Medieval Queens

 Medieval queens exercised a great deal of authority, sometimes from "behind the throne," sometimes in their own right.  As I have earlier discussed, medieval women had more of what we would call "rights" (autonomy, ability to control their own property) than women in the nineteenth century in the US or UK.  Queens of course had an authority that most women never had, but then most men never had that kind of authority either.

 

A number of queens ruled in their own right.  In England, Mathilda, granddaughter of William the Conqueror, was declared ruling queen of England after her father's death.  She spent her whole reign battling her cousin Stephen for the throne.  He ended up being declared the rightful king in modern lists of kings of England, but at the time the English barons were more than happy to switch allegiance back and forth between Mathilda and Stephen, depending on who offered a better deal.  Stephen lived longer, which is probably why he now gets the nod.  Her being a woman wasn't so much of an issue as the fact that she was married to the count of Anjou, the county that had always been in competition with Normandy, where most of the English barons had property.

Mathilda's son Henry became King Henry II of England after Stephen's death in 1154.  Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine, who had earlier been queen of France, married to Louis VII, who divorced her for not bearing a son (she had five sons with Henry, showing it wasn't her fault).  She was the only medieval queen to get to be queen of two different countries (France and England), though never actually a ruling queen.  On the other hand, as duchess of Aquitaine she brought essentially the whole southwest quarter of France to each of her husbands.  She also was very active during her life, going on Crusade with Louis VII, aiding and abetting her sons in their revolts against Henry II, and arranging the marriages of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

In the fifteenth-century Iberian peninsula, the two most powerful kingdoms were Aragon and Castile, ruled respectively by Ferdinand and Isabelle.  They married, and their joint rule as "the Catholic kings" (both being king, you notice) was very significant both for a unified Spain and for world history.  They drove the last of the Moors out of Spain, finishing a 600 year project (the Reconquista), drove out the Jews while they were at it, and sponsored Columbus in 1492.

In addition to ruling in their own right, many queens were powers behind the throne.  They had their own courts, with their own court officials, their own hangers-on, and their own petitioners.  Anyone with an important request for the king would do well to start with the queen.  If she agreed, she would use her powers of persuasion to win the king around.

A major constraint on queens was the necessity that they produce an heir (as suggested in the example of Eleanor of Aquitaine).  The problem with heredity is that without children the property (or in this case the kingdom) can end up being passed off to some cousin.  And the queen had to be assumed to be totally pure, so that any child she bore would undeniably be the king's.  Kings were allowed a little latitude in their love life, to the point that by the early modern period (post medieval) Royal Mistress was a recognized position.  But queens were not any latitude.  Queens caught in adultery were supposed to be put to death, although in fact medieval queens were faithful enough (or discreet enough) that this didn't happen (but then in the post-medieval period you get Henry VIII and the wives beheaded for adultery).

© C. Dale Brittain 2024

For more on medieval kings and queen, see my new ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.  Also available in paperback.