RENAISSANCE MAGAZINE ARTICLES
Kim Guarnaccia, Editor
Renaissance Magazine
Eleanor of Aquitaine, Grandmother of Europe
by jerry betts
One of the loveliest, richest, most fascinating, and most talked about woman of her age, to say nothing of being the most
powerful, Eleanor of Aquitaine was shrewd, noble, and quite sophisticated for her time as an enthusiastic patron of the arts.
More recently her image has been romanticized and her achievements exaggerated, yet she played a major role in the politics
of France and England at the side of four kings, ruling as capably as any man. As a contemporary chronicler, Richard of
Devizes, put it, Queen Eleanor, [was] an incomparable woman, beautiful yet virtuous, powerful yet modest, unassuming yet
eloquent, qualities that are most rarely encountered in a woman; still tireless in every undertaking, whose ability was the
admiration of her age.
Eleanor was born in 1122, the daughter and heiress of William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers. William’s domain
extended along the west coast of France, from Brittany to the Pyranees, and when Eleanor was but 15 years old she inherited
it all when her father was struck down with a fever on a pilgrimage in Northern Spain.
The question of a husband was suddenly of great importance to Louis VI, the Fat, Eleanor’s liege lord, and king of France at
the time. Aquitaine, after all, was larger than Louis’ personal domain, and of great value as a vassal state. Eleanor’s
grandfather, Duke William IX, whose contempt for the church had already earned him excommunication, took a shine to the
wife of a vassal in 1115, and ran off with her, installing her in a luxury apartment in his palace at Poitier; his wife, Philippa
thereby withdrew to a convent, joining Emengarde, his first rejected wife. This earned William a second excommunication.
His heir and Eleanor’s father, called Saint William for his goodness, then ruled ineffectively for ten years. His death, leaving
the fifteen year old Eleanor as duchess left Aquitaine in a state of virtual anarchy. The probability that Eleanor might be carried
off by one of her own vassals, who could then become a formidable rival of the king, was an immediate and real concern for
the French king.
Louis had the perfect solution: he betrothed Eleanor to his own son, soon to be Louis VII. They were quickly married and the
birth of a daughter 8 years later did not keep young Louis from getting caught up in the crusading fever which was sweeping
Europe at that time. Eleanor insisted on going with him, and Louis, who adored his impetuous and headstrong queen, was
powerless to deny her; two year old Marie was left behind in France. The Queen Eleanor’s Guard, as her crusading entourage
was called, consisted of young, married noble ladies dressed in white tunics stamped with a red cross on both front and back,
and red knee-length boots. But the ladies carried so much baggage with them they continually slowed the line of march. When
7,000 French troops were lost in an attack by Saracens while setting up camp, the blame fell, rather unreasonably, on Eleanor
and her slow baggage train.
The Holy Land
On arriving in Antioch, the queen discovered her handsome uncle, Count
Raymond of Poitiers, only a few years her elder, ruler of the city. Eleanor
and Raymond spent much time together during the next several weeks,
and the pair’s frequent company soon generated rumors of infidelity.
Then, when Raymond asked Louis to assist him in attacking the city of
Edessa, a conquered town critical to the ongoing defense of Antioch, Louis declined to help him. Eleanor with probable
justification, supported the attack. In fact, she would have remained with her uncle, but she was seized in the middle of the
night and carried off with the king¹s train as it set out yet again for Jerusalem.
By 1149, the by then estranged couple had returned to France, and then visited Pope Eugenius to request an annulment,
based on their doubts on the issue of consanguinity. Eugenius instead personally took them to a bed he had specially
prepared, but the result was another girl, and Louie needed a male heir The annulment was arranged; the princesses were
placed under the king’s care and Eleanor returned to Aquitaine.
In the meantime, Henry, Duke of Normandy, and his father, Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, had met Eleanor while visiting the court in
Paris to pay homage to the king of France. Henry was 11 years Eleanor’s junior and a candidate to be next king of England
through his mother, Matilda. Eleanor was said to have flirted openly with Goeffrey, but also noticed his well set-up seventeen
year old son. When Henry returned two years later, Geoffrey had died and he was the odds on favorite to become king.
Eleanor now saw him in a new light and Henry returned her interest with at least equal intensity. An agreement was made
between them that as soon as she received her freedom, they would be married; beyond attraction stood unbridled ambition
on both their parts.
When on March 18, 1152 Eleanor and Louis’ marriage was finally officially dissolved, she was, surprisingly, reinstated in her
own right as Duchess of Aquitaine. Certainly had Louis known what was going on between her and Henry, he would not have
been so generous, as France could never have condoned the union of Aquitaine with England. Two months later Eleanor and
Henry were secretly married before anything could be done about it. Louis, when he realized that Aquitaine would now come
under English rule, and citing that Eleanor had not sought his consent in this new union, invaded Normandy. Henry’s
response, however, was rapid and aggressive, and within six weeks he had driven Louis back across the border into France.
By then, the French king, sick with fever, quickly agreed to a truce.
Leaving Eleanor to rule Aquitaine and his mother to rule Normandy and
Anjou, Henry embarked for England the next year to dispute his claim to the English throne with Stephen, who had usurped it
when Henry’s grandfather, Henry I, died. The first pitched battle, and the one that would obviously be decisive, formed on the
banks of the River Themes near Wallingford. At the last moment, perhaps because Stephen knew he was overmatched,
common sense prevailed, apparently through the efforts of William d’Aubigny, one of the combatants on the king’s side. A
treaty was negotiated to spare further damage to the country, stipulating that Stephen would remain king for the rest of his life,
with Henry proclaimed his heir. Henry became King a year later when Stephen died. So two years after relinquishing the
crown of France, Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine and Normandy and Countess of Poitiers and Anjou, became Queen of
England.
The Years of Harmony
The next ten years were good for Eleanor. Though her first son, William,
died at the age of three, he was soon followed by Matilda, and a year later
Richard, then Geoffrey, Eleanor, Joanna, and finally John in 1165. Shortly
after William was born, a bastard son, also named Geoffrey, son of Rosamonde, about whom more will be said momentarily,
was recognized by Henry and brought into the king’s household. Eleanor, who seemed fond of the boy, was put in charge of
his upbringing. Childbirth, however, did nothing to slow down the young queen, who traveled extensively with Henry throughout
the realm, as well as back and forth across the channel during and between her many pregnancies.
By the time Eleanor became Queen of England, at the age of 32, German
minnesingers and English and French troubadours were already singing of her charms. Curiously, there is rare mention of
her in the chronicles of the time, except in relation to her appearances with the king and her childbirths, suggesting that
contemporary observers gave her scant credit for exerting power on her own. Yet there is ample evidence that she was active
in administrative matters and was given some autonomy in decision-making, both in Aquitaine and in England and Normandy.
She was also known to be a pious woman, renowned for her support of abbeys, particularly the one at Fountevrault. She did
not live frugally, but was a hearty traveler, often riding on horseback, braving cold and storms. She was horrified, however, at
the use of candles in England, and one of her first acts was to import oil for light. Perhaps the next was to ensure a proper
stock of wine, since she disdained English beer.
Henry, however, was an open adulterer, who expected his wife to accept his infidelities, and at the same time remain faithful to
him. He was also stubborn and determined, and much less disposed to Eleanor’s influence than had been Louis. In the late
1160s Eleanor started spending increasing amounts of time in her territories on the continent, as a breech had begun to
develop between the couple after the birth of their last child, John, at least partially because of Henry’s blatant indiscretions.
An infamous story concerns Henry’s mistress, Rosamonde Clifford, the daughter of a man whose station was somewhere
between a knight and a baron, thus of modest means. Henry had met her at Bristol prior to Stephen becoming king. She was
a beautiful girl and he fell immediately in love with her. A son, named Richard, was born to them after Henry returned to
Normandy, and after the treaty of Wallingford he resumed the relationship, and another son, Geoffrey was born. When he
became king he installed Rosamonde in a small stone house just outside the wall of the royal park at Woodstock, where he
paid her visits. She did not stay long, however; repenting of her way of living, she retired to the convent of Godstow, where she
remained for twenty years until her death. The story that Eleanor discovered the relationship and poisoned her is apparently
pure myth.
But though Rosamonde might have been the best known to history, she was certainly far from being the only one, nor the most
crucial. Henry had one son by the daughter of a Sir Ralph Blewitt; then there was a handsome girl from Stepford, not of
nobility, so un-named in history. And Eudes of Porrhoet was the name of the father of his paramour in Normandy. The one,
however, who apparently became the last straw for Eleanor was Alice, second daughter of Louis of France, betrothed to
Richard, who paid her little attention. She was brought to Henry’s court for her education, where after a time she caught the
aging king’s
eye. His notes to her were well known among the palace staff and it was clear to all that he had become guilty of seducing his
daughter in law to-be. Since this could not be hidden from the view of a prying court, it soon became public scandal, and too
much for Eleanor.
In 1170, Eleanor returned to Poitiers, in Aquitaine, to live apart from Henry. These few years of harmony for Eleanor and her
children, however, were not to last. Young Henry, the eldest son and his father’s favorite, had been crowned co-regent as “the
young king Henry”, with his own household but no power. At the same time Eleanor had Richard confirmed as Duke of
Aquitaine. In 1173 young Henry quarreled with his father, and was joined by Richard and Geoffrey. This resulted in
disenchantment among the barons in England and Normandy who happily joined young Henry and Richard in an open
rebellion against their father. The rebellion was put down without difficulty, and Henry pardoned his sons, but imprisoned
Eleanor in the tower of Chinon in Anjou for six months before transferring her to England, for the role she played in supporting
them against him.
Eleanor¹s Captivity and Release
We know little of Eleanor’s life during her 11 years of captivity in England, except that she was kept from her children while
being forced to endure the gossip concerning the king’s continuing affairs, while Henry unsuccessfully attempted to annul
their marriage. Surprisingly, however, the gossip was not about Alice, but Rosamonde, who died at about this time, and about
whom fantastic stories had been circulating.
By 1183 the two Henries were again quarreling. When the older Henry cut off his allowance, young Henry took to brigandage,
plundering the shrine of Rocamador. When he died hours later from a malignant fever – a ‘flux of the bowels (probably
dysentery), it was seen as divine retribution; Geoffrey died two years later at a tournament in Paris. Meanwhile Richard and
John were quarreling over Acquitaine. With only two surviving sons, King Henry felt it only fair that a more even distribution of
his kingdom should be made between Richard and John. John, having by then taken young Henry’s place in his father’s
affections, was much like his father, since he had not grown into manhood under his
mother’s tutelage. When Henry tried to award Acquitaine and Poitou to him, Richard and Eleanor objected; both considered
John dangerous and unreliable, due to his constant scheming and intrigue. This disagreement ultimately precipitated a
coalition, led by Richard and Philip II, then king of France, against Henry. In 1189, the two allies invaded Anjou and the aging
king, sick with an ulcerated wound, was finally defeated at Le Mans. Several days later, suffering from blood poisoning, Henry
discovered that John, his favorite, seeing the weakening of his father’s power, had, with his typical opportunism, supported
Richard. His heart broken, Henry died four days later.
Eleanor Released
Upon his father’s death, Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, added the titles of king of England and Duke of Normandy and Anjou, as
well. One of his first acts was to move to release his mother from captivity; however, on arriving in England, he found that she
had already successfully negotiated her own release. And at the age of 67, Eleanor immediately began drumming up support
for Richard, for having grown up in Aquitaine, the young king spoke almost no English, and was mostly ignorant of England
and its people. In this endeavor she was quite successful, and fortunately so, since Richard departed on Crusade in the
spring of the following year. He left his mother in England as his informal regent, along with Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of
Durham, as Justiciar and William Longchamp, the recently elected Bishop of Ely, as chancellor.
Eleanor¹s first challenge as unofficial regent was to travel to the kingdom of Navarre over the Pyrenees to secure for her son a
proper wife. Eleanor and Richard had settled on Berengaria, the eldest daughter of King Sancho of Navarre. Despite
Eleanor¹s age, after a magnificent banquet in the Olite Palace in Pamplona, she and Berengaria, along with an entourage
from Navarre, immediately departed, crossing the Alps to meet Richard at Messina on the coast of Sicily. Daughter Joanna,
now widow of the King of Sicily, met them there to accompany Richard and Berengaria to the island of Cyprus, where they
were married.
But while on her way through Italy, word reached Eleanor that William Longchamp and John were dueling with each other for
political supremacy. So after only four days with Richard and Joanna, she began the return journey to Normandy, stopping at
Rome for the consecration of the new Pope, Celestine III, where she succeeded in having Henry¹s bastard son, Geoffrey,
elected Archbishop of York, and secured the appointment of the devious but loyal Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen,
as super-legate, with powers overriding those of chancellor Longchamp.
The Reigns of Richard and John
After two years on Crusade, and despite a victory at Arsuf (located between Acre and Jaffa), the impossibility of retaking
Jerusalem became evident to Richard, as Saladin’s successful regrouping and subsequent harassing attacks made him
realize Moslem strength was too great for him to hope to be victorious. After serious quarrels among the Germans, French,
and English, Richard made a truce with Saladin, leaving the Crusaders to hold Acre and a thin strip of land through which
pilgrims could access the Holy Land.
Shortly thereafter Richard set sail for England. On reaching land near Venice, however, he fell into the hands of Count Leopold
of Austria, who demanded 100,000 marks of silver and 200 hostages as ransom. The demand was transmitted through his
cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry of Hohenstaufen, to whose castle Richard was transferred. With Richard in indefinite
captivity, in 1193 John proclaimed himself Richard’s heir, and set off for France to make a deal with Philip to help him take
possession of Richard’s domains. But John did not count on his mother’s devotion to her favorite son She promptly
responded to his moves by closing the channel ports and putting England in a state of alert, so as to avert a possible invasion
by John and Philip’s mercenaries. Meanwhile, she spent the year collecting the ransom money, a difficult task, since Richard’
s territories had already been heavily taxed to support his crusade, and were now mostly broke.
She succeeded in raising the necessary funds, and in December set forth with 35 tons of silver and 200 hostages for Austria.
Although Philip and John had made the Emperor an equal offer to continue Richard¹s imprisonment, Eleanor trumped their
offer when Richard, on her advice, made obeisance to the emperor, transferring allegiance from the French to the
Hohenstauffen. Collecting her son, Eleanor then returned to England with him, prevailing upon him to reconcile with his
brother, John, on the grounds that good relations between them were preferable to the alternative; both were only too wary of
John’s driving ambition, deceit and treachery. With this accomplished, in 1194, at the age of 72, Eleanor retired to the abbey of
Fontevrault, where she remained for the next five years, during which the war in Normandy Between the French and the
English continued in typical desultory fashion.
The Death of Richard
In the spring of 1199, beset with problems related to drained English and Norman coffers, Richard got wind of a golden statue
found in the Limousin, although it was really only a pot of Roman coins. Even though he was warned that such a treasure did
not exist, Richard laid claim to it. Proceeding to the Chalus castle where the treasure was allegedly being held, Richard took
the castle under siege since its lord, Achard, would not surrender the treasure. The siege was brief, but near dusk about three
weeks later, an errant arrow stuck the king in the shoulder, and efforts to remove it resulted in the wound turning gangrenous.
When it became apparent that Richard would die, Eleanor was summoned from Fontevrault, 100 miles distant; she arrived
just in time for the king to die in her arms.
Although youngest son John had previously been proclaimed Richard’s heir to the throne, Countess Constance, The wife of
deceased second son Geoffrey, immediately asserted the claim of her 12-year-old son, Arthur, to the thrones of England and
Normandy. This claim was, typically, initially supported by King Philip of France, who was always looking for ways to weaken
the English position on the continent.
England and Normandy had accepted John’s succession, but Le Mans,
capital of Anjou, continued to support Arthur; so John raised an army and sacked the city, forcing Arthur to flee to Paris. The
next year Philip reluctantly recognized John as Richard¹s heir and agreed to marry Eleanor’s granddaughter, Blanche of
Castille, to his son, Louis, opening the intriguing future possibility of combining the crowns of England and France. And after
Eleanor traveled once again over the Pyranees, this time to Castile to collect her granddaughter, she once again withdrew to
Fontevrault. By 1202 Philip, who by then had produced his own male heir, and John were once again in disagreement, this
time over a revolt in Lusignan. Philip ordered John to appear at his court and submit to his judgement, and John refused. With
this, Philip declared the truce between them broken and declared war, Arthur once again allying with the French king.
Eleanor again came from retirement and set out for Poitiers to keep Arthur from taking possession. But on the way, the castle
of Mirebeau, in which she was spending he night, came under siege by Arthur. Refusing Arthur¹s pledge of safe conduct if she
would surrender to him, Eleanor mmediately called for John to come to her aid. Not known for his speed of response nor his
military acumen, John surprised everyone by arriving in the knick of time to rescue his mother and crush the revolt, after which
she again retired to Fontevrault where she died on April, 1, 1204, at the age of 82.
Eleanor’s influence, however, did not end with her death. Her granddaughter, Blanche of Castile, wife of Louis VIII, became the
mother and regent of Louis IX, the most popular of the Capetian monarchs and one of the most celebrated figures in medieval
history, who earned for himself canonization as Saint Louis by reconciling France and England.
Thus Eleanor, wife to two kings and mother to two more, became great grandmother to yet another. Four hundred years after
her death, Shakespeare, reflecting the misjudged view of many French historians, referred to her in King John as a “canker’d
granddam, a monstrous injurer of Heaven and Earth,” and as late as the 19th century, Agnes Strickland, Victorian biographer
of the queens of England, called her a “bad” and “giddy queen” who was given to “disgusting levity.” But when England lost
Normandy it was her ancestral lands that stayed loyal to England, and this view ignores the tenacity, political wisdom, and
energy that characterized the years of her maturity. In the words of nuns of Fontevrault in their obituary notice for her: “she was
beautiful and just, Imposing and modest, humble and elegant; a queen who surpassed almost all the Queens of the world.”
Beyond a doubt Eleanor of Aquitaine was a most amazing woman.
Renaissance Magazine
Eleanor of Aquitaine, Grandmother of Europe
by jerry betts
One of the loveliest, richest, most fascinating, and most talked about woman of her age, to say nothing of being the most
powerful, Eleanor of Aquitaine was shrewd, noble, and quite sophisticated for her time as an enthusiastic patron of the arts.
More recently her image has been romanticized and her achievements exaggerated, yet she played a major role in the politics
of France and England at the side of four kings, ruling as capably as any man. As a contemporary chronicler, Richard of
Devizes, put it, Queen Eleanor, [was] an incomparable woman, beautiful yet virtuous, powerful yet modest, unassuming yet
eloquent, qualities that are most rarely encountered in a woman; still tireless in every undertaking, whose ability was the
admiration of her age.
Eleanor was born in 1122, the daughter and heiress of William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers. William’s domain
extended along the west coast of France, from Brittany to the Pyranees, and when Eleanor was but 15 years old she inherited
it all when her father was struck down with a fever on a pilgrimage in Northern Spain.
The question of a husband was suddenly of great importance to Louis VI, the Fat, Eleanor’s liege lord, and king of France at
the time. Aquitaine, after all, was larger than Louis’ personal domain, and of great value as a vassal state. Eleanor’s
grandfather, Duke William IX, whose contempt for the church had already earned him excommunication, took a shine to the
wife of a vassal in 1115, and ran off with her, installing her in a luxury apartment in his palace at Poitier; his wife, Philippa
thereby withdrew to a convent, joining Emengarde, his first rejected wife. This earned William a second excommunication.
His heir and Eleanor’s father, called Saint William for his goodness, then ruled ineffectively for ten years. His death, leaving
the fifteen year old Eleanor as duchess left Aquitaine in a state of virtual anarchy. The probability that Eleanor might be carried
off by one of her own vassals, who could then become a formidable rival of the king, was an immediate and real concern for
the French king.
Louis had the perfect solution: he betrothed Eleanor to his own son, soon to be Louis VII. They were quickly married and the
birth of a daughter 8 years later did not keep young Louis from getting caught up in the crusading fever which was sweeping
Europe at that time. Eleanor insisted on going with him, and Louis, who adored his impetuous and headstrong queen, was
powerless to deny her; two year old Marie was left behind in France. The Queen Eleanor’s Guard, as her crusading entourage
was called, consisted of young, married noble ladies dressed in white tunics stamped with a red cross on both front and back,
and red knee-length boots. But the ladies carried so much baggage with them they continually slowed the line of march. When
7,000 French troops were lost in an attack by Saracens while setting up camp, the blame fell, rather unreasonably, on Eleanor
and her slow baggage train.
The Holy Land
On arriving in Antioch, the queen discovered her handsome uncle, Count
Raymond of Poitiers, only a few years her elder, ruler of the city. Eleanor
and Raymond spent much time together during the next several weeks,
and the pair’s frequent company soon generated rumors of infidelity.
Then, when Raymond asked Louis to assist him in attacking the city of
Edessa, a conquered town critical to the ongoing defense of Antioch, Louis declined to help him. Eleanor with probable
justification, supported the attack. In fact, she would have remained with her uncle, but she was seized in the middle of the
night and carried off with the king¹s train as it set out yet again for Jerusalem.
By 1149, the by then estranged couple had returned to France, and then visited Pope Eugenius to request an annulment,
based on their doubts on the issue of consanguinity. Eugenius instead personally took them to a bed he had specially
prepared, but the result was another girl, and Louie needed a male heir The annulment was arranged; the princesses were
placed under the king’s care and Eleanor returned to Aquitaine.
In the meantime, Henry, Duke of Normandy, and his father, Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, had met Eleanor while visiting the court in
Paris to pay homage to the king of France. Henry was 11 years Eleanor’s junior and a candidate to be next king of England
through his mother, Matilda. Eleanor was said to have flirted openly with Goeffrey, but also noticed his well set-up seventeen
year old son. When Henry returned two years later, Geoffrey had died and he was the odds on favorite to become king.
Eleanor now saw him in a new light and Henry returned her interest with at least equal intensity. An agreement was made
between them that as soon as she received her freedom, they would be married; beyond attraction stood unbridled ambition
on both their parts.
When on March 18, 1152 Eleanor and Louis’ marriage was finally officially dissolved, she was, surprisingly, reinstated in her
own right as Duchess of Aquitaine. Certainly had Louis known what was going on between her and Henry, he would not have
been so generous, as France could never have condoned the union of Aquitaine with England. Two months later Eleanor and
Henry were secretly married before anything could be done about it. Louis, when he realized that Aquitaine would now come
under English rule, and citing that Eleanor had not sought his consent in this new union, invaded Normandy. Henry’s
response, however, was rapid and aggressive, and within six weeks he had driven Louis back across the border into France.
By then, the French king, sick with fever, quickly agreed to a truce.
Leaving Eleanor to rule Aquitaine and his mother to rule Normandy and
Anjou, Henry embarked for England the next year to dispute his claim to the English throne with Stephen, who had usurped it
when Henry’s grandfather, Henry I, died. The first pitched battle, and the one that would obviously be decisive, formed on the
banks of the River Themes near Wallingford. At the last moment, perhaps because Stephen knew he was overmatched,
common sense prevailed, apparently through the efforts of William d’Aubigny, one of the combatants on the king’s side. A
treaty was negotiated to spare further damage to the country, stipulating that Stephen would remain king for the rest of his life,
with Henry proclaimed his heir. Henry became King a year later when Stephen died. So two years after relinquishing the
crown of France, Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine and Normandy and Countess of Poitiers and Anjou, became Queen of
England.
The Years of Harmony
The next ten years were good for Eleanor. Though her first son, William,
died at the age of three, he was soon followed by Matilda, and a year later
Richard, then Geoffrey, Eleanor, Joanna, and finally John in 1165. Shortly
after William was born, a bastard son, also named Geoffrey, son of Rosamonde, about whom more will be said momentarily,
was recognized by Henry and brought into the king’s household. Eleanor, who seemed fond of the boy, was put in charge of
his upbringing. Childbirth, however, did nothing to slow down the young queen, who traveled extensively with Henry throughout
the realm, as well as back and forth across the channel during and between her many pregnancies.
By the time Eleanor became Queen of England, at the age of 32, German
minnesingers and English and French troubadours were already singing of her charms. Curiously, there is rare mention of
her in the chronicles of the time, except in relation to her appearances with the king and her childbirths, suggesting that
contemporary observers gave her scant credit for exerting power on her own. Yet there is ample evidence that she was active
in administrative matters and was given some autonomy in decision-making, both in Aquitaine and in England and Normandy.
She was also known to be a pious woman, renowned for her support of abbeys, particularly the one at Fountevrault. She did
not live frugally, but was a hearty traveler, often riding on horseback, braving cold and storms. She was horrified, however, at
the use of candles in England, and one of her first acts was to import oil for light. Perhaps the next was to ensure a proper
stock of wine, since she disdained English beer.
Henry, however, was an open adulterer, who expected his wife to accept his infidelities, and at the same time remain faithful to
him. He was also stubborn and determined, and much less disposed to Eleanor’s influence than had been Louis. In the late
1160s Eleanor started spending increasing amounts of time in her territories on the continent, as a breech had begun to
develop between the couple after the birth of their last child, John, at least partially because of Henry’s blatant indiscretions.
An infamous story concerns Henry’s mistress, Rosamonde Clifford, the daughter of a man whose station was somewhere
between a knight and a baron, thus of modest means. Henry had met her at Bristol prior to Stephen becoming king. She was
a beautiful girl and he fell immediately in love with her. A son, named Richard, was born to them after Henry returned to
Normandy, and after the treaty of Wallingford he resumed the relationship, and another son, Geoffrey was born. When he
became king he installed Rosamonde in a small stone house just outside the wall of the royal park at Woodstock, where he
paid her visits. She did not stay long, however; repenting of her way of living, she retired to the convent of Godstow, where she
remained for twenty years until her death. The story that Eleanor discovered the relationship and poisoned her is apparently
pure myth.
But though Rosamonde might have been the best known to history, she was certainly far from being the only one, nor the most
crucial. Henry had one son by the daughter of a Sir Ralph Blewitt; then there was a handsome girl from Stepford, not of
nobility, so un-named in history. And Eudes of Porrhoet was the name of the father of his paramour in Normandy. The one,
however, who apparently became the last straw for Eleanor was Alice, second daughter of Louis of France, betrothed to
Richard, who paid her little attention. She was brought to Henry’s court for her education, where after a time she caught the
aging king’s
eye. His notes to her were well known among the palace staff and it was clear to all that he had become guilty of seducing his
daughter in law to-be. Since this could not be hidden from the view of a prying court, it soon became public scandal, and too
much for Eleanor.
In 1170, Eleanor returned to Poitiers, in Aquitaine, to live apart from Henry. These few years of harmony for Eleanor and her
children, however, were not to last. Young Henry, the eldest son and his father’s favorite, had been crowned co-regent as “the
young king Henry”, with his own household but no power. At the same time Eleanor had Richard confirmed as Duke of
Aquitaine. In 1173 young Henry quarreled with his father, and was joined by Richard and Geoffrey. This resulted in
disenchantment among the barons in England and Normandy who happily joined young Henry and Richard in an open
rebellion against their father. The rebellion was put down without difficulty, and Henry pardoned his sons, but imprisoned
Eleanor in the tower of Chinon in Anjou for six months before transferring her to England, for the role she played in supporting
them against him.
Eleanor¹s Captivity and Release
We know little of Eleanor’s life during her 11 years of captivity in England, except that she was kept from her children while
being forced to endure the gossip concerning the king’s continuing affairs, while Henry unsuccessfully attempted to annul
their marriage. Surprisingly, however, the gossip was not about Alice, but Rosamonde, who died at about this time, and about
whom fantastic stories had been circulating.
By 1183 the two Henries were again quarreling. When the older Henry cut off his allowance, young Henry took to brigandage,
plundering the shrine of Rocamador. When he died hours later from a malignant fever – a ‘flux of the bowels (probably
dysentery), it was seen as divine retribution; Geoffrey died two years later at a tournament in Paris. Meanwhile Richard and
John were quarreling over Acquitaine. With only two surviving sons, King Henry felt it only fair that a more even distribution of
his kingdom should be made between Richard and John. John, having by then taken young Henry’s place in his father’s
affections, was much like his father, since he had not grown into manhood under his
mother’s tutelage. When Henry tried to award Acquitaine and Poitou to him, Richard and Eleanor objected; both considered
John dangerous and unreliable, due to his constant scheming and intrigue. This disagreement ultimately precipitated a
coalition, led by Richard and Philip II, then king of France, against Henry. In 1189, the two allies invaded Anjou and the aging
king, sick with an ulcerated wound, was finally defeated at Le Mans. Several days later, suffering from blood poisoning, Henry
discovered that John, his favorite, seeing the weakening of his father’s power, had, with his typical opportunism, supported
Richard. His heart broken, Henry died four days later.
Eleanor Released
Upon his father’s death, Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, added the titles of king of England and Duke of Normandy and Anjou, as
well. One of his first acts was to move to release his mother from captivity; however, on arriving in England, he found that she
had already successfully negotiated her own release. And at the age of 67, Eleanor immediately began drumming up support
for Richard, for having grown up in Aquitaine, the young king spoke almost no English, and was mostly ignorant of England
and its people. In this endeavor she was quite successful, and fortunately so, since Richard departed on Crusade in the
spring of the following year. He left his mother in England as his informal regent, along with Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of
Durham, as Justiciar and William Longchamp, the recently elected Bishop of Ely, as chancellor.
Eleanor¹s first challenge as unofficial regent was to travel to the kingdom of Navarre over the Pyrenees to secure for her son a
proper wife. Eleanor and Richard had settled on Berengaria, the eldest daughter of King Sancho of Navarre. Despite
Eleanor¹s age, after a magnificent banquet in the Olite Palace in Pamplona, she and Berengaria, along with an entourage
from Navarre, immediately departed, crossing the Alps to meet Richard at Messina on the coast of Sicily. Daughter Joanna,
now widow of the King of Sicily, met them there to accompany Richard and Berengaria to the island of Cyprus, where they
were married.
But while on her way through Italy, word reached Eleanor that William Longchamp and John were dueling with each other for
political supremacy. So after only four days with Richard and Joanna, she began the return journey to Normandy, stopping at
Rome for the consecration of the new Pope, Celestine III, where she succeeded in having Henry¹s bastard son, Geoffrey,
elected Archbishop of York, and secured the appointment of the devious but loyal Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen,
as super-legate, with powers overriding those of chancellor Longchamp.
The Reigns of Richard and John
After two years on Crusade, and despite a victory at Arsuf (located between Acre and Jaffa), the impossibility of retaking
Jerusalem became evident to Richard, as Saladin’s successful regrouping and subsequent harassing attacks made him
realize Moslem strength was too great for him to hope to be victorious. After serious quarrels among the Germans, French,
and English, Richard made a truce with Saladin, leaving the Crusaders to hold Acre and a thin strip of land through which
pilgrims could access the Holy Land.
Shortly thereafter Richard set sail for England. On reaching land near Venice, however, he fell into the hands of Count Leopold
of Austria, who demanded 100,000 marks of silver and 200 hostages as ransom. The demand was transmitted through his
cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry of Hohenstaufen, to whose castle Richard was transferred. With Richard in indefinite
captivity, in 1193 John proclaimed himself Richard’s heir, and set off for France to make a deal with Philip to help him take
possession of Richard’s domains. But John did not count on his mother’s devotion to her favorite son She promptly
responded to his moves by closing the channel ports and putting England in a state of alert, so as to avert a possible invasion
by John and Philip’s mercenaries. Meanwhile, she spent the year collecting the ransom money, a difficult task, since Richard’
s territories had already been heavily taxed to support his crusade, and were now mostly broke.
She succeeded in raising the necessary funds, and in December set forth with 35 tons of silver and 200 hostages for Austria.
Although Philip and John had made the Emperor an equal offer to continue Richard¹s imprisonment, Eleanor trumped their
offer when Richard, on her advice, made obeisance to the emperor, transferring allegiance from the French to the
Hohenstauffen. Collecting her son, Eleanor then returned to England with him, prevailing upon him to reconcile with his
brother, John, on the grounds that good relations between them were preferable to the alternative; both were only too wary of
John’s driving ambition, deceit and treachery. With this accomplished, in 1194, at the age of 72, Eleanor retired to the abbey of
Fontevrault, where she remained for the next five years, during which the war in Normandy Between the French and the
English continued in typical desultory fashion.
The Death of Richard
In the spring of 1199, beset with problems related to drained English and Norman coffers, Richard got wind of a golden statue
found in the Limousin, although it was really only a pot of Roman coins. Even though he was warned that such a treasure did
not exist, Richard laid claim to it. Proceeding to the Chalus castle where the treasure was allegedly being held, Richard took
the castle under siege since its lord, Achard, would not surrender the treasure. The siege was brief, but near dusk about three
weeks later, an errant arrow stuck the king in the shoulder, and efforts to remove it resulted in the wound turning gangrenous.
When it became apparent that Richard would die, Eleanor was summoned from Fontevrault, 100 miles distant; she arrived
just in time for the king to die in her arms.
Although youngest son John had previously been proclaimed Richard’s heir to the throne, Countess Constance, The wife of
deceased second son Geoffrey, immediately asserted the claim of her 12-year-old son, Arthur, to the thrones of England and
Normandy. This claim was, typically, initially supported by King Philip of France, who was always looking for ways to weaken
the English position on the continent.
England and Normandy had accepted John’s succession, but Le Mans,
capital of Anjou, continued to support Arthur; so John raised an army and sacked the city, forcing Arthur to flee to Paris. The
next year Philip reluctantly recognized John as Richard¹s heir and agreed to marry Eleanor’s granddaughter, Blanche of
Castille, to his son, Louis, opening the intriguing future possibility of combining the crowns of England and France. And after
Eleanor traveled once again over the Pyranees, this time to Castile to collect her granddaughter, she once again withdrew to
Fontevrault. By 1202 Philip, who by then had produced his own male heir, and John were once again in disagreement, this
time over a revolt in Lusignan. Philip ordered John to appear at his court and submit to his judgement, and John refused. With
this, Philip declared the truce between them broken and declared war, Arthur once again allying with the French king.
Eleanor again came from retirement and set out for Poitiers to keep Arthur from taking possession. But on the way, the castle
of Mirebeau, in which she was spending he night, came under siege by Arthur. Refusing Arthur¹s pledge of safe conduct if she
would surrender to him, Eleanor mmediately called for John to come to her aid. Not known for his speed of response nor his
military acumen, John surprised everyone by arriving in the knick of time to rescue his mother and crush the revolt, after which
she again retired to Fontevrault where she died on April, 1, 1204, at the age of 82.
Eleanor’s influence, however, did not end with her death. Her granddaughter, Blanche of Castile, wife of Louis VIII, became the
mother and regent of Louis IX, the most popular of the Capetian monarchs and one of the most celebrated figures in medieval
history, who earned for himself canonization as Saint Louis by reconciling France and England.
Thus Eleanor, wife to two kings and mother to two more, became great grandmother to yet another. Four hundred years after
her death, Shakespeare, reflecting the misjudged view of many French historians, referred to her in King John as a “canker’d
granddam, a monstrous injurer of Heaven and Earth,” and as late as the 19th century, Agnes Strickland, Victorian biographer
of the queens of England, called her a “bad” and “giddy queen” who was given to “disgusting levity.” But when England lost
Normandy it was her ancestral lands that stayed loyal to England, and this view ignores the tenacity, political wisdom, and
energy that characterized the years of her maturity. In the words of nuns of Fontevrault in their obituary notice for her: “she was
beautiful and just, Imposing and modest, humble and elegant; a queen who surpassed almost all the Queens of the world.”
Beyond a doubt Eleanor of Aquitaine was a most amazing woman.
Sidebars
Poitiers: The Court of Love
Eleanor made the court at Poitiers a lively place, attracting the most
famous troubadours of the time. Of popular interest was the celebrated
courtly love tradition, in which Eleanor and her court of up to 60 women
allegedly attempted to change the realm¹s warriors into chivalric poets,
musicians, and romanticists, while making rulings in ‘cases’ brought by
knights and noblemen concerning their love problems.
At least several such rulings are documented, one concerning a woman who
refused to take back a lover who, having obtained her permission to transfer
his affections elsewhere, then returned, insisting he had remained faithful.
The ruling was that she should take him back.
Andreas Capellanus (Andrew the Chaplain) composed a Treatise on Love and
its Cures, relating the principles upon which all the courts seemed to
agree. Allegedly these are the principles bused by Eleanor and her ladies’
to rule on matters of love. Whether they were formulated by Capellanus or
by the court is not clear.
The principles included:
€ Marriage cannot be pleaded as an excuse for refusing to love.
€ No one can really love two people at the same time.
€ Love never stands still; it always increases or diminishes.
€ Favors unwillingly yielded are tasteless.
€ It is not becoming to love those ladies who only love with a view to marriage.
€ Too easy possession renders love contemptable.
€ Possession that is attended with difficulties makes loveŠof great price.
€ If love once begins to diminish, it quickly fades away and rarely recovers.
€ Love invariably increases under the influence of jealousy.
€ A person who is the prey of love eats little and sleeps little.
€ Love can deny nothing to love.
Henry¹s Adulterous Ways
An infamous story concerns Henry¹s mistress, Rosamonde Clifford, the
daughter of a man of modest means. Henry had met her at Bristol prior to
Stephen becoming king. She was a beautiful girl and he fell immediately in
love with her. A son, named Richard, was born to them after Henry returned
to Normandy, and after the treaty of Wallingford, he resumed the
relationship, siring another son by Rosamonde, named Geoffrey, soon after.
When Henry became king, he installed Rosamonde in a small stone house just
outside the wall of the royal park at Woodstock, where he paid her visits.
She did not stay long, however; repenting of her way of living, she retired
to the convent of Godstow, where she remained for 20 years until her death.
But though Rosamonde might have been the best known mistress of King
Henry¹s, she was far from being the only one, nor the most crucial. Henry
had one son by the daughter of a Sir Ralph Blewitt. Then there was a
handsome girl from Stepford, not of nobility, so un-named in history. And
Eudes of Porrhoet was the name of the father of a paramour in Normandy.
The mistress, however, who became the last straw for Eleanor was Alice,
second daughter of Louis of France, and betrothed to her son, Richard. She
was brought to Henry¹s court for her education, where, after a time, she
caught the aging king¹s eye. His notes to her were well-known among the
palace staff, through which it was clear that he had seduced his
daughter-in-law to be.
Whether Henry was any more adulterous than other kings of his era is
certainly questionable. But his open flaunting of mistresses,
culminating with Alice, clearly led to the breech that developed between
him and Eleanor, encouraging her to support her sons rather than
Henry when they quarreled over the divisions of power, thus influencing
The history of the time.
Poitiers: The Court of Love
Eleanor made the court at Poitiers a lively place, attracting the most
famous troubadours of the time. Of popular interest was the celebrated
courtly love tradition, in which Eleanor and her court of up to 60 women
allegedly attempted to change the realm¹s warriors into chivalric poets,
musicians, and romanticists, while making rulings in ‘cases’ brought by
knights and noblemen concerning their love problems.
At least several such rulings are documented, one concerning a woman who
refused to take back a lover who, having obtained her permission to transfer
his affections elsewhere, then returned, insisting he had remained faithful.
The ruling was that she should take him back.
Andreas Capellanus (Andrew the Chaplain) composed a Treatise on Love and
its Cures, relating the principles upon which all the courts seemed to
agree. Allegedly these are the principles bused by Eleanor and her ladies’
to rule on matters of love. Whether they were formulated by Capellanus or
by the court is not clear.
The principles included:
€ Marriage cannot be pleaded as an excuse for refusing to love.
€ No one can really love two people at the same time.
€ Love never stands still; it always increases or diminishes.
€ Favors unwillingly yielded are tasteless.
€ It is not becoming to love those ladies who only love with a view to marriage.
€ Too easy possession renders love contemptable.
€ Possession that is attended with difficulties makes loveŠof great price.
€ If love once begins to diminish, it quickly fades away and rarely recovers.
€ Love invariably increases under the influence of jealousy.
€ A person who is the prey of love eats little and sleeps little.
€ Love can deny nothing to love.
Henry¹s Adulterous Ways
An infamous story concerns Henry¹s mistress, Rosamonde Clifford, the
daughter of a man of modest means. Henry had met her at Bristol prior to
Stephen becoming king. She was a beautiful girl and he fell immediately in
love with her. A son, named Richard, was born to them after Henry returned
to Normandy, and after the treaty of Wallingford, he resumed the
relationship, siring another son by Rosamonde, named Geoffrey, soon after.
When Henry became king, he installed Rosamonde in a small stone house just
outside the wall of the royal park at Woodstock, where he paid her visits.
She did not stay long, however; repenting of her way of living, she retired
to the convent of Godstow, where she remained for 20 years until her death.
But though Rosamonde might have been the best known mistress of King
Henry¹s, she was far from being the only one, nor the most crucial. Henry
had one son by the daughter of a Sir Ralph Blewitt. Then there was a
handsome girl from Stepford, not of nobility, so un-named in history. And
Eudes of Porrhoet was the name of the father of a paramour in Normandy.
The mistress, however, who became the last straw for Eleanor was Alice,
second daughter of Louis of France, and betrothed to her son, Richard. She
was brought to Henry¹s court for her education, where, after a time, she
caught the aging king¹s eye. His notes to her were well-known among the
palace staff, through which it was clear that he had seduced his
daughter-in-law to be.
Whether Henry was any more adulterous than other kings of his era is
certainly questionable. But his open flaunting of mistresses,
culminating with Alice, clearly led to the breech that developed between
him and Eleanor, encouraging her to support her sons rather than
Henry when they quarreled over the divisions of power, thus influencing
The history of the time.
Medieval Prostitution
It is called the world’s oldest profession, and whether true or not, it surely did not originate in Europe in the Middle
Ages. The “Myletta” rite, for example, in ancient Babylonia required every female to sit in the temple of the goddess
Ishtar and sleep with the first male who threw a silver coin in her lap. And obligatory prostitution was required of
certain priestesses in the Middle East. Prostitutes in Israel, Greece and Rome are known, at certain times, to have
had to wear distinctive dress and live in designated areas. More apropos, paganism in the Roman empire tolerated
prostitution ‘as a necessary mitigation of an arduous monogomy;’ but the Christian church denounced it without
compromise, demanding a single standard of fidelity. As a result, prostitution during the late fourth and early fifth
century was driven into ‘stealth and degradation,’ although Saint Augustine, who lived during that period, is alleged to
have said, if you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust. Thomas Aquinas, in the fourteenth century
apparently agreed. It did take the church Fathers some time to recognize society could not survive with such sterile
principles.
In 800 Charlemagne ordered strict watches on convents to prevent whoring and drunkenness among nuns, and
during the period 1000 to 1100 there were numerous accusations of prostitution in convents. In 1100 in Italy, slaves
were still being used for prostitution, as long as they were Greek or Moslem, but slavery in the rest of Europe was
already beginning to die out. And in 1189 it was noted that at the seige of Acre, 300 pretty French women arrived to
solace French soldiers. In December of 1254 Louis IX of France, or Saint Louis, as he was known to history, decreed
banishment of all prostitutes from his kingdom, confiscating their clothes and property. He repeated his order in 1256
and again as he departed for his second crusade in 1269. But the trade was merely driven under ground, and shortly,
bourgeois gentlemen were complaining of the impossibility of defending the virtues of their wives and daughters from
soldiers and students.
By the early 1300’s, prostitutes in Italy and France were common; in the towns and cities their trade was flourishing
and between 1350 and 1450 it was institutionalized. A “house” in Taranscon in Provence, mentioned in 1374, was
enlarged in the 1390’s and improved in 1449. The Castelletto in Venice opened its doors in 1360. Italian and French
bordellos, known as the prostibulum publicum, or sometimes instead an entire block of streets that occasionally took
its place, the municipal brothel was located at the main cross road, close to the squares, streets and taverns, and
even churches, where the ladies ‘earned their fortune.’ A row of bordellos, or ‘stews’ as they were sometimes called,
near the London Bridge were originally licensed by the Bishop of Winchester, and subsequently sanctioned by
Parliament. But the municipal brothel was not the only game in town; it was just the municipal one.
Four types of prostitution were generally recognized in the early 12th century: the municipal brothel, public baths,
privately owned bordelages and freelancers. The municipal brothel was funded by public money, meaning taxes, and
owned by the municipality or the prince who controlled it. It included board and lodging and frequently, it was said,
food sales rivaled other sales in terms of profit for the owners. These were not closed houses, and their occupants
were free to roam, soliciting in taverns and other public places.
Rivaling the municipal brothels were the public baths. Not owned by the cities, but certainly owned by either municipal
or prominent individuals of the cities, they were apparently equally condoned, even if there were regulations that
claimed monopoly for the municipality. The baths provided public bathing services in addition to their more esoteric
offerings, employing young chambermaids with steam rooms, tubs and a small number of bed chambers.
Additionally small privately owned bordelages with a proprietess and two or three chambermaids were allowed to
function without interference; sometimes these employed ladies on call. The final category consisted of freelancers
who plied their trade by going from inn to inn, taverns and public squares soliciting clients; concubines were roughly
included in this last category. Of course, on feast days additional competition came from out of towners who swelled
the ranks of ladies for hire for the period of the festival.
Authorities did their best to enforce sanitary conditions, closing all facilities during epidemics, as well as Holy Week
and Christmas, and there were ordinances, but they were not well enforced. They did, however, attempt to keep the
trade away from churches, not always successfully. Clearly, at this time, prostitution was tolerated, if not an accepted
part of society. Most houses, particularly the private bordeleges, but including the public houses, were managed by
women, and they were respected members of the community, with bath house managers, or abesses, considered
the peak of the hierarchy. Many in the commercial places; butcher’s assistants, fullers and archers; openly pimped
for them; the sous-viguier of Tarascon, a nobleman named Ferrand de Castille, was little more than a pimp. On the
other hand, city councils received the oaths of prostitutes, discussed prices and earnings openly with them, exempted
them from local taxation, tolerated their presence at certain public events, accepted an annual gift from the managers,
encouraged them to recruit beautiful and titillating partners, even had the girls participate in urban festivities and
sports competitions, and made use of them on princely entries into the city. Sometimes they were even known to take
public responsibilities. They were certainly accepted, and generally protected in society and in church, and though
sometimes they might be known to cry over their past and moralize, they more often considered themselves no more
sinful than others.
Recruitment for the brothels came generally came from lower class women who, through bad family conditions or
separation from family, were pushed into it. But also at this time it was common for gangs of youths to roam the
streets in groups of two to fifteen looking for trouble. Generally the sons of artisans and day laborers, who could not
afford marriage, and either bored or performing a masculine rite of passage, they accosted women on the streets or
even forced their doors at night. They particularly preyed upon serving girls being kept by their masters or by priests.
This was a time of violence, and the gang rape was merely an extension of it. When it occurred it was seldom that
anyone dared to interfere and most young men of this class could look back upon having partaken of it at least once in
their lives, without incurring any marked affect on their futures, if they could pay a small fine. The less fortunate,
however, might be banished from the town. Once a rape had occurred the victim was considered to have lost her
good name, even within their own families, making them prime candidates for prostitution. Nor were all these victims
single ladies.
Ladies from the age of seventeen could be found in the bath houses: public Brothel practitioners were generally
between the ages of twenty and thirty; there they paid rent, protection to the watchman, and a portion of the heating
costs. The bonnes, dames, fillettes, belles, filles, filles joyeuses, as they were variably called, sang in the streets at
night to attract customers, wearing fancy clothes and sporting equally fancy nom de guerre, bringing their customers
back to the house. They were not supposed to entertain married men, under aged children or members of the clergy;
they were not supposed to share with another woman, but entertaining multiple male clients were acceptable, as long
as they were not related. Most of the ladies were born locally, the small number who were from outside the city would
most likely be found in the municipal brothels. Their fee for a usual half hour of work was approximately the same as
for a half day’s work in the vineyards. At this time there was no shame in frequenting these houses, and it was done
quite openly. ‘Nature,’ it would be said, ‘had moved the men to go sport,’ and they did. All young men, and many not
so young, it seemed, used the brothels quite openly.
After the age of about thirty, when their value to the house began to wane, there were several options open to
prostitutes. Some became abbesses of the bath houses or mangers of the municipal brothels. Others were
admitted to cloistered retreats, established for penitent prostitutes; Saint Louis, between 1243 and 1270, established
several filles deux for this purpose; though the opportunities for these options were limited. However, having been a
prostitute did not constitute a bar to marriage, and many neighborhood benevolent societies and even city authorities
collected money to establish dowries for that purpose.
Things began to change between 1520 and 1570. The Renaissance atmosphere forced the church to pay more
attention to women, and women were able to exert stronger influence. But there were more complex reasons. Life in
this period had become increasingly unstable, with a growing number of immigrants destabilizing many areas and
becoming more difficult to assimilate. Wages declined with prostitution gained new recruits, making it more difficult
to control. Parents, out of poverty, began selling daughters into the trade. At the same time things began to become
more dangerous due to garrisoned soldiers, and there were more brawls and murders. Syphilis existed, but was
apparently not a mitigating factor. Outbreaks had occurred thirty years prior without having had an adverse affect on
business.
There was, however, another interesting phenomenon, that began to change the picture. By 1500 courtesans had
begun to appear. These were women who lived on respectable streets; not in baths or private bordellos, but in their
own homes and apartments, where they received visitors and from which they made visits to important patronages.
Instead of being common to all, these women were concubine to a few, through whom they began to exert
uncomfortable power. They demanded more money and expected expensive clothes and gifts. Young men came
under their spell, and many of good family incurred financial ruin in the process. Courtesans, it was said, encouraged
infatuations. Sexual deviancy also began to appear during this period – something that had not existed in the public
houses previously – and even the public prostitutes began to complain. It was even becoming difficult to distinguish
prostitutes from other women, or so it was alleged by detractors.
The most renowned courtesan in Italy, one Imperia de Cugnatis, made rich by her patron, Agostino Chigi, adorned her
home with rich furniture and expensive art work and surrounded herself with scholars, artists, poets and churchmen.
Another, Tullia d’Aragona, an illegitimate daughter of the Cardinal of Aragon, was greatly admired for her golden hair
and sparkling eyes, her generosity, carelessness with money, grace of carriage and charm of conversation.. She was
received in Naples, Rome, Florence, and Ferrara like a visiting princess. This the common people did not appreciate
for two reasons, in addition to resentful jealousy. Public prostitutes had their place and, though accepted in that
place, could be pitied; courtesans, to the contrary, wielded power and flaunted their wealth. They also indulged in love
rather than sex. Men, of course, had always gone to the houses seeking satisfaction; the women merely provided it.
But the courtesans actually seemed to seek their own satisfaction; they even enjoyed it, and this was totally
unacceptable. Woman who actually enjoyed sex were considered truly depraved.
Repression was slow and spasmodic and came only as the change in attitude among the ranks of the middle class
developed. Whereas in previous times there was no shame attached to frequenting brothels, hostility to those that
did began to gain ground in the early 1500s, particularly among women and reforming preachers, and they
increasingly faced shame in the act.
Joyful brotherhoods continued to flourish, however, in the large cities up to 1550, defending the men’s rights to
extramarital sex, and the brothels remained open. But they were more and more resented by the poorer people who
couldn’t afford the indulgence. First the bath houses closed, and then the municipals. The whip and branding of
prostitutes and blatant scorn of customers was soon to follow. Prostitution, of course, did not die with the closing of
the public brothels, but became more expensive, more dangerous, and more furtive.
The age of reformation had arrived. Luther, while affirming the naturalness of sexual desire, labored to reduce
prostitution, and in 1560 Michel de l’Hospital, Chancellor of France, renewed the laws of Louis IX. Some years
previously John Calvin had already prevailed upon the Great Council of Geneva to go far beyond that, edicting that
acceptance of prostitution was ‘treason to God.’ By 1563 the Catholic Church had also completed its Counter
Reformation Council of Trent and the cycle was complete.
References:
Jacques Rossiaud, Medieval Prostitution, Blackwell Publishers, 1984
Encyclopedia Britannica
Will Durant, The Age of Faith, Simon and Schuster, 1950
Will Durant, The Renaissance, Simon and Schuster, 1953
It is called the world’s oldest profession, and whether true or not, it surely did not originate in Europe in the Middle
Ages. The “Myletta” rite, for example, in ancient Babylonia required every female to sit in the temple of the goddess
Ishtar and sleep with the first male who threw a silver coin in her lap. And obligatory prostitution was required of
certain priestesses in the Middle East. Prostitutes in Israel, Greece and Rome are known, at certain times, to have
had to wear distinctive dress and live in designated areas. More apropos, paganism in the Roman empire tolerated
prostitution ‘as a necessary mitigation of an arduous monogomy;’ but the Christian church denounced it without
compromise, demanding a single standard of fidelity. As a result, prostitution during the late fourth and early fifth
century was driven into ‘stealth and degradation,’ although Saint Augustine, who lived during that period, is alleged to
have said, if you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust. Thomas Aquinas, in the fourteenth century
apparently agreed. It did take the church Fathers some time to recognize society could not survive with such sterile
principles.
In 800 Charlemagne ordered strict watches on convents to prevent whoring and drunkenness among nuns, and
during the period 1000 to 1100 there were numerous accusations of prostitution in convents. In 1100 in Italy, slaves
were still being used for prostitution, as long as they were Greek or Moslem, but slavery in the rest of Europe was
already beginning to die out. And in 1189 it was noted that at the seige of Acre, 300 pretty French women arrived to
solace French soldiers. In December of 1254 Louis IX of France, or Saint Louis, as he was known to history, decreed
banishment of all prostitutes from his kingdom, confiscating their clothes and property. He repeated his order in 1256
and again as he departed for his second crusade in 1269. But the trade was merely driven under ground, and shortly,
bourgeois gentlemen were complaining of the impossibility of defending the virtues of their wives and daughters from
soldiers and students.
By the early 1300’s, prostitutes in Italy and France were common; in the towns and cities their trade was flourishing
and between 1350 and 1450 it was institutionalized. A “house” in Taranscon in Provence, mentioned in 1374, was
enlarged in the 1390’s and improved in 1449. The Castelletto in Venice opened its doors in 1360. Italian and French
bordellos, known as the prostibulum publicum, or sometimes instead an entire block of streets that occasionally took
its place, the municipal brothel was located at the main cross road, close to the squares, streets and taverns, and
even churches, where the ladies ‘earned their fortune.’ A row of bordellos, or ‘stews’ as they were sometimes called,
near the London Bridge were originally licensed by the Bishop of Winchester, and subsequently sanctioned by
Parliament. But the municipal brothel was not the only game in town; it was just the municipal one.
Four types of prostitution were generally recognized in the early 12th century: the municipal brothel, public baths,
privately owned bordelages and freelancers. The municipal brothel was funded by public money, meaning taxes, and
owned by the municipality or the prince who controlled it. It included board and lodging and frequently, it was said,
food sales rivaled other sales in terms of profit for the owners. These were not closed houses, and their occupants
were free to roam, soliciting in taverns and other public places.
Rivaling the municipal brothels were the public baths. Not owned by the cities, but certainly owned by either municipal
or prominent individuals of the cities, they were apparently equally condoned, even if there were regulations that
claimed monopoly for the municipality. The baths provided public bathing services in addition to their more esoteric
offerings, employing young chambermaids with steam rooms, tubs and a small number of bed chambers.
Additionally small privately owned bordelages with a proprietess and two or three chambermaids were allowed to
function without interference; sometimes these employed ladies on call. The final category consisted of freelancers
who plied their trade by going from inn to inn, taverns and public squares soliciting clients; concubines were roughly
included in this last category. Of course, on feast days additional competition came from out of towners who swelled
the ranks of ladies for hire for the period of the festival.
Authorities did their best to enforce sanitary conditions, closing all facilities during epidemics, as well as Holy Week
and Christmas, and there were ordinances, but they were not well enforced. They did, however, attempt to keep the
trade away from churches, not always successfully. Clearly, at this time, prostitution was tolerated, if not an accepted
part of society. Most houses, particularly the private bordeleges, but including the public houses, were managed by
women, and they were respected members of the community, with bath house managers, or abesses, considered
the peak of the hierarchy. Many in the commercial places; butcher’s assistants, fullers and archers; openly pimped
for them; the sous-viguier of Tarascon, a nobleman named Ferrand de Castille, was little more than a pimp. On the
other hand, city councils received the oaths of prostitutes, discussed prices and earnings openly with them, exempted
them from local taxation, tolerated their presence at certain public events, accepted an annual gift from the managers,
encouraged them to recruit beautiful and titillating partners, even had the girls participate in urban festivities and
sports competitions, and made use of them on princely entries into the city. Sometimes they were even known to take
public responsibilities. They were certainly accepted, and generally protected in society and in church, and though
sometimes they might be known to cry over their past and moralize, they more often considered themselves no more
sinful than others.
Recruitment for the brothels came generally came from lower class women who, through bad family conditions or
separation from family, were pushed into it. But also at this time it was common for gangs of youths to roam the
streets in groups of two to fifteen looking for trouble. Generally the sons of artisans and day laborers, who could not
afford marriage, and either bored or performing a masculine rite of passage, they accosted women on the streets or
even forced their doors at night. They particularly preyed upon serving girls being kept by their masters or by priests.
This was a time of violence, and the gang rape was merely an extension of it. When it occurred it was seldom that
anyone dared to interfere and most young men of this class could look back upon having partaken of it at least once in
their lives, without incurring any marked affect on their futures, if they could pay a small fine. The less fortunate,
however, might be banished from the town. Once a rape had occurred the victim was considered to have lost her
good name, even within their own families, making them prime candidates for prostitution. Nor were all these victims
single ladies.
Ladies from the age of seventeen could be found in the bath houses: public Brothel practitioners were generally
between the ages of twenty and thirty; there they paid rent, protection to the watchman, and a portion of the heating
costs. The bonnes, dames, fillettes, belles, filles, filles joyeuses, as they were variably called, sang in the streets at
night to attract customers, wearing fancy clothes and sporting equally fancy nom de guerre, bringing their customers
back to the house. They were not supposed to entertain married men, under aged children or members of the clergy;
they were not supposed to share with another woman, but entertaining multiple male clients were acceptable, as long
as they were not related. Most of the ladies were born locally, the small number who were from outside the city would
most likely be found in the municipal brothels. Their fee for a usual half hour of work was approximately the same as
for a half day’s work in the vineyards. At this time there was no shame in frequenting these houses, and it was done
quite openly. ‘Nature,’ it would be said, ‘had moved the men to go sport,’ and they did. All young men, and many not
so young, it seemed, used the brothels quite openly.
After the age of about thirty, when their value to the house began to wane, there were several options open to
prostitutes. Some became abbesses of the bath houses or mangers of the municipal brothels. Others were
admitted to cloistered retreats, established for penitent prostitutes; Saint Louis, between 1243 and 1270, established
several filles deux for this purpose; though the opportunities for these options were limited. However, having been a
prostitute did not constitute a bar to marriage, and many neighborhood benevolent societies and even city authorities
collected money to establish dowries for that purpose.
Things began to change between 1520 and 1570. The Renaissance atmosphere forced the church to pay more
attention to women, and women were able to exert stronger influence. But there were more complex reasons. Life in
this period had become increasingly unstable, with a growing number of immigrants destabilizing many areas and
becoming more difficult to assimilate. Wages declined with prostitution gained new recruits, making it more difficult
to control. Parents, out of poverty, began selling daughters into the trade. At the same time things began to become
more dangerous due to garrisoned soldiers, and there were more brawls and murders. Syphilis existed, but was
apparently not a mitigating factor. Outbreaks had occurred thirty years prior without having had an adverse affect on
business.
There was, however, another interesting phenomenon, that began to change the picture. By 1500 courtesans had
begun to appear. These were women who lived on respectable streets; not in baths or private bordellos, but in their
own homes and apartments, where they received visitors and from which they made visits to important patronages.
Instead of being common to all, these women were concubine to a few, through whom they began to exert
uncomfortable power. They demanded more money and expected expensive clothes and gifts. Young men came
under their spell, and many of good family incurred financial ruin in the process. Courtesans, it was said, encouraged
infatuations. Sexual deviancy also began to appear during this period – something that had not existed in the public
houses previously – and even the public prostitutes began to complain. It was even becoming difficult to distinguish
prostitutes from other women, or so it was alleged by detractors.
The most renowned courtesan in Italy, one Imperia de Cugnatis, made rich by her patron, Agostino Chigi, adorned her
home with rich furniture and expensive art work and surrounded herself with scholars, artists, poets and churchmen.
Another, Tullia d’Aragona, an illegitimate daughter of the Cardinal of Aragon, was greatly admired for her golden hair
and sparkling eyes, her generosity, carelessness with money, grace of carriage and charm of conversation.. She was
received in Naples, Rome, Florence, and Ferrara like a visiting princess. This the common people did not appreciate
for two reasons, in addition to resentful jealousy. Public prostitutes had their place and, though accepted in that
place, could be pitied; courtesans, to the contrary, wielded power and flaunted their wealth. They also indulged in love
rather than sex. Men, of course, had always gone to the houses seeking satisfaction; the women merely provided it.
But the courtesans actually seemed to seek their own satisfaction; they even enjoyed it, and this was totally
unacceptable. Woman who actually enjoyed sex were considered truly depraved.
Repression was slow and spasmodic and came only as the change in attitude among the ranks of the middle class
developed. Whereas in previous times there was no shame attached to frequenting brothels, hostility to those that
did began to gain ground in the early 1500s, particularly among women and reforming preachers, and they
increasingly faced shame in the act.
Joyful brotherhoods continued to flourish, however, in the large cities up to 1550, defending the men’s rights to
extramarital sex, and the brothels remained open. But they were more and more resented by the poorer people who
couldn’t afford the indulgence. First the bath houses closed, and then the municipals. The whip and branding of
prostitutes and blatant scorn of customers was soon to follow. Prostitution, of course, did not die with the closing of
the public brothels, but became more expensive, more dangerous, and more furtive.
The age of reformation had arrived. Luther, while affirming the naturalness of sexual desire, labored to reduce
prostitution, and in 1560 Michel de l’Hospital, Chancellor of France, renewed the laws of Louis IX. Some years
previously John Calvin had already prevailed upon the Great Council of Geneva to go far beyond that, edicting that
acceptance of prostitution was ‘treason to God.’ By 1563 the Catholic Church had also completed its Counter
Reformation Council of Trent and the cycle was complete.
References:
Jacques Rossiaud, Medieval Prostitution, Blackwell Publishers, 1984
Encyclopedia Britannica
Will Durant, The Age of Faith, Simon and Schuster, 1950
Will Durant, The Renaissance, Simon and Schuster, 1953
Eleanor Of Aquitaine, Grandmother of Europe
Medieval Prostitution