[In the following essay, Chambers contrasts the known historical evidence with various legends of Eleanor, including: her supposed participation in the Second Crusade, engaging in several love affairs, causing the death of Rosamond Clifford, and ruling over poetry courts.]

Of the few details associated in the common mind with Eleanor of Aquitaine, several are patent fictions which no sober historian would accept, although her biographers have done so all too often. But these stories, false as they are, generally have some basis in fact; and it will be my purpose here to present the facts as they are recorded by Eleanor's contemporaries, and to examine the growth of the legends from them.

I

Eleanor, as everyone knows, inherited about a third of France from her father (William X of Aquitaine), and married Louis VII, who became at his father's death her feudal suzerain. She was a strong woman, and had a mind of her own, which she showed by accompanying her husband on the second crusade. As this unlucky expedition is the source of at least two romantic legends, we can perhaps best begin by inquiring into its origin.

Louis VII had heard of the fall of Edessa, and had made up his mind to go to the aid of the Christians in Asia Minor, and at the same time to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This second object was very important to Louis, who felt obliged to atone thus for the burning of a church at Vitry during his war with Thibaut of Champagne. On March 31, 1146, he called an assembly of his barons at Vézelay, where they listened to an eloquent sermon of Saint Bernard, now unfortunately lost. The French were so deeply moved by the words of the venerable old man that they clamored for crosses; he had to tear his own robe into strips to supply the demand. Eleanor was there, and she determined to accompany Louis to the East. Just why she took the cross is hard to say; several possible explanations suggest themselves: her love for adventure and excitement and the company of men; or Louis's desire to have her near him, either because he feared her unfaithfulness if he left her alone, or because he loved her too passionately to go away without her.

Eleanor's presence on the crusade would probably have been disturbing enough in itself; but to make matters worse, other ladies decided to follow their husbands, or their husbands decided to take them. This multitude of women not only made the army unchaste, as William of Newburgh¹ complains, but also impeded its progress, and above all made discipline practically impossible. The ladies are said (but not by early authorities) to have sent spindles and distaffs to the men who refused to take the cross—the ‘slackers’ of the second crusade—and so to have shamed a number of them into joining the ranks, leaving France almost without men, save for peasants and those incapable of bearing arms.²

The presence of these ladies among the crusaders tickled the popular imagination and provided a starting point for fanciful accounts of their doings. A story arose to the effect that Eleanor was a sort of earlier Jeanne d’Arc or later Hippolyta, and led into battle a band of warrior ladies, who fought bravely beside their husbands, but caused the latter grave concern for their safety, and so disrupted the order of the army. The vision of Eleanor in full twelfth-century armor, on horseback, at the head of a battalion of Amazons,³ is not incompatible with the ardor and vehemence of character that she displayed on other occasions; but there is no contemporary evidence to justify it. Larrey⁴ is perhaps the first to use this episode, which he may have invented to give Eleanor a colorful part in the drama of the crusade. Since his day, it has been repeated a number of times, with more or less credence, and has gained a certain respectability from the company it has kept; but it has no foundation in the writings of Eleanor's contemporaries.

II

This same crusade gave rise to another legend about Eleanor, even more fantastic than the first. This concerns her amorous dalliance with Saladin, the great infidel leader. The ‘Ménestrel de Reims,’⁵ to whom we owe this bit of lore, gives a circumstantial account of the affair, which runs about as follows: Eleanor was so struck by Saladin's generosity and by rumors that had reached her of his great beauty and politeness that she entered into correspondence with him. He in turn found such charm in her letters and heard such glowing reports of her appearance from his messengers that he fell in love with her. She returned his love (by messenger, of course); and when at length he proposed to abduct her and marry her, she welcomed the opportunity to escape from her too monastic husband, and between them they perfected their plans for the elopement. Saladin was to come for her by night, and they were to embark in one of his ships and sail away from ‘Sur’ (Tyre) before Louis could stop them. The plan almost worked. Eleanor had already left the palace with her Saracen lover when one of her chambermaids, who had noticed what was going on, went to Louis and told him about it. He rushed after his fleeing wife, caught her just as she was setting foot in the ship, and brought her back to his irksome bed. When he asked why she had tried to run away, she replied: ‘En non Dieu, pour vostre mauvestié; car vous ne valez pas une pomme pourrie. Et j’ai tant de bien oï dire de Solehadin que je l’ain mieuz que vous; et sachiez bien de voir que de moi tenir ne jorrez vous jà.’

In spite of its preposterousness, this story was repeated by more than one chronicler, and became closely attached to the name of Eleanor. If it needs refutation, perhaps the best single fact to adduce is the known age of Saladin in 1148; as a child of twelve, it is hardly likely that he would have inspired so violent a passion in the queen's breast, or that he would have tried to steal her from Louis. Even in the Orient, where children mature rapidly, such a thing passes belief. But this fabrication, like that of the Amazons, sheds light on the character of the woman who inspired it; and, like the other, it has some basis in real fact.

Louis went to Antioch (not Tyre) for a special reason. Raymond, Eleanor's uncle, was the ruler of that city, and Louis might fairly expect help from him against the infidels. At least he would give the crusaders a friendlier reception than they had received from the treacherous Greeks in Constantinople, or could hope to find elsewhere; and it would be pleasant to see him. And, in fact, Raymond did receive them with great honor; but it soon became apparent that he had interested motives for doing so. Not only was he in no position to help Louis on his way to Jerusalem, but on the contrary he implored Louis to stay and help him repulse his own enemies. Louis refused, mindful of his vow to go to Jerusalem, and unwilling to be turned aside from his original plan by Raymond's needs. When Raymond saw that he was getting nowhere with his entreaties, he began to hate Louis, and to do all in his power to set snares for him and to do him harm. He even laid plans to abduct Eleanor, who, being a foolish woman (‘una de fatuis mulieribus,’ says William, Archbishop of Tyre, who tells the story⁶), consented. William adds that Eleanor was imprudent, negligent of her royal dignity, and forgetful of her marital bonds. When Louis learned of the plot, he took counsel with his nobles, and forestalled Raymond by slipping away secretly from Antioch with his people and hastening on his way.

John of Salisbury,⁷ the other chief source of the episode, makes no mention of Raymond's attempts to secure assistance from the French, but says that he became unduly familiar with Eleanor, and so aroused Louis's suspicion and made him decide to leave Antioch. But Eleanor expressed a desire to stay with her uncle, and Raymond proposed to keep her, if Louis would give his permission. Louis thereupon threatened to take her away by force. She became angry, and referred to a rumor that they were distant cousins; she had scruples of conscience, she said, about living with him any longer. This may have been the seed that later bore the fruit of their divorce; but for the moment Louis heeded the advice of his counselors, and obliged Eleanor to leave the city with him.

III

Shortly after the return home, for reasons that are not yet entirely clear, the marriage of Louis and Eleanor was dissolved on the traditional ground of consanguinity. After a brief period in her own domains, Eleanor married Henry of Anjou, who soon mounted the English throne as Henry II.

With the early years of Eleanor's second marriage is connected a tradition that links her name with that of the great Provençal poet Bernart de Ventadorn. The story goes back to the Provençal Vida, or Life, of Bernart, which is preserved in the same manuscripts as his poems.⁸ Bernart, according to the Vida, was driven out by the Viscount of Ventadorn (Ventadour), jealous for his wife's honor. ‘And he departed and went to the Duchess of Normandy, who was young and of great worth and was a good judge of merit and honor and songs in her praise. And the verses and songs of Bernart pleased her much, wherefore she received him and honored him and took him in and did many things to please him. For a long while he was in the court of the Duchess, and he fell in love with her, and the lady fell in love with him, and Bernart made many good songs about her. But King Henry of England married her and took her away from Normandy, and carried her to England; and Bernart then remained on this side, sad and grieving.’

The very hazy historical notions of the author should put one on his guard against giving too much credence to this tale: he makes Eleanor Duchess of Normandy before her marriage, and Henry King of England at the time of the wedding. But until very recently, scholars did not seriously question the principal matter, that of Eleanor's being in love with Bernart. The fullest discussion of their relations is in Appel's edition of the poet's works.⁹ Briefly, it may be summed up as follows:

Bernart undoubtedly knew Eleanor, and even seems to have spent some time in England with her and Henry, probably around 1155. This is not mentioned in the Provençal biography, though Bernart's poems refer to it fairly clearly. Bernart addresses one poem to Eleanor (Pel doutz chan que’l rossinhols fai¹⁰) as the ‘reina dels Normans,’ and it would be possible to think the poem a declaration of love for the queen. But anyone at all familiar with Provençal poetry will recall many other love poems of the same sort, addressed by an envoi, as this one is, to some distinguished patron or patroness. Furthermore, Bernart was on the best of terms with Henry, and says at the end of another poem:¹¹ ‘On account of the king I am English and Norman.’ This and several other poems referring to his stay in England mention a lady whom Bernart calls his ‘Magnet’ (Aziman); and many have assumed that Aziman is Eleanor. Needless to say, there is not the slightest real evidence to support this theory; and some of the expressions of the poems would be almost inconceivable as applied to a queen, the wife of a friendly monarch.¹² The logical interpretation of the poems is simply that Eleanor and Henry entertained Bernart at their court, and that he thanked them by addressing verses to both of them.

IV

Of all the legends concerning Eleanor, by far the most prolific in a literary way is that which records her treatment of Henry's mistress, Fair Rosamond Clifford. There is not room here even to mention all the poems, tragedies, operas, and other writings based on this theme, in Italian, German, and French, as well as English; Fair Rosamond has never had a Shakespeare, but she has had a great many Addisons and Daniels. One of the earliest historians of the life and death of Rosamond, Giraldus Cambrensis¹³ (ca 1146-1220), after mentioning Henry's arrogance in attributing to himself, rather than to God, the end of a rebellion of his sons (1174), continues: ‘Once he had imprisoned his wife Alienora, he who had formerly practised adultery in secret, now did so without concealment, misusing openly and shamelessly not indeed the rose of the world (rosa mundi) … but rather the rose of the unclean (rosa immundi).’ This last is pretty clearly a pun on ‘Rosamond.’

The first important accretion to this nucleus seems to be that preserved by Higden, who is most pleasantly read in the translation of Sir John Trevisa:¹⁴

This mescheef durede two yere, and was unnethe i-cessed, and he accounted the cesynge ther of to his owne strengthe, and nought to Goddes mercy, and he that hadde prisoned his wif Eleanore the queene, and was priveliche a spouse brekere, leveth now openliche in spousebreche, and is nought aschamed to misuse the wenche Rosamound. To this faire wenche the kyng made at Wodestoke a chambre of wonder craft, wonderliche i-made by Dedalus werke, leste the queene schulde fynde and take Rosamounde; but the wenche deide sone, and is i-buried in the chapitre hous at Godestowe besides Oxenforde with siche a writynge on her tombe:

Hic jacet in tumba Rosa mundi non rosa munda,
                    Non redolet sed olet quod redolere solet.

That is, Here lieth in tombe the rose of the world, nought a clene rose; it smelleth nought swete, but it stinketh, that was wont to smelle ful swete.

Higden also mentions a curiously wrought chest that Rosamond had.

The part of Eleanor, who is only a menacing danger in this version, increases with the years. The French Chronicle of London,¹⁵ dated by its editor in the middle of the fourteenth century, has a very long account of the death of Rosamond. First of all, Eleanor (whom the author thinks the wife of Henry III) puts Rosamond, naked, between two fires in a tightly closed room; then she has her placed in a bath, and makes an old woman cut the veins in her arms. While she is bleeding to death, another old woman brings toads and places them on her breasts.

This chronicle does not tell how Eleanor found Rosamond in her maze; but Fabyan¹⁶ (who died ca 1513) supplies this information: ‘But the common fame telleth, that lastly the queene wan to her by a clewe of threde or silke, and delt with her in such maner, that she lived not long after.’

This raises two questions: how Eleanor got the clew of thread, and by what means she caused Rosamond's death. The ballad Fair Rosamond¹⁷ answers that on leaving for France, Henry had put Rosamond in the charge of a valiant knight, who went in and out by means of a thread which he followed. Then,

For when his grace had past the seas,
                    And into France was gone
With envious heart, queene Ellinor
                    To Woodstocke came anone,
And forth she calles this trustye knighte,
                    In an unhappy houre;
Who with his clue of twined-thread,
                    Came from this famous bower.
And when that they had wounded him,
                    The queene this thread did gette,
And went where ladye Rosamonde
                    Was like an angell sette …
Cast off from thee those robes, she said,
                    That rich and costlye bee;
And drink thou up this deadlye draught
                    Which I have brought to thee.

Rosamond pleaded with Eleanor, but found no pity in her.

And casting up her eyes to heaven,
                    Shee did for mercye calle;
And drinking up the poison stronge,
                    Her life she lost withalle.

The later versions nearly all follow the ballad in making poison the means of Rosamond's death, but in many of them—for example, Addison's opera Rosamond (1707)—Eleanor gives her the alternative of a dagger. This dagger, along with the cup of poison, has passed into the Authorized Version of the legend.

Some writers, however, like William Hawkins,¹⁸ take pity on Rosamond, and have Eleanor send her to a nunnery instead of killing her.

The once-prevalent belief that William Longsword and Geoffrey Archbishop of York were sons of Rosamond and Henry is now generally discredited. (See the Dictionary of National Biography, XI, 75-77: ‘Fair Rosamond Clifford.’) All that one can say with some assurance about Rosamond is that she was Henry's mistress around 1174, and that she died young.

V

A great deal has been written about the ‘Courts of Love’ and Eleanor's connection with them. This is not the place to attempt to decide the very difficult question of their existence and their seriousness; instead, let me refer to the sound and scholarly article by Gaston Paris,¹⁹ which is the best summary of the arguments for and against them. I should like also to refer to Miss Amy Kelly's article, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Courts of Love.²⁰ Miss Kelly seems to take the courts more seriously than does Gaston Paris, and she tells all that is known about Eleanor's supposed connection with them.

Although some late writers (e.g., Jean de Nostredame in the sixteenth century) refer to ‘courts’ where abstract problems of love were discussed, the only contemporary book which mentions these courts is the de Arte honeste amandi of a certain Andreas, called ‘the Chaplain.’ Caston Paris (p. 483) dates this book around 1220. The courts of love, according to Andreas, were tribunals of noble ladies before which disagreeing lovers sent their cases (anonymously) for decision. Andreas reports the proceedings in a number of such suits, and tells the decision of this or that lady, and her sentence. Eleanor (‘Almoria’) renders decisions in several cases; so does her daughter Marie of Champagne.

Now, it is quite likely that Eleanor and, following her example, other ladies of France set themselves up as arbiters of problems of amorous casuistry. Even before Eleanor's time, poets had appealed to ladies to decide the questions of this sort discussed in their tensos. But that any of these ladies ever had formal courts to which lovers brought their quarrels, and by which the lover who was found guilty was condemned to pay some forfeit—that seems to be pure legend. No chronicler mentions such an institution, and no mediaeval moralist condemns it, though the whole code reported by Andreas rests on the assumption that true love exists only outside of marriage. ‘C’est donc bien à des jeux d’esprit, à des amusements de société … que s’est bornée la juridiction des dames dont André le Chapelain nous a transmis les décisions.²¹ Of course, as Gaston Paris goes on to say, their decisions may have exerted some influence on the ideas and even on the behavior of the day—but only indirectly. As for Eleanor's connection with the courts, the only testimony is that of Andreas, and even he garbles her name.

VI

It might be interesting, while speaking of legends concerning Eleanor, to mention one of the prophecies of ‘Merlin’ which many mediaeval chroniclers applied to her. Ralph de Diceto interprets it, and I shall simply translate his explanation. To understand him, one must bear in mind that Henry kept Eleanor in prison for some years because of her part in the rebellion of their sons, and that Richard released her when he came to the throne:

Eleanor the queen, who had been kept in strict custody for many years, received from her son the power to decree whatever she might wish in the kingdom. It was given out in mandates to the nobles of the kingdom, and decreed as it were in a general edict, that all things should be disposed according to the queen's pleasure. And so in those days that prophecy came to light which had been hidden through the ambiguity of its words: ‘The eagle of the broken covenant shall rejoice in her third nesting.’²² She is called an eagle because she spread her two wings over two kingdoms, both of the French and of the English. But from the French, on account of consanguinity, she was separated by divorce; and from the English she was separated by confinement in prison away from her husband's bed: an imprisonment that lasted sixteen years. Thus ‘the eagle of the broken covenant’ on both sides. And what is added: ‘shall rejoice in her third nesting,’ you may understand thus: Queen Eleanor's first son, William, died in childhood; Henry, the queen's second son, raised to kingship only to show hostility to his father, paid the debt of nature. Richard, her third son, who is meant in the ‘third nesting,’ strove to exalt his mother's name. … ²³

This reckoning disregards Eleanor's two daughters by Louis VII, and also an English daughter Matilda, just older than Richard.

VII

Since legend accompanies Eleanor throughout her life, in the accounts of it that have come down to us, it is not surprising that her death-bed should provide the scene for still another legend, preserved in the ballad Queen Eleanor's Confession:²⁴

Queene Elianor was a sicke womàn,
                    And afraid that she should dye:
Then she sent for two fryars of France,
                    To speke with her speedilye.
The king calld downe his nobles all,
                    By one, by two, by three;
Earl marshall, Ile goe shrive the queene,
                    And thou shalt wend with mee.
A boone, a boone, quoth earl marshàll,
                    And fell on his bended knee;
That whatsoever queene Elianor saye,
                    No harme thereof may bee.
Ile pawne my landes, the king then cryd,
                    My sceptre, crowne, and all,
That whatsoere queen Elianor sayes,
                    No harme thereof shall fall.

So they dress like friars and go to the queen, who assures herself as well as she can that they are French, not English, friars; then she begins her confession:

The first vile thing that ever I did
                    I will to you unfolde;
Earl marshall had my maidenhed,
                    Beneath this cloth of golde.
Thats a vile sinne, then sayd the king;
                    May God forgive it thee!
Amen, amen, quoth earl marshall;
                    With a heavye heart spake hee.
The next vile thing that ever I did,
                    To you Ile not denye;
I made a boxe of poyson strong,
                    To poison king Henrye.

She also admits that she poisoned Fair Rosamond. Then,

Do you see yonders little boye,
                    A tossing of the balle?
That is earl marshalls eldest sonne,
                    And I love him the best of all.
Do you see yonders little boye,
                    A catching of the balle?
That is king Henryes youngest sonne,
                    And I love him the worst of all.
His head is fashyon’d like a bull,
                    His nose is like a boare,—
No matter for that, king Henrye cryd,
          I love him the better therefore.
The king pulled off his fryars coate,
                    And appeared all in redde;
She shrieked, and cryd, and wrung her hands,
                    And sayd she was betrayde.
The king lookt over his left shoulder,
                    And a grimme look looked hee;
Earl marshall, he sayd, but for my oaths,
                    Or hanged thou shouldst bee.

All this rests, to the best of my knowledge, on no historical foundation, with one exception, and that not a firm one. It is doubtful that William Marshall was ever intimate with the queen; and it would have been unreasonable of Henry to expect to find her a virgin after the birth of two daughters to Louis VII; but a few chroniclers say that Henry's father enjoyed Eleanor's favors before Henry married her. Giraldus Cambrensis, who had no sort of opinion of Eleanor, says this about it: ‘Likewise Geoffrey Count of Anjou had misued Eleanor when he was seneschal of France; concerning which thing he instructed his son Henry several times, they say, warning him and forbidding him to touch her in any way, both because she was the wife of his lord, and because his father had known her previously.’²⁵ There was also a rumor that Henry himself had illicit relations with Eleanor before she was yet divorced from Louis. One may discount both stories, since such things are born of hearsay; but a number of later chroniclers believed them. At any rate, whatever value one may place on this passage from Giraldus, it is apparently the only justification for the main thesis of the Confession.

I have tried in the preceding pages to explain some of the legends about Eleanor by comparing them with the facts, as accurately as these can be obtained. It was not my purpose to justify Eleanor in any way, or to explain away any unpleasantnesses in her character. As for her supposed influence on northern French literature in bringing southern poets to the court of Louis VII—an influence which I should be reluctant to dismiss as a legend—I can say only that the evidence in its favor is no more than circumstantial; the chroniclers make no references to any sort of poetical entourage.

Notes

1. Historia retum anglicarum, in Richard Howlett, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 4 volumes (Rolls series, London 1884-1889), I, 92-93.

2. This account is taken from William of Newburgh (see note 1), from Odo de Dioglio (Odon de Deuil), Histoire de la croisade de Louis VII, translated by Guizot (Paris, 1825), p. 285, and from F. A. Gervaise, Histoire de Suger (Paris, 1721), III, 117-118.

3. For a romantic elaboration of the legend, complete with a description of the uniform that Eleanor chose for her ‘Amazons,’ see M. V. Rosenberg's novelized biography Eleanor of Aquitaine (Boston, 1937), p. 70. Mr Rosenberg's book is misleading, because it lays some claim to scholarly accuracy.

4. Isaac de Larrey, l’Héritière de Guyenne, ou Histoire d’Eléonor (Rotterdam, 1691). A second edition, with notes and comments by J. Cussac, appeared in London in 1788. The ‘Amazons’ are on page 59 of this second edition.

5. Récits d’un ménestrel de Réims au XIIIe siècle, publiés par Natalis de Wailly (Paris, 1876). The editor (p. xxxi) dates the Récits about 1260. For this story, see chapters vii-x, pp. 4-6.

6. Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum … edita a venerabili Willermo, Tyrensi Archiepiscopo, in Recueil des historiens des croisades (Historiens occidentaux, Paris, 1845), I, 752. William was a contemporary of Eleanor.

7. Ioannis Saresberiensis Historiae pontificalis quae supersunt, ed. Reginald L. Poole (Oxford, 1927), chap. 23, pp. 52-54.

8. Published by Camille Chabaneau, Biographies des troubadours, in de Vic et Vaissète: Histoire générale de Languedoc, x, 218. Also by Carl Appel, Bernart von Ventadorn, seine Lieder (Halle, 1915), pp. xi-xvi.

9. Appel's edition (see note 1), pp. xxxviii and preceding.

10. Number 33 in Appel's edition, pp. 194-198.

11. Appel, number 26, pp. 151-155:

    Pel rei sui engles e normans,
    e si no fos Mos Azimans,
    restera tro part calenda.

12. Number 21 (Ges de chantar) makes love to Aziman, but is directed in the envoi to Henry. In number 36 (Pois preyatz me), Bernart would like to lead a vagrnt life with Aziman (a queen?).

13. De principis instructione, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. G. F. Warner et al. (Rolls, London, 1861-1891), VIII, 165.

14. Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, ed. J. R. Lumby (Rolls, London, 1865-1886), VIII, 53-55. The translations of Trevisa (ca 1387) and of an unknown writer of the xvth century are given facing the text. Higden wrote ca 1340.

15. Croniques de London, ed. G. J. Aungier (London, 1844), p. 3.

16. The Chronicle of Fabian … newly perused (London, 1559), pp. 350-351.

17. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, ed. M. M. A. Schröer (Berlin, 1893), I, 348-357.

18. William Hawkins, Henry and Rosamond, a tragedy. London, 1749.

19. Gaston Paris, Mélanges de littérature française du moyen âge (Paris, 1912), pp. 473-497: ‘Les cours d’amour du moyen âge.’

20. Speculum, XII (1937), 3 ff.

21. Gaston Paris, op. cit., p. 494.

22. The complete prophecy is thus translated by Sebastian Evans in his Histories of the Kings of Britain, by Geoffrey of Monmouth (Everyman's, London, 1912), p. 120: ‘Albany shall be moved unto wrath, and calling unto them that are at her side shall busy herself in the shedding of blood. A bridle bit shall be set in her jaws that shall be forged in the Bay of Armorica. This shall the Eagle of the broken covenant gild over, and the Eagle shall rejoice in her third nesting.’

23. Radulfi de Diceto Opera Historica, ed. W. Stubbs (Rolls, London, 1876), Ymagines historiarum, II, 67. Stubbs gives Ralph's dates (I, xxxi) as ca 1120-ca 1202.

24. Percy's Reliques, ed. Schröer, I, 357-360.

25. Op. cit., VIII, 300.