The Green Children of Woolpit: Superstitions Past and Present by Catherine Hokin

There's been a bit of a trend on social media recently for parents posting back-to-school pictures of their offspring. I'm not sure a snap of my 21 year old lugging beer back to Manchester would be quite so edifying but his return to university did get me thinking about my study days (at the same place - many veils have been drawn). His last week at home was marked by much amusement over my
old (typewritten) history notes and thesis and a walk around our local area that showed how close our past really is to our present.

 Medieval Votive Objects Exeter Cathedral

My over-confident undergraduate ramblings were centred on politics, witchcraft and superstition in medieval England. The main thrust was the treatment of women but there was also a chapter on votive objects.These examples of medieval piety can be found at all the great 'tourist' pilgrimage stopping points across England and Europe and have their roots in practices stretching as far back as the human need to look at the world around them and search for answers to unsolvable problems. Votives can be separated into two kinds: 'thank you' objects for a prayer answered, often hearts stamped with the letters VFGA (Votum Fecit, Gratiam Accepit, a vow was made and grace was obtained); requests for help, particularly to cure sickness and in the form of wax figures or body parts.

This practice has not died out and votives can still be seen in Catholic countries and, perhaps more surprisingly, in Scottish woods.  

 The Fairy House

 Doonhill Fairy Trail

The Doonhill Fairy Trail, just outside the town of Aberfoyle, seems at first sight to be a whimsical thing. The first marker you meet as you follow the signs to the trail is a cutely carved house and a whole collection of little fairy figurines and pixies dotted about the tree roots. So far so tongue-in-cheek and we were quite giggly by the time we reached the fairy clearing at the top. What greeted us there was very unexpected and enough to quieten our mixed and, let's be honest, cynical group. The whole glade was covered in rag trees, something I had read about in my early research but never seen. These votive sites have an ancient history in Scotland and Ireland and many similarities with the medieval Christian practice of asking for aid in times of trouble: strips of cloth, sometimes from the sick person's clothing or from cloth used to wash the affected part, are tied to the tree and, as the rag disintegrates, the affliction is meant to fade away. We spent quite a while in the glade, it is hard not to, reading the messages accompanying the ribbons and what was particularly fascinating was the range of beliefs addressed, sometimes fairies and more traditional religions implored in the same small letter. Writers of historical fiction, myself included, often say that people don't change, times do - standing in that clearing, feeling years of human helplessness in the face of an uncontrollable world stretching from the present to a very distant past, there was no arguing with the truth of that.

 Battle of Mortimer's Cross

Some superstitions stay just that, some get unpicked by history and explained. The three suns which apparently appeared in the sky at dawn on the morning of the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in 1461 can be explained nowadays as the meteorological phenomenon known as a parhelion: a pair of bright spots appearing horizontally on each side of the sun, often with a halo-like glow. To the soldiers waiting to fight it was simply frightening; to the Yorkist leaders it was a wonderful propaganda opportunity, a living symbol of the Holy Trinity and proof that God was on their side. I am currently researching the twelfth century, a time when 'pagan' beliefs and stories were still closely inter-woven with the Christian teachings that had overlaid them. A prevailing belief was in an underworld inhabited by 'faerie folk' - an 'otherworld' reached through caves or underwater which existed side-by-side with our world and could intrude into ours, eg. at midsummer. The folk who lived here were often thought to be green-coloured and the colour green frequently appears in myths such as the Green Man and the Arthur stories.

 The Sussex Wolfpits

In the middle of the twelfth century, during the chaotic civil war period known as The Anarchy, it seems the faerie world wandered into ours. Two near contemporary chronicles (the Historia rerum Anglicarum and the Chronicum Anglicanum) report the story of two children found wandering in Thetford Forest near the village of Woolpit, by the wolfpits which give the village its name. The boy and girl had green skin, spoke a language no one could understand and wore odd clothing. The children were taken to the house of Richard de Calne where all attempts to feed them failed until the children found some bean pods which they ate, continuing to eat only these for many months until they could be induced to eat bread and other foods. This added to the mystery surrounding them as beans had associations with food eaten by the dead. When the children eventually learned English, they talked of living in a dark land where the sun never shone and everything was green. The boy died within a year of being found but the girl survived and has been, possibly, identified as Agnes Barre who worked as a servant for de Calne and eventually married a royal official, Richard Barre. The Chronicum Anglicanum describes her as "very wanton and impudent" but this may simply be to underscore her strange heritage as faeries were commonly associated with lascivious behaviour.

Woolpit

In 1998, historian Paul Harris put forward the theory that the children were Flemish, hence the strange language, had fled into the forest after their parents had been slaughtered and lived there, either in the dark undergrowth or in the miles of ancient mine workings in the area, until they were found. Some of his reasoning about the children's Flemish origin has been questioned but what I found interesting was his explanation for the children's colour. When they were found, they were very malnourished and only recognised bean pods, which they would have encountered variations of in the forest, as food. His theory is that the children were suffering from what was known at the time as 'green-sickness' or what we know today as hypochromic anemia which is caused by a diet very deficient in iron and protein and causes the skin to have a markedly green tinge. Given that the chronicles state that both children, once they began to tolerate a wider range of food, lost the green colour and turned pink, this seems like a logical explanation. Not green children then, just very sick ones.

The superstitions of the past are fascinating things as is the science that unpicks them. The lesson of the Doonhill Fairy Trail, however, suggests that even our increased understanding of the world can't totally unpick us: scratch the surface and we're all still mentally throwing salt, crossing our fingers and wishing.

ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE: Going the Distance by Elizabeth Chadwick

It is now four and a half years since I was contracted to write three novels about the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine - THE SUMMER QUEEN, THE WINTER CROWN and THE AUTUMN THRONE. I chose to write about Eleanor in the same way that I choose to write about all my subjects. I  become interested in them, and that interest will sometimes develop into a full blown curiosity that only a more in depth exploration will satisfy. 'Who were you really?' I ask myself, and then I set out on a voyage of discovery.

With Eleanor there were already many biographies and novels in circulation and I had enjoyed reading several of them especially Sharon Kay Penman's marvelous fiction series of books about Henry II and the rise of the Angevin 'Empire.'

Eleanor had also appeared in secondary and cameo roles in many of my own novels and as a result I had conducted a certain amount of surface research into her background, which had contributed to my deepening curiosity.

Articles online tend to stress what a 'kick-ass' feminist she was, way ahead of her time in all she did. Leading her first husband a merry dance and meddling in French politics for example.  Galloping off on crusade dressed as an Amazon and sleeping with her own uncle. Holding courts of love in Poitiers.  Scandalously marrying the young Duke of Normandy after having slept with his father and then being imprisoned by him for encouraging her sons to turn on him when she became insanely jealous of his mistress Rosamund de Clifford.

Eleanor's popular biographers have encouraged many of these dubious points of view.  However, when I began digging, I came across other opinions from historians working more sedately in the background of academia, suggesting that the majority of these notions were anachronistic and at best on shaky ground.  The most forward thinking academics were also of the opinion that Eleanor was a woman firmly grounded in the 12th century culture of her own lifetime, and while formidable and intelligent she was in no way exceptional when set against other high-ranking ruling women of her period, and in some cases had less authority.  The Empress Matilda, for example, or Melisande of Jerusalem or Adela of Blois.  However, the voices of reason were being drowned out by the brash clamour of colourful scandal tales and by the desire people have to always choose the juicy story over the sometimes more prosaic reality.

As a writer of fiction I knew I had to pick my way carefully.  I had to find my Eleanor and make her as real as possible for me and for my readers.  I needed the spotlight I shone on her to contain both the drama and story telling that is the essential lifeblood of historical fiction.  I wanted to illuminate Eleanor's life from a different angle while maintaining integrity toward her and doing her justice.

As I read my way through various reference works on Eleanor, it became clear that what was known about her was actually not very much and that conjecture and imagination had so often superseded fact that it had become fact itself - until one began digging.  I found her variously described by her biographers as a saucy hot-blooded blond who needed her sexuality keeping in check (no evidence), a curvaceous black-eyed brunette whose figure never ran to fat in old age (no evidence) and a good-humoured green-eyed redhead (no evidence). An oft-cited portrait of her at Chinon turned out to be highly likely a man, very possibly her son, Henry, the Young King. She was also frequently misrepresented in books and online articles by images from a 14th century German work, the Codex Manesse, which has nothing to do with her. 

A queen from the German 14th century
Codex Manesse - often falsely  portrayed
as Eleanor

 Biographer Amy Kelly, coming from a literature rather than history background, among other dubious notions, had promulgated the whole courts of love theory which has now been discredited, although the idea remains dear to the hearts of popular history. Victorian biographer Elizabeth Strickland is responsible for Eleanor's reputation for gadding about on the Second Crusade dressed as an Amazon.  Her source for this scandalous happening goes no further back than 1739. There is no evidence for this story before that date, but it has come to be accepted by many as the truth. (See Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post Medieval image of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Michael Evans).

There is the matter of the scandal of her supposed affair with her uncle Raymond of Poitiers en route to the second Crusade when Eleanor demanded an annulment of her marriage from Louis VII.  I discuss the unlikeliness of this one on my own blog Living The History. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Raymond of Poitiers and the Incident at Antioch  She is also supposed to have slept with her second husband's father Geoffrey le Bel, but since the chroniclers concerned were hell bent on bringing the Angevin monarchy into disrepute and were notorious gossips, it would seem prudent to err on the side of caution in that assessment. Geoffrey is supposed to have warned his son off marrying Eleanor, but since Geoffrey and his father had been desperate for years to get their hands on Aquitaine, I somehow doubt that warning would have taken place.  Indeed, I suspect that Geoffrey would have been keen to see his son marry Eleanor the moment the annulment with Louis VII was announced.

Many of the biographies and online articles (especially the latter) tell us that Eleanor incited her sons to rebel against Henry II because she was enraged that he had taken a young mistress, Rosamund de Clifford, and was treating her like a queen.  Seriously?  Eleanor would raise an empire-wide rebellion, dragging her sons into a war with their father because she was jealous of Henry's philandering with a baronial nobody?   It's a bit insulting to promote the idea that a savvy, intelligent woman such as Eleanor was some sort of emotional harpy who would throw over an entire kingdom because her husband, already known for sleeping around, was carrying on with another woman. Would the same be said if she was male?  What about the political machinations that were happening at the time as Henry undermined Eleanor's  authority as ruler of Aquitaine and held their sons firmly under the thumb?  Might that not just have been more pertinent to the situation than a supposed jealous snit over a mistress?

The outcome of the rebellion was that Eleanor was kept under sometimes harsh house arrest for the next fifteen years before her release on the death of Henry II.  I suppose this is the point where she becomes her most 'kick-ass' as a widow with the powers of adviser, mother and co-ruler of Richard I's domains while he was absent on the third crusade.  Here there is not so much digression between the narratives of popular and academic - perhaps because Henry II is now out of the picture and Eleanor is no longer the young and beautiful heroine, prime territory for sex and scandal,  but an older lady with iron in her soul. The sex and scandal mongers now turn their gaze on her eldest son and begin the dance of whether or not he was homosexual (cue eye-roll).

One of the things that fascinated me about Eleanor and one in which she truly was ahead of our time, even if not her own, was the amount of energy she had and how indefatigable she was right up until her last days.  She died at the age of 80, which was a marvelous span in a period without life-saving operations and medication. Most octagenarians, even the robust ones, these days are swallowing a raft of tablets to keep them up to scratch.

Like many of the medieval aristocracy  Eleanor had a peripatetic lifestyle.  As a girl she would have been constantly on the move throughout Aquitaine with her parents. At 13 she married the soon to be Louis VII and shortly after their wedding in Bordeaux, travelled up to Paris. Then it was back to Poitiers and then a return to France where again, the court was constantly on the move. Around the age of 23, she set off for Jerusalem with her husband on the Second Crusade. This took them down through Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) across the Bospherous, across Anatolia under constant attack, eventually to Antioch and then down the coastal strip to Jerusalem.  Eleanor and Louis returned home 4 years later via Sicily and Rome on what must have been one of the 12th century's most extreme military come sight-seeing expeditions. (Louis just loved his shrines).

Information board from Old Sarum. Click to enlarge.

Having divorced Louis and returned to Poitiers, Eleanor then married the young Duke of Normandy and future Henry II of England, 9 years her junior - and he had to be in order to keep up!  When he became King of England, Eleanor crossed the Channel with him and added that country to her map of lands where she had set foot.  During Henry's reign she was constantly on the move across the vast Angevin dominions that stretched from the Scottish borders to the Pyrenees - or at least until she was caught up in a rebellion with her sons and Henry imprisoned her for the next 15 years.  That slightly curtailed her globe trotting, although later on in her house arrest she did journey between England and Normandy.  Perhaps her incarceration was a rest for her and gave her time to gather her strength and fortitude.

 When Henry died, Eleanor was released from imprisonment and was immediately back on the road, holding England safe until Richard arrived.  Appointed 'chairman of the board' during Richard's absence, she was herself absent for a time. She accompanied Richard to France to see him on his way, and then set out to Navarre to collect Richard's bride Berenguela, and bring her to his winter quarters in Sicily.   After a brief stopover in Pamplona, Eleanor and Berenguela crossed the Alps in midwinter on a horseback and on foot, with Eleanor now around the age of 65.  They would have spent Christmas Day in transit on mountain roads. Once over the Alps in the winter ice and snow, it was down to Rome and then across the straits of Messina to Sicily.

Barely had Eleanor arrived when she learned that her son John was making trouble back in England and Normandy and she had to turn straight round and head home.  Her respite was just 3 days.  Travelling between England and Normandy she kept an eye on matters, until the news arrived that Richard had been captured and held to ransom by the Emperor of Germany. Following a frantic flurry of money gathering to raise the ransom, she crossed the Channel again and headed to Germany, to Speyr to bring the ransom and fetch her son from captivity. By this time she was approaching seventy.  After this she tried to retire to a quieter life at the Abbey of Fontevraud which lay on the borders of Anjou and Poitou.  But the gentler times were not to last.  Richard died in 1199 and Eleanor, now 75, rushed down to Chalus in the Limousin to hold him in her arms as he died.  She then returned to Fontevraud to bury his body beside that of his father.

Her final son John came to the throne and she was requested to go to Aquitaine and take the homage of all of her vassals, which entailed travelling the region to do so. And then she was sent on a diplomatic mission to Castile to bring back one of her grand daughters who would then marry Louis, dauphin of France and hopefully cement an alliance/truce between the houses of Capet and Anjou.  So once more, she found herself, now 76, crossing mountains in winter, this time the Pyrenees, to bring back young Blanche of Castile to her marriage.  Eleanor did not go to Paris with her, but returned to Fontevraud, where soon after she suffered from a bout of ill health - which could well have been brought on by a mixture of grief and exhaustion.

There was one final journey. In 1202, threatened by warfare close to Fontevraud, she evacuated the convent and started down toward Poitiers.  However, when she stopped at the small castle of Mirebeau along the way, she found herself besieged by her teenage nephew Arthur, rival claimant to the Angevin throne.  Eleanor sent desperate word to John, who dropped his own campaign and rode like the wind to rescue her, arriving in the nick of time as Arthur's army were breakfasting on roast pigeon while Eleanor was barricaded in the keep.  Arthur was captured and the 78 year old Eleanor set free from her peril.  This was to be her final journey and adventure and she returned to Fontevraud and died there in April 1204.  It is thought that she had a say in the design of her own effigy and those of Henry II and Richard I, as well as the now lost effigy of her daughter Joanna.  If so, then she has portrayed herself reading a book - very likely intended to be of a religious nature, so even in death she is active, while her husband and son, lie  in state.  Since reading was often a communal affair and books read aloud, then perhaps Henry and Richard now have to listen to her for eternity! 

The majority of us will never pack in that much travelling or drama in our lives, and perhaps would not want to!  I am amazed at how much strength and fortitude Eleanor possessed. Her indomitable will is what I see as her true strength, right through to the core.  Yes, in the end a 'kick-ass' woman, but one of her own time and making and for whom I have the deepest admiration and respect.

The Autumn Throne is published in the UK by Sphere on September 1st and by Sourcebooks in the USA on October 1st.

Powder and Paint: Make-Up and the Medieval Woman by Catherine Hokin

"A woman without paint is like food without salt."

You might think that quote is taken from a particularly literary edition of Femail magazine's never-ending 'name and shame celebrities caught without make-up' feature but it was actually coined by the Roman philosopher Plautus around 254 BC. I offer it as an illustration of both our ongoing fascination with cosmetics (now a $170 billion a year global business) and the attitudes and social connotations that affect its wearing.

 Roman face cream with visible finger-marks

Although they did not match the colourful heights of the Egyptians whose practices they copied, the Roman women Plautus associated with wore a lot of make-up. Their heavily-blackened eyebrows would not look out of place in a twenty-first century city centre, although they would have been framing faces whitened with a chalk and vinegar paste rather than apparently darkened with builders' tea. Cheeks and lips were highlighted in pink or red, thick eyeliner was essential and it was common for wealthy women to employ a cosmetic artist (a cosmatae) a la the Kardashians. 

Not only was make-up heavily used (pun intended), in both ancient Rome and ancient Greece, sporting a visibly painted face appears to have been acceptable across the social ranks. For medieval British women, however, whose lives were increasingly governed by the complex and judgemental rules of the Church, the picture was far more complex. 

 Visible cheek and lip paint

Whatever the current debate gracing the pages of the Huffington Post about the politics of wearing/not wearing cosmetics, it is a truth surely universally acknowleged that wearers use them to look healthier/more rested/more 'attractive'. I have yet to meet anyone who puts their slap on to look worse. It is no surprise, therefore, that the male clerics of the medieval church would instantly equate paint and powder with harlotry: if a woman is temptation enough, goodness knows what madness an enhanced woman could unleash. Based on this logic, cosmetics were banned for quite some time outside brothels. Ordinary women, however, continued to use make-up as is clear from the statuary, paintings and writings of the time. 'Ladies red powder' (made from dried and ground safflowers or angelica leaves or brazilwood chips soaked in rosewater) is mentioned in a number of sources including a twelfth-century poem which complains that statues are going undecorated because the women have used up all the paint. 

Now I know my fiction revolves around rediscovering hidden women's voices but even I cannot pretend the women of medieval England were strutting round plastered in full war-paint in open revolt against the Church and just no one thought to mention it, so what was going on? The answer: very clever rule-bending. Marriage, and avoiding the sin of adultery, was key to maintaining an ordered society: if allowing a wife to make herself attractive to her husband (particularly if she had been afflicted by a disfiguring illness) maintained this, even the clerics could see they had created a problem by condemning cosmetics quite so harshly. So they began to make exceptions to the rules, and women began to bend them: the 'natural look' was born.

 The Natural Look

Unlike the earlier intentionally visible cosmetic fashions, medieval faces can look surprisingly colourless - there were none of the bright pigments that characterised ancient Egyptian make-up and eye-shadow does not appear to have been worn. This look was all about hiding (both the flaws and the fact you were doing it) and enhancing, in this case not just your looks but your status. A pale face signified you did not work outside, a clear one showed you had not been marked by disease. Rather like a modern serum, skin preparation could start with a strawberry juice wash to remove redness or a wet amethyst crystal rubbed against spots, before the all-important paling (a lightening as opposed to the more extreme whitening seen in later periods) could begin. Twelfth century recipes include ground lily roots to whiten the skin but the favourite method used wheaten flour: this would be soaked in water for 15 days, then strained and crystallized to give a white powder that was mixed to a foundation-like paste using rosewater and patted on with a cloth. By the end of the medieval period, the whitening powder had become lead-based and highly toxic to the wearer - in the case of the renaissance Aqua Toffana it had become arsenic-based and far more dangerous to the husbands invited to kiss it but that's another story.

 The medieval make-up artist

Mouths and cheeks would be tackled next with wine or adaptations of the ubiquitous red powder added to lip balms made from beeswax or suet. Apparently a common beauty trick was also to rub a cut lemon across your lips to make them redder. Weirdly this works (I tried it) and the tingle was quite fun but it may not be the most practical thing to keep in your make-up bag! 

It must have been a time-consuming beauty routine. All the preparations seem to have a long drying time and all the tweezing required to maintain the high hairline and thin brows must have taken hours and goes some way to explain why some women resorted to quicklime powders to remove hair. Please do not try this one at home: the whitening effect is created by revealing bone. 

Perhaps there was a subversive element to some of the painting and powdering, I hope there was and at least one of my medieval characters will be wielding her face-brush with as much defiance as her sword. What I love, however, is the one thing that really hasn't changed over the centuries: achieving the 'natural look' still takes forever. As the playwrite Tracy Letts put it so neatly in August: Osage County: "The only woman who was pretty enough to go without make-up was Elizabeth Taylor, and she wore a ton."

ISABEL DE WARENNE: An exercise in joining the dots by Elizabeth Chadwick.

When an author writes about people who actually lived, one of the challenges is finding out about the secondary characters; the people who interacted with the stars of the show but have left less of a trace. When writing my Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy, I needed to find out about the life and circumstances of a lady called Isabel de Warenne, countess of Surrey and Warenne. She was a contemporary of Eleanor's and sometimes moved in her circles. Although she has left traces in the historical record, they're more hidden and fragmentary than Eleanor's, so it has involved some digging around.

I became interested in Isabel de Warenne because her second marriage was to Henry II's illegitimate half brother Hamelin, the latter of whom features as a strong secondary character in my Eleanor trilogy.  As I wrote his story into the fabric of Henry and Eleanor's, it became obvious that his wife was a major part of that thread, and when I began digging, I came across some very useful details and plot opportunities.

 Isabel de Warenne belonged to an illustrious line of Anglo Norman nobility with extensive lands in England and Normandy. Lewes Castle belonged to her family and they had the patronage of the Cluniac priory there founded by Isabel's grandfather.  Castle Acre in Norfolk, Conisbrough Castle and Sandal in Northern England were also theirs. In Normandy the castles of Bellencombre and Mortemer were de Warenne strongholds.   We don't know exactly when Isabel was born; dates are obscure, but a ball park of 1130 is not unreasonable to suggest.  Her family were one of the first to adopt a distinctive personal blazon of blue and yellow chequers and were already using the chequered device on their seals by the mid 12th century.

seal of John de Warenne, Isabel and Hamelin's grandson: 13th century

Her father, William de Warenne joined the Second Crusade in 1146 and never returned. He was cut to pieces when the army of Louis VII of France was crossing the slopes of Mount Cadmos (now  Mount Honaz) in Turkey and suffered a heavy mauling from the Saracens,

 Isabel's widowed mother married again, to Patrick Earl of Salisbury. Isabel herself, now in her teens and a great marriage prize as the sole child of the Earl of Warenne, was married to William of Boulogne, the youngest son of King Stephen, who, was a child of about eleven years old.  King Stephen at the time was at war with his cousin Matilda over the right to the English crown and Isabel would have grown to adulthood during a time fraught with anxiety and violence.  The situation was eventually resolved  when Stephen came to an agreement with Empress Matilda's son Henry, that the crown would pass to him when Stephen died.  Stephen's sons would be required to step down from their claims to the throne. Stephen's older son Eustace, died during these negotiations (some say very fortuitously) thus removing one stumbling block from the agreement. During this delicate time of settling the matter of the succession, there seem to have been plots by both sides to be rid of the opposition. An assassination attempt on  Henry II was foiled, and there may have been one on Isabel's young husband William, whose leg was broken in a fall from a horse.

Eventually, matters settled down.  William abjured his right to the throne. Given a different set of circumstances, he may have become King, and Isabel would then have been queen of England,  In the event, Stephen died and  Isabel and William of Boulogne swore allegiance to the new king.  Henry kept William on a tight leash and he was obviously watched just in case there was a chance that others would see him as a figurehead for rebellion.  Did Isabel stay on her estates during the early years of Henry;s reign or play her part at court?  We don't know, but she and her husband had no children and in my novel The Winter Crown I have thought it not inconceivable that some of her time was spent at court with the Queen to whom she could have imparted valuable information about the dealings of the English court prior to Henry's accession.  She was also in the same position as Eleanor of having married a husband several years younger than herself.

Isabel and William were still childless in 1159 when he went on battle campaign with King Henry to Toulouse and died later that year of disease during the retreat. He was buried at the abbey of Montmorel in Poitou.
His death left Isabel an heiress of considerable wealth, still only in her twenties. In usual medieval fashion this state of affairs had to be remedied and Henry II thought she would be the perfect wife for his youngest brother, also called William like her first husband.  What Isabel thought about this notion is not recorded, but if she had been at court in earlier years, she probably knew him and he her.
As it happened, the marriage never took place because Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury banned the match on the grounds that it was consanguineous.  Usually when this happened - that the couple were too closely related within the proscribed degree - a dispensation could be obtained, but Becket, whose quarrel with Henry II was beginning to escalate made his position clear. There was to be no dispensation.  Becket may have been making a stand because of Henry's dreadful behaviour in 1159/60  where he was behind the hauling of Isabel's sister in law Mary of Boulogne out of the convent where she had been a nun (an abbess no less) for ten years and forcing her to marry his nephew Matthew of Alsace.
There was nothing to be done. William went off empty handed to Normandy to visit his mother, and died soon afterwards - of a broken heart so the anti-Becket propagandists of the time were quick to say. However, no Angevin princeling ever died of such a complaint. One of the murderers of Becket, Richard Brito, had been one of William FitzEmpress's knights and as he struck his blow is supposed to have said 'And that is for the love of my lord William, brother of the King.'  One suspects that as a household knight Brito would have been hoping for gifts of land and money from the largesse William would have access to by marrying Isabel. This now being denied to him, he was bound to be miffed!

Henry II was furious at being thwarted but there were always ways round. Becket had played the consanguinity card, but there was still another Angevin brother waiting in the wings - Hamelin, Henry's bastard half brother and he had no blood ties to Isabel that would prevent the marriage taking place. Thus Henry still managed to draw the de Warenne estates firmly into his own family enclave.

Hamelin and Isabel were married at Easter 1164.  In March of that year a record appears in the pipe rolls for clothes for Isabel amounting to £41 10s 8d, presumably a wedding dress and trousseau.  She was now the King's sister in law and also sister in law to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Did this bring the women closer to each other still? We don't know, but there is a later reason to think that the two branches of the family kept close company - some of the time at least.  Isabel was no mere cipher and witnessed charters under her own seal during her widowhood and in her own court.

'coram Isabel comitissa Warennie domina nostra'  heads one such charter. 'Before Isabel, our lady, Countess of Warenne' is the heading on one such charter.

Example of 12th century silk textile from Sicily. Possibly Isabelle's wedding dress was
made of fabric like this.  She and Hamelin may have visited Sicily in 1176. V&A

We don't know from this far distance of time if Hamelin and Isabel's marriage was a happy one, but certainly in financial and business terms it appears to have been compatible, and was also a dynastic success.  Isabel had not borne any children to her first husband William of Boulogne, but she and Hamelin were to have three girls and a boy. William, their son and heir, and daughters Isabel, Adela and Matilda.  We don't have a specific birth order for the children,  Hamelin took his wife's family name and became Hamelin de Warenne, Earl of Surrey and Warenne.
In 1176, Hamelin escorted his niece Joanna, daughter of Henry II to Sicily for her marriage. We don't know if Isabel was with him, but Joanna would have had female attendants, so it's possible her aunt Isabel accompanied her, although again it is one of those grey areas where novelists have the leeway to explore the spaces between the lines.

Some time in the 1170's Hamelin set out to build a fine castle for himself and his countess at Conisborough in South Yorkshire.  The keep, recently refurbished by England Heritage is well worth visiting and features Isabel's own chamber near the top of the keep.  You can see a cutaway diagram of the keep at Conisbrough on the Castle's English Heritage website. with Isabelle's chamber near the top of the keep and Hamelin's below. There was also a chapel dedicated to St. Philip and St. James.

Conisbrough today

Isabel's chamber, complete with fireplace

An artis's impression of the chamvber brightened up and lived in.

Access onto the battlements from the chamber

One of the reasons I am positive that Isabel and Hamelin kept in close touch with their royal Angevin kin is because of an event that happened some time after 1180.  One of the de Warenne daughters became pregnant by her cousin John Count of Mortain, later to become the infamous King John.  We don't have a date for the event and we don't know which daughter.  Only one chronicle tells us that a daughter of Hamelin de Warenne bore John's son, and there are no charters mentioning her name in connection with the birth to give us any sort of idea. Popular histories online make all sorts of claims for this one or that one, but basically it's all utter speculation because we just don't know.  What we do know is that young John was sufficiently close to his de Warenne cousins to get one of them with child. While royal illegitimate children were often accepted as a matter of course, I suspect this particular pregnancy was regarded with a degree of dismay!
The child was christened Richard and can be found in various charters and in Henry III's pipe rolls. He is variously known as Richard of Dover, Richard of Chillham, Richard Fitzroy, and Richard de Warenne. There may be a clue to his mother in that Richard named his own daughter Isabel, but at the same time it was his mother in law's name (and his grandmother's), so there are no guarantees, however, it may be a pointer.

Another link that Isabel may have had with Eleanor of Aquitaine is Old Sarum which in the 12th century housed a royal palace and a cathedral. (It was the original Salisbury. The town and cathedral we now know as Salisbury was relocated from Old Sarum in the first quarter of the 13th century).  Eleanor was kept here under sometimes strict house arrest several times in  her 16 year imprisonment by Henry II.  Isabel may have visited her here, or have had some access to her because her own half-brother was the Earl of Salisbury and her mother the dowager countess, and family connections counted for much.  Again, it's one of those things we can't say for certain but it's one of those areas where as the novelist I can explore the possibility as a story line and know I am not going wildly outside the parameters of what is known.

To complete Isabel's story, she died on July 12th 1203, a year after her husband Hamelin and 9 months before Eleanor herself died at Fontevraud Abbey. Isabel was buried at Lewes Priory beside Hamelin and although their graves have been lost over the centuries, their bones are still there somewhere and near each other.

Since William Marshal and his family are my specialist subject I was interested to discover that Isabel's mother Adela was William Marshal's aunt by marriage, and her son William, Isabel's half-brother, was the Marshal's cousin.  There is a further link in that Hamelin and Isabel's son William, later married William Marshal's eldest daughter Mahelt when her first husband died in 1225.
When you begin looking, everything is connected to everything else!

Selected Sources:
Early Yorkshire Charters Volume 8 edited by William Farrer and Charles Travis Clay - Cambridge University Press
Noblewomen Aristocracy and Power in the 12th century Anglo Norman Realm by Susan M. Johns. Manchester University Press
Thomas Becket by John Guy - Penguin
Blog article by Elizabeth Chadwick Hamelin de Warenne
Online Dictionary of National Biography - article by Susan M. Johns
The Image of Aristocracy in Britain 1o00-1300 by David Crouch


Elizabeth Chadwick is a best selling, multi-award winning author of fiction set in the Middle Ages. She is currently completing The Autumn Throne, the 3rd book in  trilogy of novels about Eleanor of Aquitaine - and featuring among its cast Isabel and Hamelin de Warrene and their children.

DALLYING WITH DICE - a medieval pastime by Elizabeth Chadwick

Two men playing at a dicing table. Detail from the Prodigal Son window at Bourges Cathedral
Note that the chap on the right has no money and is down to his underpants.

Last month I reviewed LOST LETTERS OF MEDIEVAL LIFE by David Crouch and Martha Karlin.  One of the letters in the collection is from a man refusing to help a friend's shiftless kinsman who has fallen into debt.  Part of the letter calling time on the kinsman says in translation:
I do not wish, nor am I able to lend him anything of mine for he is an inveterate dice player and he loses everything that he gambles...  He goes on to say that any money lent to the kinsman will disappear the same way and 'those who were with him in the tavern when he lost (either 10 marks, shillings or pounds)...gained everything, right down to his underpants (braccas).

Plainly gambling away one's wherewithal has been a folly for as long as dice have been around (and probably longer. I hazard that cavemen gambled the odds with bones or stones), but my concern is with the medieval aspect of the the vice.

Gambling with dice seems to have largely been a male folly. Men were mostly the ones with access to the cash and more leeway to go out losing it.  It was a game associated with drinking, and tended to have a rough, macho element to it.  It could lead to rowdiness, violence and - as in the case of the above mentioned young man - nudity!  Men would get drunk, wager all their money followed by their clothes and possessions.  This is alluded to in many works of literature of the period. Wace, writing of a dice game in the Roman de Brut of 1155 describes it in very similar terms to the above. The man who sat down to play clothed, might arise naked at the close of play.' 

Another literary source, the Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal, completed in 1226,  reveals that dice were used to settle disputes.  The argument below is settled by a simple game called 'Highest Points.'
The poem's hero, William Marshal had won a horse at a tourney but was having trouble obtaining it from its erstwhile owner. In the end, after some discussion, the men agreed to play dice for the animal.  'Let the horse...be the sole property of the man throwing the highest score with three dice.  Isn't that the way? Shall it be so?'
The men agree and 'Three dice were brought which quickly slipped out of the hand as soon as they were thrown.'
Which makes one wonder if there were dice that didn't slip out of the hand so easily and if such dice were fixed.
As it happened, the other man threw a nine and the Marshal threw eleven, so he won the horse, which is as one would expect from a tale lauding our hero!

The main dice games of the Middle Ages were 'Highest Points' (plus poins)  played as above mentioned with three dice thrown onto a dicing board or table - highest score takes all, Then there was ''Raffle' also played with 3 dice.  In the latter the hope was to throw all three dice alike, or failing that, to throw a pair with a higher value than one's opponent.  Hazard was a dice game very popular from the thirteenth century onwards and the ancestor of the modern game of craps. Its name came from the Arabic word 'al-zahr' meaning a die.  It was played like the other with three dice.  There is only one thrower per round who is decided by agreement of the other players, or by all the players throwing the dice to see who goes first. If the player with his first throw scores a 3,4, 5, 6, 15, 16, 17 or 18, then those scores are called 'hazards' and he wins. If he scores them with his second throw, however, he loses.  If neither his first or second score is a 'hazard' it is called a 'chance'  and will be anything between 7 and 14.  He goes on playing until either his first score or second score comes up again. If it's his first score he wins. If it's his second, he loses.

A replica die owned by the author.
Bone with a ring and dot design.

We know from the pipe rolls that King John enjoyed gaming. He gave his illegitimate brother William Longespee money so that he could gamble. and in the summer of 1210 John could be found whiling away the time on his Irish campaign by wagering at dice. He 'Lent to to Robert de Ros for play, when he played with Warine FitzGerold at Carlingford, and the King was his Partner, £1.17s 4d whereof he returned 14s 8d. Also to the same Robert £1. 0s 4d when he played with the same Warine, and the King was again his partner in the game. (Praestita roll, 12th year of King John).
There is a tale from the medieval French Fabliaux in which a minstrel is brought into hell by a demon and left in charge of all the souls there while the devils go out looking for more. St. Peter turns up in their absence and plays dice with the minstrel until he wins all the souls the latter is supposed to be watching for the devils and promptly leads them out of hell and up to heaven.  The minstrel is in dire trouble when the devils return to find the place empty. They decide he's a rotten servant and throw him out.  He runs all the way to heaven and St. Peter lets him in, and that, says the tale is why minstrels, among other rogues and gamblers are refused entry into hell!

A game of dice chess.  The Prodigal Son Window Chartres Cathedral. Again, no money and he's
lost most of his clothes!

Chess at this time was sometimes played with dice too, adding in an element of chance to the game. It  was seen as slightly inferior and less intellectual than unadulterated chess and as a game slightly more fit for ladies' to play than straight dice, the chess element lending it the respectability of a parlour rather than tavern game, although it could be both. A lady who gambled with dice was risking her reputation, although it was considered acceptable to do so in a social context if the company was mixed and the men put up the money for the stakes.  This happened for example in 1260 when Count Alphonse of Poitiers, brother of King Louis IX invited everyone to play dice in his chamber and paid for the ladies' stakes himself so that no one was embarrassed and no reputations called into question.

Dice and shaker. Museum of London.

The dice themselves were generally rather small and usually carved from bone with ring and dot patterns marking out the six sides. They are frequent finds on archaeological dig sites.  The dice were sometimes fraudulent. The set above which can be seen in the Museum of London are all fixed.  Three only have high numbers and three only low. The rest are weighted with mercury to fall the same way every time.  The pewter shaker in which they were found was originally a pot for birdseed.

Although it is often said that the past is a different country, I am often struck by the similarities between then and now. Some things are hard wired.  My personal view is that the past is the same country, but just a few bus stops further back. Crane our necks that little bit further, and we can catch sight of our ancestors in the distance.  Gambling has gone digital in a huge way and TV programmes bombard us with late night adverts to be cool and get down to the online casino. Where presumably some of us, in the grip of too much wine and adrenaline will end up losing our virtual underwear!

Elizabeth Chadwick is the author of several best-selling novels set in the Middle Ages including THE GREATEST KNIGHT about William Marshal and THE SUMMER QUEEN and THE WINTER CROWN about Eleanor of Aquitaine. She is currently working on her third novel in the Eleanor trilogy THE AUTUMN THRONE.

SHELLS AND KERNELS: The knowledge and the deep knowledge by Elizabeth Chadwick

I admit to being a research nerd.   For the characters to feel real to me, I need their stage to be authentic and the characters themselves to possess believable mindsets and attitudes.  As I have researched down the decades, I have come to realise how much I actually don't know, which is humbling, frustrating at times, but also very exciting when that epiphany moment sends a beam through the murk. I have learned never to trust a source in isolation and that studying widely in my chosen genre is, for me, the only way to go.
Recently, when  reading M.T. Clanchey's wonderful book From Memory to the written word. I was struck anew by how a little knowledge can take you to a very different place from deeper knowledge. 

There is a tale dating to the late 13th century - one with which I was familiar from reading novels and general history, that the royal judges demanded to know by what right the barons held their privileges.  One earl, John de Warenne, produced a rusty sword.  
'Here, my lords, here is my warrant!  For my ancestors came with William the Bastard and conquered their lands by the sword, and by the sword I will defend them from anyone intending to seize them!'   That is fighting talk in anyone's language and one receives the impression of a belligerent warrior baron ready to cut down anyone down who got in his way.  However, while much of this is true, it was more than just a case of  sword shaking  in threat of violence. There's more to it than that; there's a deeper magic.
It all goes back to 1069 when William the Conqueror endorsed a gift of English land to a Norman abbey.  The transaction involved a charter which was witnessed by nine people on the charter itself and others gathered to witness. Crucially, the gift of a knife to authenticate the charter was involved.  The charter detail says 'This gift is made by a knife which the aforesaid king jokingly gave to the abbot, as if threatening to stab it into his palm saying: 'That's the way land ought to be given.'   The custom was a Norman one and used as an aid to memory.  In future decades conveyancing charters were made valid by the accompaniment of a symbolic transfer object. It might be a knife as in the case of William the Conqueror or his son William Rufus who gave one with an ivory handle to Tavistock Abbey.  It might be a rod of office, a helmet, a horn, a cup...or a sword. You can see a chirograph from 1148 with a knife attached here. chirograph with knife
So, when John de Warenne came marching before the judges with his rusty sword, dating back two hundred years, his claim was not just a fist-shaking threat, he was carrying legal authority.  His sword was his warrant both on the battlefied and in a court of law. Should I ever comes to write that scene in fiction myself, knowing this detail about the symbolic objects attached to writs, might make all the difference to the way I nuance that scene.

I found the research and nuance thing especially important when writing my novel A Place Beyond Courage about John FitzGilbert, the father of the great Medieval knight and magnate William Marshal.  As a child of about 5, William was taken hostage for his father's word of honour during the fight for the throne between Empress Matilda and her cousin Stephen.  John, a supporter of the Empress had promised to yield his besieged castle at Newbury to King Stephen providing he first made it known to the Empress what he intended to do.  However, instead of commencing the surrender process, John promptly reinforced Newbury to the hilt.  Stephen promptly threatened to kill William because John had reneged on his word.  "Word came of this to his father, but he said he did not care about the child, since he still had the anvils and hammers to produce even finer ones."  William's life was saved because King Stephen was too soft-hearted to do the deed, and although he bluffed via threats of hanging, catapulting and tying to an attacking siege machine, eventually took young William away to his tent to play games with him. 

The incident has made strong historical mileage in our own century. How shocking that a father would say that about his own child. How callous. But that's to skim the surface.  The quote comes from a family chronicle - the Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal, which was a family celebration piece designed to put William Marshal and his family in an illustrious light. A poem of almost  two thousand lines, the Histoire was written to be read aloud on William's anniversary. It was commissoned by his son shortly after William's death in 1219 at the age of 72.
 The family view of John Marshal's actions would have been the acknowledgement of a man who wasn't going to be intimidated by anyone.  Anvils and hammers are the symbols of a marshal, so that quote is a pun on the name as well as being a euphemism for the male reproductive organs in virile function. It says that this man has the balls  to deal with any situation and no king is going to emasculate him. The Marshal family listening to the tale would have appreciated the riposte and perhaps even chuckled.  Was it ever actually said?  No one knows.  While the siege and the hostage situation itself is a matter of fact, those words only appear in the family history. There's a whole other context to them; they're not the casual utterance of an indifferent father, but a declaration of standing hard in adversity, and they appear in no other source.  Knowing this threw the door wide open to me  the writer. What really happened?  What was this man really like?

The same goes for smaller matters.  A couple of years ago I was reading a 12th century novel where a character wrote a letter and enclosed two marks of silver inside as payment of a debt.  The shell is knowing that one of the monetary  units of the time was the mark. The kernel is knowing that a mark was a unit of weight equating to 13shillings and fourpence, and since the only coin in the land was the silver penny, you'd need 160 of them to make up your mark.  Try putting 320 of them inside a letter!

Or the beautiful white stallion given the Medieval name Morel by his proud owner.  That's the shell.  The kernel is knowing that Morel  was indeed a horse name in the Middle Ages - but one always given to black or almost black horses - like morello cherries! A white horse would more likely go by the name of Blancart.

Details like this are going to go over most readers' heads, I admit.  It's the stuff of 'swots, letter writers and anoraks' to quote Julian Rathbone's note in his novel The Last English King. I suppose it is those traits in me that make me love coming across the nut in the first place and then cracking the shell to get at the kernel, which may look entirely different to the shell!  When that happens, it brings a whole different perception to my writing - and to history. Do we know what we think we know, and isn't the quest to find out illuminating and exciting!

A BIT OF AN ORDEAL - some matters pertaining to trial by ordeal in 12th century England by Elizabeth Chadwick

At the start of the 12th century, trial by ordeal was an accepted part of the judicial system and daily life.  The idea was to allow the accused to undergo a test and that God would decide the outcome. This test would involve either fire, water, combat, or character testification known as compurgation.
In ordeal by water the accused would be let down into an ordeal pit filled with water deep enough to close over his (or her) head,  and closely observed by witnesses.  If the person sank it meant the pure element of water had accepted him and he was innocent.  If he floated, then the worse for him (assuming he hadn't drowned!).  Failing the test usually meant that the accused faced mutilation as a punishment.
The ordeal pits belonged to the church and were a lucrative source of monastic income,the clergy being paid generous sums of money to bless them before ordeals.  Itinerant royal justices Geoffrey de Mandeville and Richard de Lucy paid the sum of ten shillings to have the local clergy bless ordeal pits near Bury St. Edmunds in 1166. This was at a time when the daily wage of a labourer was one penny.
Should a water ordeal pit not be to hand, then the next best thing was to dunk the accused off a bridge into a stream or brook.  The ordeal of cold water was accompanied by liturgical the chanting, a sermon and a mass, and was something of a spectacle for the local populace. The ordeal of water was a trial reserved for those at the bottom of the social pile according to a treatise on the law written down in the later 12th century. 'per aquam si fuerit rusticus.'  

Free men of status could look forward to ordeal by hot iron instead. scilicet per ferrum calidum si fuerit homo librum. Here the accused had to briefly hold or carry a hot iron.  His hand was then bandaged and sealed and was examined a few days later.  If the damage was healed, or healing cleanly, then he was deemed innocent.  If it didn't then it was mutilation again.  King William Rufus in the 11th century was a very unhappy man when 50 people accused of crimes in his forest took the ordeal of hot iron en masse and all came through it unmarked! The King swore that he would never be taken in again.  At the assize of Clarendon in 1166, Henry II chose not to believe the people who had been pronounced innocent of trial by water and banished them all from England anyway.

It does seem that there were ways to cheat at these ordeals.  Peter the Chanter, a chronicler of the late 12th century mentioned someone he knew who, on realising he was to face trial by water, prepared for it by practising breathing exercises beforehand in order to succeed.  He also mentioned how people would cultivate thick calluses on their hands in order to mitigate the effect of the hot iron ordeal.

A third way of deciding who was guilty or innocent, right or wrong was trial by combat, a system introduced by the Normans. William the Conqueror made it expressly clear that trial by combat was not to be enforced upon English litigants, who must stick to fire and water.  However, accused Normans had the choice of combat as well as the other two ordeals.  As with the water ordeal, the church got in on the act by blessing the weapons and imploring God's mercy. Trials by combat were sometimes fought by the accused themselves, as in the case of Henry II's standard bearer Henry of Essex (who lost, was spared and took the tonsure).  William Marshal is another example from the late 12th century.  Accused of having an affair with his lord's wife, he offered to fight his detractors man to man, but no one wanted to go up against him (strangely enough).

People were sometimes deemed ineligible for trial by combat.  Over sixties need not apply to fight and had to tick the fire or water box.  If a person was suffering a serious sickness or injury - such as a broken arm, or a deep cut, the same applied.

Not everyone had the military skills to make success in combat a likelihood and so professional champions were sometimes engaged to do the dirty work, but that had it its drawbacks too.  The richer you were, the better the fighter you could afford.  Indeed, if you were really rich, you could buy all the best fighters and leave the cupboard bare for your opponent!  By the end of the 11th century, a merchant guild of St. Omer in Flanders had formed a system of mutual help to allow their members to hire the best champions in the land should the need arise - a sort of insurance policy.

14thc trial by combat

Finally there was compurgation.  This wasn't so much an ordeal as a way of proving innocence.  The  accused would each gather together a band of people to swear as to his good character and innocence, having first sworn their own impeccable credentials. One might initially imagine this turning into an 'I've got more friends than you' match.  Sometimes it probably did, and sometimes people could be bought, but on the whole the system worked reasonably well.  In a society where everyone knew everyone else,a criminal was generally going to be the 'Billy no mates' person.

Gradually the above systems were mostly replaced with trial by jury.  Occasional trials by combat continued for centuries, but they weren't the norm, although the right wasn't taken off the statute books until the early 19th century.  By the 1180's trial by jury was becoming  the established method of deciding cases.  A jury was more reliable and acceptable in practise than leaving it up to God (and a few ruses) to decide.The jury, which mingled Norman and English members, was  a sound basis on which to go forward, and since it was a departure from methods on both sides, it was not seen as unduly fair to one side or the other and was accepted with equanimity.

I'm always fascinated when researching medieval lives and lifestyles. I constantly recognise myself in the people and come across emotions, situations and moments that are very familiar to me today.  And then there are times like this, when I think of trial by fire or water, or fight to the finish, when I realise that the past is a foreign field, even if too close for comfort when it comes down to it!

Elizabeth Chadwick

Suggested reading for further interest
The Birth of the English Common Law by R.C. Van Caenegem: Oxford University Press
The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England Commonly called Glanville edited and Translated by D. G. Hall - Oxford Medieval Texts

IF IT'S CHRISTMAS IT MUST BE CHINON... the festive season itinerary for Henry II

Medieval kings, especially Angevin ones were a busy,  peripatetic bunch.  If they stayed in the same place more than a week it was a miracle. The task of government in the Angevin period was a hands on one. The King had literally to be seen exerting his authority and the royal itinerary was one of pillar to post and back again across England, and vast swathes of what is now modern day France, not to mention Ireland.  Accommodation was generally the Medieval equivalent of a five star hotel, often with a splendid few days' hunting laid on for the benefit of the King and courtiers.  Much of the royal finery was carried in the baggage wains that lumbered to the same destinations as their sovereign, although frequently along different roads or earlier in the day.

I thought it might be interesting to look at where King Henry II spent the Christmas feasts of his reign from 1154 - 1188 (he died before Christmas 1189). Christmas gatherings were politically important events. While there was sport, mirth and merriment and largesse, it went hand in glove with meetings, with decisions of policy and government, with the declaration of interest and the issuing of charters.
As an aside with reference to the entertainments, we know that one Roland le Pettour held his estates in Norfolk for the performing of one particular festive jape for King Henry II.  His brief was to appear at court each Christmas and perform a 'leap, a whistle and a fart' for the royal entertainment. The particular service was hereditary and the responsibility was passed on to his son.  What can I say?  Having watched the inimitable Mrs Brown's Boys on television, not a lot changes!

To the itinerary:
Beginning in 1154:  Henry had been crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey on December 19th, aged just 21 years old.  Red-haired, freckled, grey-eyed and bursting with energy, this was the promising start to a magnificent new reign after a generation of bloody civil war.  Henry's wife, Alienor of Aquitaine was most probably crowned with him. She was 7 months pregnant with their second son, and their heir, William was two years old.
The Christmas celebration itself was held at the manor of Bermondsey across the river from the Tower of London.  Westminster royal Palace was not an option for the new king and queen. It had been neglected during the civil war and was something of a ruin.  Indeed, it was the first task of Henry II's newly appointed chancellor, Thomas Becket to put Westminster Palace in order and make it splendiferous.

1155.  Christmas was held at Westminster this time around, so presumably Becket had pulled out all the stops and made the place habitable for a gathering.  By January 1, Henry was busy in Canterbury.

1156.  No one is quite sure on this one, but Bordeaux is a likely candidate.  Certainly Henry was in his wife's lands rather than his own northern climes.  Sadly during this year he and Alienor had lost their firstborn son - cause unspecified. They had also had a daughter, christened Matilda after her formidable grandmother the Empress Matilda.

1157.  The King and Queen were at Lincoln this year.  In September Alienor had produced another son, Richard, later to become Richard the Lionheart.

1158. Cherbourg this year. Alienor had been in England until late in the year where she had given birth to yet another son, Geoffrey.

1159. The royal pair spent Christmas at Falaise in Normandy. Earlier in the year Henry had tried and failed to take Toulouse which Alienor claimed belonged to her. What the atmosphere was like at this gathering is anyone's guess.

The donjon at Falaiser

1160. Henry and Alienor were at le Mans in Anjou this time.

1161.  Christmas was kept at Bayeux in Normandy this year.  In October, Alienor had given birth to her second daughter, also christened Alienor at Domfront.

1162. Henry and Alienor were intending to spend Christmas somewhere in England but because of bad weather in The Channel, had to keep the festival at Cherbourg.

1163. Christmas this year was at Berkhamstead and marks a sign of the growing discord between Henry II and his recent Archbishop, Thomas Becket.  The castle, although belonging to the Queen, had been loaned to Becket on a chummy personal basis.  Now, with the dispute over criminous clerks looming large, Henry made a point of taking Berkhamstead for his own use and ousting Becket.

1164. 1164 was another Christmas spend in England, at the royal castle of Marlborough in Wiltshire.

1165.  Henry and Alienor spent Christmas apart.  He was in Oxford busy with politics and she was in Angers in Anjou, perhaps still recovering from the birth of their third daughter Joanna. Was the marriage in trouble or was it just politics?  We just don't know, but it is more likely the former, even if trouble was looming.

1166. Another Christmas apart for the royal couple.  Henry was in Poitiers, the heart of Alienor's great Duchy of Aquitaine, and he was joined by his almost 11 year old son Prince Henry.  Alienor, meanwhile, was in Oxford giving birth to their last child, John.

1167. This particular year the royal couple managed to have a family Christmas at Argentan, although some sources say Rouen.

1168. The Christmas court this year was definitely at Argentan and Henry was still there at New Year.

1169.  This year Henry was at Nantes in Brittany for Christmas with his third son Geoffrey who was Count designate of Brittany.  This was definitely politics. Queen Alienor inthe meantime was keeping her own court and Christmas in Poitiers.  Many historians and novelists see this period as the time of the split between Henry and Alienor, with her returning to her Duchy and occupying herself with her own concerns.  There is the suggestion (rather fanciful) that Henry had taken up with a nubile young mistress, Rosamund de Clifford and that Alienor had gone off in a jealous snit, but given Alienor's political acumen, it's not a likely scenario, even if it is soap-operishly romantic and dramatic.

1170.  Henry and possibly Alienor were at Bures for Christmas not far from Bayeux.  It's from Bures, supposedly on misunderstanding Henry's orders, that the four household knights set out to cross The Channel and murder Thomas Becket on the steps of Canterbury Cathedral  on December 29th.

1171.   Henry spent Christmas 1171 in Dublin, sorting out the Irish and keeping away from all the furore over Becket's slaughter. Alienor was probably in Poitiers.

1172.  In 1172, Henry and Alienor got together again at Chinon in Anjou.

Chinon

1173.  King Henry was in Caen. During the last year his sons Henry, Geoffrey and Richard had rebelled against him, as had their mother and he was still busy dealing with uprisings and insurrection.  His sons were still rioting but he had captured Alienor and imprisoned her. She spent Christmas at his pleasure, but we don't know where, although Chinon and Falaise are both likely.

1174.  Henry spent Christmas at Argentan.  Alienor, now a permanent prisoner for the rest of his reign, was confined to various fortresses in the south of England, predominately Old Sarum and Winchester.

1175. Henry was at Windsor with his eldest son Henry, now reconciled.

1176.   Henry spent Christmas at Nottingham with his two youngest sons Geoffrey and John. His oldest son Henry was at Argentan with his wife, daughter of Louis VIII, and Richard was at Bordeaux.

Restored gatehouse of Nottingham Castle

1177  Henry was at Angers.

1178  Henry kept Christmas at Winchester with his sons Geoffrey and John. There is no mention of Alienor being there, but she may have been.

1179  The venue for Christmas this year was Nottingham for the second time.

1180  This time the King was back across The Channel at Le Mans.

1181  This year Henry spent Christmas at Winchester

1182  Henry was at Caen.

1183 Henry spent Christmas at Le Mans and Prince John now 17 was with him.  Henry's eldest son, Henry had died in rebellion against him in the summer of that year.

1184  This was a big family gathering year. Christmas was spent at Windsor with Alienor joining the court, together with her sons Richard and John, her daughter Matilda who was now Duchess of Saxony with her husband and their children.

1185.  Christmas this year was at Domfront.

1186. Henry kept Christmas at Guildford with Prince John.

1187.   Henry was in Normandy, at Caen this year.

1188  Henry spent the last Christmas of his life at Saumur in Anjou.

So in his 35 year reign, Henry II spent 12 Christmases in England,  2 in Aquitaine,  12 in Normandy, 1 in Ireland, 1 in Brittany and 6 in Anjou. All travel courtesy of horse, wagon, and occasionally Shanks' pony.

A Happy Christmas/festival/holiday break to all wherever you happen to be!

Elizabeth Chadwick