Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England (36 page)

57
  

Eleanor received ten does (
damas
) from Chute in late January (
CR, 1231–4
, p. 371), and five bucks (
damos
) from Feckenham at the beginning of June (ibid., p. 466). A further gift of five bucks (
damos
) in Savernake on 12 July 1234 was followed a month later by another gift of ten bucks (
damos
) and two stags (
cervos
) in Chute (ibid., pp. 473, 497).

58
  

On 16 May 1235, Eleanor received six deer (
damos
) from Savernake:
CR, 1231–4
, p. 92. On 30 May, Eleanor received fifteen deer (
damos
) from Rockingham and five from Dean:
CR, 1234–7
, p. 95. On 9 August 1235, Henry III gave her a stag (
cervum
) in Chute:
CR, 1234–7
, p. 128.

59
  

In June 1236, the king’s forester was instructed to deliver fifteen deer (
damos
) to Eleanor from Wychwood, Whittlewood and Bernwood:
CR, 1234–7
, p. 278. This gift was followed by another three deer (
damos
) from the forest of Dean, and another three from the forest of Braden on 23 July 1236, together with four stags (
cervos
) on 24 July:
CR, 1234–7
, pp. 291, 292. On 17 August 1236, the constable of St Briavels Castle was instructed to allow Eleanor to have two stags (
cervos
) in St Briavels Forest: ibid., p. 303.

60
  

In February 1237, Henry gave Eleanor a further fifteen deer (five
damos
and ten
damas
) from Savernake for the express purpose of allowing his sister to stock her own park at Badgeworth:
CR, 1234–7
, p. 414. In August 1237, Eleanor received eight deer (
damos
) from Bernwood and eight (
damos
) from Clarendon: ibid., p. 485.

61
  

Ibid., p. 386.

62
  

As the clerk who compiled Henry III’s wardrobe accounts noted, more than £250 was spent on wax for lighting the royal chapel and the chambers of the English king and queen, Joan, Queen of Scots, during her visit, and Eleanor, Countess of Pembroke: TNA: PRO, E 372/81, rot. 1, m. 2. A splendid edition of Henry III’s wardrobe accounts is being prepared by Dr Ben Wild for publication by the Pipe Roll Society.

63
  

Wendover
, iii, p. 19.

64
  

The annalist had presumably received his information from Robert: ‘Annales de Theokesberia’, p. 84.

65
  

The Christmas court was held at Worcester, again in the presence of des Roches:
Wendover
, iii, p. 47;
CR, 1231–4
, p. 167.

66
  

Wendover
, iii, p. 70.

67
  

Ibid., iii, p. 101.

68
  

Chronica majora
, iii, pp. 334, 380.

69
  

Ibid., iii, pp. 336.

70
  

Ibid., iii, pp. 336–9; M. W. Labarge (1962),
Simon de Montfort
. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, p. 44.

71
  

Chronica majora
, iii, p. 338.

72
  

Ibid., iii, pp. 336–7.

73
  

Wilkinson, ‘The Imperial Marriage of Isabella of England’, pp. 29–31.

74
  

See pp. 13–14.

75
  

See, for example, Woolgar,
The Great Household
, pp. 12–14. On Henry III’s lavish almsgiving, see S. Dixon-Smith (1999), ‘The Image and Reality of Alms-Giving in the Great Halls of Henry III’,
The Journal of the British Archaeological Association
, 152, 76–96.

76
  

See pp. 118–19. See also R. E. Archer (2003), ‘Piety in Question: Noblewomen and Religion in the Later Middle Ages, in D. Wood (ed.),
Women and Religion in Medieval England
. Oxford: Oxbow, pp. 118–40, at p. 129.

77
  

Woolgar,
The Great Household
, p. 90. This, again, appears to have been the case in 1265. See p. 119.

78
  

Woolgar,
The Great Household
, pp. 90–1.

79
  

Ibid., pp. 84–9.

80
  

‘Chronicle of Melrose’, p. 181.

81
  

Nelson, ‘Scottish Queenship in the Thirteenth Century’, p. 69.

82
  

See, for example, P. Ricketts (2003), ‘Widows, Religious Patronage and Family Identity: Some Cases from Twelfth-Century Yorkshire’,
Haskins Society Journal
, 14, 117–36, at pp. 124–7.

83
  

M. Vale (2001),
The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 236.

84
  

Wilkinson, ‘The Imperial Marriage of Isabella of England’, p. 36. I have not, as yet, uncovered any specific grants to religious houses made by Eleanor in her dead husband’s memory. On the royal feeding of poor for the souls of Henry III’s kin, see Dixon-Smith, ‘The Image and Reality of Almsgiving’, 89–90.

85
  

Aristocratic women skilled in needlework were also found in early modern England: B. Harris (2002),
English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550: Marriage and Family, Property and Careers
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 230.

86
  

Writings of Agnes of Harcourt
, pp. 62–5.

87
  

TNA: PRO C 47/3/4/1.

88
  

Vale,
The Princely Court
, pp. 172–3.

89
  

B. B. Rezak (1988), ‘Women, Seals, and Power in Medieval France, 1150–1350’, in M. Erler and M. Kowaleski (eds),
Women and Power in the Middle Ages
. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, pp. 61–82, at pp. 76–7.

90
  

See, for example, Ward,
English Noblewomen
, pp. 96–7.

91
  

CPR, 1232–47
, p. 208.

92
  

Ibid., p. 214.

93
  

Barbara Harris’s work on aristocratic women at the Yorkist and Tudor royal courts has offered interesting points of comparison here, albeit in a rather different political and religious context: Harris,
English Aristocratic Women
, pp. 224–7.

1
    

Chronica majora
, iii, pp. 470–1.

2
    

Ibid.; Maddicott,
Simon de Montfort
, p. 21.

3
    

Maddicott,
Simon de Montfort
, pp. xxiv–xxv (figure 1).

4
    

Ibid., pp. 1–21.

5
    

Ibid., pp. 8–13.

6
    

Ibid., pp. 8–16.

7
    

Ibid., p. 19.

8
    

It is also worth noting that Simon was described as the Earl of Leicester in Paris’s narrative, even though he had not yet received a formal grant of the earldom itself:
Chronica majora
, iii, p. 338.

9
    

Maddicott,
Simon de Montfort
, p. 17.

10
  

Ibid., p. 18. Joan was the daughter of Baldwin (IX), Count of Flanders. Her first husband was the son of King Sancho I of Portugal: C. Petit-Dutaillis (repr. 1966),
The Feudal Monarchy in France and England from the Tenth to the Thirteenth Century
. New York: Harper and Row, pp. 223–4; J. Bradbury (2004),
The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare
. London: Routledge, p. 36.

11
  

As one chronicler observed ‘God provided the sister of the king of England for him’:
Chronica Albrici monachi trium fontium
, pp. 940–1.

12
  

Richard of Cornwall’s marriage to Isabella Marshal had yet to produce a living heir, in spite of Isabella’s progeny by her first husband: N. Vincent (2004), ‘Richard, First Earl of Cornwall and King of Germany (1209–1272)’,
ODNB
, available online at
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23501
, accessed on 1 January 2011.