Power of a Woman, Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine: using the arts as propaganda

by Robert Fripp, author of Power of a Woman

King Stephen of England died on 25 October 1154. By the time the news reached the heir to the throne, Henry of Anjou, in Normandy, the approaching winter had whipped the Channel into a month-long storm. The new King Henry II and his consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine, took ship from Barfleur despite the weather and survived the crossing. (Unlike a previous heir to the English throne, who had drowned 34 years earlier.) Henry and Eleanor were virtually washed ashore in the New Forest, on England's south coast. Ironically, the New Forest was a royal hunting preserve, and had been left as wilderness by royal decree for almost ninety years. The party had to make its way through twenty miles of rain-lashed woods to the former capital city of Winchester. After that, things began to improve.

Henry and Eleanor took their coronation vows in Westminster Abbey on Sunday, 19 December, 1154. The roof of the abbey was leaking. In fact, much of England lay in disarray after nineteen years of civil war. The palace at Westminster was in such bad repair that the royal couple occupied a rustic palace at Bermondsey across the Thames and some way downstream. Queen Eleanor, having experienced the cultural life of music and troubadour poetry in courts at Bordeaux, Paris, Mainz, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Poitiers, Angers and Rouen, was now marooned some distance from her war-torn new capital, London. The focus of life and gaiety lay some distance up-river, on the opposite bank.

Eleanor faced a second challenge. King Henry's English-speaking chancellor, Thomas Becket, was brilliant, cultured and worldly. Furthermore, Henry gave him an almost limitless "entertainment budget." Becket entertained. It was essential, of course: he was negotiating policy on the king's behalf. But that meant that the smart set came through Becket's door ? not Eleanor's. For the first time in her thirty-two years, she was not near the center of policy, gaiety, court gossip and intrigue. Eleanor had to win back her influence. Indeed, since Becket also eclipsed her authority, she had to compete with her husband's favorite. Her chosen weapons included the arts.

During her first years in London, Eleanor encouraged what Bretons and Normans called the matière de Bretagne: tales of Arthur and Guinevere, Tristram and Isolde. The old poetry returned to favor, both sung and recited, translated from Celtic languages to French regional dialects. Quite suddenly, during the first years of Henry II, the legends of Arthur became the vogue in London. They had long been a staple repertoire for bards in Brittany, Anjou and Poitou.

The Arthurian tales entertained by presenting the improbable feats of kings, the bloody toils of knights, the magic of wizards and fairies and the courtly loves of spell-binding ladies. Bards and troubadours -- of whom Eleanor's grandfather was the first -- started infusing Arthur's ancient tales with the elegant manners of contemporary royal courts and the habits of chivalry. Characters and fashions were updated. Wild tales from bardic Wales became embellished with descriptions of fine fabrics, court etiquette and slippers of squirrel fur.

Resurrecting Arthurian tales served an important role during Henry's and Eleanor's first years in England. The ancient lais became parables for new times. It served the royal couple to be flattered by old, reflected glories. The Arthurian tales described what had been, in effect, a mythic empire in which a king ruled many peoples, speaking many languages. Henry and Eleanor enjoyed the same privilege. After 1154, they presided over as many peoples as had Charlemagne: English, Normans, Poitevins, Angevins, Welshmen and Marchers, Gascons, Celts and a host of others, including Eleanor's subjects from Aquitaine. The Arthurian tales described a golden age in which diverse nations lived at peace with each other, inspired by a single ruler. Henry and Eleanor had urgently to show a similar benefit.

The moral that the hastily reworked tales promoted was this: Internally our empire (the new Camelot) is at peace within our secure borders; we have enemies, but they are external, calling for vigilance and our subjects' loyalty and sacrifice.

Aligning themselves with legendary powers did the couple no harm in Welsh and English eyes. In French legends, when Roland lay dying, God Himself sent His messenger to lift the sacred sword, Durendart, from his failing hand. In Britain and Brittany the Celts held women in much higher esteem, so it was the Lady of the Lake who took the sword, Excalibur, from Arthur's dying hand. This respect for feminine power was not lost on Eleanor.

The new paganism (Should that read "iconography"?) worked for everyone except the Church. In Paris, policy advisors such as Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux had taken a dim view of Eleanor. In London, Thomas Becket's secretary, John of Salisbury, was not impressed, either. The Church preferred to see Eleanor as the Arthurian character Morgana le Fey, the witch.

The Arthurian myth had one drawback. It predicted that Arthur would return in a time of dire need: he was the Once and Future King. So, even in twelfth century England, Henry and Eleanor confronted the ancient Sibyl's prophecy about one whose death is hidden: "It will be said among the people, 'He lives,' when he is dead." This was awkward. Belief in great Arthur as a Once and Future King implied that Henry and Eleanor were warming the throne for a ghost, and that their line would last only until Arthur chose to come again. Henry and Eleanor wore double crowns in the minds of superstitious persons, as if they were flesh, and faerie, too. Henry was Arthur. Eleanor was Guinevere.

Even while Henry and Eleanor were resurrecting myths for domestic consumption, they secretly hoped to discover Arthur's grave and lay his ancient bones and the Sibylline adage to rest. Henry would not live to see that day. Not until the couple's son, Richard the Lionheart, was king, did a tomb came to light (in 1190 or '91) at Glastonbury Abbey, near Bristol. By then, Eleanor faced bigger crises than laying King Arthur's ghost.

The bardic Arthur was not the only line of propaganda that Henry and Eleanor put to good use. Before 1160, they commissioned the poet, Wace, to write a book that would pull in ancient threads to weave with the couple's own reign and times.

Arthurian legends already served the mission of viewing "empire" as a peaceful, harmonious whole. Wace's book (1160) went a step further. He contrived the literary conceit of the "round table," where all persons might eat from the king's table without respect to degree; where no one sat below the salt and where everyone could address their king across the board.

By supporting bards, troubadours, and their Arthurian tales, Eleanor clawed back the influence she had lost to Becket and his well-provided court. Later, Wace's round table made her own court less remote from the English. Poems and songs about Arthur inspired other arts which found tune and voice at Eleanor's court. Imagination took flight. Led by Welsh bards, plainsong gave way to a fashion for choirs where people sang different parts.

It is appropriate to refer to "Eleanor's court" here, because Henry was always on the move, fighting rebels on the continent while building a judicial system in England. For several years, Eleanor served in effect as Regent in England.

The cultural advance in England did not please Eleanor's critics, John of Salisbury among them. Monkish scribes saw gloom in modernity: the new arts and manners seemed to debauch the morals of modest London. As Eleanor says, in Power of a Woman, "Men said that the arts and manners of my court debauched the morals of modest London. Pish! I but lit a flambeau in a northern gloom and woke the living death of dullness to a thrilling, modern life." The cultural advance also served the queen's purpose: it brought her to the center of the social circle, once again. Meanwhile, it entertained diverse peoples, too.

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Footer: *Author Robert Fripp gives Eleanor of Aquitaine her own voice in Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life (biographical fiction, historical fiction). (eBook edition: ISBN 0-9780621-0-8. Print edition release in 2007: ISBN 0-9780621-4-0.) Robert's URL, http://RobertFripp.ca/, posts excerpts, reviews, a timeline with nearly 300 entries, and offers Power of a Woman for sale.