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Eleanor Plantagenet
| Eleanor Plantagenet | |
|---|---|
| Queen consort of Castile | |
 Miniature from after 1174 in the Tumbo menor de Castilla depicting Queen Eleanor Plantagenet. National Historical Archive. | |
| Reign | 1170–1214 |
| Predecessor | Blanca Garcés of Navarre |
| Successor | Mafalda of Portugal |
| Born | 13 October 1160 Castle of Domfront, Duchy of Normandy |
| Died | 31 October 1214 (aged 54) Burgos, Kingdom of Castile |
| Burial | |
| Spouse | Alfonso VIII of Castile |
| Issue | See: Issue |
| House | Plantagenet |
| Father | Henry II of England |
| Mother | Eleanor of Aquitaine |
Eleanor Plantagenet or Eleanor of England (Domfront, 13 October 1160 – Burgos, 31 October 1214) was the daughter of King Henry II of England and his wife, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. A Princess of England, she was Queen consort of Castile between 1170 and 1214 through her marriage to King Alfonso VIII of Castile. She was the mother, among others, of the monarchs Henry I of Castile and Berengaria of Castile. Upon the death of her husband, on 6 October 1214, she was Regent of Castile for twenty-four days.[1]
Family origins
She was the daughter of King Henry II of England and his wife, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Her paternal grandparents were Geoffrey V of Anjou and his wife, Matilda of England, daughter of King Henry I of England. On her mother's side, her grandparents were William X of Aquitaine, Count of Poitiers, and his wife Eleanor of Châtellerault, Duchess of Aquitaine. She had several siblings, among them the kings Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland, monarchs of England.
Biography
She was born in 1160,[2] and at ten years of age her betrothal was celebrated in September 1170 in the city of Tarazona with Alfonso VIII of Castile, son of King Sancho III, who had been crowned in the city of Burgos the previous year. Before the marriage, her parents, the King and Queen of England, granted their daughter as a dowry the Duchy of Aquitaine, which belonged to her mother, Queen Eleanor. Alfonso VIII granted his wife as dower the castles of Burgos and Castrojeriz, Amaya, Avia, Saldaña, Monzón de Campos, Carrión de los Condes, Dueñas, Tariego de Cerrato, Cabezón, Medina del Campo, Astudillo, Aguilar and Villaescusa, and the revenues of the port of Santander, Cabedo, Besgo de Santillana, Tudela, Calahorra, Arnedo, Viguera, Metria, those of the castle and city of Nájera, Logroño, Grañón, Belorado, Pancorbo, Piedralada, Poza de la Sal, the Monastery of Rodilla, Atienza, Ciudad de Osma, Peñafiel, Curiel de Duero, Hita, Zurita and Peñanegra, and for her chamber the City of Burgos and the town of Castrojeriz, with all their rights and revenues; he would furthermore grant her half of the territories he might conquer from the Muslims from the time their marriage was celebrated.[3]
The marriage served to strengthen the Pyrenean frontier, and Eleanor Plantagenet also brought as a wedding dowry the County of Gascony, which Alfonso VIII was never able to annex to the Crown of Castile. Nevertheless, numerous Gascon knights came to the peninsula to help their lord in the struggle against the Almohads. Around 1180, the Castilian Monarch and his wife decided to found a convent of Cistercian nuns, the Monastery of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, in the City of Burgos. That foundation, initially dependent on the Monastery of Santa María de la Caridad of Tulebras (in Navarre), became from 1187, by the wish of the King and Queen, the mother house of all the Cistercian female abbeys in the territory of Castile, and it was chosen by Alfonso VIII and his wife as the royal pantheon for themselves and their descendants.
The Queen ordered the construction in the Cathedral of Toledo of a chapel dedicated to Saint Thomas Becket, or Thomas of Canterbury (of Canterbury), as he was then known, which was the first dedicated to the British saint outside the British Isles. The chapel is not preserved today because it was destroyed and its space became part of the Chapel of Santiago in the Cathedral of Toledo, which was built by the Constable Álvaro de Luna to construct his own funerary chapel. Likewise, in 1183, on the site of the mosque of Cuenca, a Castilian city conquered in 1177, she ordered construction to begin on the Cathedral of Santa María and San Julián of Cuenca, in the Anglo-Norman Gothic style.
She died on 31 October 1214, several weeks after the death of King Alfonso VIII, which occurred on 6 October of the same year. She was Regent of Castile during those twenty-four days.[1]
Marriage and issue
From her marriage to Alfonso VIII were born ten children of whom there is documentary record, although there were probably more:[4][5]
- Berengaria (Segovia, 1 June 1179 – Monastery of las Huelgas, 8 November 1246), Queen of Castile and wife of Alfonso IX of León.[6]
- Sancho (5 April 1181 – 9 July 1181), the first male child, who died at three months of age.[7]
- Sancha (1182–1184). Her last appearance in the documentation was in the year 1184. She is buried in the family pantheon in the Monastery of las Huelgas.[8][9]
- Urraca (1186 – 2 November 1220), queen consort through her marriage in 1211 to Afonso II of Portugal.[10]
- Blanche (Palencia, 1188 – Melun, 1252), was Queen consort of France through her marriage in 1200 to Louis VIII and founder of the convent of Cistercian nuns of Malbuisson.[11]
- Ferdinand (Cuenca, 29 November 1189 – Madrid, 14 October 1211), heir to the Crown of Castile.[12]
- Mafalda (Plasencia, 1191 – Salamanca, 1204);[13]
- Eleanor (c. 1190–1244), queen consort of Aragon through her marriage in 1221 to James I of Aragon.[14]
- Constance (d. 2 January 1243), lady of the Cistercian Monastery of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in Burgos;[15]
- Henry (14 April 1204 – Palencia, 1217), successor of Alfonso VIII, under the name of Henry I.[16]
Ancestry
| Generation | Ancestors |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1. Eleanor Plantagenet |
| 2 | 2. Henry II of England 3. Eleanor of Aquitaine |
| 3 | 4. Geoffrey V of Anjou 5. Matilda of England 6. William X of Aquitaine 7. Eleanor of Châtellerault |
| 4 | 8. Fulk of Jerusalem 9. Ermengarde of Maine 10. Henry I of England 11. Matilda of Scotland 12. William IX of Aquitaine 13. Philippa of Toulouse 14. Aimery I of Châtellerault 15. Dangerosa of L'Isle Bouchard |
| 5 | 16. Fulk IV of Anjou 17. Bertrade of Montfort 18. Elias I of Maine 19. Matilda of Château-du-Loir 20. William I of England 21. Matilda of Flanders 22. Malcolm III of Scotland 23. Saint Margaret of Scotland 24. William VIII of Aquitaine 25. Hildegarde of Burgundy 26. William IV of Toulouse 27. Emma of Mortain 28. Boson II of Châtellerault 29. Alienor of Thouars 30. Barthelemy of l'Isle Bouchard 31. Gerberge of Blaison |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Arco y Garay 1954, p. 248.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, p. 41.
- ↑ Arco y Garay 1954, p. 241.
- ↑ González González 1960, pp. 194–212.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, pp. 43–53.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, pp. 46–47.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, pp. 47–48.
- ↑ González González 1960, p. 203.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, p. 48.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, pp. 48–49.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, p. 49.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, pp. 49–50.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, pp. 50–51.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, pp. 51–52.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, p. 52.
- ↑ Martínez Díez 2007, pp. 52–53.
Bibliography used
- Arco y Garay, Ricardo (1954). Sepulcros de la Casa Real de Castilla (in español). Madrid: Instituto Jerónimo Zurita. CSIC. OCLC 11366237.
- Colmeiro y Penido, Manuel (1883). Cortes de los antiguos Reinos de León y de Castilla (in español). Madrid: Establecimiento tipográfico de los sucesores de Rivadeneyra, impresores de la Real Casa. OCLC 493127914.
- Elorza, Juan C.; Vaquero, Lourdes; Castillo, Belén; Negro, Marta (1990). Junta de Castilla y León. Consejería de Cultura y Bienestar Social (ed.). El Panteón Real de las Huelgas de Burgos. Los enterramientos de los reyes de León y de Castilla (in español) (2ª ed.). Valladolid: Editorial Evergráficas S.A. ISBN 84-241-9999-5.
- Gómez Moreno, Manuel (1946). Instituto Diego Velázquez. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ed.). El Panteón de las Huelgas Reales de Burgos (in español). Madrid.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - González González, Julio (1960). El reino de Castilla en la época de Alfonso VIII (in español). Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). OCLC 174572574.
- Martínez Díez, Gonzalo (2007). Alfonso VIII, rey de Castilla y Toledo (1158-1214) (in español). Gijón: Ediciones Trea, S.L. ISBN 978-84-9704-327-4.
Additional bibliography
- Cerda, José Manuel (2011), La dot gasconne d'Aliénor d'Angleterre. Entre royaume de Castille, royaume de France et royaume d'Angleterre, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, ISSN 0007-9731, Vol. 54, No. 215, 2011.Cerda, José Manuel (2012). "Leonor Plantagenet y la consolidación castellana en el reinado de Alfonso VIII". Anuario de Estudios Medievales (in español). 42.2. ISSN 0066-5061.
{{cite journal}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Cerda, José Manuel (2016), "Matrimonio y patrimonio. La carta de arras de Leonor Plantagenet, reina consorte de Castilla", Anuario de Estudios Medievales, vol. 46.1.
- Cerda, José Manuel (2016), Leonor Plantagenet and the cult of Thomas Becket in Castile, The cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, ed. P. Webster and M.P. Gelin, Boydell Press.
- Cerda, José Manuel (2013), "The marriage of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Leonor Plantagenet : the first bond between Spain and England in the Middle Ages", Les stratégies matrimoniales dans l’aristocratie (xe-xiiie siècles), ed. Martin Aurell.
- Cerda, José Manuel (2018), "Diplomacia, mecenazgo e identidad dinástica. La consorte Leonor y el influjo de la cultura Plantagenet en la Castilla de Alfonso VIII", Los modelos anglonormandos en la cultura letrada de Castilla, ed. Amaia Arizaleta and Francisco Bautista (Toulouse).
- Cerda, José Manuel (2019), "Un documento inédito y desconocido de la cancillería de la reina Leonor Plantagenet", En la España Medieval, vol. 42.
External links
