Queenship in the Mediterranean

Negotiating the Role of the Queen in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras

E. Woodacre, E. Woodacre

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137362834
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This groundbreaking collection explores the key roles that Mediterranean queens played as wives, as mothers, and above all as political actors. Ranging from Byzantine empresses to regnants and consorts in the Italian peninsula, they offer a bracing new perspective on queenship in the medieval and Early Modern eras.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION: QUEENSHIP IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

Elena Woodacre

This edited volume brings together a collection of thirteen essays, which highlight the distinctive quality of queenship in a Mediterranean context. While their temporal and geographical settings are diverse, they demonstrate key connections and themes in queenship studies. These studies all highlight the key role that queens played as wives, mothers, and above all, as political actors. The chapters specifically address the way in which these royal women negotiated their position within the context of the court, during their widowhood and when challenging circumstances enabled or forced them to take political actions that were felt to be outside the boundaries of the accepted role of queens. Drawing together royal consorts and female monarchs from across the Mediterranean not only sheds light on the distinguishing characteristics of queenship in this particular geographical framework, but also demonstrates how these women spread the culture of the Mediterranean northwards through their marital and familial connections. By making comparisons and drawing connections among Byzantine empresses, consorts of Moroccan sultans, and queens consort and regnant in both the Italian and Iberian peninsulas, this volume aims to develop the understanding of the concept and practice of queenship from the early medieval up to the late Early Modern Era, spanning from eighth to eighteenth century AD/CE.

In recent years, several excellent edited collections on medieval and Early Modern queenship have emerged, reflecting the growth of this dynamic area of study. Some have been more general in theme or diverse in scope such as Medieval Queenship (1994), The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe (2009), Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe (1997), or The Rituals and Rhetoric of Queenship; Medieval to Early Modern (2009), while others such as Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England (2009) or Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (2005) have had a specific geographical focus.¹ However, there is no existing volume that examines the agency of ruling women and the ideas and practice of queenship in a purely Mediterranean context.

From the pioneering work of Braudel to recent works such as David Abulafia’s The Great Sea, the rich history of the Mediterranean area has attracted, and continues to attract both scholars and students alike.² While studies exist of individual Mediterranean rulers, or those in a particular area, such as Byzantine emperors and the Aragonese kings, which attempt to draw on their Mediterranean context, there is still a need for more comparative analysis of rulership in this particular geographical setting, both male and female. ³

This volume builds a vital connection between the study of queenship and research on the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period. It features studies of queens who have been often overlooked in previous collections on queenship, including Blanca of Navarre, Leonor Teles, Joanna Plantagenet, Clémence of Hungary, Marie Clotilde of France, and Lalla Khnata, the wife, mother, and grandmother of three sultans of Morocco.

The chapters in this work are arranged in a chronological format for ease of use; however, there are several key themes that are developed by these studies of individual queens. One of these themes, highlighted in several studies, examines how the queen’s position was defined within the setting of the court and in relation to her husband as well as the queen’s natal and marital family. Zita Rohr’s paper, “Not Lost in Translation,” reveals how the interchange of Mediterranean and French court culture in the later Middle Ages was enabled by the marriages of queens, spreading courtly practices, artistic patronage, and ideas about the roles and responsibilities of the queen herself. Ana Rodrigues Oliveira uses the idealized memory of Philippa of Lancaster’s execution of the queen’s role in contemporary Portuguese chronicles to highlight the perception and definition of an ideal or model queen, whereas Manuela Santos Silva investigates the often overlooked youth of Philippa’s daughter, Isabel of Portugal. Precipitated into the role and responsibilities of first lady or queen in Portugal after the death of her mother, Isabel was well prepared for her later life as duchess of Burgundy, at a time when it was the most glittering court in Europe.

Another key theme carried through several studies is how these queens regnant, consort and regent negotiated the boundaries of the queen’s political role. Alexandra Karagianni looks at the often controversial political careers of three ruling Byzantine empresses, Irene and the sisters Zoe and Theodora Porphyrogenita, and the reaction of Byzantine chroniclers to female rulers. Isabel de Pina Baleiras provides another example of the controversy caused by a woman openly wielding power in her examination of Leonor Teles as a queen consort and an unsuccessful regent for her daughter Beatriz in Portugal during the fourteenth century.

A queen consort’s political role was defined by her marriage to the sovereign, but the power-sharing dynamic of the royal pair could vary considerably based on the strength of their personal relationship and the desire or need of a monarch for his consort to be actively involved in governance. Federica Contu examines the personal and political partnership between a sovereign pair when the weakness of her husband forced Queen Marie Clotilde of Sardinia to take the reins of command and act as her husband’s “chief minister” in the late eighteenth century. In a similar vein, Cinzia Recca addresses the controversial career of another eighteenth century Italian consort, Maria Carolina, queen of Naples, who also took command of the realm in place of a disinterested husband. However, there is a considerable contrast between Marie Clotilde’s sense of piety and duty and the flamboyant gusto that Maria Carolina displayed during her reign. Through an examination of Maria Carolina’s correspondence, Recca highlights the queen’s diplomatic endeavors and the key role that queens played as part of their birth and marital families. In another investigation of the dynamic between kings and queens consort, Diana Pelaz Flores examines the often uncomfortable relationship between the king, his favorite, and his queen consort in fifteenth century Castile. Pelaz Flores underscores the tension created by the interjection of a third party into the royal pair and investigates the actions taken by both of Juan II’s wives to undermine the power of the favorite, Alvaro de Luna.

Yet another key theme which runs through this volume is that of widowhood and power; how queens coped with the challenge of widowhood and forged a new role for themselves after the death of their husbands. Mariah Proctor-Tiffany explores the fate of widowed and childless Clémence of Hungary (d. 1328), whose collection of cherished and highly valuable objects demonstrates her connections between her native Naples and her marital position as queen of France. Melissa R. Katz reflects on the difficult political landscape of the Castilian court, which Violante of Aragon had to negotiate in the thirteenth century, particularly after her husband’s death redefined her role at court and reduced her status.

Two papers, by Bowie and Woodacre, demonstrate that the alliances made by the marriages of queens could also be put under strain when one of the spouses died and widowed queens were placed in difficult situations. Interestingly, both of these papers examine widowed queens of Sicily in the Middle Ages: Joanna Plantagenet who was imprisoned and denied her dower after her husband’s death in 1189 and Blanca of Navarre who spent several challenging years ruling Sicily as viceroy after her husband died fighting Sardinian rebels in 1409. Finally, Fatima Rhorchi surveys the fascinating career of Lalla Khnata, who rose from a sultan’s harem to become her husband’s adviser, and after the death of her husband in 1727, she became the power behind the throne during the reign of her son and grandson.

The chapters in this volume also reveal some interesting continuities, connections, and comparisons. It features three successive “first ladies” of Portugal from 1372 to 1430: the controversial Leonor Teles, followed by the model queen Philippa of Lancaster who was succeeded in turn by her daughter, Isabel who filled the role and responsibilities of the queen in Portugal until she married and left the realm. It highlights the situations of two Italian queens who ruled on behalf of their unable or unwilling husbands and had to cope with threatening political pressure from Revolutionary and Napoleonic France and the difficulties faced by two widowed and childless queens of Sicily. It draws attention to the difficult political landscape for queens consort in medieval Castile and the challenge of preserving the queen’s place at the heart of power against the competition of a favorite or after the death of the king. It also examines queenly patronage by tracing the exchange of objects, customs, and courtly practices through queens who came from the Mediterranean to the French court. Finally, the juxtaposition of the chapters on three Byzantine empresses and the consort of a Moroccan sultan underlines the controversy caused by women who wielded power and stepped outside the boundaries of the perceived role of royal women.

While these individual studies do not necessarily suggest that there was an overarching practice of Mediterranean queenship that was shared by all of these women, they do highlight distinctive Mediterranean features of queenship that are unique to this area. These include the distinctive practices of the Byzantine Imperial monarchy, where women were able to exercise power in spite of the prejudices of their contemporaries; the Aragonese tradition of queen lieutenancy; and the study of Lalla Khnata whose struggle to establish a thriving political partnership with her spouse and act as a guiding force during the reign of her children mirrors the situation of many queens consort around the Mediterranean and beyond.

The chapters in this volume repeatedly call attention to questions of female agency and power. Taken together, they suggest that a distinctive feature of queenship in the Mediterranean context was the enhanced ability of women to access power as queens-lieutenant, regnant, regent, and consort. Indeed, many of the kingdoms around the Mediterranean permitted women to rule in their own right. In Iberia, the kingdom of Navarre had five ruling queens in the Middle Ages, due to a provision in the Fueros or law code, which specifically permitted female rule. Castile was ruled by one of the most famous and well-studied reigning queens, Isabel la Católica, and has a long history of influential and powerful royal women from Berenguela of Castile who ruled alongside her son Fernando III to Hapsburg princesses who ruled in place of fathers, nephews, and brothers. While Aragon barred women from the throne, it did have a reigning queen, Petronilla in the twelfth century and allowed queens to rule as queens-lieutenant. Italy offers the medieval examples of Matilda of Tuscany, Constance of Sicily, and the two controversial Giovannas of Naples as female rulers; and a plethora of politically and culturally influential women, such as Caterina Sforza and Isabella d’Este in the courts of the Italian Renaissance.⁴

In the Eastern Mediterranean, Judith Herrin, Lynda Garland, Barbara Hill, and Liz James have highlighted the agency of Byzantine women, from ruling and consort empresses to influential imperial women.⁵ The kingdom of Jerusalem possessed an extraordinarily large number of female sovereigns during its short and precarious existence with five reigning queens in the space of just over a hundred years’ time, from the accession of Melisende in 1131 to the death of Yolande in 1228. Although the political framework of the Islamic world would appear to preclude female rulership, Fatima Mernissi has highlighted women such as Shajarat al-Dur and Arwa of Yemen, who successfully wielded power in Arabia, the Middle East, and North Africa.⁶

The studies in this volume reinforce this idea of enhanced female agency in the Mediterranean. Although some of the women in these studies struggled to exert power during their widowhood, such as Violante of Aragon and Joanna Plantagenet, or had to compete with a favorite for influence like the Castilian consorts in Pelaz Flores’ study, the majority of women featured in this volume were firmly at the center of governance in their respective realms. Whether they were born to rule like Zoe and Theodora Porphygenita or thrust into power by the death or incapacity of their husbands like Marie Clotilde, they actively wielded power and authority. Many of them ruled during periods of intense crisis, when rebellion or war threatened to destroy their kingdom and some, like Leonor Teles and Maria Carolina of Naples, were eventually swept from power by the tide of events. All of their political careers, no matter how short or how successful, ultimately increase our knowledge of the practice of queenship and female agency, in the Mediterranean and generally.

Perversely perhaps, in drawing together such a diverse group of examples from around the Mediterranean over a long span of time, the connecting threads of queenship can be seen. All of these queens, consort, regnant, and regent, had to function in a male-dominated and highly gendered political sphere. They all had a unique place at the heart of power, but their roles were hedged with expectations and their position, particularly regarding the exercise of authority, often had to be negotiated or renegotiated if their spouse, parent, child, or sibling died. However, these women all demonstrate how queens met the challenges presented to them be it war, bereavement, rebellion, imprisonment, illness, political intrigue, or estrangement from their natal family and homeland. Analyzing their successes and failures gives us a greater understanding of the perceived role of the queen and the practice of queenship in the premodern era, in the Mediterranean and beyond.

Notes

1. John Carmi Parsons, ed., Medieval Queenship (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998); Anne J. Duggan, ed., Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe; Proceedings of a Conference held at Kings College London, April 1995 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1997); Anne J. Cruz and Mihoko Sukuki, eds., The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009); Liz Oakley-Brown and Louise Wilkinson, eds., The Rituals and Rhetoric of Queenship; Medieval to Early Modern (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009); Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz, eds., Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009); Theresa Earenfight, ed., Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).

2. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Introduction: Queenship in the Mediterranean
• 2 Female Monarchs in the Medieval Byzantine Court: Prejudice, Disbelief, and Calumnies
• 3 To Have and Have Not: The Dower of Joanna Plantagenet, Queen of Sicily (1177–1189)
• 4 The Final Testament of Violante de Aragón (c. 1236–1300/01): Agency and (dis)Empowerment of a Dowager Queen
• 5 Lost and Found: Visualizing a Medieval Queen’s Destroyed Objects
• 6 The Political Role of a Portuguese Queen in the Late Fourteenth Century
• 7 Philippa of Lancaster: The Memory of a Model Queen
• 8 Not Lost in Translation: Aragonese Court Culture on Tour (1400–1480)
• 9 Queenly Time in the Reign of Juan II of Castile (1406–1454)
• 10 Princess Isabel of Portugal: First Lady in a Kingdom without a Queen (1415–1428)
• 11 Blanca, Queen of Sicily and Queen of Navarre: Connecting the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean via an Aragonese Alliance
• 12 Consorts of Moroccan Sultans: Lalla Khnata Bint Bakkar “A Woman with Three Kings”
• 13 The Sovereign and His Wife “Minister”: Charles Emmanuel IV and Marie Clotilde Adélaïde Xavière of France. Interpersonal and Political Relations between the Sovereigns of Sardinia
• 14 Queenship and Family Dynamics through the Correspondence of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples
• Contribitors
• Index