed. María del Carmen Palacín Gálvez and Luis Martínez García (Burgos: J. M. Garrido Garrido, 1990): nos. 30 and 31. Hospital del Rey: nos. 38–43.
NOTES
187
71. Hospital del Rey: no. 44. 72. Hospital del Rey: nos. 60, 61, and 64. 73. In 1232 the abbess of Las Huelgas, who administered the hospital, requested confirmation of a real estate transaction from Fernando and Berenguela, and asked that they seal the charter; Hospital del Rey: no. 155. In 1240 Berenguela confirmed a private sale to the Hospital; Hospital del Rey: no. 217. 74. DRH 7.34, p. 256; CM 4.84, p. 324. González acknowledged without comment that one charter calls the hospital “de la reina Leonor.” Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 610–11. Amancio Rodríguez López criticized the assumptions of earlier historians, but supposed that it was logical that Alfonso VIII was the hospital’s founder, nonetheless. El real monasterio de las Huelgas de Burgos y el hospital del Rey (Burgos: Librería del Centro Católico, 1907), pp. 79–84. 75. Earenfight, “Partners in Politics,” in Queenship and Political Power, p. xvii on the inequalities inherent in monarchy. 76. Along with an alférez (standard bearer) and aguacil (a judicial official), Salazar y Acha asserts we are unlikely to see a chancellor among the queen’s staff, although Leonor did have one, as did Berenguela. Jaime de Salazar y Acha, La casa del rey de Castilla y León en la edad media (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2000), p. 56. 77. Salazar y Acha, Casa del rey, p. 183; Luciano Serrano, El mayordomo mayor de Doña Berenguela (Madrid: Tipografía de Archivos, 1933). 78. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 333. 79. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 197. 80. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 314; Alfonso VIII 1, p. 254. 81. Las Huelgas 1: nos. 8, 17, 18, 43, 50, 77, 85–87, 89, and 91. Las Huelgas nos. 53, 56, 66, and 71 were all confirmed by “Guillelmus et Martinus de la Regina.” González believed these were references to the queen’s men. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 256. Another of Leonor’s followers included Álvaro Rodríguez, Alfonso VIII 2: no. 412. 82. Cf. Vann, “Castilian Queenship,” in Queens, Regents and Potentates, p. 136. In 1202 charter from Toledo mentioned Aparicio, the queen’s “man,” probably her official agent, possibly her chamberlain. In 1203, Aparicio represented Leonor in purchasing a house in Toledo. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 721; González Palencia, Mozarabes de Toledo, pp. 267–68. 83. Shadis and Berman, “A Taste of the Feast,” in Lord and Lady, pp. 182–84. 84. Partidas 2.6.1, p. 299. Vann, “Castilian Queenship,” in Queens, Regents and Potentates, pp. 125–26, and p. 146. But see also Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, pp. 9–10, and n12. 85. Brigitte Bedos Rezak, “Women, Seals, and Power in Medieval France, 1150–1350,” in Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, eds. Women and Power in the Middle Ages (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1988), pp. 61–82. 86. ACT A. 2.G.1.5; Los cartularios de Toledo, ed. Francisco J. Hernández (Madrid: Fundación Ramon Areces, 1985): no. 186; Alfonso VIII 2: no. 542;
188
87. 88.
89.
90. 91.
92.
93. 94.
95.
96. 97.
98.
NOTES
Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “Eleanor of Aquitaine Reconsidered: The Woman and Her Seasons,” in Lord and Lady, pp. 20–27 [1–54]. Certain elements of Leonor’s seal—the full female figure holding the fleur-de-lis are found in many queens’ seals. Rezak, “Seals,” in Women and Power, p. 64. Rezak, “Seals,” in Women and Power, p. 77. Rezak, “Seals,” in Women and Power, p. 76 (on hunting birds); Brown, “Eleanor of Aquitaine Reconsidered,” in Lord and Lady, pp. 23–24 (on the dove). Jesús María Muñoz y Rivero, “Signo Rodado en los documentos reales anteriores a don Alfonso el Sabio,” Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos 2 (1872): 189–90, 222–25 and 270–74; ACT A. 2.G.1.5; Hernández, Los Cartularios: no. 186; Alfonso VIII 2: no. 542. Muñoz, “Signo Rodado,” 274. Medieval authorities on rhetoric, contemporary with Leonor, specified that beautiful hands with smooth skin and long white fingers were elements of feminine beauty. “Furthermore,” wrote Matthew of Vendôme, “in praising women, one should stress their physical beauty. This is not the proper way to praise a man.” Art of Versification, trans. Aubrey E. Galyan (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1980), p. 43. Kim M. Phillips, “The Medieval Beauty Myth: An Aesthetics of Virginity,” Medieval Life 5 (Summer, 1996): 10–13. For example, in the Primera crónica general, the queen spurred the construction of Las Huelgas “por los muchos ruegos”—by many requests: PCG 1006, p. 685. In another instance she agreed with the nobility to intercede with her husband over the war in León, but her words of agreement or intervention are not recorded; PCG 1004, pp. 682–83. “Un Sirventes Ai En Cor a Bastir,” Riquer, Los trovadores 1: no. 96, pp. 539–40. Manuel Mila y Fontanels, Obras de Manuel Mila y Fontanels, ed. C. Martínez and F. R. Manrique, 2 vols. (Barcelona: CSIC, 1966), De los trovadores en España, v. 2, p. 112; Walter T. Pattison, “The Background of Peire D’Alvernhe’s Chantarai d’aquest Trobadors,” Modern Philology 31(1933): 19–34. Mila y Fontanels, Los trovadores, v. 2, p. 126; see also Castigos para celosos, consejos para juglares, trans. Jesús D. Rodríguez Velasco (Madrid: Gredos, 1999), p. 94. Rodríguez Velasco, Castigos para celosos, p. 94, n5. On the political and moral legitimizing message of the ciclatón, or ciclatun, “a heavy fabric made of silk and precious metals, either gold or silver,” of probably Andalusí manufacture, see María Judith Feliciano, “Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings? A Reassessment of Andalusi Textiles in Thirteenth-century Castilian Life and Ritual,” in Under the Influence: Questioning the Comparative in Medieval Castile, ed. Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 127–31 [101–31]. Rodríguez Velasco, Castigos para celosos, p. 90; also Carlos Alvar, ed. La poesía trovadoresca en España y Portugal (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1977), pp. 70–74.
NOTES
189
99. María Jesús Gómez Barcena, La escultura gótica funeraria en Burgos (Burgos: Diputación Provincial, 1988), pp. 194–96. 100. PCG 1024, p. 708. 101. Berger, Blanche de Castille, p. 43, citing Philippe Mousket, verse 27145; Chronique rimée de Philippe Mouskes, ed. Baron de Reiffenberg, 2 vols. (Brussels: M. Hayez, 1838), v. 2, p. 548. 102. Sancho IV, Castigos e documentos para bien vivir, ed. Agapito Rey (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1952), p. 133. 103. In the early twentieth century, Fidel Fita showed the relationship of the story to the legends surrounding Rosamund Clifford, the real-life mistress of Henry II, and suggested the introduction of such a narrative in Castile through troubadour poetry. In the Castilian version, Leonor took Eleanor of Aquitaine’s place as the betrayed wife. Fidel Fita, “Elogio de la reina de Castilla y esposa de Alfonso VIII, doña Leonor de Inglaterra,” BRAH 53.4 (1908): 418–25 [411–30]. See also Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 26–49; and Pilar León Tello, Judios de Toledo, 2 vols. (Madrid: CSIC, 1979), v. 1, pp. 40–42. 104. David Nirenberg, “Deviant Politics and Jewish Love: Alfonso VIII and the Jewess of Toledo,” Jewish History (2007): 21 [15–41]. 105. For example, the work of Lope de Vega ( Jerusalén conquistada [1609] or Las paces de los reyes y judía de Toledo [1617]). In the twentieth century, a more sympathetic version of the tale was told by the GermanJewish novelist Lion Feuchtwanger. In Raquel: The Jewess of Toledo, Feuchtwanger builds on the themes of Raquel’s beauty and intelligence, and Alfonso’s compulsion: Leonor is cast as a villainess, inspired to coldheartedness by her mother, Eleanor. Lion Feuchtwanger, Raquel: The Jewess of Toledo, trans. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins (New York: Julian Messner, 1956) [German title: Die Jüdin von Toledo: Roman <Pacific Palisades, CA: 1954>]. 106. Crónica ocampiana, pt. 4, fol. 387v. “E demas matol los fijos varones e houo el regno el rey don Fernando, su nieto, fijo de su fija.” Sancho IV, Castigos, p. 133. See also Traducción gallega, 1: 491, p. 717; Nirenberg, “Deviant Politics,” p. 34, nn4, 5.
2
Documenting Authority: Marriage Agreements and the Making of a Queen
1. Stafford, Queen Emma & Queen Edith, p. 60. 2. The Treaty of Le Goulet, which described Blanche’s dowry in France, provides a comparison in both form and content, standing out as a formal treaty. Layettes du tresór des chartres, ed. Alexandre Teulet et alia, 5 vols. (1863–1909, Reprint Nendeln: Kraus Reprints, 1977)1: no. 578. The designation of the Treaty of Seligenstadt (Berenguela and Conrad’s marriage agreement) as a treaty is historiographical: the purpose of the document was to contract a marriage; it made no other political arrangement between Frederick I and Alfonso VIII. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 499.
190
NOTES
3. Infante Fernando was twenty-one years old when he died, and only one attempt to find a bride for him is known. His parents sought to betroth him to a Danish princess, who rejected the marriage in favor of the cloister. See M-H. Vicaire, Saint Dominic and His Times, trans. Kathleen Pond (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), pp. 46–48 and 53–55; Jordan of Saxony, On the Beginnings of the Order of Preachers, ed. and trans., Simon Tugwell, O. P. (Dublin: Dominican Publishers, 1982), ch. 2, pp. 4–5. 4. John Carmi Parsons, “Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150–1500,” in Medieval Queenship, pp. 66–68 [63–78]. 5. Conrad was the fifth son of Frederick Barbarossa and Beatrice of Burgundy, and approximately seventeen years old in 1187. In 1191, he became Duke of Swabia and died in 1196. The Chronicle of Otto of St. Blaise paints a picture of an uncouth and easily led young man. Die Chronik Ottos von St. Blasien und die Marbarcher Annalen, ed. and German trans. Franz-Josef Schmale (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998). The Iberian chroniclers do not say much about him. The one modern commentator on this marriage says only that Conrad met an evil end, fittingly in the arms of a woman he tried to ravish. Peter Rassow, Der prinzegemahl: ein pactum matrimoniale aus dem jahre 1188 (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1950), pp. 84–85. 6. Evelyn S. Procter, Curia and Cortes in León and Castile, 1072–1295 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 77; Joseph F. O’Callaghan, “The Beginnings of the Cortes of León-Castile,” American Historical Review 74.5 ( June 1969): 1512–13 [1503–1537]; O’Callaghan, Cortes of Castile-León, pp. 16–18; Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 467–71. These meetings also had a significant impact on the alliance system throughout Iberia. Echegaray, Guerra y pacto, pp. 292–93. 7. Gonzalo Martínez Díez, “Curia y cortes en el reino de Castilla,” in Estepa Díez, Curia y Cortes, pp. 140–42. O’Callaghan believes that despite the dating of the contract in Germany, “it obviously was prepared at San Esteban in 1187.” O’Callaghan, “Beginnings of the Cortes,” 1512–13. However, the form of the document differs from typical Castilian charters; the possibility of its preparation in Germany should not be dismissed. Peter Rassow, in his study of the charter, points out the ambiguity inherent in the very form of the charter and leans toward preparation in Germany. Rassow, Prinzegemahl, pp. 14–15. The nobility of Castile still may have confirmed the agreement, however: cortes were often called to ratify marriages. 8. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 471. 9. Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 467–71. 10. Alfonso IX 1, pp. 35–51; O’Callaghan, Cortes of Castile-León, p. 16. 11. CL 11, p. 44; PCG 997, p. 677; See also DRH 7.24, p. 246. Even earlier, Alfonso VIII recorded Alfonso IX’s obeisance in royal charters for some time, dating his charters from the time of the cortes when he knighted Alfonso. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 505. This continued through 1190, when
NOTES
12.
13.
14.
15. 16.
17. 18.
191
sometime after October 14, 1190 the formula ceased to be used (along with mention of Berenguela’s betrothal to Conrad). Alfonso VIII 2: no. 560. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 706; for the 1158 treaty between Fernando II and Sancho III, see González, Fernando II: no. 1, pp. 241–43; Echegaray, Guerra y pacto, p. 291. Teofilo Ruiz, “Unsacred Monarchy: The Kings of Castile in the Late Middle Ages,” in Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual and Politics in the Middle Ages, ed. Sean Wilentz (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), p. 125 [109–144]. See also Linehan, History and the Historians, p. 595. CL 11, p. 43. Thirty-two years later, González notes, a charter referred to this curia as one in which “the king of Castile handed over his daughter in marriage to the king of León” [A tempore curie que fuit Carrione, quando rex Castelle tradidit filiam suam nupti regi Legionis]. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 706–707, n19. A charter given by Alfonso IX in 1188 places him at San Zoilo of Carrión as well: See Alfonso IX 2: no. 10 (1188 June 27, Carrión); Julio A. Pérez Celada, Documentación del monasterio de San Zoilo de Carrión, 1047–1300 (Palencia: Ediciones J. M. Garrido Garrido, 1986), v. 1: no. 60. Although it gives the precise date and location the charter does not mention Alfonso’s reasons for being in Carrión. Alfonso was accompanied by the archbishop of Compostela and bishops of León, Oviedo, and Salamanca, as well as at least four major nobles of his realm, who all confirmed the charter. The chancery of the Castilian king is silent about this matter, González supposes, because it consisted of clerics who would have been opposed to a canonically forbidden marriage. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 706–7. On the other hand, as Lomax pointed out, Juan of Osma’s distaste for consanguineous marriages led him to identify them assiduously. Lomax, “Authorship,” 205–11. Cf. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 203. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 707–8. González’s collection indicates the dates and duration of this curia. On July 4, 1188 Alfonso VIII’s chancery noted the knighting of Alfonso IX. On July 28, there is notice of the marriage of Conrad and Berenguela, which presumably had occurred in the interim, as well as of Alfonso IX’s knighting (Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 505 and 506). The Chronica latina states that it was scarcely two months after the knighting of Alfonso that the marriage of Berenguela and Conrad took place. CL 11, p. 14. Generally, Juan of Osma is very precise about details of agreements and chronology, suggesting access to court records. See Lomax, “Authorship,” 207–8. CL 11, 44. This process contrasts with the establishment of an earlier hereditary queen, Urraca of Castile-León (1109–1126). Reilly, Queen Urraca, pp. 14–44. Reilly cites the Crónica anómina’s assertion that Alfonso VI designated Urraca as his heir in a public forum, but no official, public, recorded declaration of her right to succeed survives. Reilly, Queen Urraca, p. 56; Reilly, Alfonso VI, p. 352.
192
NOTES
19. The cases of Alfonso X, Sancho IV, and Fernando IV and their daughters will be discussed below. 20. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 499. Leonor and Berenguela’s apparent witnessing may be one reason why the treaty is argued to have been prepared in Castile. 21. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 499. 22. Ruiz, “Unsacred Monarchy,” p. 109; Linehan, History and the Historians, pp. 427–30. Much later, the Siete partidas stated that kingship could be achieved through marriage. Partidas 2.1.9, p. 274. 23. “secundum usum et consuetudinem Alemanie,” Alfonso VIII 2: no. 499. German law and practice regarding wives, widows, and property rights for the thirteenth century is understudied. For earlier periods, see Suzanne Fonay Wemple, Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister 500–900 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981); see also Jerold C. Frakes, Brides and Doom: Gender, Property and Power in Medieval German Women’s Epic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 54–64. 24. Rodríguez López, Consolidación, p. 156. 25. Berenguela later exacted this same promise from Álvaro Núñez de Lara, when he became regent for her brother Enrique I in 1215. DRH 9.1, pp. 281–82; PCG 1025, p. 709. 26. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 506. 27. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 207–8. 28. Rassow, Prinzegemahl, pp. 53–54. It should be pointed out that Alfonso’s dynasty was relatively new. 29. Reilly, Alfonso VII, pp. 110–12, on the negotiations for this marriage, which was not intended to last. 30. Rassow, Prinzegemahl, p. 57. 31. Rassow, Prinzegemahl, p. 73, citing only Otto of St. Blaise, c. 28. See Chronik Ottos, p. 82. 32. DRH 7.24, p. 246. The Primera crónica general states that Conrad wished to dissolve the marriage upon his return to Germany. PCG 997, p. 677. The editor of Otto’s chronicle suggests that Conrad instigated the betrothal’s dissolution, between 1190 and 1193. If proven, this would suggest that Conrad became disenchanted by a match that seemed unlikely, after Infante Fernando’s birth, to bring him a crown. Procter, Curia and Cortes, pp. 75–76. See Chronik Ottos, p. 83, n71, which refers to a letter to Archbishop Gonzalo of Toledo, explaining Conrad’s resistance. I cannot find this letter. By August 1192, Martín López de Pisuerga was archbishop of Toledo: if such a letter was written, it was probably to Martín, and not Gonzalo. Juan Francisco Rivera Recio, Los arzobispos de Toledo (Toledo: Diputación Provincial, 1969), pp. 35–38. 33. James A. Brundage explains, “Divortium in canonistic language meant either a declaration of nullity (that a valid marriage had never existed) or else permission for a married couple to separate and establish independent households, but not to remarry.” James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 371.
NOTES
34. 35. 36. 37.
38. 39.
40. 41.
42. 43.
44. 45.
46.
47. 48.
49. 50.
51.
193
Rassow, Prinzegemahl, pp. 74–75; DRH 7.24, p. 246. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 560. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 710. Roger of Howden, Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houdene, ed. William Stubbs, 4 vols. (1869, Reprint Wiesbaden: Kraus Reprint, 1964), 3, p. 100; D. D. R. Owen, Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), p. 84; Regine Pernoud, Eleanor of Aquitaine, trans. Peter Wiles (New York: Coward-McCann, 1968), p. 216; Ralph V. Turner, “Eleanor of Aquitaine in the Governments of Her Sons Richard and John,” in Lord and Lady, pp. 80–81 [77–95]; Jane Martindale, “Eleanor of Aquitaine and a ‘Queenly Court’?” in Lord and Lady, pp. 423–39. Rassow, Prinzegemahl, pp. 81–82. What can be reconstructed of the Castilian court’s itinerary in this period does not suggest a visit to Navarre, but it is an itinerary full of lengthy gaps. Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 555–63. Prinzegemahl, p. 85. As Rassow notes, “Almost a generation after these events, when the agreement would seem to be a dead letter, it finally achieved its real and highest logical political meaning in terms of its own attributes as the arbiter of throne-succession for the Castilian royal house.” Prinzegemahl, p. 87. CL 33, p. 76. Martin explains Berenguela’s “reservation” of her rights both when she gave up the regency of Enrique I and at the time of her own succession in 1217. “Négociation,” 10, 12; see next chapter. As noted earlier (n18), no surviving document affirmed Urraca’s right to rule. Procter suggests that this document served as the source for the “principle” or “statute” that in the event there is no male heir, a daughter should inherit or rule. Procter, Curia and Cortes, pp. 177, and 192–93; Vladimir Piskorski, Las cortes de Castilla en el período de tránsito en la edad media a la moderna, 1188–1520, Spanish trans. C. Sánchez-Albornoz (1897, repr. Barcelona: El Albir, 1977): Appendix 1, pp. 196–97. See also the declaration of Enrique III in 1402 that his daughter María should be his recognized heir. Las cortes, Appendix 4, pp. 200–202. For Sancho, see Procter, Curia and Cortes, p. 176; Pedro López de Ayala, Crónica del rey don Sancho el Bravo, in Crónicas de los reyes de Castilla, ed. Cayetano Rosell, 3 vols. (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1953), v. 1: ch. 1 and 2. López de Ayala, Crónica del rey don Fernando Cuarto, in Crónicas de los reyes de Castilla 1: ch. 19. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 622; Alfonso IX 2: no. 79; PL 214:611; Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 712–14; Alfonso IX 1, pp. 65–66; Flórez, Las reinas católicas 1, pp. 332–33. CL 14–15, pp. 45–50; DRH 7.24, p. 246. Joseph F. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), pp. 62–64; Alfonso IX 1, pp. 83–85; Echegaray, Guerra y pacto, pp. 293–94. Echegaray, Guerra y pacto, pp. 296–97.
194 52. 53. 54. 55.
56.
57.
58. 59.
60. 61.
62. 63.
64.
NOTES
CL 15, p. 50. CM IV, pp. 323–24. DRH 7.31, p. 253. DRH 7.31, p. 253; see also Flórez, Las reinas católicas 1, p. 464. Later, the Primera crónica general suggested a conspiracy between the queen and the nobles, and that the omnes buenos foresaw that the marriage ultimately would be dissolved, but that meanwhile the birth of heirs who could potentially unite Castile and León would more than offset this unpleasant possibility. Perhaps, however, the authors of the Primera crónica general were reading later events into an earlier history; for at the time of his marriage to Berenguela, Alfonso IX had three children by his first wife, Teresa, and had proceeded to treat his first son, Fernando, as his heir; thus his children by Berenguela were potentially removed from inheriting the throne of León. This Fernando died in 1214; his death possibly “naturalized” the direct line of inheritance to Fernando III for the compilers of the Primera crónica general. PCG 1004, p. 682. Roger Howden does not mention Leonor’s interference in the marriage, but rather says that Alfonso VIII acted with the pope’s blessing as he forced Alfonso IX to divorce Teresa of Portugal and marry his own daughter instead. Howden, Chronica 3, p. 90. The Chronica latina does not mention Leonor’s possible involvement. See Lois L. Huneycutt, “Intercession and the High Medieval Queen: The Esther Topos,” in The Power of the Weak: Essays in the History of Medieval Women, ed. Sally-Beth MacLean and Jennifer Carpenter (Champaign: University of Illinois, 1995), pp. 126–46; John C. Parsons, “The Queen’s Intercession in Thirteenth-Century England,” in Power of the Weak, pp. 147–77. Howden, Chronica 3, p. 90. I have found no texts of Celestine’s condemnation or approval of the marriage. González suggests that he was inf luenced by his prelates in Spain, who desired peace and thus supported the marriage. Alfonso IX 1, p. 100. Alfonso IX 1, p. 95. The Latin phrase is “et propter nupcias datis donationibus que tante domine competebant.” DRH 7.31, p. 253; Berenguela’s arras, discussed below, was drawn up in 1199. Rodrigo’s report suggests there may have been an earlier dower agreement which is no longer extant; see below. DRH 7.31, p. 253; PCG 1104, p. 683. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 724. Mariana imaginatively suggested that Leonor’s intercession and pleadings were directed at convincing her daughter to go along with the scheme. Historia de España, p. 332. Las Huelgas 1: no. 43. Alfonso VIII’s donation to the monastery of Santa María de Tórtoles included as patrons Alfonso, Leonor, Fernando, “Queen Berenguela,” Urraca, Blanca, Constanza, and Sancha. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 674. See discussion of this charter in Chapter One, n54. This document may be misdated; the addition of a daughter Sancha and exclusion of Mafalda (if she existed) may suggest a forgery. If the
NOTES
65.
66.
67.
68.
69. 70.
71. 72.
73.
74.
195
document is misdated, perhaps by a year or so, it is all the more intriguing for its implications for Berenguela’s status either as a new mother in January 1198 or as a newly endowed bride in January 1200. Alfonso IX’s discernable itinerary for the years 1198–1200 offers no particular suggestion that the royal couple may have been visiting Castile, which does not mean, of course, that Berenguela could not have gone without him. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 681; Alfonso IX 2: no. 135. Hereafter the later edition, from the collection of documents from the reign of Alfonso VIII of Castile, is cited. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 681. Specifically, they were the following castles and towns: in Galicia, San Pelayo de Lodo, Aguilar de Mola, Alba de Bunel, Candrei, Aguilar de Pedrayo; in the Tierra del Campo, Vega, Castrogonzalo, Valencia, Cabreros, Castro de los Judíos de Mayorga, Villalugán, and Castroverde; in Somoza, Colle, Portella, Alión, and Peñafiel; in Asturias, Oviedo, Siero de Oviedo, Aguilar, Gozón, Corel, La Isla, Lugaz, Ventosa, Miranda de Nieva, Buraón, Peñafiel de Aller, and Santa Cruz de Tineo, as well as Astorga and Mansilla. See Rodríguez López, Consolidación, pp. 139, 148. See the discussion of Innocent III’s claims below, and the next chapter for discussion of the Treaties of Cabreros and Valladolid. Perhaps it is an irony of history that the principle that “there should be no marriage without endowment (ne sine dote coniugium fiat)” had its origins in Visigothic law before it found its way into canon law. Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, pp. 46–47. They were Rodrigo Pérez de Villalobos, Pedro Ferrández de Benavides, Gonzalo Rodríguez, Gonzalo Ibánez, Osorius Ibánez, Ferrando García, Nuño Rodrigo, Sebastián Gutiérrez, Pedro Peláez, Pelayo Gordon, Pelayo Subredina, Álvaro Díaz, and Fernando Núñez. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 681. For example, Gonzalo Rodríguez held Valencia for the queen in 1212. See below, and next chapter. See also Rodríguez López, Consolidación, pp. 160–61. Alfonso VIII 2: no. 681. “Et si illam captam tenuerit aut ei tam malam continentiam habuerit que sit preter rationem, et hoc emendare noluerit sicut mandauerit rex Castelle aut eius uxor.” Alfonso VIII 3: no. 681. One wonders what evil treatment would have been considered within reason. I am grateful to Professor James Brundage for guidance on the legality of such “ill treatment beyond reason.” Brundage himself chooses the meaning of “repression,” or punishment in this case. James A. Brundage, “Domestic Violence in Classical Canon Law,” in Violence in Medieval Society, ed. Richard A. Kaeuper (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000), p. 187. In between his marriages to Teresa and Berenguela, Alfonso IX had a noble mistress named Inés Iñiguez de Mendoza, with whom he had at least one child. Alfonso VIII and Leonor may have been aware of her presence; González says that the second marriage put a stop to that affair.
196
75. 76. 77.
78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.
85. 86. 87.
88. 89.
90.
NOTES
Alfonso IX 1, p. 311. Alfonso IX fathered at least ten natural children with a series of mistresses and barraganas. Some of these women are known to us, and some may have had more status as Alfonso’s partners than is readily apparent. See Flórez, Las reinas católicas v. 1, pp. 485–92. As González put it, Alfonso did his part in the efforts to repopulate the kingdom, fathering a total of nineteen children with six different women. Alfonso IX 1, p. 309. It is unknown whether any of these children were born during Berenguela’s tenure as Alfonso’s wife. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 681. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 681. Constance M. Rousseau, “Kinship Ties, Behavior Norms, and Family Counselling in the Pontificate of Innocent III,” in Women, Marriage, and Family in Medieval Christendom: Essays in Memory of Michael M. Sheehan, C.S., ed. Constance M. Rousseau and Joel Thomas Rosenthal (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1998), pp. 325–47. Demetrio Mansilla, ed. Documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III (Rome: Instituto Español de Estudios Eclesiásticos, 1955), no. 138. Mansilla, Documentación pontificia, no. 196. Mansilla, Documentación pontificia, no. 196. Howden, Chronica 4, p. 79. Mansilla, Documentación pontificia, no. 305. Mansilla, Documentación pontificia, no. 276. John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus, Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 80–86; Georges Duby, The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, trans. Barbara Bray (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), pp. 189–206. Mansilla, Documentación pontificia, no. 299. Mansilla, Documentación pontificia, no. 305. Fernando III, pp. 253–55; pp. 265–66; L. Auvray, Les Registres de Gregoire IX, recueil des bulles de ce pape publieés ou analyseés d’après les manuscrits originaux du Vatican, ed. Lucien Auvray, 4 vols. (1896–1908, repr. Paris: Fontemoing, 1955), 1: nos. 267, 628. Centuries earlier, Visigothic canons forebade royal widows to remarry in the kingdom of León, but it is unlikely that this tradition inf luenced Berenguela and her sisters. Collins, “Queens Dowager,” in Medieval Queenship, pp. 84–85 and 90. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society, p. 343. Without presuming to identify any one of these sisters as lesbian, let alone all three of them, Judith Bennett’s provocative formulation of “lesbianlike” is helpful in thinking about the reasons women might not marry, including the possibility that they did not want to. Judith M. Bennett, “ ‘Lesbian-Like’ and the Social History of Lesbianisms,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 9.1–2 ( Jan/Apr. 2000): 1–24. In 1235, Jaume married Violant of Hungary, and eventually divided his growing empire among her sons Pere and Jaume, reducing significantly the inheritance of Leonor’s son Alfonso. Thomas N. Bisson, The Medieval
NOTES
197
Crown of Aragon: A short history (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 65–68. 91. See the next chapter for Berenguela. Likewise, Blanche carefully chose brides for her sons Louis, Robert, Alphonse, and Charles. Her daughter Isabelle resisted any attempt to marry her. See William Chester Jordan, “Isabelle of France and Religious Devotion at the Court of Louis IX,” in Capetian Women, p. 214 [207–33]; Sean L. Field, Isabelle of France: Capetian Sanctity and Franciscan Identity in the Thirteenth Century (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), pp. 15–20 and 27–34. 92. Janet L. Nelson, “Medieval Queenship,” in Women in Medieval Western European Culture, ed. Linda Mitchell (New York: Garland, 1999), p. 189 [179–208]. This idea is problematic, however, for it reaffirms the notion of woman as vessel. Indeed, she was, but perhaps kings need to be understood this way too, as placeholders for royalty, and stability.
3
1197–1217: The Limits of Power and Authority
1. André Poulet, “Capetian Women and the Regency: The Genesis of a Vocation” in Medieval Queenship, pp. 108–9 [93–116]. On Blanche’s regencies, see Berger, Blanche de Castille, pp. 46–203 and 313–69; and Jacques Le Goff, Saint Louis (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1996), pp. 99–127 and 194–99. 2. Castro, Curso da história da língua, pp. 197–202. 3. Zurita, Anales de la corona de Aragón 3, p. 68. 4. Alfonso IX 2: no. 109. 5. Alfonso IX 2: no. 110. 6. Fernando II’s sisters Sancha and Constance married the kings Sancho VII of Navarre and Louis VII of France respectively. A half-sister, another Sancha, married Alfonso II of Aragón. Alfonso IX of León had no sisters. 7. Lucas of Túy, Vita s. Martini legionensis, in Patrilogiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Ed. J.-P. Migne. 1844–1855 (repr. Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), vol. 208: 17; See also Lucas de Túy, Milagros de San Isidoro, trans. [Spanish] Juan de Robles (1525), ed. José Manuel Martínez Rodríguez (León: Universidad de León, 1992), pp. 108–9. Lucas described the royal couple’s devotion to Martín, PL 208: 17. In his Chronicon mundi, while describing Berenguela’s patronage, Lucas did not mention Martín. CM 4.85, p. 326. On June 22, 1199, Alfonso IX excused all tributes from estates belonging to the same chapel at Martín’s request. Alfonso IX 2: no. 127. 8. Raymond McCluskey, “The Genesis of the Concordia of Martin of Leon,” in God and Man in Medieval Spain: Essays in Honour of J. R. L. Highfield, ed. Derek W. Lomax and David Mackenzie (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1989), pp. 26–27 [19–35]. 9. Patrimonio Cultural de San Isidoro de León. A. Serie documental. 1/1. Documentos de los siglos x–xiii: colección diplomatica, ed. Maria Encarnación Martín López (León: Universidad de León, 1995): no. 168. This charter
198
10.
11. 12.
13. 14.
15.
16. 17.
18.
19.
NOTES
is nearly identical in content to Alfonso IX’s given on the same day, although different wording confirms the use of a different chancellor. Alfonso IX 2: no. 127. John W. Williams, “León: The Iconography of the Capital,” in Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Thomas N. Bisson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), pp. 234–36, 238–39 and 249–51 [231–58]. Linehan, History and the Historians, pp. 210–14, 357–75, and 402–4. CM 4.85, p. 326. Colección documental de la catedral de Astorga II (1126–1299) ed. Gregoria Cavero Domínguez and Encarnación Martín López (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación, “San Isidoro,” 2000): no. 939. San Isidoro continued to be a focal point of royal patronage. Patrimonio San Isidoro: nos. 174 and 175; Alfonso IX 2: nos. 159 and 162. CM 4.85, p. 326. María Luisa Bueno Domínguez suggested that Berenguela and Alfonso’s 1201 donation to the cathedral of Zamora was to reward Bishop Martín for his efforts with the papacy on their behalf. Historia de Zamora: Zamora de los siglos xi–xiii (Zamora: Fundación “Ramos de Castro,” 1988), pp. 119–120. See also Peter Linehan, “Santo Martino and the Context of Sanctity in Thirteenth-century León,” in Past and Present in Medieval Spain, ed. Peter Linehan, Variorum Reprints (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1992), p. 691 [689–97], and Linehan, History and the Historians, p. 253. Diplomatic traditions, and not the relative power of the queen, go far to explain Blanche of Castile’s absence from French charters. Shadis, “Blanche of Castile,” in Capetian Women, pp. 137–61, and Nelson, “Medieval Queenship,” in Women in Medieval Western European Culture, p. 201. Alfonso IX 2: no. 112. “[S]ub rege domno Adefonso cum regina castellana domna Berengaria.” Colección diplomática del monasterio de San Vicente de Oviedo años 781–1200, ed. Pedro Floriano Llorente (Oviedo: Diputación de Asturias, CSIC, 1968), v. 1: no. 367. Historian Alexandre Herculano asserted that Oviedo uniquely objected to Berenguela’s marriage to Alfonso, and supported the interdict. Alexandre Herculano, Historia de Portugal desde o començo da monarchia até o fim do reinado de Affonso III, ed. David Lopes (Paris, Lisbon: Livrarias Aillaud & Bertrand, 1915), p. 270. A charter from San Vicente similarly described Teresa by her nationality. This may explain the clerics’ insistence on Berenguela’s identity as Castilian—a near relative. San Vicente de Oviedo 1: no. 348. “Regnante rege Alfonso cum Regina domna Berengaria in Legione et in alia multa terra.” Tumbo viejo de San Pedro de Montes ed. Augusto Quintana Prieto (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigacion “San Isidoro,” 1971): no. 254; see also no. 255. Patrimonio San Isidoro: no. 178; Colección diplomatica del monasterio de San Vicente de Oviedo: siglos xiii–xv, ed. Ma. Josefa Sanz Fuentes and Juan
NOTES
20. 21.
22.
23. 24. 25. 26.
27. 28. 29. 30.
31.
32. 33.
34. 35.
199
Ignacio Ruiz de la Peña (Oviedo: Imprenta Gofer, 1991) 1.1 (1201–1230): no. 3. “Dei gratia Legionis atque Gallecie regina.” Alfonso IX 2: no. 181. January 18, 1204 Zamora. Documentos del archivo catedralicio de Zamora primera parte, 1128–1261, ed. José Luis Martín (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad, 1982): no. 61; Bueno Domínguez, Historia de Zamora: no. 112, p. 250. María Vélaz’s grandfather was the powerful count Ponce Vela de Cabrera, her mother the countess Sancha Ponce. Barton, Aristocracy, pp. 35, 284–85. Villalobos was particularly important as one of the contested “frontier” territories between Castile and León, and Rodrigo Pérez’s role as a gobetween should be seen in this light. Rodríguez López, Consolidación, pp. 160–61, 167. Archivo catedralicio Zamora: no. 52; Bueno Domínguez, Historia de Zamora: no. 108. Alfonso IX 2: no. 165. Alfonso IX 1, pp. 18–26 and 50; González, Fernando II, pp. 69–70. Documentos del monasterio de Villaverde de Sandoval (siglos xii–xv), ed. Guillermo Castan Lanaspa (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1981): no. 5. This charter was misdated to October 26, 1168; Leonor and Alfonso married in 1170. Sandoval: nos. 11, 15, and 16. Sandoval: no. 24. Sandoval: no. 32. Sandoval: nos. 33–35 and 37; no. 39, dated October 26, 1204, is well past the time when Berenguela returned to Castile. Sandoval monks were not the only ones behind the times: documents from Carracedo note Alfonso ruling with Berenguela in June and July 1204, and as late as December 1205. Cartulario de Santa María de Carracedo 992–1500, ed. Martín Martínez Martínez, 2 vols. (Ponferrada: Instituto Estudios Bercianos, 1997), v. 1: nos. 194, 195, and 198. Although these charters often acknowledge the local lordship of the former Leonese queen Teresa of Portugal in Villafranca, several also acknowledge the reign of the Castilians before the union of Castile and León in 1230. See Carracedo: nos. 177, 210, 212, 229, 336, 349, and 350. Sandoval: no. 43. Their majordomo, Gonsalvo Rodríguez and their merino, García Rodríguez, are also named. A second document from 1208 mentions also Álvaro Nunez as alférez. Sandoval: no. 44. Sandoval: nos. 45 and 48. “Regnante rege donno Adefonso cum regina Helynore in Toleto et in Castella. Regina Beregaria possidente Valentiam. Sub mano eius Gundissalvus Roderici. Didacus Avas tenens motam Valentie. Villicus Gundissalvus Roderici.” Sandoval: no. 50; also, no. 51. Sandoval: nos. 56 and 57. Alfonso IX 2: no. 135; Alfonso VIII 3: no. 681.
200
NOTES
36. Documentos de Salamanca: nos. 108, 110, 113, and 119. The known itinerary of the Leonese court suggests Berenguela and Alfonso were in Salamanca six times between July 1197 and July 1204. Alfonso IX 2: nos. 113, 116, 130, 154, 155, and 169. See also El monasterio de Santa María de Moreruela (1143–1300), ed. María Luisa Bueno Domínguez (Zamora: Caja de Ahorros Provincial de Zamora, 1975): no. 36; “Regnante rege Alfonso in Legione et in Galletia et in omni suo regno mandante in Salamanca sub eius de Regina domna Berenguela,” dated 1200. 37. Alfonso IX 2: no. 179. 38. Alfonso VIII 2: nos. 407 and 556. 39. Dated tentatively 1202. Alfonso IX 2: no. 163. 40. Alfonso IX 2: no. 163. 41. Alfonso VIII 3: nos. 579 and 633. 42. Alfonso IX 2: no. 163. 43. Alfonso IX 2: no. 181. 44. Alfonso IX 2: nos. 183 and 185. 45. Alfonso IX 2: no. 189; Alfonso IX 1, p. 118. 46. “Regina domina Berengaria dominante Castrum Viride. Roderio Roderici sub manu Regina castrum viride tenente.” Carta de vencion deciertas heredades de Villafrontín. BN ms. 700 folio 240r. 47. Alfonso IX 2: no. 219. 48. AHN Sección Clero, Eslonza, Carpeta No. 967, charters no.1, 2, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 20 recognize Berenguela as “domina de Valencia,” (no. 1), or “regnante regina berengaria in Valencia” (the rest). Berenguela’s lordship in Valencia was also noted in the cartulary of Carracedo: Carracedo: no. 371. For Villalpando, see Cartulario de monasterio de San Pedro de Eslonza, ed. Vicente Vignau y Ballester (Madrid: La Viuda de Hernando, 1885): nos. 144, 145, and 149. 49. Aurelio Calvo, ed. San Pedro de Eslonza (Madrid: CSIC, 1957), pp. 117–18. 50. The conf lict with Algadefe and Santa Marina would have taken place between 1217 and 1230, for Berenguela is described as “Queen of Castile and Toledo,” and the petition is addressed to Alfonso IX, who died in September 1230. The members of the commission are identified by their first initials and patronymics, as well as their positions. “Abbot M. of San Isidoro” was undoubtedly Martín, abbot from at least 1222 until 1247. See San Isidoro: nos. 213 and 252. “R. Gutierrez, an archdeacon” was likely Rodrigo Gutierrez, an archdeacon of León active in 1217. José María Fernández Caton, Catálogo del archive historico diocesano de León (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro, 1978), C-11, pp. 230–32. “F. Alfonso, a canon of León” has been identified as a “juez del cabildo” serving under Alfonso IX. Tomás Villacorta Rodríguez, El cabildo catedral de León (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación “San Isidoro,” 1974), pp. 519–20, and no. 1. 51. Calvo, San Pedro de Eslonza, pp. 117–18, and no. 149. 52. Berenguela was consistently identified with the lordship of Valencia throughout her life. Five years after she died, in 1251, Fernando III
NOTES
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59. 60. 61. 62. 63.
64. 65.
201
confirmed a privilege that Berenguela had given to the alcalde in Valencia around 1224. Fernando III 3: no. 831. Documentos de la iglesia colegial de Santa María la Mayor (hoy Metropolitana) de Valladolid, ed. Manuel Mañueco Villalobos and José Zurita Nieto (Valladolid: Imp. Castellana, 1920): nos. 6, 7, 11, and 12. In 1230, the “queen’s merino” was established in Valladolid, and although it is unclear which queen—Berenguela or Beatriz—is referred to, it strongly indicates the continued lordship for the queen in that city. Santa María la Mayor: no. 28. See also Adeline Rucquoi, Valladolid en la edad media 1: Genesis de un poder (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, 1987), pp. 164–66. Patrimonio San Isidoro: no. 231; Colección documental del monasterio de Santa María de Carbajal, 1093–1461, ed. Santiago Domínguez Sánchez (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación “San Isidoro,” 2000): nos. 124 and 127. Patrimonio San Isidoro: nos. 236–38, and 241; Carbajal nos. 128–30, 132, and 133; Fernández Caton, Catálogo Catedral León, BC-15, p. 411; Villacorta Rodríguez, El cabildo catedral, p. 531. Patrimonio San Isidoro: no. 256. Martin asserts that Berenguela ceded the tenancy of León to Alfonso in 1238, but his evidence for this is unclear. “Négociation,” 50. The Castilian ad hoc approach to the problem may be compared with the Aragonese development of the office of the queen-lieutenant; see Earenfight, María of Castile, and Silleras-Fernández, María de Luna. Either Alfonso or Constanza may have been born after Berenguela’s return to Castile. Only the birth order of Leonor and Fernando is certain. González thought Leonor was probably born in the second half of 1198; calculating that Berenguela gave birth on an average of every fifteen months, he placed Constanza’s birth at the end of 1199, Fernando’s at the end of June 1201; Alfonso at the end of 1202, and Berenguela in 1204. Following Lucas of Túy, González states that Leonor died on November 12, 1202. Fernando’s birth can be confirmed to some extent by his first appearance in his parents’ charters in September, 1201, in a gift to San Isidoro: Patrimonio San Isidoro: no. 174; Fernando III 1, p. 62, nn3 and 4. González calculates Fernando’s birthdate based on the expressions of his age in the Chronica latina and the De rebus Hispanie in July 1217. Fernando III 1, p. 62, n6. CM 4.85, p. 325; Alfonso IX 1, p. 421, n11. Alfonso IX 2: nos. 156, 166 and 179. Alfonso IX 2: no. 185. DRH 8.13, p. 277. At some point after Alfonso VIII’s death, Fernando returned to his father’s kingdom, perhaps after the death of his eponymous half-brother that same year, but more likely in 1215 or 1216; see below. DRH 7.24, p. 247. CM 4.84, p. 324. The first three castles were actually given to Berenguela in 1209, and the second three in 1207. See below.
202
NOTES
66. Later, Lucas asserted that a number of the castles had been wrongfully taken from the king of León and that as a gesture of friendship Alfonso of Castile returned some of them to the Leonese, who destroyed them. Alfonso VIII’s magnanimous gesture was also possibly one of domination, as he returned the castles to Alfonso IX following the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), in which a sullen Alfonso IX had refused to participate. CM 4.91, pp. 330–31. The exchange of castles was part of a larger treaty between the kings of Portugal, León and Castile. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 749. On the difficulty of negotiating the different perspectives of Lucas and Rodrigo, see Reilly, “Bishop Lucas,” 786–88. 67. With one exception: Candrei in Galicia was later assigned to Alfonso IX’s daughters Sancha and Dulce in 1217. Alfonso IX 2: no. 342; Echegaray, Guerra y pacto, pp. 318–19. 68. Specifically, Alfonso of Castile endowed his grandson with the castles of Monreal, Carpio, Almanza, Castrotierra, Valderas, Bolaños (de Campo), Villafrechós, and two castles called Siero. Alfonso of León gave Fernando Luna, Argüello, Gordón, Ferrara, Tiedra, Arbuey, and Alba de Aliste. Alfonso IX 2: no. 205. 69. Some of Berenguela’s rents were to come from Benavente, Villafranca, and Valcárcel from which the other former queen of León, Teresa of Portugal also collected her income. Alfonso IX 2: no. 205. Other income was derived from Astorga, Avilés, Mansilla, Oviedo, Ponteferro, and whenever they would become “liberated,” the four castles of Toroño. 70. Alfonso IX 2: no. 205. These treaties, therefore, disinherited Alfonso IX’s older son Fernando from his first marriage. 71. Roger Wright, El tratado de Cabreros (1206): estudio sociofilológico de una reforma ortográfica (London: Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, 2000). 72. Namely, the castles of Argüello, Gordón, Luna, Alba de Aliste, Tiedra, Cabreros, Villalugán, Peñafiel, Almanza, and Portella. Alfonso IX 2: no. 219. 73. Alfonso IX 2: no. 251. González says that this treaty was necessary because of trouble caused by rogue knights, both Castilian and Leonese, along the Castile-León frontier, and implies that Berenguela inf luenced the outcome of the treaty in favor of the Castilians. Alfonso IX 1, pp. 129–31; Echegaray, Guerra y pacto, p. 328; Rodríguez López, Consolidación, pp. 166–67. 74. Patrimonio San Isidoro: no. 194. The document was also confirmed by “Fernando Reyna” [Fernandus Regine] “Reyna” was possibly a matronymic, but more likely “Fernando Regine” was one of the queen’s men. 75. CM 4.84, p. 324. 76. Patrimonio San Isidoro: no. 228. 77. In June 1227, a gift to the monastery of Carracedo recognized Berenguela as the “lady of Villalpando,” [sennora de Villalpando]. Don Lope held the tenancy of Villalpando from Berenguela, and Álvaro Fernández held it from Don Lope. Carracedo: no. 324.
NOTES
78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.
85.
86.
87. 88. 89. 90.
91. 92.
93.
94.
203
Rodríguez López, Las Huelgas de Burgos 1: no. 51; Las Huelgas 1: no. 93. CL 18, pp. 52–53; DRH 7.35, p. 257. CL 20, pp. 55–56; DRH 7.36, p. 258. CL 20, p. 56. CL 25, p. 64; CM 4.91, p. 331. CL 31, p. 73. Martin sees this as another instance of Juan attempting to reduce Berenguela’s role. “Négociation,” 7. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 963. Italics added. Realizing he was ill, Alfonso VIII confirmed and updated his will of 1204. Thus his previous intention to have Leonor serve as regent and corule with her son remained valid. Alfonso VIII 3: nos. 969 and 976. Rodrigo was absent brief ly during the Fall of 1215, when he attended the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome. See Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, pp. 65–66; Linehan, History and the Historians, pp. 328–31. DRH 9.1, p. 281. Doubleday argues that Rodrigo’s perspective was skewed, as he received many royal favors that ceased when Berenguela lost the regency. Doubleday also argues that the passage shows that “a rather broad segment of the aristocracy was ill at ease with Berenguela’s regency.” Lara Family, p. 53. It is unclear, however, whether it was Berenguela herself, her gender, or regency that made the nobles uneasy. CM 4.85, p. 326. DRH 9.1, p. 281; Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 150–70; Doubleday, Lara Family, pp. 36–38. Doubleday, Lara Family, p. 52; CL 64, pp. 52–53. Doubleday says that Berenguela granted Rodrigo jurisdiction over Milagro. Lara Family, p. 53. The relevant charter is Alfonso VIII 3: no. 965, dated November 6, 1214, immediately after Enrique’s acclamation as king. Enrique issued the charter which does not mention Berenguela, but it may be correct to assume her inf luence here. Other privileges granted to Rodrigo include Alfonso VIII 3: nos. 964 and 966–68. Martin considers these impulses in the context of resistance to Berenguela’s regency of Enrique I. “Négociation,” 8. A husband might have provided Berenguela with the appropriate military foil to her feminine identity, but any marriage under the circumstances would have been seen as an attempt at a royal coup. Weissberger considers the legacy of this ideology for Queen Isabel in the fifteenth century; even ceremonial sword-wielding was distinctly gendered. Isabel Rules, pp. 44–47. CL 31: p. 73. Enrique’s confirmation of his father’s testament, dated January 18, 1215, is the first (and possibly only) charter issued by Enrique to acknowledge his sister’s role. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 976. ACT Z.9.M.1.2. described in Cartularios de Toledo, no. 358. This is the only known extant seal belonging to Berenguela. One manuscript copy of an 1198 charter describes Berenguela’s seal depicting the arms of León on one side and a queen on the other. Fueros y privilegios (León), BN ms 6683, f. 82; Colección documental Astorga 2: no. 939.
204
NOTES
95. 96. 97. 98.
99. 100.
101. 102.
103.
104.
105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.
Rezak, “Seals,” in Women and Power, p. 73. DRH 8.1, p. 282. DRH 9.1, p. 281, and CL 31, p. 73. DRH 9.1, p. 281–82. Archbishop Rodrigo says that he received the promise of homage and fealty. It is not clear whether Rodrigo means instead of, or as well as, to Berenguela. Juan of Osma does not mention the archbishop. CL 31, p. 73. Archbishop Rodrigo’s revision of events highlights his own role in Enrique’s government, as well as his loss of power; it obscures Berenguela’s central role. For Rodrigo, an essential point is that Álvaro and his men had reason to be considered “pernicious traitors.” Cirot, who edited the Chronica latina in the early part of the twentieth century, interpreted the chronicler to mean that homage was performed to Berenguela, but “entre les mains” of the archbishop: Rodrigo acted as Berenguela’s appropriate, male proxy. See G. Cirot, “Chronique latine des rois de Castille,” Bulletin Hispanique 19 (1913): 83, n6 [2–101]. The text itself, however, does not demonstrate this. CM 4.92, p. 332. AHN, Codice L. 976 Tumbo de Sobrado, folio 77. González suggests that the presence of such “personages” probably indicates an agreement between the two kingdoms at this time. Extant documents reveal Alfonso IX’s presence in nearby Benavente (March 7) and Astorga (March 22), supporting this hypothesis. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 222. Fernando III, p. 70. Berenguela may have adopted this motto from Pope Clement III; it appears on the papal bull recognizing the foundation of Las Huelgas photographed in Valentín de la Cruz, El monasterio de Santa María la Real de Huelgas de Burgos (Editorial Everest, S.A., León 1990). See also, Muñoz y Rivero, “Signo rodado,” 224–25. Psalm 142:10: “doce me ut faciam voluntatem tuam/ quia tu Deus meus/ spiritus tuus bonus deducet me in terra recta.” Biblia sacra: iuxta vulgatem versionem, ed. Robertus Weber and Roger Gryson (Stuttgart, Deutsche Bibel Gesellschaft, 1969, 1994). “Regnante rege Henrico cum sorore sua regina Berengaria in Toleto et Castella.” Graciliano Roscales Olea, Monasterio de Santa María de la Vega (cartulario e historia) (Palencia: Diputación de Palencia, 2000): no. 4; Lupián Zapata, Epitome, p. 76. Lupián Zapata also describes a royal privilege dated May 6, given in Logroño, from Enrique acting “cum sorore mea Regina Berengaria.” Epitome, p. 77. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 1007. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 981; DRH 9.1, p. 281. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 227; Alfonso IX 2: nos. 334 and 340; Alfonso VIII 3: no. 1005. CL 23, p. 73. Doubleday, Lara Family, p. 54. DRH 9.1, p. 282.
NOTES
205
111. CL 32, p. 73–74. Members of the Giron family had consistently functioned as the majordomo at the courts of Alfonso VIII and Fernando III. Ana Rodríguez López, “Linajes nobiliarios y monarquía castellanoleonesa en la primera mitad del siglo xiii,” Hispania 53/3 n. 185 (1993): 845–46 [841–59]; Rodríguez López, Consolidación, pp. 148–50. 112. DRH 9.2, p. 282. Rodrigo named “Lupus Didaci de Faro, Gunsaluus Roderici et fratres eius, Rodericus Roderici et Aluarus Didaci de Camberis, Aldefonsus Telli de Menesis et alii nobiles.” 113. González believes that these were the places, rents, and services of Valencia, Castroverde, Castrogonzalo, Bolaños, and Villafrechós given to Berenguela in the Treaty of Burgos in 1207. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 226, n306. Her former husband, not her father, endowed Berenguela in this treaty, although probably Alfonso VIII played a large part in obtaining these grants for his daughter. Alfonso IX 2: no. 219. 114. Demetrio Mansilla, Iglesia castellano-leonesa y curia romana en los tiempos del Rey Fernando: estudio documental sacado de los registros vaticanos (Madrid: CSIC, Instituto Francisco Suárez, 1945), Appendix no. 1, p. 272. 115. DRH 9.2, p. 282. 116. DRH 9.3, p. 283. 117. CL 32, pp. 74–75; DRH 9.3, p. 283. 118. Furthermore, reigning kings generally were not assassinated in this period. Doubleday, Lara Family, pp. 52, and 55–56. Lucas of Túy does not mention this matter. 119. CL 32, p. 75. 120. CL 32, p. 75. Here Rodrigo differs on chronology, DRH 9.2, p. 282. Doubleday says Berenguela’s “forces captured Autillo.” Lara Family, p. 55. 121. DRH 9.3, p. 283. 122. DRH 9.3–4, p. 284. 123. CL 32, p. 76; also DRH 9.4, p. 284. 124. DRH 9.2, p. 283. González suggests that Berenguela may have called Innocent’s attention to the marriage through bishops dispatched to the pope. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 229. See also Luciano Serrano, Don Mauricio, obispo de Burgos y fundador de su catedral (Madrid: Blass, S.A., 1922), pp. 33–34, and Demetrio Mansilla, Inocencio III y los reinos hispanos (Rome: Iglesia Nacional Espanola, 1953), p. 30, n30. 125. DRH 9.2, p. 283. Mafalda was known for her sanctity; her subsequent reputation, which Archbishop Rodrigo helped to create, depended upon her previous chastity. See Flórez, las reinas católicas, pp. 534–38. Álvaro’s personal ambition goes unmentioned in the Chronica latina, and this is another example of either Rodrigo’s privy knowledge or his spite. Lupián Zapata’s spin was that Mafalda, having been promised a king, was insulted when offered a mere vassal, and thus chose the convent. Epítome, p. 84. 126. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 233–36; DRH 9.3, pp. 283–84.
206
NOTES
127. What were these boys doing on the roof? Rodrigo says they were unsupervised. DRH 9.4, p. 284. CL 32, p. 76, says that someone threw a rock and accidentally wounded the king that way. A late source identifies the unfortunate youth who threw the projectile as Iñigo Mendoza, who had recently joined Enrique’s court. Colección de los primeros fueros y leyes generales de Castilla, Manuscript, Hispanic Society of America HC NS4/607, Folio 115 r. See Doubleday, Lara Family, pp. 56–57; see also CM 4.92, p. 332. Enrique died on May 26, 1217; Latin Chronicle, p. 73, n15; Alfonso VIII 1, p. 233, n340. 128. CL 32, p.76; DRH 9.4, p. 285 also. Enrique’s skull can be identified among the royal bones at Las Huelgas because of the neat square hole in it, the effect of trepanation. Victor Escribano García, “La calavera de Enrique I de Castilla,” Boletín de la institución Fernán González 27 (1949): 250–64. 129. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 237, n335; Doubleday, Lara Family, pp. 55–57. Martin also suspects Berenguela’s “friend” Bishop Tello of Palencia, in whose court the accident purportedly took place. “Négociation,” 12. 130. CL 33, p. 76; DRH 9.4, p. 285; Fernando III 1, pp. 235–36. 131. This fits, however, with some modern historians’ assessment that Juan of Osma sought to elevate Fernando at the expense of Berenguela. See Martin, Hernández, and Linehan, cited throughout. 132. Rodrigo suggests that Alfonso suspected the real reason behind Fernando’s departure, but was persuaded to let him go anyway. DRH 9.4, p. 285. 133. Shadis, “Blanche of Castile,” in Capetian Women, pp. 144–46.
4
The Labors of Ruling: The Mothering Queen
1. Janet L. Nelson, “Early Medieval Rites of Queen-Making and the Shaping of Medieval Queenship,” in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference Held at King’s College April 1995, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997), pp. 301–15; Ordines Coronationis Franciae: Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages, ed. Richard A. Jackson, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995); John Carmi Parsons, “Ritual and Symbol in English Medieval Queenship to 1500,” in Women and Sovereignty, ed. Louise Olga Fradenburg (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1992), pp. 61–65 [60–72]. 2. Poulet, “Capetian Women and the Regency,” in Medieval Queenship, pp. 93–116. 3. Jordan discusses the distinction between informal power, associated generically with women, and authority, associated with men. Women, Power and Religious Patronage, pp. 21–24, and 33–34. 4. Shadis, “Blanche of Castile,” in Capetian Women, p. 143. 5. CL 33, p. 77.
NOTES
207
6. DRH 9.4, p. 285. 7. CL 33, p. 77; Rucquoi, Valladolid en la edad media, v.1, pp. 164–65. 8. CL 33, p. 77. The queen’s party was received in San Justo, but in nowhere else in Castilian Extremadura; DRH 9.4, p. 285. 9. DRH 9.4, p. 285; CL 34–35, pp. 77–78; Doubleday, Lara Family, p. 57. 10. According to Rodrigo the houses were too crowded together, and the streets were too narrow. DRH 9.5, p. 286. 11. CL 35, p. 78. 12. CL 35, 78–79; see also DRH 9.5, pp. 285–96; PCG 1029, p. 713. 13. “ . . . nolens destiture Castellam proprii regis solatio,” CL 35, p. 78. 14. CL 43, p. 85; Hernández, “La corte de Fernando III,” pp. 116–24, and Linehan, “Apostillas,” p. 377, in Fernando III y su tiempo; Martin, “Négociation,” 19–21. 15. DRH 9.5, pp. 285–286. Lucas emphasized not the drama of these developments but rather the good fortune in Fernando’s rule (fortune nonetheless guided by the king’s mother). CM 4.93, p. 332. 16. Martin, “Négociation,” 20. 17. CL 33, p. 76; DRH 9.5, pp. 285–86; CM 4.93, p. 332. O’Callaghan believes the charter referred to was a separate charter, “not extant, it was likely drafted during the curia of Carrión in 1188.” The Latin Chronicle, p. 74, n3. See Chapter Two. 18. Both Juan and Rodrigo refer to Berenguela’s femininity or gender in framing her “renunciation”; Martin, “Berenguela,” in Historia de las mujeres, pp. 574–75; see also Martin, “Négociation.” 19. Martin, “Négociation,” 23. 20. DRH 9.5, p. 286. 21. But not a cortes precisely, given the irregularity of the meeting and the partisan nature of the participants. Martínez Diez, “Curia y cortes,” in Las Cortes de Castilla y León, p. 146. 22. DRH 9.5, p. 286; CL 36, p. 79. 23. CL 36, p. 94; DRH 9.5, p. 286. 24. CL 36–37, p. 80; see also DRH 9.6, p. 287. 25. CL 37, p. 80; DRH 9.6, p. 287. 26. DRH 9.6–7, pp. 287–88; CL 37, p. 80. 27. DRH 9.6, p. 286–87; CL 36, p. 79. 28. CL 37, p. 80; DRH 8.7, p. 287. 29. Michael Enright, Lady with a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from la Tène to the Viking Age (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1996), pp. 21–22, and 29–30 on the keeping and dispensing of royal treasure and gifts. 30. DRH 9.7, p. 288, echoing CL 38, p. 80. 31. CL 38, p. 81. Archbishop Rodrigo enthusiastically repeated the story, as did the Primera crónica general, stressing Álvaro’s humiliation. DRH 9.7, p. 288; PCG 1031, p. 716. 32. CL 38, p. 81. Lucas of Túy only hints at Berenguela’s role in capturing Álvaro and acquiring his castles; CM 4.94, p. 333.
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33. Crónica de la población de Avila, ed. Amparo Hernández Segura (Valencia: Anubar, 1966), p. 40. Berenguela is the “fija del mejor señor que en el mondo ovo e mas desventurado.” It is unclear why Alfonso VIII would be characterized as unlucky, whether as the most unlucky ruler (e más), or as the best ruler, albeit (e mas) unlucky, perhaps because of the deaths of his sons. Here the Crónica prefigures the characterization of the sinful and sonless Alfonso VIII in Sancho IV’s Castigos. See Chapter 1. 34. Crónica de Avila, p. 40. For the probable date, see Hernández Segura, Crónica de Avila, p. 14. I thank Cynthia L. Chamberlin for sharing her translation. 35. Exiled from Castile, Álvaro died soon after. Doubleday suggests that Berenguela had Álvaro tortured in retaliation for his earlier mistreatment of her follower, Gonzalo Rodríguez Girón; Lara Family, pp. 57, and 155, n75, citing Alfonso IX 1, pp. 183–84. 36. Rodríguez López, “Sucesión regia y legitimidad política,” 41. 37. CL 40, p. 84 calls it as outright rebellion; See Fernando III 1, p. 139. On the timing and nature of these rebellions, and the veracity of the letters in the French archives despite their obvious problems, and the nature of these disputes, see Ana Rodríguez López, “Quod alienus regnet et heredes expellatur. L’offre du trône de Castille au roi Louis VIII de France,” Le Moyen Âge 105.1 (1999): 101–128; Rodríguez López, “Légitimation royale et discours sur la croisade en Castille aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles,” Journal des Savants 1 (2004): 136–38 [129–63]; and “Linajes nobiliarios,” 850–52, 858; See also Hernández, “La corte de Fernando III,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, pp. 110–19. 38. Layettes 2: nos. 1813–21 (improbably dated to 1226, the first year of Louis VIII’s reign). In all, the Castilians included Rodrigo Díaz de Cameros (Layettes, no. 1813); Gonzalo Pérez de Molina (no. 1814), Rodrigo González de Orbaneja (no. 1815), S. Perez de Gavara (no. 1816), Álvaro González de Orbaneja (no. 1817), Pedro González de Marañón (no. 1818), P. Díaz (no. 1819), García Ordoñez de Roa (no. 1820) and G, count of Ferrara (no. 1821). Rodríguez López, “Quod alienus . . . ,” pp. 126–27. See also Berger, Blanche de Castille, pp. 31, 33 and 35–36; Gérard Sivéry, Blanche de Castille (Paris: Fayard, 1990), pp. 76–78; Doubleday, Lara Family, p. 63, n9; and below. This maneuver had a historiographic impact as well. Lupián Zapata defended Berenguela as the eldest, but others, such as Juan de Mariana, thought Blanche had been cheated of her rightful inheritance. However, Mariana finesses the point, acknowledging that Berenguela was the legitimate heir, having been twice declared so by her father. “Tratado apologetico en defensa de mayoria de la Reina Doña Berenguela; y el derecho que tuvo a los reynos,” in Lupián Zapata, Epitome, pp. 33–47; Mariana, Historia de España, pp. 350–51. Hernandez, “La Corte de Fernando III,” citing Le Nain de Tillemont, in Fernando III y su tiempo, p. 113. 39. Carlos Estepa Díez, “Frontera, nobleza y señoríos en Castilla: El señorío de Molina (siglos xii–xiii),” Studia historica. Historia Medieval 24 (2006): 68–82 [15–86].
NOTES
209
40. CL 38: p. 82; DRH 9.8, pp. 288–89. 41. Alfonso IX 2: no. 350 (November 26, 1217); See also DRH 9.9, p. 289. 42. AHN Sección Clero: Palencia, Nuestra Sra. de Benevivere, Carpeta 162, no. 10. 43. For example, Crónica anónima de Sahagun, ed. Antonio Ubieto Arteta (Zaragoza: Pedro Garcés Cariñena, 1987), p. 135. 44. Epistolae saeculi xiii e regestis pontificum romanorum selectae per G. H. Pertz, ed. Carolus Rodenberg, 3 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1883–94), v. 1: no. 762, p. 662. Modern historians might prefer the term “queen mother” rather than queen, but this is how Berenguela designated herself. 45. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, p. 235; Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation, p. 75. 46. CL 40, p. 82. 47. CL 40, p. 82; DRH 9.10, pp. 290–91. In 1222, Honorius III confirmed Beatriz’s dower: Demetrio Mansilla, ed., La documentación pontificia de Honorio III (1216–1227) (Rome: Instituto Español de Estudios Eclesiásticos, 1965): no. 411; See also Serrano, Don Mauricio, p. 45. 48. Serrano, Don Mauricio, pp. 42–43. 49. Linehan, History and the Historians, pp. 594 and 596–97. 50. Flórez, Las reinas católicas, v.1, p. 554, implies she buckled the swordbelt on Fernando after he donned another “belt of knighthood,” but Rodrigo uses the verb “deaccinxit.” DRH 9.10, p. 291. Rodrigo was present and as a senior churchman may have inf luenced the liturgy. Cf. Ruiz, “Unsacred Monarchy,” p. 124, and Linehan, History and the Historians, pp. 593–95; and p. 595, nn123–24. Alfonso X forbid women to create knights: “Moreover, the ancients held that an empress, or a queen, notwithstanding she might inherit her dignity, had no authority to create a knight, although she could request or command certain knights in her dominions, who had the right to confer the order of knighthood, to do so.” Partidas, 2.21.11. Alfonso X did not, however, forbid women from un-buckling a knight’s belt and thus confirming his knighthood; he was, however uncomfortably, fully aware of his grandmother’s precedent. PCG 1034, pp. 718–19. 51. CL 40, p. 84. A charter dated December 12, 1219 from Burgos refers to Fernando’s knighting and his wedding, but not the cortes. Fernando III 2: no. 93. Both Juan of Osma and Rodrigo relate that the parliament was attended by all nobles, lords, knights, and important men of the kingdom. DRH 9.10, p. 291. From the presence of noble women, Evelyn Procter assumes this cortes was purely ceremonial; Curia and Cortes, pp. 77–78. Given Berenguela’s usual presence, Procter’s characterization of the cortes deserves review; later queens, such as María de Molina, participated in full, genuine cortes. Procter also notes that this was similar to the parliament held at the marriage of Fernando’s sister Berenguela to Jean de Brienne in 1224. The complement of estates present and the implied expense suggests a working cortes was convened. Martínez Diez, “Curia y Cortes,” in Las Cortes de Castilla y León, p. 146.
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52. DRH 9.10, p. 291; see also CL 40, p. 83. 53. Despite being sent to her grandmother’s care in León, María died as an infant. Although Beatriz died in Toro and was buried in Las Huelgas, María was buried at San Isidoro in León. Berenguela held León at the time. CM 4.101, p. 340. 54. For example, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, Vita Ludovici noni, RHF, v. 20, p. 4; See also Joinville, The Life of Saint Louis, trans. René Hague (London: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 16.71, p. 41. 55. DRH 9.10, p. 290. 56. DRH 9.18, p. 300. The later Primera crónica general implies that Fernando asked his mother to find his new bride; PCG 1048, p. 735. 57. Teulet, ed. Layettes 2: no. 1713; Berger, Blanche de Castille, p. 201; and Jean Richard, Saint Louis, Crusader King of France, trans. Jean Birrell, abridged and ed. Simon Lloyd (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 32 and 56–57. 58. Berger, Blanche de Castille, p. 326, citing Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Henry Richards Luard 4 vols. (1872–83, Reprint: Wiesbaden: Kraus Reprints, 1964): 3, pp. 327–28; see also Fernando III 1, p. 114. Fernando’s seven sons left little likelihood that a future king of Castile would become count of Ponthieu. Eventually, Fernando’s daughter Eleanor inherited the county from her mother. Fernando III 1, p. 114; Teulet, Layettes, 2: nos. 2699–2700; Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, pp. 32–33. 59. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, pp. 235–40 and 364–65. 60. Cynthia L. Chamberlin, “The ‘Sainted Queen’ and the ‘Sin of Berenguela’: Teresa Gil de Vidaure and Berenguela Alfonso in Documents of the Crown of Aragon, 1255–1272,” in Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of Robert I. Burns, S.J., ed. Larry J. Simon (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 303–21. On Juan Alfonso, see Fernando III 1, p. 88; Mansilla, Iglesia castellano-leonesa: no. 53, p. 319; and Peter Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 230. 61. Estepa Díez points out that no specific evidence ties the marriage of Alfonso and Mafalda to the treaty of Zafra. However, the treaty, the marriage, and the subsequent patronage of the monastery of Buenafuente were all steps in the same process of the pacification of the Lara. We should expect to see marriage play a role in these negotiations. “Frontera, nobleza y señoríos,” 73. See also Hernández, “La Corte de Fernando III,” p. 119. 62. On the peace of Zafra, see DRH 9.11, p. 292; CL 41, p. 84; and PCG 1035, p. 719. On Buenafuente, see María del Carmen Villar Romero, Defensa y repoblación de la línea del Tajo en un lugar determinado de la provincia de Guadalajara: monasterio de Santa María de Buenafuente (Zaragoza: Caja de Ahorros de Zaragoza, Aragón y Rioja, 1987), pp. 20–21, and appendix, no. 19; Fernando III 1, p. 88, and Fernando III 3: no. 703. See also Rodríguez López, “Quod alienus . . . ” 122–23; and “Linajes nobiliarios,” 852. See also Doubleday, Lara Family, pp. 63–64. Estepa Díez says that
NOTES
63. 64. 65.
66. 67.
68.
69. 70.
71.
72.
211
Alfonso sold the monastery to his mother-in-law who then converted the institution into one for women; Estepa Díez does not appear to have consulted Villar Romero. “Frontera, nobleza y señoríos,” 80. Martin, Négociation, 44–46. Fernando III 3: no. 533. Fernando III’s legitimacy might have been the issue. Fernando III 1, pp. 247–49. Innocent III had declared Alfonso IX’s children with Berenguela illegitimate, but in 1218 Honorius III legitimized Fernando as his father’s heir. Mansilla, Honorio III, no. 179, pp. 141–42. Interestingly Alfonso IX made no plans for Alfonso de Molina, which would have fit with tradition. Two generations earlier Alfonso VII intended to have his sons Sancho and Fernando rule Castile and León separately. Reilly, Alfonso VII, pp. 128–29, 134–38, and 144–45. Alfonso IX 2: no. 342. Alfonso IX 2: nos. 346 and 347; also nos. 372, 378, 411, and 523. Alfonso acted “with the consent” of his daughters in a few important charters late in his reign, in which the infantas also participated in the agreements being made, including a fuero for the newly conquered town of Cáceres, and two charters of agreement with the Order of Santiago. Alfonso IX 2: nos. 596–97, 613, and 620. Earlier examples of infantas confirming come from Urraca’s court, where her sisters Sancha and Elvira, and her daughter Sancha regularly confirmed royal charters. The latter Sancha was a powerful presence throughout the reign of her brother Alfonso VII. His daughters confirmed his charters in the last year of his life (1157), but only one, Constanza, did so regularly in earlier years. Reilly, Alfonso VII, pp. 139–41, 144, and 151. For Sancha see also, but with caution: García Calles, Doña Sancha. That the practice fell into desuetude is probably due to a lack of royal sisters in the intervening generation as well as the split between Castile and León. Alfonso IX 2: no. 350. Alfonso IX included his brother and mayordomo Sancho Fernández in this agreement. Sancho Fernández died in 1220, having fallen from favor after 1218. On Sancho’s potential as an heir to the throne, see Alfonso IX 1, p. 187. Alfonso IX 2: no. 372. Alfonso IX 2: nos. 373 and 415. The king of Portugal was Sancha and Dulce’s maternal uncle Afonso II. Charters between 1217 and 1230: Alfonso IX 2: nos. 339, 372, 415–16, 435–36, 441, 547–48, 550, 613, and 620. Martin has pointed to the increased inf luence of the Portuguese at Alfonso IX’s court in this period. “Négociation,” 29–31. Alfonso IX 2: no. 620. An unpublished charter shows that Sancha and Dulce were recognized as heirs outside of the king’s court: “Regnante Rege dompno Alfonso cum filiabus suis infantibus dompna Sancia et dompna dulcia in legion, gallecia, asturiis et Extremadura.” Madrid, AHN Sección Clero, Catedral de Salamanca, carpeta 1881, nos. 17 and 18 [16 and 18 December 1223]. Fernando III 1, pp. 250–51; CL 42, p. 84.
212
NOTES
73. DRH 7.13, p. 247; CM 4, p. 325. 74. CL 42, pp. 84–85. 75. Jean had married Marie de Montferrat (d. 1219); their only daughter Yolande, queen of Jerusalem (d. 1228), was the second wife of Emperor Frederick II. 76. CL 42, p. 85, states that upon leaving, the infanta and her husband were given a “generous gift” [munera larga] and commended to God. 77. Fernando III 1, p. 252, n94. 78. CL 42, p. 85. 79. CL 60, p. 103. 80. CL 60, p. 103. 81. DRH 9.14, p. 295. 82. DRH 9.14, p. 295; see also CL 60, pp. 103–4. 83. DRH 9.14, p. 296; CL 60, p. 104. 84. DRH 9.14, p. 296. 85. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 681. 86. DRH 9.14, p. 296. 87. For example, Alfonso IX 2: nos. 607, 610, 618, and 619 (from 1229 to 1230). 88. CL 60, p. 104. 89. DRH 9.14, p. 295. 90. DRH 9.15, p. 296. 91. CM 4, p. 339; DRH 9.14–15, p. 296; see also Fernando III 1, p. 256. 92. DRH 9.14, p. 296. 93. CL 60, p. 104. 94. DRH 9.15, p. 296; Fernando III 2: no. 270. The Chronica latina echoes the treaty almost verbatim, because it may have been the Castilian chancellor, Juan of Osma, who prepared the treaty. CL 60, p. 104; Fernando III 1, pp. 504–9. 95. See Chapter 3, n. 68, p. 202. 96. Fernando III 2: no. 270. 97. Rodríguez López, “Sucesión regia y legitimidad política,” 31. 98. DRH 9.15, p. 297. 99. CM 4.99, p. 339. 100. Martin suggests that the women’s gender permitted the conf lict to be resolved by negotiation instead of warfare—and a humiliating defeat for the Leonese who remained loyal to Sancha and Dulce. “Négociation,” 35. 101. PCG 1036, p. 720; DRH 9.12, p. 292. But see Linehan, “Don Rodrigo and the Government of the Kingdom,” CLCHM 26 (2003): 98–99 [87–99]. 102. Mansilla, Iglesia castellano-leonesa: nos. 50, 52, 54, 62, and 63. For August 15, 1256, Louis IX’s chancellor Jean Sarrasin noted expenses in Paris “pro fratre regis Hispaniae et pro universitate clericorum . . .” Tabulae Ceterae, RHF 21, pp. 328b; Fernando III 1, p. 112. 103. Kristen died a few years later, but Felipe then married the Castilian noblewoman Leonor Ruiz de Castro. Munch, Sancha, and Gayangos,
NOTES
104. 105. 106.
107.
108. 109.
110. 111. 112. 113. 114.
115. 116. 117. 118. 119.
120. 121.
213
“La princesa Cristina de Noruega y el Infante Don Felipe, Hermano de Don Alfonso el Sabio,” BRAH 74 (1919): 39–65; Regino Inclán Inclán, “Sepulcro del Infante D. Felipe, Hijo del Rey Fernando III El Santo,” BRAH 75 (1919): 143–84, especially Appendix 2: 169. DRH 9.12, p. 292; PCG 1036, p. 720. Mansilla, Iglesia castellano-leonesa: no. 57. Mansilla, Iglesia castellano-leonesa: no. 71; Fernando III 1, p. 112; Hernández, Cartularios de Toledo: no. 500. Mansilla, Iglesia castellano-leonesa, p. 187, n192. Berenguela’s eponymous granddaughter entered Las Huelgas as a child oblate in 1241. There is no evidence that the elder Berenguela was behind this profession, although it seems logical that she was involved in, and approved it. See Shadis, “Piety, Politics and Power,” in Cultural Patronage, pp. 208–9; Gayoso, “The Lady of Las Huelgas,” 92–116. Chapter One provides a literary example of Leonor at court. See also Procter, Curia and Cortes, pp. 19–21, 134, and 233–34; Earenfight, “Maria of Castile, Ruler or Figurehead?,” 45–61. Nelson, “Medieval Queens,” p. 200. Queens did sit in judgment in literature, however. Lupián Zapata cites a cortes in 1239, which Berenguela attended. Epítome, p. 132. He may be confused about the date of Fernando III’s marriage to Jeanne de Ponthieu in 1237, when Fernando held a cortes to celebrate the wedding. O’Callaghan, Cortes of Castile-León, p. 82. CL 44, p. 87. Libro de los fueros de Castilla, ed. Galo Sanchez (Barcelona: El Abir, 1981), p. 3. Crónica anónima de Sahagún, p. 139. Colección de los primeros fueros, folio 115r. Lisa Bitel, Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400–1100 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 278; Huneycutt, “Intercession,” pp. 126–46; Parsons, “The Queen’s Intercession,” pp. 147–77. O’Callaghan, The Latin Chronicle, p. 125, n2; Fernando III 1, pp. 132–33. Mencia’s mother was Fernando’s half-sister, Urraca Alfonso, one of Alfonso IX’s natural children. CL 66, p. 108. CL 66–67, pp. 108–9. In the meantime, Berenguela also ameliorated the situation with Lope Díaz, who recognized the king’s suzerainty over his castles, and received them properly from the king through his bailiff. Berenguela promised him this tenancy for fifty years, and Fernando confirmed Berenguela’s promise. CL 66, p. 108. Martin suggests the women’s intervention enabled the preservation of male honor. “Négociation,” 38–41. “domine regine, matri mee, in principio regni me impendistis,” Fernando III 2: no. 8 (Nov. 26, 1217). AHN Sección Ordenes Militares, Ucles, Carpeta no. 311, nos. 10 and 11.
214
NOTES
122. One record of a sale between María Díaz and the monastery of Santa María de Aguilar del Campóo notes the reign of Fernando “in Toledo and in Castile and in León and in Galicia and in Cordoba with his mother Queen Berenguela” in 1237. AHN Cleros 944B; Becerro mayor del monasterio premonstratenses de Santa María de Aguilar de Campóo, 91r. There are many, many more examples to be had; thus far out of a random sampling of documents, I have noted similar “regnante” clauses for 1218, 1222, 1224, 1234, 1235, 1236, 1237, and 1243. Regarding Berenguela’s loss of power, see Linehan, “Apostillas,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, pp. 389–90; and Linehan, “Don Rodrigo,” 95, 99. 123. Mansilla, Honorio III: no. 548; M. León Cadier, Bulles originals du XIIIe siècle conserves dans les archives de Navarre (Rome: L’école française, 1887): no. 23. 124. Epistolae saeculi xiii, ed. Rodenberg, v. 1: no. 762. Fernando wrote to Gregory at the same time, including a claim to Fadrique’s imperial inheritance. Rodenberg, Epistolae saeculi xiii, nos. 760 and 761. In a highly speculative and provocative discussion, Martin suggests, following Linehan’s lead, that Berenguela may have been writing to the pope to complain about her increasing ostracism at Fernando’s court. Martin, “Négociation,” 50. Without greater evidence, it is uncertain that Berenguela’s release of the tenancy of León and general retirement were not due to her age and indeed the fulfillment of her life’s work. 125. Elaine Tuttle Hansen, “The Powers of Silence: The Case of the Clerk’s Griselda,” in Women and Power, pp. 230–49; Michelle Freeman, “The Power of Sisterhood: Marie de France’s ‘Le Fresne,’ ” in Women and Power, pp. 250–64; Joan Ferrante, “Public Postures and Private Maneuvers: Roles Medieval Women Play,” in Women and Power, pp. 213–29.
5
“The things that please God and men”: Berenguela, Conquest, and Crusade
1. CM 4.100, pp. 339–40. 2. Lucas authored De altera vita fideique controversies adversus albigensium errors libri III between 1230 and 1240, and was deeply concerned about the presence of heretics in León. Lucas of Túy, De altera uita, ed. Juan de Mariana (Ingolstadt: Hertfroy, 1612). Evidence for large, organized groups of heretics, however, is scanty. Javier Faci Lacasta and Antonio Oliver, “Los estamentos eclesiasticos y las estructuras socials en los siglos xii y xiii,” Historia de la iglesia en España: la iglesia en la España de los siglos viii al xiv, ed. Javier Fernández Conde, 2 vols. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1982), v. 2, pp. 104–11. 3. PCG 1132, pp. 772–73. 4. Rodríguez López, “Légitimation royale,” 132–36. 5. Rodríguez López, “Légitimation royale,” 156–60. 6. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 10.
NOTES
215
7. Blanche’s reaction, “when she heard that he [Louis IX] had taken the Cross, as he told her, too, himself, she was as miserable as if she had seen him dead,” is well known. Joinville, Life of St. Louis, p. 51. At the same time, Blanche clearly supported crusading itself. Matthew Paris relates that the queen took a vow as Louis’s proxy when he was seriously ill. Probably she did not expect that he would fulfill the vow personally, but rather would support a crusade financially. Paris, Chronica Majora 4: pp. 397–98; Berger, Blanche de Castille, pp. 368–69. 8. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 3. 9. Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), pp. 18–25. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, pp. 31–32. 10. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, pp. 24–27. 11. Bernard F. Reilly, The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain, 1031–1157 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995), pp. 211–12. 12. The protection was actually dated the day before the indulgence; Mansilla, Honorio III: nos. 574–76. 13. Fernando III 1, pp. 279–82, citing Mansilla, Honorio III: nos. 148, 149, and 207; see also no. 155; Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, pp. 52–53. 14. Baldwin, Government of Philip Augustus, p. 80; James M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–1221 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986). 15. The historiography of analyzing the “religious content” of this territorial conquest is explained by Peter Linehan, “Religion, nationalism and national identity in Medieval Spain,” Studies in Church History 18 (1982): 166–67 [161–99]. 16. Rodríguez López, “Légitimation,” 153. 17. James A. Brundage, “Prostitution, Miscegenation and Sexual Purity,” in Crusade and Settlement, ed. Peter W. Edbury (Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press, 1985), pp. 57–58 [57–64]; Riley-Smith, First Crusade, p. 24. 18. Constance M. Rousseau, “Home Front and Battlefield: The Gendering of Papal Crusading Policy (1095–1221), in Gendering the Crusades, ed. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 38 [31–44]. 19. Rousseau, “Home Front and Battlefield,” in Gendering the Crusades, pp. 31–44; James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 77. 20. James A. Brundage, “The Crusader’s Wife: A Canonistic Quandry,” Studia Gratiana 12 (1967): 441 [425–41]. For Queen Marguerite, see Joinville, The Life of Saint Louis, pp. 124–25. 21. Jordan, Louis IX, pp. 70 and 80. 22. Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 995–1071; Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, “El siglo xiii y San Fernando,” in Estudios y discursos de crítica histórica y literaria, ed. Miguel Artigas, 7 vols. (Santander: CSIC, 1940), v. 7. pp. 57–58 [47–61]; Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, p. 17. Pick contends that the battle’s
216
23. 24.
25. 26. 27.
28.
29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.
35.
36.
NOTES
significance lay not in the extension of territory, but in the reduction of the Almohad army and the introduction of the crusading ideal in Spain by Archbishop Rodrigo. Conflict and Coexistence, pp. 43–46. Echegaray discusses the combatants as a “coalición cristiana” and contextualizes the battle in the wider European ambit. Guerra y pacto, pp. 338–39. Rodríguez López, “Légitimation,” 151–60. Pick has argued most recently that it was “Rodrigo’s idea . . . to urge Spanish participants to make the unusual move of thinking of themselves as crusaders while acting in the peninsula.” Conflict and Coexistence, p. 37. Linehan, History and the Historians, pp. 295–97. This is a main premise of Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, building on the work of Linehan, History and the Historians. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 898. Alfonso’s lengthier letter to Pope Innocent III confirms that Las Navas was a crusade, and discussed the papal indulgences granted to crusaders coming to Spain. Berenguela’s letter is much shorter and appears to be an independent composition: there are no parallel phrases (excepting one referring to the king’s distribution of booty), and a great difference in the number of casualties reported. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 897 (to Innocent III). I am grateful to Theresa Vann for sharing with me in advance of publication a copy of her paper, “Our father has won a great victory: Berenguela’s account of the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, 1212”; an earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference, “Remembering the Crusades,” Fordham University, New York: March 28, 2008. See also Hernández, “La Corte de Fernando III,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, pp. 107–8. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 898. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 897. CL 25, p. 62. CM 4.90, p. 330. DRH 8.10, p. 274. On the unreliable nature of medieval sources regarding numbers, see O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, pp. 143–46. Some historians have inferred that these were the female inhabitants of Úbeda, which the Christians captured shortly thereafter. See Vann, “Our father.” Elena Lourie, “Black Women Warriors in the Muslim Army Besieging Valencia and the Cid’s Victory: A Problem of Interpretation,” Traditio 55 (2000): 181–209. Alfonso VIII 3: nos. 897 and 898. Rodrigo probably had access to these letters—as well as his own memory—when he described the battle in the De rebus Hispanie. He also described the huge amount of booty, and furthermore emphasized the Castilians’ discretion in the acquisition of these riches (in contrast to the Aragonese). DRH 8.11, p. 275; see also Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, pp. 21 and 45. Arab historians, however, made little distinction among the behavior of the Christian conquerors. Ibn Abi Zar says that no prisoners were taken; Rawd al-Qirtas, trans. Ambrosio Huici Miranda, 2nd. ed., 2 vols. (Valencia: J. Nácher, 1964), v. 2, p. 467.
NOTES
37. 38. 39.
40. 41.
42. 43. 44.
45.
46.
47. 48. 49.
50. 51.
217
The seizure of goods is confirmed by ‘al-Marrakuši: “Alfonso went out from that place, after filling his hands and those of his companions with riches and things belonging to the Muslims.” Abu¯ Muhammad Abd alWahid al-Marrakushi, Kitab al-mu ‘yib fi taljis ajbar al-Magrib, Lo admirable en el resumen de las noticias del Magrib, in Colección de crónicas árabes de la reconquista, trans. [Spanish] Ambrosio Huici Miranda 4 vols. (Tetuán: Editora Marroquí, 1955), v. 4, p. 267. Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, p. 21. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 71. While Berenguela associated Thibault with the French, he was in fact a Poitevin—at the time an English subject—and the son of a Spaniard. Hernández, “La Corte de Fernando III,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, p. 109. Ruiz, “Unsacred Monarchy,” in Rites of Power, p. 116; Hernández, “La Corte de Fernando III,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, pp. 108–10. Alfonso VIII 1, p. 1072. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 78, n2. Pick describes the “limited penetration of what might be called a reconquest ideology” in the aftermath of Las Navas, but as she also points out, material circumstances were such that renewed or extended military potential for all sides was severely limited. Conflict and Coexistence, pp. 46 and 58. Fernando III 1, p. 278, n1. Fernando III 1, p. 278. Alfonso IX 2: no. 352. The main purpose of this treaty was to buy Alfonso IX’s friendship after Enrique I’s death, by paying 11,000 maravedís to him. Ibn ‘Id¯a r¯ı al-Marr a¯ kusˆ ¯ı, Al-Bayan ¯ al-Mugrib Fi Ijtis¯ar Ajb¯ar Muluk alAndalus Wa al-Magrib in Colección de Crónicas Árabes de la Reconquista, ed., trans. Ambrosio Huici Miranda, 4 vols. (Tetuán: Editora Marroquí, 1953), v. 2, p. 283; Fernando III 1, p. 285. Mansilla, Honorio III: nos. 268 and 269. See also Fernando III 1, p. 283; Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, p. 53; O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, pp. 80–82. Fernando III 1, p. 284. Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus (London: Longman, 1996), pp. 261–62. Rodríguez López sees this as a key moment in the historiography of understanding the nature of Fernando’s independent and legitimate rule. “Sucesión regia y legitimidad política,” pp. 25–26. CL 43, pp. 85–86. Lomax supplies the date; Derek Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (Longman: London, 1978), p. 137. Martin suggests that Juan’s reference to the Holy Spirit was the necessary rhetorical device to invoke a power superior to Berenguela’s, initiating Fernando’s emancipation from his mother. “Berenguela,” p. 581; but see Reilly, “Bishop Lucas,” p. 783. Martin’s argument, which corresponds to those made by Linehan and Hernández, cited throughout, derives largely from an interpretation of Juan’s perspective on Berenguela as being
218
52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.
59. 60. 61. 62.
63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.
72. 73.
74.
NOTES
oppositional. See Linehan, “Apostillas,” p. 383, n33, which also connects this perspective to the historiography of Blanche of Castile’s relationship with her son Louis, in particular the idea that he used the crusades as a means to free himself of his mother’s dominion. See especially Jordan, Louis IX. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, pp. 80, 82–83; Mansilla, Honorio III: no. 209. CL 44, p. 86. Italics added. Reilly, Urraca, p. 124, and pp. 155–56; Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, pp. 15, 29, and 75. Indeed, Reilly cautions that the entire passage itself may be a “borrowed set-piece.” “Bishop Lucas” 783. CL 44, p. 87. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 21. The conquests of Jaume I of Aragón in Valencia and the Balearic Islands, and the extension of Portuguese rule in the Algarve must be considered here as well. DRH 9.13, pp. 292–93. Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, p. 59. Rodríguez López, “Sucesión regia y legitimidad política,” 25–26. “Et la noble reyna donna Berenguela, su madre del rey don Fernando, con amor et con bien querencia dese su fijo, queriendol estoruar de yr uengar los tuertos que los moros le fazien, fizol consagrar a Dios, asi commo diz la estoria, los comienços de su caualleria, et alongar por mas tiempo las treguas que el auie puestas con los alaraues, et non le dexaua mouer por alla.” PCG 1036, p. 720. Italics added. DRH 8.12, p. 292. Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, p. 24, citing Deuteronomy 24:5. Kennedy, Muslim Spain, p. 262; Lomax, Reconquest of Spain, pp. 137–39; Fernando III 1, pp. 289–91. CL 46, p. 88; Fernando III 1, p. 294; Kennedy, Muslim Spain, p. 262; Lomax, Reconquest of Spain, p. 137. CL 44, p. 87; Fernando III 1, pp. 293–94. Fernando III 1, p. 296. Fernando III 1, p. 286; Mansilla, Honorio III: nos. 574–76. Mansilla, Honorio III: nos. 148, 155, 207, 208, 209, 210, and 268. See also Linehan, Spanish Church and the Papacy, pp. 8–17. Chronicon de Cardeña, in España Sagrada: Theatro geographico-histórico de la iglesia de España. Enrique Flórez et alia, eds. 2nd ed. (Madrid: A. Marin, 1747–1879), 51 vols., v. 23, pp. 373–74. Kennedy, Muslim Spain, p. 264. Lomax, Reconquest of Spain, p. 139. CL 49, p. 93; See also Ibn Khaldún, Histoire des berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l’Afrique septentrionale, ed. William MacGuckin Slane, et alia, 4 vols. (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1925–56), v. 4, p. 234. Fernando III 1, p. 304. Kennedy, Muslim Spain, p. 364. CL 50, pp. 93–94. Italics added.
NOTES
219
75. CL 50, p. 94. 76. Rousseau, “Home Front and Battlefield,” in Gendering the Crusades, pp. 31–44. 77. Possibly, however, they ref lected the new “short-timer’s attitude” complicating crusades elsewhere. See Laurence W. Marvin, “Thirty-Nine Days and a Wake-up: The Impact of the Indulgence and Forty Days Service on the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–1218,” The Historian 65.1 (Fall, 2002): 75–94; O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 125. 78. Fernando III 2: no. 250; Bullarium Ordinis militiae de Calatrava, ed. Ignácio José de Ortega y Cotes and Juan Francisco Alvarez de Baquedano (Madrid: Marin, 1761), pp. 61–62. 79. Enrique Rodríguez-Picavea Matilla, “El Campo de Calatrava en la época de Fernando III,” in Fernando III y su tiempo, pp. 369–73 [343–74]. For an example of the association of the Campo de Calatrava with Berenguela, see Juan Miguel Mendoza Garrido, “La organización del territorio calatravo en época de Fernando III. El caso de Bolaños,” Archivo hispalense: revista histórica, literaria y artística 234–36 (1994): 335–50. 80. Kennedy, Muslim Spain, pp. 266–67. 81. CM 4.100, p. 339; Lomax, Reconquest of Spain, p. 145. 82. Lomax, Reconquest of Spain, p. 145. 83. CL 70, p. 112. 84. Fernando III 1, pp. 323–31. 85. The Chronica latina ends its narrative with the conquest of Córdoba and Fernando’s triumphant return to his mother in Toledo. CL 74 and 75, p. 118. In 1248, two years after Berenguela’s death, Fernando captured the city of Seville. 86. CM 4.101, pp. 341–42. 87. CM 4.101, pp. 341–42; CL 74, p. 117; PCG 1047, p. 734; Lomax, Reconquest of Spain, p. 146. 88. DRH 9.17, p. 300. 89. DRH 9.17, p. 300. 90. DRH 9.17, p. 300. 91. “Con tetas llenas de virtudes le dio su leche de guisa que, maguer que el rey don Fernando era ya varon fecho et firmado en edat de su fuerça conplida, ssu madre la reyna donna Berenguella non quedo nin quedaua de dezirle et ensennarle acuçiosamiente las cosas que plazen a Dios et a los omnes—et lo tienen todos por bien—et nuncal mostro las costunbres nin las cosas que perteneçien a mugeres, mas los que fazie a grandez de coraçon et a grandes fechos.” PCG 1047, pp. 734–35. 92. Jordan, Louis IX, pp. 116–22. 93. PCG 1074, p. 748. 94. Lomax, Reconquest of Spain, p. 151. 95. On the date of the composition of the Poema, see Colin Smith, The Making of the ‘Poema de Mio Cid (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Richard Fletcher, The Quest for the Cid (New York: Knopf, 1999). On booty, see Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest, esp. p. 75. Pick
220
NOTES
discusses in detail Rodrigo’s preference for conquest over booty, arguing that he was “for a long time out of step with his peers over the matter. Conflict and Coexistence, p. 17. On ritual purification, see DRH 9.13, p. 294.
6
“Making Lament”: Death, Grief, Memory, Identity
1. Statuta capitulorum generalium ordinis cisterciensis, ed. Josephus-Marie Canivez, 8 vols. (Louvain: Bibliothèque de la Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 1933) 2: 1251, cap. 7. 2. Canivez, Statuta 2: 1252, cap. 5, p. 377. Blanche had been formally associated in prayers with the Order in 1222 (Layettes 1: no. 1557, p. 556), but this relationship had existed since her parents founded Las Huelgas in the year of her birth. In 1244, she requested a memorial for her parents; Canivez, Statuta 2: 1244, cap. 12. 3. Canivez, Statuta 2: 1251, cap. 7 and Statuta 2: 1252, cap. 5; cited earlier. “Amicis” could also mean “relatives.” 4. Canivez, Statuta 2: 1252, cap. 6. 5. Canivez, Statuta 2: 1241, cap. 12. The Cistercians remembered Blanche after her death; Canivez, Statuta 2: 1253, cap. 6. 6. Canivez, Statuta 2: 1243, cap. 9 (for Leonor); cap. 15 (for Constanza). 7. Canivez, Statuta 1: 1217, cap. 33. 8. Canivez, Statuta 2: 1244, cap. 47. 9. Canivez, Statuta 2: 1245, cap. 17. 10. James S. Amelang, “Mourning Becomes Eclectic: Ritual Lament and the Problem of Continuity,” Past and Present 187 (May 2005): 21–31 [3–31]; Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo, “Lament for a lost Queen: The sarcophagus of Doña Blanca in Nájera,” in Memory and the Medieval Tomb, ed. Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo and Carol Stamatis Pendergast (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), p. 48 [43–80]; Rocío Sánchez Ameijeiras, “Monumenta et memoriae: The thirteenth-century episcopal pantheon of León Cathedral,” in Memory and the Medieval Tomb, pp. 270–71 [269–300]; José Filgueira Valverde, “El ‘Planto’ en la Historia y en la Literatura Gallega,” Cuadernos de studios Gallegos 4 (1945): 511–606. 11. Filgueira Valverde, “El ‘Planto,’ ” 514–16. 12. Partidas 1.4.44, p. 36. 13. Cited in Filgueira Valverde, “El ‘Planto,’ ” 564–67. 14. Amelang, “Mourning Becomes Eclectic,” 4. 15. Filgueira Valverde, “El ‘Planto,’ ” 557–59. This gendered distinction in manners of grief was noticed by Christine Mitchell Havelock in “Mourners on Greek Vases: Remarks on the Social History of Women,” Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany, ed. N. Broude and M. S. Garrard (New York: Harper and Row, 1982), pp. 51–52 [45–61]; and by Del Alamo, “Lament for a Lost Queen,” in Memory and the Medieval Tomb, p. 48. 16. Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 53–54 and 63–68; plates 1–10.
NOTES
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17. Georges Duby, Women of the Twelfth Century, 3 vols; 2: Remembering the Dead, trans. Jean Birrell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 14. 18. DRH 7.36, p. 258. 19. CL 20, pp. 55–56. 20. DRH 7.36, p. 258. 21. Sánchez Ameijeiras, “Monumenta et memoriae,” in Memory and the Medieval Tomb, p. 282 n7, and pp. 270–71; Del Alamo, “Lament for a lost Queen,” in Memory and the Medieval Tomb, p. 52. 22. Vann, “Castilian Queenship,” in Queens, Regents and Potentates, p. 140, citing Alfonso VIII 3: no. 884. 23. Riquer, Los trovadores 2: no. 216, pp. 1085–87. 24. DRH 7.36, p. 258. 25. PCG 1009, p. 688. 26. Much of Alfonso X’s first partida was a Castilian adaptation of canons promulgated at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. See “Introduction to the First Partida,” in Burns, ed. Partidas 1: p. liii. 27. DRH 8.15, p. 280. The Primera crónica general was less eloquent, perhaps downplaying Berenguela’s unsanctioned behavior. PCG 1024, p. 708. 28. CL 28, p. 69. 29. DRH 8.15, p. 280. 30. DRH 9.1, p. 281. I am grateful to Dr. Lucy Pick for suggesting this line of speculation to me. 31. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 769; CL 31, p. 73; DRH 9.1, p. 281. 32. Escribano García, “La calavera de Enrique I,” 250–64. Enrique’s remains include bones from the skull and upper body, with a partially preserved thorax separated from the lower body, which was intact and more successfully embalmed. This suggests that the boy’s body was embalmed soon after his death, probably within a day, but not soon enough to stop the natural processes of decomposition, which normally began at the upper part of the body, and would have been accelerated at the site of the wound on the head. CL 32, p. 76, and CL 36, pp. 79–80; DRH 9.4, p. 285, and DRH 9.6, p. 287. 33. CL 36, pp. 79–80; DRH 9.6, p. 287. 34. CL 36, p. 80; also DRH 9.6, p. 287. 35. PCG 1030, pp. 714–15. 36. Crónica del Fernando Cuarto, v.1, ch. 2, p. 132. Italics added. María performed a similar act of charity and domination for her enemy Prince Pere of Aragón. Crónica del Fernando Cuarto, v. 2, pp. 103–4. 37. Lupián Zapata, Epitome, p. 105. The Primera crónica general confirms his dire poverty and burial at Uclés, but says nothing about Berenguela. PCG, cap 1033, p. 717. Gonzalo Argote de Molina’s Nobleza de Andalucia was first published in 1588. Argote de Molina himself cited “la general Historia en el cap. 11 del lib. 4.” See Gonzalo Argote de Molina, Nobleza de Andalucia, ed. Manuel Muñoz y Garnica (1866; Repr. Jaén: Instituto de Estudios Giennenses, 1957), p. 124. 38. Traducción gallega 1, p. 778.
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NOTES
39. Gómez-Moreno asserts that one sepulcher belonged to a daughter Leonor, of whom I can find no record, whereas González assigns the tomb in question to Sancho. Manuel Gómez-Moreno, El real panteón de las Huelgas de Burgos (Madrid: CSIC, 1946), p. 11; Alfonso VIII 1, pp. 200–203. This tomb is carved with a memento mori inscription dated 1194; Gómez Barcena, Escultura gótica, p. 187; see also Walker, “Leonor of England,” pp. 366–67. 40. The tomb described as the infante Sancho’s depicts mourners, possibly parents, but does not evoke lamentation or grief; Gómez Barcena, Escultura gótica, p. 187. Compare the tomb of Blanca of Navarre; Del Alamo, “Lament for a Lost Queen,” in Memory and the Medieval Tomb, pp. 43–79. 41. Alfonso VIII 3: no. 888; Las Huelgas 1: no. 109; Gómez Barcena, Escultura gótica, pp. 187 and 193. 42. See Canivez, Statuta 2: 1222, cap. 9; Statuta 1: 1157, cap. 63. 43. Las Huelgas 1: no. 215. 44. Gómez Barcena, Escultura gótica, p. 194. 45. Kathleen Nolan, “The Queen’s Body and Institutional Memory: The tomb of Adelaide of Maurienne,” in Memory and the Medieval Tomb, p. 249 [249–67]. 46. Nolan, “The Queen’s Body,” in Memory and the Medieval Tomb, p. 252. 47. Shadis, “Piety, Politics and Power,” in Cultural Patronage, pp. 211–13; Terryl N. Kinder, “Blanche of Castile and the Cistercians,” Commentarii cistercienses 27.3–4 (1976): 163 and 183 [163–88] and Armande Gronier-Prieur, L’Abbaye Notre-Dame du Lys a Dammarie-les-Lys (Seine-et-Marne: Amis des monuments et des sites de Seine-et-Marne, 1971). 48. Walker’s ideas about Alfonso VIII’s inspiration for the foundation of Las Huelgas should be taken into account as well. Such potential inspiration does not necessarily replace that of the queen, but rather may complement it. Walker, “Leonor of England,” 346–68. 49. There is an apparent absence of artistic or funerary patronage during the turbulent years of Enrique I’s reign and the first few years of Fernando III’s rule. David Raizman has argued, however, that the unnamed patroness behind the production of the later Morgan Beatus may have been Berenguela. The manuscript’s unfinished state may certainly be attributed to lack of funds in the early 1220s. On the other hand, the patroness, while probably a royal woman, just as likely was the nun/infanta Constanza, or the infanta Leonor. David Raizman, “Prayer, patronage and piety at Las Huelgas: new observations on the later Morgan Beatus (m. 429),” in Church, State, Vellum and Stone: Essays on Medieval Spain in Honor of John Williams, ed. Therese Martin and Julie Harris (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 235–74. 50. Francisco Antón y Casaseca, Monasterios medievales de la provincia de Valladolid (Valladolid: Librería Santarén, 1942), p. 173. 51. Luis Fernández Martín, “Colección diplomática del monasterio de Santa María de Matallana,” Hispania Sacra 25.50 (1972): 412 [391–35]; Canivez, Statuta 1: 1217, cap. 33. 52. Antón y Casaseca, Monasterios medievales, p. 172. Fernández Martín, “Colección diplomatica,” 385.
NOTES
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53. Antón y Casaseca, Monasterios medievales, p. 172. Beatriz, however, was buried at Las Huelgas. 54. Antón y Casaseca, Monasterios medievales, p. 193. These tombs are currently housed at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. 55. Rodríguez López, El real monasterio, p. 268; Flórez, Las reinas católicas, v. 1, pp. 601–602. 56. For a full description of this tomb, see Gómez Barcena, Escultura gótica, pp. 196–97; see also Del Alamo, “Lament for a Lost Queen,” in Memory and the Medieval Tomb, p. 68, n19. 57. Berenguela’s initial tomb prepared at her death in 1246 indeed may have been plain and humble, but the act of translation seems inconsistent with the act of moving the body from one plain tomb to another. 58. Rodríguez López, El real monasterio pp. 141–42; Las Huelgas 2: no. 439. 59. Las Huelgas 3: no. 596. 60. Rodríguez López, El real monasterio, p. 169; Gómez-Moreno states that the simple tomb attributed to Queen Berenguela, opened in this century for study, contained two bodies; one well preserved (the queen) but the other decapitated. Gómez-Moreno, El real panteón real, p. 30. One wonders how he decided which body belonged to the queen: perhaps he recognized her because she had managed to keep her head. 61. PCG 1030, p. 714. 62. Rodríguez López notes that three Constanzas (Queen Berenguela’s sister, daughter, and granddaughter) and Isabel of Molina (another granddaughter) among others were all interred in tombs without surviving adornment. El real monasterio, p. 264. 63. The literature on the intersection of Christianity, gender, and embodiment is vast, and growing: See, to begin, the work of Caroline Walker Bynum, especially, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995). 64. Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, p. 207. 65. Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, pp. 205–206. Division of the body was not entirely unusual: Blanche of Castile, for example, left her heart to Lys while her body was buried in Maubuisson. The division of Blanche’s body between her two favorite foundations adds a new dimension to the problem of these patrons’ affirmation of their lineage and family future, since it seemed to signify a kind of fracturing of one source of that lineage, the mother herself. Yet, the patron’s purpose behind foundation was reiterated by this act of disarticulation, emphasizing the roles of the nuns in caring for the dead and on the patron’s love for a particular convent. That this was effective as part of a greater program to establish lineage was borne out by future generations’ continued use of both monasteries for the same purpose. On the practice of the division of corpses, its origins and significance, especially for the royal family of France, see the work of Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “Death and the Human Body in the Late Middle Ages,” Viator 12 (1981): 221–70; “Burying and Unburying the Kings of France,” in Persons in Groups: Social Behavior as Identity Formation in Medieval and
224
66. 67. 68. 69.
70.
71.
72.
73. 74. 75.
76. 77.
NOTES
Renaissance Europe, ed. Richard C. Trexler (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1985), pp. 241–66; and “Authority, the Family and the Dead in late Medieval France,” French Historical Studies 16.4 (1990): 803–32. Brown argues that Blanche divided her body for “personal reasons and not because of family ties,” but I suggest that family ties were at the forefront of Blanche’s mind in establishing Lys and Maubuisson, and that future members of the royal family chose burial in these places because of those ties; Brown, “Authority, the Family, and the Dead,” p. 811. CL 28, pp. 68–69. PCG 1067, p.745. PCG 1073, p.748. Corpus medievale cordubense 1 (1106–1255) ed. Manuel Nieto Cumplido (Córdoba: Publicaciones del Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros de Córdoba, 1979): no. 320. Hernández, Los cartularios de Toledo: no. 450; “La Guardia, Villa del Partido de Lillo, Provincia de Toledo–Datos Históricos,” ed. Fidel Fita, BRAH 11.5 (Nov. 1887): no. 12, p. 408 [373–431]. Sources do not agree on the date of Blanche’s death, but Eudes of Rouen records her burial at Pontoise on November 29, and states that he was present. Odo Rigaldus, The Register of Eudes of Rouen, trans. Sydney M. Brown, ed. Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 167. The Norman Chronicle dates her death to November 27, corresponding to Eude’s information about her funeral and burial; E chronico Normanniae RHF t. 23, p. 214. Louis Carolus-Barré, Procès de canonisation de Saint Louis (1272–1297): essai de reconstitution, ed. Henri Platelle (Rome: École Française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1994), p. 75; see Del Alamo, “Lament for a Lost Queen,” p. 71, n62, for prayer and citations for liturgy. According to the chronicles of Saint-Denis, however, Blanche had been at Melun when she became so ill that death seemed imminent. Fully aware of this, she packed up and made haste to Paris; only after her death was her body carried to Pointoise. Chroniques de Saint-Denis, RHF, v. 21, pp. 116–117. At Paris, Blanche put her affairs in order and made her will; Guillaume de SaintPathus, Vie de Saint Louis, ed. H-François Delaborde (Paris: A. Picard et Fils, 1899), p. 15. Berger, Blanche de Castille, pp. 414–415; Primat, Chronique, trans. Jean du Vignay, RHF, t. 23, p. 10; Canivez, Statuta 2: 1253, cap. 6. Urraca’s will was revised by her husband Afonso II; Figanière, Memorias das rainhas, Appendices 5 and 6, pp. 235–42. If she had been a man, surely she would have been buried with a sword. Later, Sancho IV was buried with his sword, created by Andalusi silversmiths. Feliciano, “Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings?” in Under the Influence, pp. 123–24. Gómez-Moreno, El panteón real, p. 30, no. 19 [plate 64]. Olivia Remie Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 180.
NOTES
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78. The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500–1200 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993), p. 108; see also Concha Herrero Carretero, Museo de telas medievales: monasterio de Santa María la Real de Huelgas (Madrid: Editorial Patrimonial Nacional, 1988), pp. 102–3. 79. Dorothy G. Shepherd, “A Treasure from a Thirteenth-Century Spanish Tomb,” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 65 (April, 1978): 111–34. See especially the “technical note” that strongly suggests the clothes recovered from Bishop Gurb’s tomb were manufactured in the same workshop as Berenguela’s cushion, “A Treasure,” 130–32. 80. Cruz, Las Huelgas de Burgos, p. 50. Inventario de bienes muebles historicoartisticos (base de datos Goya). Pillow: http://www.patriomonionacional.es/ PRESENTA/servicio/conser.htm. Servicios Culturales y de Investigación. Conservación de Obras de Arte. Documento 4135 (Telas [pillow]. Patrimonio Nacional Collección TE, Inventory No. 00650512 (the pillow), and Patrimonio Nacional Colección MU, Inventory No. 00652178 (the door). http://www.patromonionacional.es. Accessed: October 15, 2007. 81. The Art of Medieval Spain, pp. 107–8. 82. Gómez-Moreno, El panteón real, pp. 53–54. 83. Feliciano, “Muslim Shrouds,” in Under the Influence, p. 118. 84. Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom propose one of several options for interpreting Christian responses to the sometimes religious and sometimes decidedly secular scripts in items that ended up in church treasuries: Christians were unable, or unwilling to read the texts, or, they simply did not care. “From Secular to Sacred: Islamic Art in Christian Contexts,” Sacred/Secular: 11th–16th Century works from the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, ed. N. Netzer (Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College, 2006): 115–19. 85. Sheila Blair, explains that this text in particular was easy to weave and often abbreviated. Private Correspondence: July 29, 2008. 86. Herrero Carretero, Museo de Telas, pp. 121–24. 87. Feliciano, “Muslim Shrouds,” in Under the Influence, p. 115. 88. Avinoam Shalem, Islam Christianized: Islamic Portable Objects in the Medieval Church Treasuries of the Latin West (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996), p. 130. 89. George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art (1954; repr. London: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 23; Basilio Pavón Maldonada, Arte toledano islámico y mudéjar (Madrid: Instituto Hispano-arabe de Cultura, 1973), pp. 219–23. 90. Jerrilynn D. Dodds, “Mudejar Tradition and the Synagogues of Medieval Spain: Cultural Identity and Cultural Hegemony,” in Convivencia: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain, ed. Vivian B. Mann, et alia (New York: George Braziller with The Jewish Museum, 1992), p. 124. 91. Dodds, “Mudejar Tradition,” in Convivencia, pp. 126–27. 92. Gómez-Moreno, El panteón real, pp. 23–24, 30. 93. Constable, Trade and Traders, p. 180.
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94. Jerrilyn D. Dodds, “Islam, Christianity and the Problem of Religious Art,” The Art of Medieval Spain: A.D. 500–1200, p. 32 [26–37]. Possibly these goods were sold by Christian merchants who would receive booty as part of their pay for participating in battles. Another source might be the steady stream of Andalusi Christians and Jews who had emigrated to the northern kingdoms under the Almohads; Juan Zozoya, “Material Culture in Medieval Spain,” in Convivencia, p. 165 [157–74]. 95. Shalem, Islam Christianized, p. 79. 96. Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, pp. 127–37; Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, pp. 245–46. 97. Canivez, Statuta 2: 1252, cap. 6. 98. Joinville, Life of Saint Louis, p. 36.
Conclusion
A Perfect Friend of God
1. DRH 9:17, p. 300. 2. Linehan, Spanish Church and the Papacy, pp. 330–34. See also Cynthia L. Chamberlin, “Unless the Pen Writes as It Should”; the Proto-Cult of Saint Fernando III in Seville in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in Sevilla 1248: congreso internacional conmemorativo del 750 aniversario de la conquista de la ciudad de Sevilla . . . ed. Manuel González Jiménez (Seville: Centro de Estudios Ramón Areces, 2000), pp. 389–18. Carolus-Barré, Procès de canonisation de Saint Louis, p. 75. Daniel Papebroch, Acta vitae S. Ferdinandi III in Acta Sanctorum: Mai: tome VII (1684; repr. Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1969) pp. 280–14, especially pp. 385–86. 3. Jane Tibbetts Schulenberg, “Female Sanctity: Public and Private Roles, ca. 500–1100,” Women and Power, pp. 102–125. Michael Goodich, Vita Perfecta: The Ideal of Sanctity in the Thirteenth Century (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1982), p. 173. 4. Goodich, Vita Perfecta, p. 175, on the “new ideal of sainthood [which] demanded works of social service.” Overall, Goodich found, female saints in the thirteenth century comprised 25 percent of the total; among women, a higher proportion of saints were royal, suggesting that visibility was indeed a factor in identifying sanctity. The majority of these women remained single, took holy orders if separated, maintained chaste marriages or resisted marriage. Goodich, Vita Perfecta, Appendix, “Master List of Thirteenth Century Saints,” pp. 213–41. Blanche of Castile’s daughter Isabelle was a good example of such a woman. Field, Isabelle of France, pp. 37–42 and 167–70. 5. Las Huelgas: no. 439. 6. Poulet, “Capetian Women and Regency,” in Medieval Queenship, pp. 93–116. 7. Rodríguez López, Consolidación, p. 164.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Note: The bibliography which follows represents unprinted materials, those sources most frequently cited in this study, those which refer explicitly to Berenguela, or those sources which contributed most substantially to the formation of my ideas about women and rulership in the Middle Ages. Full bibliographic information can be found for all works cited in the notes.
Primary Sources: Unprinted Sources Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid Sección Clero Eslonza, San Pedro de Eslonza, Carpeta 967 Palencia, Nuestra Sra. De Benevivere, Carpeta 162 Salamanca, Cathedral, Carpeta 1881 Sección Ordenes Militares Ucles, Carpeta 311 Codices Tumbo de Sobrado L. 976 Becerro mayor del monasterio premonstratenses de Santa María de Aguilar de Campóo L. 944 Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid BN ms 700. Privilegios concedidos por los reyes de Castilla y de León a la iglesia de León. Carta de vencion de ciertas heredades de Villafrontín BN ms 6683, Fueros y privilegios (León) Hispanic Society of America Colección de los primeros fueros y leyes generales de Castilla por el Sr. Rey Sn. Fernando. Manuscript, HC NS4/607. Toledo, Cathedral Archive ACT A.2.G.1.5 ACT Z.9.M.1.2
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INDEX
‘Abd Allah. See al-Bayyˉasıˉ ‘Abu al-Wˉahid b. Yusuf, 134 abdication, 3, 14–15, 17, 21, 98–99, 136, 163 Abu Yahya Zakariya, Almohad vizier, 134 Adelaide of Maurienne, queen of France, 161 Afonso, infante of Portugal, 4, 150 agency, 9, 11, 24, 41, 50 al-Andalus, 17, 81, 116, 124, 133, 135, 138, 141–45, 169, 170 Alarcos, Battle of, 48, 61 Alba de Aliste, 202nn68, 72 Al-Bayyˉasıˉ, 140–41 Alcobaça, 167 Alexander II, Pope, 126 Alfonso de Molina, 44, 70, 71, 82, 83, 99, 109, 145, 162, 201n58, 210nn61, 62, 211n65 Alfonso I, King of Aragón, 51, 197n6 Alfonso II of Aragón, 25 Alfonso IX, King of León, 2, 56, 59, 61, 76–80, 91, 92, 96, 99, 101, 107, 109, 114, 120, 143, 191nn14, 16, 194n55, 64, 195–96n74, 197nn6, 7, 8, 198n14, 200n36, 50, 204n100, 211nn65, 68, 70, 213n116 marriage to Berenguela, 2, 3, 20, 30, 52, 54, 59, 62, 64, 66–70, 76, 78–79, 83, 106 relationship to Fernando III, 82, 110, 194n55
relationship with Alfonso VIII, 53–54, 58, 61, 62, 190n11, 202n66 succession of daughters, 51, 95, 110–14, 211nn67, 71 Alfonso VI of León-Castile, 2, 51, 191n165 Alfonso VII, Emperor of Castile-León, 2, 27, 30, 35, 56, 74–75, 111, 126, 178n13, 211n67 Alfonso VIII, King of Castile 2, 10, 24, 27, 33, 35–36, 38, 52–55, 57–58, 61, 64, 66–67, 69, 78–79, 87–88, 96, 107, 109, 143, 185n33, 189n2, 190n11, 191n16, 194n55, 195n74, 202nn66, 68, 205nn111, 113 and succession of Berenguela, 2, 33, 49, 54, 60, 100, 104, 208n33 as coruler with Leonor, 38, 42, 50, 76, 143, 203nn84, 97 claims to Gascony, 31, 184n25 claims to Navarre, 29–30, 59 crusades, 61, 86, 129–31, 133, 136, 150, 216n27 death of, 82, 86, 104, 133, 151, 155, 165 marriage to Leonor, 23, 25–26, 29, 52, 57, 67 patronage, 8, 36, 37, 40, 46–48, 160, 186n60, 187n74, 194n63, 222n48 Alfonso X, King of Castile-León 42, 57, 60, 107, 109, 116, 165
238
IN DEX
Alfonso X—Continued and the Primera crónica general, 8, 40, 48, 139–40. See also Primera crónica general and the Siete partidas, 27, 44, 151, 184n16, 209n50 as Infante, 42, 82, 107, 120, 139, 145 Alfonso XI, 158 Alfonso Téllez, 93–94 Alfonso, Infante of Aragón, 4, 73, 171, 196n90 Algadefe, 81, 200n50 Almanza, 202n68, 72 Almohads, 61, 86, 129, 133, 134, 139, 143, 216n22, 226n94. See also crusades; Muslims Alphonse of Poitiers, 197n91, 166 Álvar Pérez, 118–19 Álvaro Fernández, tenant of Villalpando, 202–3n77 Álvaro Núñez de Lara, 91, 98–99, 101–2, 120 as alferez, 87, 199n31 as regent for Enrique I 87–95, 119, 156–57, 192n25, 205n125 conf lict with Berenguela, 87–88, 93–94, 98, 101, 102–3, 137, 204n98, 207nn 31, 32 death of, 158–59, 208n35 Álvaro Rodríguez, “queen’s man”, 43, 187n81 Aparicio, “queen’s man”, 43, 187n82 Ardon, 83, 85 Argote de Molina, Gonzalo, 158, 221n37 Argüello, 83, 85, 202nn68, 72 arras agreements, 12, 20, 25–32, 38, 40, 43, 52, 55–56, 61, 63–67, 70, 74, 76, 78–80, 83–84, 96, 109, 113, 176, 183n7, 183–84n11, 194n59. See also Leonor of England Leonor of Castile Berenguela, Queen dower dowry
Astorga, 76, 112, 195n66, 202n69, 204n100 Asturias (region), 28, 29, 77, 78, 91, 195n66 Augustinian Order, 162 Autillo, 94, 95, 98, 205n120 Avila, 43, 44, 102–3 Avilés, 202n69 Baeza, 140–41 Baños de la Encina, 141–42 barraganas, barraganía, 195–96n74. See also Berenguela Alfonso Barruelo, 77, 80 Beatriz of Swabia, Queen of Castile, 57, 81–82 death and burial of, 107, 108, 152, 162, 165, 210n53, 223n53 marriage to Fernando III, 108, 116, 117, 118–20, 129, 140, 152 patronage, 201n53, 209n47, 210n53, 223n53 tenancy of León, 85, 105–7 Belorado, 29, 102 Benavente, 113–14, 202n69, 204n100 Berengaria of Navarre, 31, 59–60 Berenguela Alfonso, 109 Berenguela, infanta, Lady of Las Huelgas (daughter of Fernando III), 5, 107, 116, 163–64, 113n106 Berenguela, Infanta of León, 70, 72, 82, 105, 110–12, 117, 201n58, 209n51 Berenguela, infanta, Lady of Las Huelgas, (daughter of Alfonso X ), 60 Berenguela, Queen of Castile and León Alfonso IX of León, and: divorce from, 3, 26, 68–71, 199n30; marriage to, 2–3, 20, 25–26, 30, 52, 54, 62–67, 194nn59, 61, 198n17; treaties with, 83–85,
IN DEX
104, 111, 119, 133–34, 202nn65, 69, 73, 205n113 as a grandmother, 116, 120, 163, 210n53, 213n106 as Queen of León, 63–66, 74–83, 85–86, 96 betrothal to Conrad of Rothenburg, 2, 20, 27, 38, 51–59, 105, 119, 189n2, 190–91n11, 191n16, 192n20. See also Seligenstadt, Treaty of birth of, 32–33, 43, 104, 208n38 burial of, 163–64, 167–70, 174, 223nn57, 60 childhood, 32–34, 40, 50, 52, 54 correspondence, 94, 120–21, 129–33, 141, 146, 214n124, 216n27 crusade, and 21, 86, 124–25, 127–28, 129–33, 135–38, 139–40, 141–42, 144–47, 175 death, 145, 149, 165–66, 167 dispensation of wealth, 74, 79, 102, 123, 143–44, 154 Fernando III, and: corule with, 14, 82, 98, 104, 123, 124, 129, 138, 147, 150, 159, 161–62, 176, 187n73 (redo this entry); establishment as king of Castile, 14–15, 98–103; establishment as king of León, 112–15 historiography of, 7–9, 12, 15–20, 100–1, 138–40, 189n2, 203n83, 204n98, 206n131, 207n18. See also femininity, masculinity image and representation of, 1, 88, 91, 203n94, 204n102 kingdom of Castile, and: as heir to, 2, 20–21, 33, 38, 49, 55, 60, 64, 95, 97–98, 104, 208n33, 208n38; as regent of, 3, 20, 44, 73, 86, 87–92, 93, 96, 119, 192n25, 193n43, 203nn86, 90, 91; civil war in, 92–103, 205n120, 207n32, 208n35
239
lordship, 3, 64–66, 74, 78–80, 81, 83–86, 101, 200nn48, 50, 201nn52, 53, 56, 202n77, 210n53, 214n124 marriage of children, 3, 105–9, 111–12, 219n61, 210n56 mourning, 21, 151, 154–56, 157–59 patronage, 7–8, 12, 19, 20, 40, 41, 63, 69, 73–76, 80, 83, 87, 91, 96, 123, 142, 159–62, 174, 194n63, 197n7, 198n14, 210n61, 222n49 relationship with Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, 8, 87–88, 156, 173 relationship with sisters, 3–5, 61, 63, 94, 108, 129–33, 150 treaties with Muslims, 133, 134, 139 See also mothers, mothers and sons, co-rule Bernardo, bishop-elect of Segovia, 120 Bertran de Born, troubadour, 184n25 besamanos, 53 betrothal, 2, 20, 51, 52–54, 60, 63–64, 95, 106, 190n3. See also Treaty of Seligenstadt Blanca of Castile. See Blanche of Castile Blanca of Navarre, daughter of Thibault, 109 Blanca of Navarre, wife of Sancho III, 29, 31, 35, 57, 222n40 Blanche of Castile, 3, 14, 32, 33, 71–74, 96, 97, 104 crusades, and 124–25, 128–33, 138, 147, 215n7 death and burial of, 165, 166–67, 220n5, 223–24n65, 224n72 historiography of, 5, 16–19, 34, 104, 174, 181–82n41, 208n38, 217–18n51 infant of Castile, 54, 61, 108, 110, 125, 132–33, 146, 150, 170, 174, 182n54, 197n91, 198n15
240
IN DEX
Blanche of Castile—Continued marriage, 3, 13, 31, 48, 70–71, 130, 183n11, 189n2 patronage, 149–61, 220n2, 194n63 regency, 4, 14, 71, 73, 97, 129, 138, 147, 149, 166–67 relationship with Louis IX, 9, 18, 107, 120, 217–18n51 widowhood, 71–72 see under Berenguela, correspondence; relationship with sisters bodies, division of, 165, 223–24n65 of the dead, 95, 101, 131, 151–57, 165, 167–69, 221n32, 223nn57, 60, 224n72. See also burial of the king, 13, 51, 72, 165 of the queen, 13, 47, 164–65, 167, 223n60, 224n72 reproductive bodies, 13, 44, 164. See also pregnancy body politic, 10, 61, 72, 137. See also cortes, kingdom of Castile kingdom of León Bolaños de Campo, 84, 205n113, 142, 202n68 booty, 129, 131–32, 141, 144, 146–47, 169–70, 216nn27, 36, 219–20n95, 226n94 breastfeeding as metaphor, 34, 145. See also nurses, nursing Brown, Elizabeth A. R., 223–4n65 Brundage, James, 128, 192n33, 195n73 Buenafuente, monastery of, 106, 150, 162, 210nn61–62 Burgos, bishop of, 70, 99, 117, 137, 156. See also Mauricio, bishop of Burgos cathedral of, 60, 100, 104, 106, 162, 209n51, 185–86n52 city and region, 4, 25, 28–29, 35, 39–41, 43, 63, 93–95, 102, 116–18, 154, 160, 167–68
treaty of, 80, 83–85, 110, 119, 205n113 burial, 37, 75, 91, 96, 101, 131, 141, 151, 153–63, 165, 167–68, 210n53, 221n37, 223–24n65, 224nn71, 75. See also mourning, tombs Cabreros, castle of 195n66, 202n72 treaty of, 80, 83–85, 100, 110, 112, 119, 142, 195n67 Calatrava, castle of, 132 Order of, 111, 142 Camino de Santiago, 11, 40 Campo de Calatrava (region), 142, 219n79 Candrei, 195n66, 202n66 canon law, 54, 58, 60, 64, 67, 71–72, 128–29, 191n14, 191n33, 195n67, 196n87, 221n26 canonization, 36, 166, 174, 226n4 Capilla, 140–42 Carracedo, 199n30, 200n48, 202n77 Carrión, 28–29, 91, 117, 137, 191n14. See also cortes, of Carrión Castigos para bien vivir, 48, 208n33 Castile-León division of, 2, 111 unification of, 3, 8, 21, 64, 96, 113–15, 123, 124, 199n30 Castillo de Doña Berenguela, 142 Castro Cisneros, 95 Castro family, 36 Castro Gonzalo, 84, 195n66, 205n113 Castrojeriz, 28–29, 116 Castrotierra, 202n68 Castroverde, 34, 77, 79–80, 195n66, 205n113 Celestine III, Pope, 59, 61, 62, 194n57 Charles of Anjou, 166, 197n91 charters arras charters, 12, 26, 27, 63, 183n7, 190n7. See also arras
IN DEX
as sources: indicating corule, 34–35, 37–38, 50, 76–78, 85, 104, 199n30, 211n71; nonroyal charters, 35, 43, 74, 77–78, 80, 85, 88, 91, 104, 187nn73, 74, 82, 198n17, 199n30, 211n71; patronage charters, 36, 37, 40–41, 63, 74–75, 88, 91, 162, 194n63, 197n9; royal charters, 7, 31, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40–41, 42, 44, 46, 50, 57, 60, 63, 74–77, 80, 82, 86, 88, 91, 100, 104, 111, 114, 117, 162, 187n82, 190n11, 191n14, 194n63, 197n9, 201n58, 203nn90, 93, 94, 209n51, 211n67 confirmation practice in, 35, 42, 86, 110, 191n14, 202n71, 202n74, 211n67 intitulation practice in, 33, 35, 80, 111, 119 witnessing of, 35, 46, 55, 63, 64, 66, 79, 85, 88, 91, 111, 192n20 chastity, 16, 51, 67, 95, 100, 107–9, 115, 183n1, 205n125, 226n4 Chronica latina regum Castella, 8–9, 31, 32, 54–55, 98, 102, 113, 118, 131, 137, 139, 140, 152, 155, 191n16, 194n55, 201n58, 204n98, 205n215, 212n94, 219n85. See also Juan of Osma Chronicle of Otto of St. Blaise, 190n5, 192nn31–32 Chronicon de Cardeña, 141 Chronicon mundi, 7–9, 123, 139, 197n7 as source for the Primera crónica general, 9. See also Lucas of Túy descriptions of Berenguela in Chronicon mundi, 8, 16, 19, 75–76, 83, 85, 87, 100, 114, 123, 197n7, 207n32 Cistercian Chapter General, 149–50, 160, 162 Cistercian Order, 4, 5, 12, 37, 39, 40, 77, 87, 109, 116, 146, 149–51, 159–62, 164, 166–67, 171, 220n5
241
civil war, 93, 96, 102–3, 137, 175. See also rebellion Coca, 98 Compostela, archbishop of, 68, 70, 191n14 Conrad of Rothenburg, 2, 20, 38, 51–59, 63, 105, 106, 189n2, 190n5, 190–91n11, 191n16, 192n32. See also Seligenstadt, Treaty of consanguinity, 3, 20, 60, 62, 75, 95, 106, 191n14, 198n17 as an impediment: 53, 60, 62 defiance of: 57, 60, 68, 59, 62, 118 papal objection to: 68, 95 consent, regarding crusading: 128–29, 135–37 regarding marriage: 55, 58, 60, 67, 72 see under co-rule, charters Constance of Castile, queen of France, 197n236. See also Constanza, daughter of Alfonso VII Constance of Sicily, 58–59 Constanza, daughter of Alfonso VII, 211n67. See also Constance of Castile Constanza, Infanta of Castile, nun and Lady of Las Huelgas 3–5, 12, 16, 32–33, 61, 94, 116, 150, 163, 167–68, 170, 194n63, 220n6, 222n49, 223n62 Constanza, Infanta of León, nun and Lady Las Huelgas 4–5, 70, 82, 116, 201n58, 223n62 conveniencia, 11, 181n38. See also convivencia, tolerance convivencia, 11, 168, 170, 181n38. See also conveniencia, tolerance Córdoba, 11, 19, 126, 141, 143–44, 214n122 cathedral of, 144, 166
242
IN DEX
Córdoba—Continued Christian conquest of, 123, 125, 140–44, 219n85 Great Mosque of, 144 Coria, 78 cortes, 10, 11, 53, 100, 117, 190n7, 207n21 and women, 11, 60–61, 106, 117, 209n51 of 1219, 106–7, 209n51 of 1224, 117, 138, 209n51 of 1237/39, 117, 213n109 of Carrión, 53–58, 60, 100, 190n14, 207n17 of San Esteban de Gormaz, 52–53, 190n11 corule, corulership, 10, 14, 20, 23, 34, 42, 50, 82, 97–98, 111, 143, 145, 147, 174–76 between husbands and wives, 25, 34–35, 38, 76–77, 41, 50, 82, 127 between mothers and sons 38, 85, 104, 120, 124, 127, 147, 166, 203n84, 214n122 Council of Clermont, 126, 128 Crónica anónima, 191n18 Crónica de la población de Avila, 102–3, 208n33 Crónica ocampiana, 49, 177n5 crusades, Holy Land, 124–27, 141 Iberian, 86, 117, 124–27, 128, 138, 141, 167, 215–16nn22, 24, 27. See also Las Navas de Tolosa; Fernando III; kingship indulgence, 61, 124, 126, 136–38, 141, 215n12, 216n27 papal protection, 124, 126, 141, 215n12 preaching, 86, 128–30, 136, 137 vow, 124–25, 128, 138–39, 141, 215n7 women in, 74, 127–29, 131, 137, 142, 174. See also Berenguela, and crusades Cuenca, siege of, 36
De altera vita, 7, 214n2 De rebus Hispanie, 8–9, 40, 126, 152, 173, 201n58. See also Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada Diego Avas, 78 Dillard, Heath, 35 divorce, 4, 26, 58, 61, 66, 71, 73, 96, 114, 192n33, 194n55 Dodds, Jerrilyn, 170, 181n38 Doubleday, Simon, 94, 95, 203n86, n90, 205n120, 208n35 dower, 25–29, 38, 52, 55–56, 63–64, 67–69, 72, 83, 183–4n11, 194n59, 209n47. See also arras dowry, 25, 27, 31–32, 55, 64, 67, 112, 183n11, 184n16, 189n2 Duby, Georges, 152 Dueñas, 28, 98 Dulce, Infanta of León, 110–15, 202n67, 211nn70, 71, 212n100 Earenfight, Theresa, 6, 14, 178n10, 179n17 Echegaray, Esther Pascua 53, 216n22 Eleanor of Aquitaine, 23–26, 29, 31, 37, 39, 59, 60, 161, 177n4, 189nn103, 105 Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England, 165, 210n58 Elvira, infanta of León, daughter of Alfonso VI, 211n6 Elvira, nurse to Berenguela, 33–34 Elvira, queen-regent of León, 178n13 embalming, 156, 164, 221n32 Enrique I, 43, 150, 154 birth, 33 death, 20, 33, 91, 95–96, 98, 111, 133, 156, 206nn127–29, 217n44 reign, 2, 3, 20 41, 44, 60, 71, 73, 85–96, 104, 119–20, 133, 156, 175, 192n25, 193n43, 203nn90, 91, 93, 204nn98, 104, 222n49 relationship with Berenguela, 44, 60, 73, 86–89, 91–92, 94–95
IN DEX
Enrique III, 193n45 Enrique, infante of Castile, 107, 158–59 Eslonza. See San Pedro de Eslonza Estefanía (nurse to Berenguela), 33 Eugenius III, 126 excommunication, 61–62, 68, 81, 93, 118, 160 exogamy, 57, 60, 108 Facinger, Marion, 5, 177n5 Fadrique, infante of Castile, 107, 120, 214n124 fazañas, 117 Feliciano, María Judith, 168–69, 181n38 Felipe, infante of Castile, archbishop-elect of Seville, 107, 116, 212n103 femininity, 16, 19, 44, 46, 106, 121, 142, 145, 188n91, 203n92, 207n18 Fernando Alfonso, canon of León, 81, 200n50 Fernando García (León), 79 Fernando II, King of León, 2, 36, 80, 111, 191n12, 197n6 Fernando III, King of Castile-León. See also Iberian kingship accession to Castile, 3, 15, 98–101, 156–57 birth and youth, 38, 43, 64, 69–71, 80, 82–85, 91–92, 95, 98, 156, 201nn58, 63, 202n68, 206n132, 211n65 canonization, 174 children, 42, 107, 116, 120, 139, 140, 210n58 court of, 42, 109, 118–19, 152, 205n111, 213nn116, 119 crusades of, 123–44: initiation of, 124–25, 126, 128–29, 133–40, 217n51; siege of Capilla, 140–42; siege of Córdoba, 125, 142–44; 146, 219n85 death of, 166, 167, 171
243
early rule of Castile, 3, 101–4, 117, 121, 133, 207n15, 222n49 inheritance of León, 3, 8, 88, 110, 112–15, 194n55 marriages of, 55, 57, 82, 105–7, 108, 176, 209n51, 210n56, 213n109. See also Beatriz of Swabia, Jeanne of Ponthieu masculinity, 19, 142, 144–45, 147 relationship with mother, 3, 9, 18–19, 81, 106–9, 115, 119, 120, 140, 144–45, 165–66, 217n51. See also corule; Queen Berenguela Fernando IV, 60–61 Fernando Sánchez, 88 Fernando, infante of Castile (son of Fernando III), 107 Fernando, Infante of Castile, 33, 34, 38–39, 40, 50, 57–58, 78, 85, 96, 101, 150–54, 157, 160, 168, 190n3, 192n32, 185n33, 194n63 Fernando, Infante of León (son of Teresa of Portugal), 82, 194n55, 201n63, 202n70 Fernando, son of al-Bayyˉasıˉ, 141 Flórez, Enrique, 7, 16–17, 163 Florián de Ocampo, 49, 177n5 Fontevrault, 37, 39, 160, 161, 171 Franciscan Order, 4, 158, 177n6, 171 Frederick I Barbarossa, German Emperor, 38, 52, 55, 57–59, 105, 189n2, 190n5 Frederick II, German Emperor, 105, 212n75 fueros, 27, 74, 76, 79–80, 117, 211n67 ganancias, 26 García Fernández de Villamayor, 42–43 García Lorenzo, 89, 91 García Martínez de Contreras, 42, 44 Gascony, 31–32, 37, 184n25 Geary, Patrick, 152 gender and authority, 3, 15, 20 and power, 10, 15, 20
244
IN DEX
gender—Continued and rulership, 56, 82, 106, 139, 157, 207n17 expectations and ideology, 6, 14–19, 50, 55, 87, 88, 101, 106, 113, 120–21, 145, 147, 144, 173, 203nn86, 92, 212n100 limitations, 5, 13, 33, 63, 82, 96, 99 See also femininity, masculinity, sex and gender, women and military culture Gil, chancellor, 37, 43 Giron family, 91, 93, 205n111, 208n35 González, Julio, 57, 58, 62, 63, 184n25, 187nn74, 81, 191nn14, 16, 194n57, 195–96n74, 201n58, 202n73, 204n100, 205nn113, 124, 222n39 Gonzalo Núñez de Lara, 92 Gonzalo Pérez Manrique, lord of Molina, 104, 109, 208n38 Gonzalo Rodríguez [Giron], majordomo, 86, 93–95, 98, 199n33, 208n35 Gonzalo Rodríguez, tenant of Valencia, 78, 195nn68, 70 Gonzalo, bishop of Toledo, 58, 192n32 Gordón, 83, 85, 202nn68, 72 Gregory IX, Pope, 120, 160, 214n124 Gregory of Sant’Angelo, papal legate, 58, 61 grief, 34, 50, 150–53, 155–56, 158, 160, 165, 171, 220n15. See also mourning, llanto Guillem de Burgued, troubadour, 46 Guillermo, abbot of Sahagún, 117, 121 Guiraut de Calansón, 153 Henry II, King of England, 23, 37, 189n103 and Fontevrault, 37, 39 and St. Thomas Becket, 35
arbitration between Castile and Navarre, 29–31 marriage negotiation with Castile, 25–29, 31 Henry III, King of England, 108 Henry, King of Germany, 55, 58–59 Herculano, Alexandre, 198n17 Hernández, Francisco Javier, 206n131, 217n51 historiography. See Berenguela, Queen of Castile-León Blanche of Castile Honorius III, Pope, 93, 120, 126–28, 136, 141, 209n47, 211n65 Hospital de la Regina/del Rey, Burgos, 40–41, 50, 154, 187nn73, 74 Howden. See Roger Howden Hyacinth Bobo. See Celestine III, Pope Ibn Hˉud, 118–19, 143 imperial claims and identity, Iberian, 2, 26, 56–57, 107, 117, 120, 214n124 infantado, 186n60 infertility, 49 inheritance, 2, 3, 6, 29, 31, 34, 40, 68, 72, 107, 115, 120, 174–75, 183n9, 196n90, 214n124 Berenguela and, 12, 95, 115, 164 Fernando and, 38, 83–84, 96, 110, 114, 194n55 See also hereditary queenship Iñigo de Mendoza, 206n127 Innocent III, pope, 20, 64, 67–70, 83, 95, 127–28, 130–32, 195n67, 205n124, 211n65, 216n27 Innocent IV, Pope, 163, 174 intercession, 23, 50, 62, 75, 76, 103, 110, 115, 117–18, 188n92, 194n61 interdict, 68, 69, 198n17 Isabel, infanta, daughter of Sancho IV, 61, 158
IN DEX
Isabel, queen of Castile-Aragon, 6, 19, 173, 203n92 Isabelle of France, 197n91, 226n4 Isabel of Molina, 223n62 Jaume I, King of Aragón, 4, 14, 25–26, 52, 60, 70–71, 73, 109, 150, 171, 178n8, 196n89, 218n58. Jean de Brienne, 111–12, 117, 140, 209n51, 212n75 Jeanne de Ponthieu, 82, 108, 116–17, 120, 129, 150, 165, 176, 213n109 Jerusalem, kingdom of, 111–12, 126, 128, 141, 212n75 Jocelyn, Bishop of Sigüenza, 36–37 John, King of England, 31–32, 37, 69, 183n11 Juan Alfonso, bishop of Palencia, 109, 210n60 Juan of Osma, author of the Chronica latina, 7, 8, 60, 62, 85, 86, 94–95, 99, 100–2, 104, 105, 112, 118, 135, 139, 143, 155, 165, 191nn14, 16, 204n98, 206n131, 209n51 as bishop, 144 as chancellor of Castile, 8, 116, 114, 212n94 See also Chronica latina Juan of Soria. See Juan of Osma Kantorowicz, Ernst, 13 kingship, Iberian, 1, 20, 10, 14, 27, 34–35, 44, 76, 87, 98, 107, 124, 174 kingship, ideal, 108–9, 124, 129, 132, 133, 155–56, 165 kingship and crusades, 74, 124–25, 127, 129–32, 136, 175. See also Alfonso VIII, Fernando III, Louis IX, crusades knighting, 54–56, 58, 88, 106–7, 140, 191n16, 209n51 and women, 56, 88, 106, 117, 137 Kristen of Norway, 116, 212n103
245
Lady of Las Huelgas, 4, 5, 116. See also Constanza, infanta of Castile Constanza, infanta of León, and Berenguela, infanta of Castile, daughter of Fernando III lament, lamentation. See llanto. See also grief, mourning Lara family, 35, 36, 87, 104, 109, 210n61. See also Álvaro Núñez de Lara Las Huelgas of Burgos, Santa María la Real, 4, 5, 39, 40, 43, 63, 85, 94, 106, 116, 150, 161–62, 171, 213n106 and convivencia, 167–68 as a royal mausoleum, 39, 91, 101, 154–57, 160, 162–64, 166–67, 206n128, 223n53 foundation and construction of, 37, 39–41, 48–50, 61, 161, 186n60, 188n92, 204n102, 210n53, 220n2, 222n48 See also royal mausoleums Las Navas de Tolosa (Battle of ), 85, 86, 125, 127, 129–33, 146, 169, 170, 202n66, 216n27, 217n41 Lateran Council, Fourth, 203n84, 221n26 Le Goulet, Treaty of, 71, 183n11, 189n2 Le Nain de Tillemont, 181–82n41 León bishop and see of, 9, 68–69, 191n14 city of, 7, 62, 75–78, 81–82, 112, 114, 143, 176, 201n56, 210n53, 214n124 kingdom of, 2–3, 8, 10, 18, 36, 53, 58, 61, 63–66, 68–70, 71, 73–78, 80, 83–84, 88, 91–92, 100, 104, 105, 110–15, 123–24, 127, 137, 147, 156, 176, 194n55, 196n87, 202n66, 211nn65, 67 Leonor Núñez de Lara, 36 Leonor of Castile, Queen of Aragon, 3–5, 13–14, 25–26, 33, 43, 52,
246
IN DEX
Leonor of Castile—Continued 60, 70–74, 94, 150, 163, 167–68, 170–71, 178n8, 196n90, 220n6, 222n49 Leonor of England, Queen of Castile, birth and childhood, 24 corule with Alfonso VIII 26, 34–35, 37, 38–39, 50, 76, 77–78, 97, 143 death, 156, 165 dower, 25, 26–31, 38, 52, 67, 184n19 Gascony, and, 31–32 household, 24, 41–43, 187nn76, 81, 82, 199n33 intercession, 61–62, 194nn55, 61 marriage, 23, 24, 48, 57, 189nn103, 105, 199n26 motherhood, 14, 24, 32–34, 52, 57, 67, 160, 171 mourning, 151, 152–54 patronage, 24, 35–37, 39–41, 47, 49–50, 154, 160–61, 187n74, 194n63, 222n48 Plantagenet relations, and, 23, 31–32, 37, 39 regency, 39, 44, 86, 93, 104, 203n84 representations, 44–48, 50, 187–88n86, Leonor Ruiz de Castro, 212n103 Leonor, infanta of Castile. See Eleanor of Castile Leonor, Infanta of León, 64, 69, 75, 82, 210n58 Leonor, infanta, daughter of Fernando IV, 61 Liber de miraculis S. Isidori, 7. See Lucas of Túy limpieza de sangre, 49 lineage elevation of, 7, 125, 154, 173 preservation of, 1, 2, 12, 13, 15, 23, 55, 87, 96, 100, 104, 105–6, 108,
110, 119, 139, 147, 155, 159, 162, 167, 223n65 royal attention to, 2, 12, 24, 35, 88, 98, 155 women and, 2, 12, 13, 44, 49, 55, 96, 97, 103, 105, 112, 159, 167 Linehan, Peter, 8–9, 106, 180n24, 206n131, 214n124, 216n26, 217–18n51 llanto, 151–55, 157–58, 165, 166. See also mourning Logroño, 28, 31, 204n104 Lomax, Derek, 191n14, 217n50 Lope Díaz de Haro, 93, 95, 98, 118, 213n119 Lope Díaz, tenant of Villalpando, 85, 202n77 Louis IX, King of France, 4, 55, 97, 108, 145, 165, 166, 171, 174, 182n54, 197n91 and crusade, 125, 127–29, 138, 215n7, 217–18n51 relationship with mother, 9, 18, 107, 128, 217–18n51 Louis VIII, King of France, marriage to Blanche of Castile, 3, 4, 37, 48, 71, 73, 130 offer of Castilian throne, 104, 108, 149–50, 182n54, 208n38 See also Blanche of Castile; Treaty of Le Goulet; Philip Augustus Louis, prince of France (son of Louis IX), 60 Lucas of Túy, 7–8, 62, 91, 115, 131, 144, 201n58, 202n66, 205n118, 207n15 as deacon of San Isidoro, 7 as bishop of Túy relationship with Jiménez de Rada, 9 See also Chronicon mundi Luna, 83, 85, 202nn68, 72 Lupian Zapata, Antonio, 7, 158, 204n104, 205n125, 208n38, 213n109
IN DEX
Mafalda de Molina. See Mafalda González de Lara Mafalda González de Lara, 109, 162, 210n61 Mafalda of Portugal, 60, 95, 205n125 Mafalda, Infanta of Castile, 33, 61, 167, 185n31, 194n64 Mansilla, 113, 195n66, 202n69 Manuel, infante of Castile, 107 Marguerite de Provence, Queen of France, 129 María de Castilla, Queen of Aragón, 6, 183n1 María de Luna, Queen of Aragón, 6 María de Molina, Queen of Castile-León, 158–59, 173, 209n51, 221n36 María Vélaz, 77, 199n22 María, infanta of Castile, 107, 210n53 María, infanta, daughter of Enrique III, 193n45 Mariana, Juan de, 194n61, 208n38 Marie, Countess of Ponthieu, 108 marriage and Christianity, 26, 53–54, 58, 59–60, 61, 67–70, 95, 105, 107–9, 191n14, 192n33 as a source of power for women, 2, 13, 51–52, 55, 56, 70, 71, 72, 80 as a political strategy, 2–3, 10, 25–26, 51, 53–54, 57–58, 60, 62–63, 69, 83, 95, 105–6, 109–10, 111–12, 210n61 as a source for women’s history, 12, 20, 26, 51, 54–55, 70, 189n2 Martín González de Contreras, majordomo, 42–43 Martín López de Pisuerga, archbishop of Toledo, 192n32 Martín, abbot of San Isidoro, 1222–47, 81, 200n50 Martín, bishop of Zamora, 77, 198n14 Martin, Georges, 9, 16–17, 100, 110, 193n43, 201n56, 203nn83,
247
91, 206nn129, 131, 212n100, 213n119, 214n124, 217n51 Mary, Mother of God. See Virgin Mary masculinity, 16–20, 50, 106, 142, 147 Matallana, monastery. See Santa María de Matallana Matthew Paris, 17, 215n7 Maubuisson 159, 160, 162, 166, 171, 223–24n65 Mauricio, bishop of Burgos, 156. See also Burgos Mayor Alfonso de Meneses, 162 Mayorga, 113, 195n66 Medina del Campo, 28, 113 memorialization, 21, 39, 131, 149–51, 153–54, 159, 166–67, 220nn2, 5, 10. See also mourning Mencia López, 118–19, 213n116 Mencia, abbess of San Andrés de Arroyo, 86 Meneses family, 162, 223n54 mercy, 74, 93, 103, 118, 135, 158–59, 166, 173 military orders 87, 142, 146. See also individual orders Molina, 109, 150 Morgan Beatus, 222n49 Morocco, 4, 130, 133, 134, 151, 177n6 mothers, motherhood, 3–4, 14–15, 32, 80, 96 as teachers or models, 19, 23, 32, 50 expectation for queens, 1, 23, 32, 56, 73 mothers and sons, 18–19, 23, 50, 72, 96, 107. See also Berenguela, Blanche of Castile; Leonor of England; Louis VII; Fernando III; Infante Fernando mothers in lineage, 12, 15, 23, 57, 96, 107 practice of, 3, 33–34, 40, 41, 63, 105–15
248
IN DEX
mourning, 40, 131, 151–60, 166–67, 171, 175, 222n40. See also grief, memorialization Muño Mateos, 103 Muño, 28, 101–2, 157 Muslims, Christian alliances with, 3, 61, 118–19, 139, 140–41, 146 Christian attitudes towards, 9, 29, 61, 126–27, 135–36, 144, 146 Christian familiarity with, 146, 167–68, 170, 175, 115n3 See also al-Andalus, Morroco, crusades, convivencia Navarre, Kingdom of, 10, 25, 28–29, 31, 38–39, 57–60, 109, 120, 193n39 necropolises. See royal mausoleums Nelson, Janet, 72, 117 Nobleza de Andalucia, 221n37 Northampton, studium generale, 37 Notre Dame la Royale. See Maubuisson Notre-Dame de Lys, 159, 160, 162, 171, 223–24n65 Nuño Pérez de Lara, count, 35–37 nurses, nursing, 33–34, 43. See also breastfeeding, wetnursing O’Callaghan, Joseph F., 8, 138, 190n7 oblation, 115–16, 213n106 Ocampo, Florian, 49, 117n5 Oviedo, 77, 191n14, 195n66, 202n69, 191n14, 198n17 bishop of, 191n14, 198n17 Palencia, 28, 67, 91, 95, 98, 101 pantheons. See royal mausoleums Paredes de Nava, 118 Paris, 116, 212n102, 224n72 Parsons, John, 52, 177n4 patronage, 11–12, 24, 35–37, 63, 69, 87, 91, 123, 159–63, 164, 169,
171, 176, 181n39, 194n63, 197n7, 198n14, 210n61, 222n49, 223n65 literary and scholarly patronage, 7–8, 12, 46–47, 75, 96, 123, 152 women’s patronage, 4, 7–8, 11–12, 35, 37, 39–41, 49–50, 73–76, 80, 115, 159–63, 177n6 Pedro Ferrández de Benavides, 79, 195n68 Pedro González de Lara, 109 Pedro I, 170 Pedro, Infante of Portugal, 113 Pedro, infante, son of Sancho IV, 158 Peñafiel (Castile), 28–29, 184n19 Peñafiel (León), 202n72 Pere, Infante of Aragón, 196n90, 221n36 Philip Augustus, King of France, 58, 132, 133, 150, 183n11 Philip, Duke of Swabia, 58, 105 Pick, Lucy, 126, 181n38, 215n22, 216nn 24, 26, 217n41, 221n30 planctus, genre. See llanto plans (troubadour). See llanto planto. See llanto Poema de mio Cid, 146, 218n95 Ponteferro, 202n69 Pontoise, 224nn71, 72 Portella, 195n66, 202n72 Pozuelo, 165 pregnancy, 13–14, 32–33, 37, 64, 82, 160. See also motherhood Primera crónica general, 8–9, 40, 49, 139–40, 145, 154, 157–58, 164–66, 175, 177n5, 188n92, 192n32, 194n55, 207n31, 210n56, 221nn27, 37. See also Alfonso X primogeniture, 12, 104, 110 Procter, Evelyn, 60, 193n45, 209n51 queen-lieutenants, 6, 13, 183n1, 201n57 queens, as anomalies, 5, 17, 19, 97, 182–83n60
IN DEX
queens, hereditary, 5–6, 13, 23, 51, 72, 147, 164, 191n18. See also Berenguela, Urraca, Isabel queens, literary treatment of, 17–18, 46–48, 152 queens, married. See queens-consort queens-consort, 5, 13, 23, 50, 73, 96, 51, 70, 71–72, 97. See also individual queens queenship, 3–6, 13, 14, 20, 21, 23–24, 25, 34, 35, 39, 41, 42, 47, 50, 51, 70–72, 74, 77, 80, 96, 97, 107, 125, 127, 144, 174–75, 177n4, 1278n11 and ritual, 21, 97, 98, 100, 158, 158 Iberian, 6, 14, 127, 173 idealization of, 44, 47, 154 See also individual queens; rulership; mothers Rachel, 24, 48. See also Raquel Fermosa Raquel Fermosa, 48–49, 50, 167, 189n105. See also Rachel Rassow, Peter, 57, 59, 190n7, 193n41 rebellion, 21, 51, 103–4, 109, 113–14, 124, 139, 157, 208n37. See also civil war regency, 3, 4, 14, 20, 44, 59, 70, 73, 87–93, 96, 98, 104, 119, 138, 155–56, 175, 193n43, 203n86, 91. See also individual regents remembering. See memorialization reproduction, 1, 3, 12, 13–14 repudiation. See divorce Rezak, Brigitte Bedos, 44 Richard I, King of England, 31, 37, 59, 150, 153, 184n25 Robert de Torigny, abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, 24 Robert of Artois, 166, 197n91 Rodrigo Díaz de Cameros, 93, 104, 208n38 Rodrigo Gonzalvo de Valverde, 94 Rodrigo Gutierrez, archdeacon, 81, 200n50
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Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo, 8–9, 86–88, 91, 109, 113, 116, 117, 140, 154, 156, 162 author of De rebus Hispanie, 7–9, 16, 19, 39–40, 58, 62–63, 83, 89, 93–94, 101, 113, 144, 146, 153–54, 156, 173, 204n98, 205n125, 207n31. See also De rebus Hispanie as crusader, 8, 86, 126, 129, 134, 137, 146, 215–16n22, 216n24 Rodrigo Pérez de Villalobos, 66, 77, 80, 195n68, 199n22 Rodrigo Rodríguez de Giron, 91–93 Rodríguez López, Amancio, 163–64, 187n74 Rodríguez Lopez, Ana, 124, 139, 176 Roger Howden, 62, 68–69, 194n55 royal mausoleums. See Las Huelgas, Fontevrault, Alcobaça, Notre-Dame la Royale (Maubuisson), Notre-Dame de Lys, Westminster Abbey, San Isidoro de León Rueda, 83, 85 rulership, 14, 19, 51, 156, 175 female rulership, 2, 17, 55–56, 87 See also corule Sahagún, monastery of, 56, 117, 121 Saint-Denis, abbey, 161 Chronicles of, 224n72 St. Isidore of Seville, 7 St. Martín of San Isidoro, 197n7, 75 St. Thomas Becket, altar (Cathedral of Toledo) endowment of, 35–37, 44, 50 St. Thomas Becket, cult of, 35–37, 185–86n52 Salamanca, bishop of, 191n14 cathedral of, 185nn31, 52 city of, 64, 78–79, 81, 84, 143, 200n36
250
IN DEX
Salazar y Acha, Jaime, 42, 187n76 Salvatierra, castle 141, 142 Salvatierra, Order of, 79 San Clemente de Toledo, 37 San Esteban de Gormaz, 52–53, 190n7 San Isidoro de León, 7, 75, 76, 80, 81, 159, 198n12, 200n50, 201n58, 210n53 San Justo, 207n8 San Pedro de Eslonza, 74, 76, 77, 80–81 San Vicente, Oviedo, 77, 198n17 Sancha López, nurse to Infanta Blanca, 33 Sancha Ponce, 199n22 Sancha, daughter of Alfonso IX, 95, 110–15, 202n67, 211n71, 212n100 Sancha, Infanta of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VIII: d. 1184, 33, 160; c. 1199, 33, 61, 194nn63–64 Sancha, Infanta of León, daughter of Alfonso VI, 211n67 Sancha, Infanta of León, daughter of Alfonso VII, 197n6 Sancha, Infanta of León, daughter of Urraca I, 74, 178n13, 211n67 Sancha, nurse to Infanta Urraca, 34 Sancho Fernández, alferez of Alfonso IX, 91, 99, 211n68 Sancho II, King of Portugal, 4 Sancho III, King of Castile, 2, 35, 57, 111, 191n12, 211n65 Sancho IV, King of Castile-León, 9, 48–49, 60–61, 158, 192n19, 208n33 Sancho VI, King of Navarre, 25, 28–31, 59, 224n75 Sancho VII, King of Navarre, 197n6 Sancho, infante of Castile, 32–33, 160, 222nn39, 40 Sancho, infante of Castile, archbishop of Toledo, 107, 116 sanctity, sainthood, 164, 166, 171, 174–75, 205n125, 226n4 Sandoval. See Villaverde de Sandoval
Santa María de Aguilar de Campóo, 214n122 Santa María de la Vega, 91 Santa María de Matallana, 150, 162 Santa María de Tórtoles, 194n63 Santa María la Real. See Las Huelgas Santa María, Valladolid, 100 Santa Marina, 81, 200n50 Santiago, Order of, 35, 64, 74, 111, 120, 211n67 seals, sealing practices: 44–46, 60, 88–89, 94, 100, 111, 187–88n86, 203n94. See also signo rodado Segovia, 98, 102, 120 Seligenstadt, Treaty of, 27, 28, 29, 33, 38, 52–59, 60–61, 64, 67, 100, 114, 120, 189n2 sepulchers. See tombs Seville, 116, 141, 143, 165, 167, 219n85 sex and gender, 13, 15–18, 55, 102, 121, 154, 171, 173. See also gender, masculinity, femininity sex and sexuality, 6, 14, 19, 47, 49, 67, 71–72, 33, 105, 107–9, 115, 182n43, 183n1, 196n89. See also chastity, marriage Siero de Riaño, 84 Siero, 202n68 Sierra de Guadarrama, 113 signo rodado, 44, 46, 91–92. See also seals sealing practices Sobrado, 91 Sordello, 17–18, 182n54 Stafford, Pauline, 51 Tariego, 28, 95, 156 Tello, Bishop of Palencia, 86–88, 93, 98, 156, 206n129 Teresa Fernández, countess, queen of León: 35–37 Teresa of Portugal, queen of León: 59, 61, 76, 99, 105, 110, 113–15, 194n55, 199n30, 202n69 Thibault of Blazon, 133, 217n39 Thibault, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne, 109–10
IN DEX
Tiedra, 202nn68, 72 Tierra del Campo (region), 64, 79, 195n66 Toledo, archbishop, 8, 58, 70, 126, 137, 141, 154, 192n32. See also individual bishops cathedral and see 8, 9, 35, 36, 39, 75, 88, 116, 166, 187n82 city of, 24, 37, 39, 48, 86–87, 111, 113, 127, 132, 140–42, 144, 165, 187n82, 219n85 tolerance 146. See also convivencia tombs, 7, 47, 152–53, 160–64, 166–69, 170, 174, 185n31, 222nn39, 40, 223n54, 56, 57, 60, 62, 225n79 Tordehumos, Treaty of, 61 Toro, 77, 113–14, 186n52, 210n53 Toroño, 202n69 Traducción gallega de la primera crónica general, 158, 185n31 troubadours 17–18, 46–47, 152–53, 184n25, 189n103. See also individual troubadours Tudela, 31 Tumbo de Sobrado, 91 Úbeda, 118, 143, 216n34 Uclés, 158–59, 221n37 Urban II, Pope, 126, 128 Urraca Alfonsez, Queen of León, 77 Urraca Alfonso, natural daughter of Alfonso IX, 213n116 Urraca I of Castile-León, 2, 6, 51, 72, 137, 182n43, 191n18, 193n44, 211n67 Urraca of Castile, Queen of Portugal, 3–5, 31, 33–34, 40, 52, 54, 61, 70–71, 73–74, 85, 150, 167, 170, 177n6, 183–84n11, 194n63, 224n74 Valcárcel, 202n69 Valderas, 84, 202n68 Valencia de Don Juan. See Valencia
251
Valencia, 78, 80–81, 84–85, 92, 114, 195nn66, 70, 200n48, 201n 52, 205n113 Valencia, kingdom of, 218n58 Valladolid, city of, 15, 63, 81, 93, 98–102, 142, 158, 201n53 Treaty of 83–85, 110, 119, 195n67 Vann, Theresa, 36, 44, 130, 216n28, Villalugán, 195n66, 202n72 Villafranca (León), 199n30, 202n69 Villafrechós, 79, 84, 202n68, 205n113 Villalar, 113 Villalobos, 199n22 Villalpando, 79, 83–85, 92, 113, 200n48, 202n77 Villaverde de Sandoval, 77–78, 199n30 Virgin Mary, images and associations with: 62, 132, 144, 153, 163–64 virility. See masculinity Visigoths, 2, 6, 34, 127, 195n67, 196n87 Walker, Rose, 186n60, 222n48 Weissberger, Barbara, 19, 203n92 Westminster Abbey, 165 wetnursing, 33–34. See also nursing widowhood, 25–26, 39, 67, 70–72, 114, 192n23, 196n87 women and military culture, 10, 11, 56, 62, 66, 87–88, 97–98, 101–2, 106, 123, 128, 131–32, 137, 203n92, 209n50, 212n100 yantar, 83–84 Yusuf al-Mustansir, 134 Zafra, fortress, 104 treaty of, 104, 109, 210n61 Zamora, 77, 78, 143 cathedral of, 198n14 Zapata, Antonio Lupián, 7, 158, 179n18, 204n104, 205n125, 208n38, 213n109
