March 21, 1152: Annulment of the marriage of King Louis VII of the Franks and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

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Annulment, Île-de-France, Conrad III of Germany, Duke William IX of Aquitaine, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry Curtmantle, King Géza II of Hungary, King Henry II of England, King Louis VII of France, King of the Romans, King Philippe II Auguste of France, Third Crusade

Louis VII (1120 – September 18, 1180), called the Younger, or the Young was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI (hence the epithet “the Young”) and married Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe. The marriage temporarily extended the Capetian lands to the Pyrenees.

Louis was born in 1120, the second son of Louis VI of the Franks and Adelaide of Maurienne. The early education of the young Louis anticipated an ecclesiastical career. As a result, he became well learned and exceptionally devout, but his life course changed decisively after the accidental death of his older brother Philippe in 1131, when Louis unexpectedly became the heir to the throne of the Franks.

Eleanor of Aquitaine, or Aliénor, the future wife of the future King of the Franks, was the daughter of Guillaume X, Duke of Aquitaine, and Aénor de Châtellerault.

Eleanor’s year of birth is not known precisely: a late 13th-century genealogy of her family listing her as 13 years old in the spring of 1137 provides the best evidence that Eleanor was perhaps born as late as 1124. On the other hand, some chronicles mention a fidelity oath of some lords of Aquitaine on the occasion of Eleanor’s fourteenth birthday in 1136.

King Louis VII of the Franks

This, and her known age of 82 at her death make 1122 the most likely year of her birth. Her parents almost certainly married in 1121. Her birthplace may have been Poitiers, Bordeaux, or Nieul-sur-l’Autise, where her mother and brother died when Eleanor was 6 or 8.

Following the death of Duke Guillaume X of Aquitaine, Louis VI moved quickly to have his son married to Eleanor of Aquitaine (who had inherited Guillaume’s territory) on July 25, 1137. In this way, Louis VI sought to add the large, sprawling territory of the duchy of Aquitaine to his family’s holdings in France.

On August 1, 1137, shortly after the marriage, King Louis VI died, and Louis became Louis VII, King of the Franks. The pairing of the monkish Louis and the high-spirited Eleanor was doomed to failure; she reportedly once declared that she had thought to marry a king, only to find she had married a monk.

There was a marked difference between the frosty, reserved culture of the northern court in the Île-de-France, where King Louis VII had been raised, and the rich, free-wheeling court life of the Aquitaine with which Eleanor was familiar. King Louis VII and Eleanor had two daughters, Marie and Alix.

In June 1147, in fulfillment of his vow to mount the Second Crusade, Louis VII and his Queen Eleanor set out from the Basilica of Saint-Denis, first stopping in Metz on the overland route to Syria.

Soon they arrived in the Kingdom of Hungary, where they were welcomed by King Géza II of Hungary, who was already waiting with Conrad III, King of the Romans (Conrad was never crowned emperor and continued to style himself “King of the Romans” until his death).

Due to his good relationships with Louis VII, Géza II asked the French king to be his son Stephen’s baptism godfather. Relations between the kingdoms of France and Hungary remained cordial long after this time: decades later, Louis’s daughter Margaret was taken as wife by Géza’s son King Béla III of Hungary.

Eleanor, Queen of the Franks, Queen of the English, Duchess of Aquitaine

Louis VII and his army finally reached the Holy Land in 1148. His queen Eleanor supported her uncle, Raymond of Antioch, and prevailed upon Louis to help Antioch against Aleppo. But Louis VII’s interest lay in Jerusalem, and so he slipped out of Antioch in secret.

He united with Conrad III, King of the Romans and King Baldwin III of Jerusalem to lay siege to Damascus; this ended in disaster and the project was abandoned. Louis VII decided to leave the Holy Land, despite the protests of Eleanor, who still wanted to help her doomed uncle Raymond. Louis VII and the French army returned home in 1149.

The expedition to the Holy Land came at a great cost to the royal treasury and military. It also precipitated a conflict with Eleanor that led to the annulment of their marriage. Perhaps the marriage to Eleanor might have continued if the royal couple had produced a male heir, but this had not occurred.

The Council of Beaugency found an exit clause, declaring that Louis VII and Eleanor were too closely related for their marriage to be legal, thus the marriage was annulled on March 21, 1152.

The pretext of kinship was the basis for annulment, but in fact, it owed more to the state of hostility between Louis and Eleanor, with a decreasing likelihood that their marriage would produce a male heir to the throne of France. On May 18, 1152, Eleanor married the Henry Curtmantle, Count of Anjou, the future King Henry II of the English. She gave Henry the Duchy of Aquitaine and bore him three daughters and five sons.

In 1154, Louis VII married Infanta Constance of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VII of León and Castile and Berengaria of Barcelona. She also failed to supply him with a son and heir, bearing only two daughters, Margaret and Alys.

The official reason for her husband’s annulment from Eleanor of Aquitaine had been that he was too close a relative of Eleanor for the marriage to be legal by Church standards; however, he was even more closely related to Constance. Constance died giving birth to her second child.

Louis VII was devastated when Constance died in childbirth on October 4, 1160. As he was desperate for a son, he married Adela of Champagne just 5 weeks later. Adela of Champagne was the third child and first daughter of Theobald II, Count of Champagne and Matilda of Carinthia, and had nine brothers and sisters. Adela’s coronation was held the same day.

King Philippe II Augusté of France

The new Queen Adela went on to give birth to two children; Louis VII’s only male heir, Philippe and Agnes, a Byzantine Empress by marriage to Alexios II Komnenos and Andronikos I Komnenos.

Louis had his son crowned at Reims in 1179, in the Capetian tradition (Philippe would in fact be the last king so crowned). Already stricken with paralysis, Louis himself could not be present at the ceremony.

King Louis VII died on September 18, 1180 in Paris and was buried the next day at Barbeau Abbey, which he had founded. His remains were moved to the Basilica of Saint-Denis in 1817.

His son became King Philippe II of the Franks. I try to use correct titles on this blog and for his predecessors I use the title Kings of the Franks, (King of West Francia when appropriate) but from 1190 onward, Philippe II became the first French monarch to style himself “King of France” (Latin: Rex Francie).

King Philippe II was originally nicknamed Dieudonné (God-given)…the same as Louis XIV… because he was a first son and born late in his father’s life. Philippe was given the epithet “Augusté” by the chronicler Rigord for having extended the crown lands of France so remarkably.

Were They A Usurper? King John

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and Count of Poitiers, and Nantes and overlord of Brittany, Anjou, Aquitaine and Gascony, Arthur of Brittany, Duke of Normandy, Geoffrey II of Brittany, King of the English, King Philippe II Auguste of France, Lord of Cyprus, Maine, Richard I the Lionheart, Third Crusade, William II of Sicily

On July 4, 1189, the joint forces of Richard of England and King Philippe II Auguste of France defeated the army of King Henry II of the English at Ballans. King Henry II agreed to name Richard his heir apparent. Two days later King Henry II died at Chinon, and Richard succeeded him as King of the English, Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes and overlord of Brittany.

King Richard I was officially invested as Duke of Normandy on July 20, 1189 and crowned king in Westminster Abbey on September 3, 1189.

After Richard became king, he and Philippe II Auguste agreed to go on the Third Crusade, since each feared that during his absence the other might usurp his territories.

In late September 1190 Richard and Philippe II Auguste arrived in Sicily. After the death of King William II of Sicily in 1189 his cousin Tancred had seized power, although the legal heir was William’s aunt Constance, wife of Heinrich VI, Holy Roman Emperor. Tancred had imprisoned William’s widow, Queen Joan, who was Richard’s sister, and did not give her the money she had inherited in William’s will.

When Richard arrived he demanded that his sister be released and given her inheritance; she was freed on September 28, but without the inheritance. The presence of foreign troops also caused unrest: in October, the people of Messina revolted, demanding that the foreigners leave.

Richard attacked Messina, capturing it on October 4, 1190. After looting and burning the city Richard established his base there, but this created tension between Richard and Philippe II Auguste. He remained there until Tancred finally agreed to sign a treaty on 4 March 4, 1191. The treaty was signed by Richard, Philippe II Auguste, and Tancred. Its main terms were:

1. Joan was to receive 20,000 ounces (570 kg) of gold as compensation for her inheritance, which Tancred kept.

2. Richard officially proclaimed his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, son of Geoffrey, as his heir, and Tancred promised to marry one of his daughters to Arthur when he came of age, giving a further 20,000 ounces (570 kg) of gold that would be returned by Richard if Arthur did not marry Tancred’s daughter.

The two kings stayed on in Sicily for a while, but this resulted in increasing tensions between them and their men, with Philippe II Auguste plotting with Tancred against Richard. The two kings finally met to clear the air and reached an agreement, including the end of Richard’s betrothal to Philippe II Auguste’ s sister Alys.

December 20, 1192: Richard I of England is Captured by the Duke of Austria

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Dürnstein Castle, Duke of Bavaria, Henry the Lion, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, House of Babenberg, Leopold V of Austria, Pope Celestine III, Richard I of England, Third Crusade

Returning from the Third Crusade, bad weather forced King Richard I of England’s ship to put in at Corfu, in the lands of Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos, who objected to Richard’s annexation of Cyprus, formerly Byzantine territory. Disguised as a Knight Templar, Richard sailed from Corfu with four attendants, but his ship was wrecked near Aquileia, forcing Richard and his party into a dangerous land route through central Europe.

On his way to the territory of his brother-in-law Heinrich XII the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, Richard was captured December 20, 1192 near Vienna by Leopold V, Duke of Austria, (member of the House of Babenberg) who accused Richard of arranging the murder of his cousin Conrad of Montferrat. Moreover, Richard had personally offended Leopold by casting down his standard from the walls of Acre.

Tomb of Richard I the Lion Heart, King of England

Leopold kept Richard prisoner at Dürnstein Castle under the care of Leopold’s ministerialis Hadmar of Kuenring. His mishap was soon known to England, but the regents were for some weeks uncertain of his whereabouts. While in prison, Richard wrote Ja nus hons pris or Ja nuls om pres (“No man who is imprisoned”), which is addressed to his half-sister Marie. He wrote the song, in French and Occitan versions, to express his feelings of abandonment by his people and his sister. The detention of a crusader was contrary to public law, and on these grounds Pope Celestine III excommunicated Duke Leopold.

On March 28, 1193 Richard was brought to Speyer and handed over to Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich VI, who imprisoned him in Trifels Castle. Heinrich VI was aggrieved by the support the Plantagenets had given to the family of Heinrich XII the Lion and by Richard’s recognition of Tancred in Sicily. Heinrich VI needed money to raise an army and assert his rights over southern Italy and continued to hold Richard for ransom. Nevertheless, to Richard’s irritation, Celestine hesitated to excommunicate Heinrich VI, as he had Duke Leopold, for the continued wrongful imprisonment of Richard.

Ruins of Dürnstein Castle, now in Austria, where Richard was kept captive.

Richard famously refused to show deference to the Emperor and declared to him, “I am born of a rank which recognises no superior but God”. The king was at first shown a certain measure of respect, but later, at the prompting of Philippe of Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais and Philippe II of France’s cousin, the conditions of Richard’s captivity were worsened, and he was kept in chains, “so heavy,” Richard declared, “that a horse or ass would have struggled to move under them.”

The Emperor demanded that 150,000 marks (100,000 pounds of silver) be delivered to him before he would release the King, the same amount raised by the Saladin tithe only a few years earlier, and two to three times the annual income for the English Crown under Richard. Richard’s mother, Eleanor, worked to raise the ransom. Both clergy and laymen were taxed for a quarter of the value of their property, the gold and silver treasures of the churches were confiscated, and money was raised from the scutage and the carucage taxes.

At the same time, John, Richard’s brother, and King Philippe II of France offered 80,000 marks for Heinrich VI to hold Richard prisoner until Michaelmas 1194. Heinrich turned down the offer. The money to rescue the King was transferred to Germany by the Emperor’s ambassadors, but “at the king’s peril” (had it been lost along the way, Richard would have been held responsible), and finally, on February 4, 1194 Richard was released. Philip sent a message to John: “Look to yourself; the devil is loose”

April 6, 1199: Death of King Richard I of England.

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Berengaria of Navarre, Eleanor of Aquitaine, John Lackland of England, King Richard I of England, King Sancho VI of Navarre, Kings and Queens of England, Richard the Lionheart, Third Crusade

Richard I (September 8, 1157 – April 6, 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death. He was the second king of the House of Plantagenet. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period. He was the third of five sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine and seemed unlikely to become king, but all of his brothers except the youngest, John, predeceased their father. Richard is known as Richard Cœur de Lion or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior.

By the age of 16, Richard had taken command of his own army, putting down rebellions in Poitou against his father. Richard was a central Christian commander during the Third Crusade, leading the campaign after the departure of Philippe II of France and achieving considerable victories against his Muslim counterpart, Saladin, although he did not retake Jerusalem from Saladin.

Richard I, King of England.

Richard probably spoke both French and Occitan. He was born in England, where he spent his childhood; before becoming king, however, he lived most of his adult life in the Duchy of Aquitaine, in the southwest of France. Following his accession, he spent very little time, perhaps as little as six months, in England.

Most of his life as king was spent on Crusade, in captivity, or actively defending his lands in France. Rather than regarding his kingdom as a responsibility requiring his presence as ruler, he has been perceived as preferring to use it merely as a source of revenue to support his armies. Nevertheless, he was seen as a pious hero by his subjects. He remains one of the few kings of England remembered more commonly by his epithet than his regnal number, and is an enduring iconic figure both in England and in France.

Marriage

Before leaving Cyprus on crusade, Richard married Berengaria of Navarre the first-born daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre and Sancha of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VII, King of León and Castile and his wife Berengaria of Barcelona.

Richard first grew close to her at a tournament held in her native Navarre. The wedding was held in Limassol on May 12, 1191 at the Chapel of St George and was attended by Richard’s sister Joan, whom he had brought from Sicily. The marriage was celebrated with great pomp and splendour, many feasts and entertainments, and public parades and celebrations followed commemorating the event. Richard took his new wife on crusade with him briefly, though they returned separately. Berengaria had almost as much difficulty in making the journey home as her husband did, and she did not see England until after his death. After his release from German captivity, Richard showed some regret for his earlier conduct, but he was not reunited with his wife. The marriage remained childless.

Death

In March of 1199, Richard was in Limousin suppressing a revolt by Viscount Aimar V of Limoges. Although it was Lent, he “devastated the Viscount’s land with fire and sword”. He besieged the puny, virtually unarmed castle of Châlus-Chabrol. Some chroniclers claimed that this was because a local peasant had uncovered a treasure trove of Roman gold.

On March 25, 1199, Richard was hit in the shoulder by a crossbow, and the wound turned gangrenous. Richard asked to have the crossbowman brought before him; called alternatively Pierre (or Peter) Basile, John Sabroz, Dudo, and Bertrand de Gourdon (from the town of Gourdon) by chroniclers, the man turned out (according to some sources, but not all) to be a boy.

He said Richard had killed his father and two brothers, and that he had killed Richard in revenge. He expected to be executed, but as a final act of mercy Richard forgave him, saying “Live on, and by my bounty behold the light of day”, before he ordered the boy to be freed and sent away with 100 shillings. It is unclear whether the pardon was upheld following his death. According to one chronicler, Richard’s last act of chivalry proved fruitless when the infamous mercenary captain Mercadier had the crossbowman flayed alive and hanged as soon as Richard died.

Richard died on 6 April 1199 in the arms of his mother, and thus “ended his earthly day”. Because of the nature of Richard’s death, it was later referred to as “the Lion by the Ant was slain”. Richard produced no legitimate heirs and acknowledged only one illegitimate son, Philip of Cognac. As a result, he was succeeded by his brother John as king. However, his French territories initially rejected John as a successor, preferring his nephew Arthur, whose claim was by modern standards better than John’s. The lack of any direct heirs from Richard was the first step in the dissolution of the Angevin Empire.

This date in History: October 21, 1209, Coronation of Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

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Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, Henry the Lion, Holy Roman Empire, King Richard I of England, Matilda of England, Otto IV Holy Roman Emperor, Philip II of France, Philip of Swabia, Pope Innocent III., Third Crusade

Otto IV (1175 – 19 May 1218) was one of two rival kings of Germany from 1198 on, sole king from 1208 on, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1209 until he was forced to abdicate in 1215. The only German king of the Welf dynasty, he incurred the wrath of Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated in 1210.

Otto was the third son of Heinrich XII the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Duke of Saxony, (as Heinrich III) by his wife and Matilda of England, the eldest daughter of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. His exact birthplace is not given by any original source. He grew up in England. in the care of his grandfather King Henry II. Otto was fluent in French as well as German. He became the foster son of his maternal uncle, King Richard I of England. In 1190, after he left England to join the Third Crusade, Richard appointed Otto as Earl of York.

Coat of Arms of Otto IV as Duke of Bavaria

The authenticity (or authority) of this grant was doubted by the vassals of Yorkshire, who prevented Otto taking possession of his earldom. Still, he probably visited Yorkshire in 1191, and he continued to claim the revenues of the earldom after becoming king of Germany, although he never secured them. Neither did he succeed in getting the 25,000 silver marks willed to him by his uncle in 1199.

In 1195, King Richard I of England began negotiations to marry Otto to Margaret of Scotland, daughter and heir presumptive of King William the Lion of Scotland Lothian, as Margaret’s dowry, would be handed over to Richard for safekeeping and the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland (Carlisle) would be granted to Otto and turned over to the king of Scotland. The negotiations dragged on until August 1198, when the birth of a son and heir to William rendered them unnecessary. Having failed in his efforts to secure Otto an English earldom or else a Scottish kingdom, in September 1196 Richard, as duke of Aquitaine, enfeoffed Otto with the county of Poitou. There is some disagreement over whether Otto received Poitou in exchange for or in addition to the earldom of York.

Coat of Arms of Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

Otto was in Poitou from September 1196 until mid-1197, when he joined Richard in Normandy to confer over the appointment of bishops to the vacant sees of Poitiers, Limoges and Périgueux. He then participated in the war against Philippe II of France on the side of Richard. In October he returned to Poitou. The German historian Jens Ahlers, taking into account Otto’s life prior to 1198, considers that he might have been the first foreign king of Germany.

After the death of Emperor Heinrich VI, the majority of the princes of the Empire, situated in the south, elected Heinrich VI’s brother, Philip, Duke of Swabia, as German King in March 1198, after receiving money and promises from Philip in exchange for their support. Those princes opposed to the Staufen dynasty also decided, on the initiative of Richard of England, to elect instead a member of the House of Welf. Otto’s elder brother, Heinrich, was on a crusade at the time, and so the choice fell to Otto. Otto, soon recognized throughout the northwest and the lower Rhine region, was elected German by his partisans in Cologne on June 9, 1198.

Otto took control of Aachen, the place of coronation, and was crowned by Adolf, Archbishop of Cologne, on July 12, 1198. This was of great symbolic importance, since the Archbishop of Cologne alone could crown the King of the Romans. The coronation was done with fake regalia, because the actual materials were in the hands of the Staufen.

After Philip’s death, Otto made amends with the Staufen party and became engaged to Philip’s daughter Beatrix. In an election in Frankfurt on November 11, 1208, he gained the support of all the electoral princes, as he promised he would not make hereditary claims to the imperial crown on behalf of any children he might father.

Now fully reconciled with Pope Innocent III, Otto made preparations to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. To secure Innocent’s support, he promised to restore to the Papal States all territory that it had possessed under Louis the Pious, including the March of Ancona, the Duchy of Spoleto, the former Exarchate of Ravenna, and the Pentapolis.

Travelling down via Verona, Modena, and Bologna, he eventually arrived at Milanwhere he received the Iron Crown of Lombardy and the title of King of Italy in 1208. He was met at Viterbo by Pope Innocent and was taken to St. Peter’s Basilica, where he was crowned emperor by Pope Innocent on October 21, 1209, before rioting broke out in Rome, forcing Otto to abandon the city.