The Queen’s Fantastic Body

Ernst H. Kantorowicz, in his seminal work The King’s Two Bodies, argues that a sovereign has two bodies: one mortal, physical body subject to illness and death, and another immortal, dynastic body equivalent to the administrative mechanism. Notably, it is the king who has two bodies, not the queen. The king’s dynastic body is his administrative persona, but the queen’s official body depends on her maternity for the continuation of the dynasty. This essay argues that a queen can have two bodies and explores female rulers’ ways of claiming the rhetorical doubling of a sovereign body independent of maternity. It also proposes a comparative approach. This essay reads the mythological representation of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204) in Marie de France’s Arthurian tale Lanval against Empress Wu Zetian 武則天 (624–705)’s self-mythologization as the avatar of the Goddess of Pure Radiance in the Commentary on the Great Cloud Sutra. It illustrates how female rulers wielded political symbolism through a reshuffling of symbolic orders, which provides a window into the roles of Celtic myths in a medieval French Christian society and Buddhism in a medieval Chinese Confucian society.

Thibaut de Champagne, Les Chansons— Texts and Melodies. Bilingual edition prepared by Christopher Callahan, Marie-Geneviève Grossel, and Daniel E. O'Sullivan. Paris: Champion, 2018, pp. 848.

Counted among the most original and prolific medieval French poets, Thibaut IV, count of Champagne and Brie, King of Navarre, was also called Thibaut the poet entertainer (1201–1253). This great-grandson of Eleanor of Aquitaine and great-grandfather of Marie de Champagne, was celebrated by Dante for the purity of his lyrics and widely admired for his mastery of all genres of the time. Remarkable as well for his interpretations of antique mythology and bestiaries, this grand prince and Crusade hero forged poems devoted to the Virgin, transmuting the lyrical lady into a celestial figura. The generous and capacious volume to hand, prepared by young scholars, one French and two Americans, is completely devoted to the famous poet; it is, since the long-respected 1925 edition by Wallensköld (SATF; just a single scholar), the first really complete one. It offers not only all the poems (love songs, debate poems, pastourelles, Crusade, and religious poems) accompanied by their melody, but also robust notes, concordant variants, and isolated melodies. The modern French translations are complemented by additional comments in the glossary, thus offering the reader a very generous and useful reference tool, the fruit of years of accumulated philological and musicological research.

Middle Ages

The sources to mind evolution study were chosen. The methods of the depicting space in the painting of the European Middle Ages and painting of previous and synchronous cultures are considered. The trends in the development of medieval pictorial art are established and their connections with the general laws of evolution of the human mind are revealed. When analyzing markers of evolutionary changes, the most active channels were established, and the forecast following from the scenario of self-organization of complex systems was checked. The results of the analysis are presented in the form of a psychological portrait of one of the most outstanding women of the Middle Ages - Eleanor of Aquitaine. The behavior patterns of the Middle Ages main estates representatives were described.

Angevin Dynasty

The Angevin dynasty in England followed the Anglo-Norman kings, who had ruled since the Norman Conquest in 1066. Henry II, the first Angevin king (r. 1154–1189), was the son of Matilda, daughter and heir of Henry I, and her second husband, Geoffrey le Bel or Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou. Henry II was the first Plantagenet king of England, although he and his two sons, Richard I, the Lionhearted (r. 1189–1199), and John (r. 1199–1216) are often termed the Angevin dynasty. The term Plantagenet is usually limited to Edward I (r. 1272–1307) and his successors down to 1485. Henry II assumed the English crown after a civil war that followed the 1135 death of Henry I, who left his daughter, Matilda, as heir. Stephen of Blois, Henry I’s nephew, challenged her right and seized power. In 1139 she came to England to fight for her inheritance until her son Henry was old enough to take charge; and her husband, Geoffrey le Bel, Count of Anjou, invaded Normandy. Henry reached agreement in 1153 with King Stephen, who recognized him as his heir; and on Stephen’s death, Henry was crowned king. He was already Count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, and Duke of Normandy, conquered by his father. On Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, he became Duke of Aquitaine, extending Angevin control over all southwestern France. Henry’s collection of lands on both sides of the English Channel had no name, but they are often termed the “Angevin Empire.” His and his sons’ rule over their French lands was complicated by the French monarch’s position as their lord. French efforts to weaken and divide the Angevins’ continental lands dominated politics, and by the time of Philip II, France was a greater threat, as his power rose to equal Angevin power. Henry’s “empire” was in many ways simply an expansion of the Anglo-Norman realm. England continued to experience close ties to the continent, and to French culture and a strengthening of its central government. England and Normandy were the most strongly governed and the richest of all the Angevin rulers’ territories, and they needed its revenues for wars to maintain control their other possessions, resulting in innovations to strengthen royal money-raising. Fiscal demands on the baronage reached a high point with Richard Lionheart’s crusade and wars with the French king that continued under King John, when such policies led to rebellion and Magna Carta in 1215.

“Give Me Back My Son!”

Medieval women, according to theorists whose positions were informed by standard classical tropes, suffered from an “excess” of emotion, which barred them from positions of political authority. Eleanor of Aquitaine—queen, countess, and mother of kings—belies this categorization. As a political actor, especially in defense of her own territories and as regent of her sons’ kingdom of England, Eleanor deployed emotional expressions strategically in order to elicit patronage and support from other political leaders. Although many historians have discussed the career of Eleanor of Aquitaine, most emphasize her anomalous position, based on the presentation of her made by contemporary chroniclers such as Roger of Hoveden and Ralph de Diceto. Unlike her husband, Henry II, whose emotional outbursts usually resulted in disaster—vide the Becket debacle—Eleanor’s use of emotion reinforced her position of authority and was underscored by her claim of legitimate emotional distress as mother and as regent.