“I dressed my maids
as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and
I damn near died of windburn, but the troops were dazzled.”
Eleanor
of Aquitaine in the 1967 film “A Lion in Winter” starring Peter O’Toole and
Katherine Hepburn.
As with most good
historical fiction, there is more than a grain of truth to this fictional line
from The Lion in Winter. Not only did
Eleanor of Aquitaine take part in the Second Crusade, her role soon became controversial and her participation
precipitated a marriage crisis. Here is a summary of what happened.
In 1144, the
crusader county of Edessa was overrun by the atabeg of Mosul, Zengi. The news shocked Western Europe and Pope
Eugenius III called for a new crusade. St. Bernard of Clairvaux
enthusiastically took up the call, and (at the pope’s bidding) preached the
crusade far and wide, including on Easter Sunday in Vezelay, Burgundy. Here King Louis VII of France knelt before
the abbot and took the cross to the thunderous cheers of his vassals and
subjects. When he finished, his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, knelt beside him
and likewise took the cross.
Eleanor did so as the Duchess
of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitou – not as Queen of France. The importance of
her gesture was to muster support among the barons and lords who owed her, but
not Louis of France, homage. However,
Eleanor’s example inspired many other noblewomen to take the cross as well.
When King
Louis’ crusaders set forth on their crusade, the estimated 100,000 French included
an unnamed number of ladies – or “amazons” as some liked to call them –
determined to take part in the crusade themselves. Far from being Eleanor’s “maids,” most of
these women were the wives of noble crusaders, wealthy enough to afford horses
and armor, since according to a Greek chronicler writing some fifty years after
the event, they rode astride and wore armor.
They were also accompanied by servants and a great deal of baggage.
Depiction of
Eleanor of Aquitaine in a German 12th century Manuscript
The first stages of this
crusade went remarkably well, with the army making good progress. Although accounts differ on the extent to
which Louis was able to prevent pillaging and abuse of the civilian population along
the route, it is clear that the French intention was to pay for provisions and
leave the Christian populations in peace. Unfortunately, they were preceded by
German crusaders under the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III that behaved badly enough that the
French found many the cities closed to them, and the price for goods exorbitant.
Nevertheless, they reached Constantinople
in comparatively good order, and while the common soldiers encamped outside the
walls, the nobles, including Eleanor and her ladies, were introduced to the
luxuries and splendors of the fabled Queen of Cities. They were lodged in
palaces the like of which they had never seen before, feted and entertained.
 |
| Byzantine Mosaic of the Emperor Constantine founding Hagia Sophia |
The news that the Byzantine Emperor had just concluded a 12 year truce with the
Turks, however, cast serious doubts upon his reliability. The mistrust of the Greeks only increased
when the Byzantine Emperor tried to make Louis swear to turn over any territories
his army conquered to the Emperor. Louis thought he had come to fight the
Turks and restore Christian rule – not expand the borders of the Byzantine
Empire. Nevertheless, Louis rejected
calls by some of his advisors to capture Constantinople and depose the Greek
emperor. Instead he set out for
Jerusalem determined to fulfill his crusading vow – and consult with the King
of Jerusalem about further action.
The French crusaders advanced
along the southern, coastal route at a leisurely pace until at the end of
October they encountered deserters from the German crusade, who reported that
the Turks had all but annihilated the Germans and now lay in wait for the French.
A few days later, the French caught up
with what was left of the Germans, including Emperor Conrad, who was suffering
from a head wound. Together Louis and Conrad’s crusaders followed the
Mediterranean coast, finally reaching Ephesus in time for Christmas. Here,
however, Conrad decided he was too ill to continue, so he and his nobles took
ship back for Constantinople, while what was left of the foot soldiers
continued with Louis’s army.
No sooner had the German
Emperor departed, than adversity struck the French. Torrential rains lasting
four days washed away tents, supplies, and many men and horses. After this
catastrophe, Louis elected to strike out inland across the mountains, despite
the absence of guides, in an attempt to reach Antioch as soon as possible. This route, however, was not only through
rugged terrain and along bad roads, but took the French where they were
constantly harassed by Turkish raiders. By now, at the latest, the “gayness and
the gilt” of Eleanor and her lady-crusaders (or amazons) were “all besmirched
with rainy marching in the painful field.”
After this disaster, the French
returned to the coast, now determined to continue the crusade by ship. They
were without supplies, however, and soon reduced to eating their horses before what
was left of Louis’ force finally reached Antalia on January 20, 1148. Here they discovered it was impossible to
find sufficient ships for the whole force at prices King Louis was willing to
pay. Plague broke out in the crusader camp, decimating a force already on the
brink of starvation. At this junction, King Louis VII (not to be confused with
his namesake and future saint, Louis IX) abandoned his troops and took ship
with his wife and nobles for Antioch. Abandoned by their king, some 3000 French
crusaders are said to have converted to Islam in exchange for their lives and
food.
Louis and Eleanor, meanwhile, arrived in Antioch. Antioch was a magnificent, walled city, which had been one of the richest in the Roman Empire. At this time it was inhabited by a mixed population of Greek and Armenian Christians ruled by a Latin Christian elite, headed by Raymond of Poitiers, the younger brother of Eleanor’s father, William Duke of Aquitaine. The language of the court at Antioch was Eleanor’s own langue d’oc, and the customs were likewise those of the Languedoc. Within a very short time, Eleanor and her uncle developed such rapport that the king became jealous and then suspicious. The clerical chroniclers are united in condemning Eleanor of forgetting her “royal dignity” – and her marriage vows.
The situation was aggravated by
the fact that Raymond of Antioch thought the crusaders had come to restore
Christian control over the county of Edessa – and so secure his eastern flank. Louis, on the other hand, thought he had come on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and insisted on
continuing to the Holy City, rather than following the Prince of Antioch’s
military advice. At this junction, with Louis already jealous of Eleanor’s
close relationship (sexual or not) with Prince Raymond, she announced that she
– and all her vassals – would remain in Antioch, whether her husband continued on to Jerusalem
or not. Since her vassals made up the bulk of what was left of the French
forces, this was an effective veto. Louis threatened to use force to make her
come with him as was his right as her husband. Eleanor retorted their marriage
was invalid because they were related within the prohibited degrees and
demanded an annulment. Louis responded by having her arrested in the middle of
the night and carried away from Antioch by force.
Although Eleanor then spent several
months in Jerusalem while her husband’s crusade came to its final humiliating
disaster outside Damascus, nothing is recorded of her activities. Her influence on Louis and her role in the
crusade was over. Furthermore, despite an attempt to patch up the marriage,
after their return to France, the birth of a second daughter made a divorce
a dynastic priority, paving the way for Eleanor to marry Henry of Anjou, the
future King Henry II of England. (Truly, fiction does not get
better than facts like these!)
There are many biographies of Eleanor, I personally relied on Alison Weir’s Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England, (London, Pimlico, 1999), and Amy Kelly’s Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings, (Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 1950).
Eleanor’s Tomb at
the Abbey of Fontevrault
Eleanor was a contemporary of Balian d'Ibelin, although she would have been in Jerusalem before his birth. Her son, Richard the Lionheart, and Balian fought together against Saladin in the Third Crusade. Their -- initially hostile -- relationship and joint efforts are described in the third book of my Balian series, Envoy of Jerusalem.
Eleanor was opportunistic and knew nothing of military matters? Noooo!
ReplyDeleteNot surprising.