In this straightforward but engaging and scholarly biography of an often-mentioned but rarely studied thirteenth-century noblewoman, Louise J. Wilkinson illuminates how Eleanor de Montfort, like her grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine, became embroiled in both family intrigue and national politics. Wilkinson's approach to exploring Eleanor's life is strictly chronological, but she accomplishes much more than a utilitarian retelling of the facts. Readers are treated to a vivid illustration of the worldview, lifestyle, and personal, political, and legal affairs of a medieval noblewoman.
As the daughter of King John and the sister of King Henry III, Eleanor's matrimonial importance was understood early. The Montfort surname that Wilkinson bestows upon Eleanor in her title came from her second, more noteworthy, marriage, but Eleanor first wed one of England's wealthiest bachelors, the younger William Marshal. Wilkinson highlights how, despite the elder Marshal's chivalric fame, there was concern on both sides about an unequal union (Eleanor's two sisters had royal spouses). She postulates that the famous History of William Marshal was commissioned by his heir in part to bolster his ancestral credentials prior to cementing the espousals.
William Marshal died when Eleanor was sixteen. Wilkinson's two chapters on Eleanor's early widowhood underpin her analysis and her most original insights into Eleanor's personality and how her position and interests intersected with issues of national importance. Wilkinson argues that when Eleanor chose to become a vowess three years after Marshal's death, she was motivated by neither grief nor spirituality, but instead she hoped that entering chaste widowhood would help her attain and protect her dower. The issue of Eleanor's dower overshadows all subsequent events in Eleanor's life, and Wilkinson clarifies for nonspecialists the legal principles of widows' portions along with the difficulties even prominent noblewomen experienced trying to achieve rights to dower.
In the second half of Eleanor's biography, Wilkinson introduces Simon de Montfort and examines how and why Eleanor broke her vow of chastity to wed an indebted third son, albeit one with illustrious family connections and a claim to the earldom of Leicester. Wilkinson explores why both Eleanor and her brother Henry III favored the match, despite Eleanor's previous vow of chastity, Simon's foreignness, and his comparatively lesser status. Eleanor was able to enjoy motherhood, and she gained an ally at court (where Simon and Henry were initially on friendly terms) to help her continued pursuit of her dower. Such cordial relations at court were brief, as scholars of thirteenth-century England know well. Wilkinson tells the story of Henry III's conflict with his barons, led by Simon, from Eleanor's perspective. Thus we learn how Eleanor lost her position as favored royal sister and turned to her sister-in-law's mother, Beatrice of Provence, to mediate. Most significantly, we learn how Eleanor's continued pursuit of her share of the Marshal inheritance was central to the breakdown of both family relations and national unity. In highlighting the significance of family wealth to Montfort's position in the reform movement, Wilkinson follows John Maddicott's scholarship, which emphasizes Montfort's acquisitiveness and his personal grudge against a king and a brother-in-law who neither settled Eleanor's dower nor offered her a suitable dowry (J. R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort, Cambridge University Press, 2004). Despite conflicts between the Montforts and the Crown, Wilkinson documents the financial and political grants made by Henry to both Eleanor and Simon, demonstrating that tension was not irreversible from its outset but instead oscillated.
Although the analysis of Eleanor's quest for dower is illuminating, one wonders if it looms too large in Wilkinson's analysis. Because it is one of the most traceable aspects of Eleanor's life, appearing with regularity in surviving royal documents, Wilkinson perhaps implicitly, not explicitly, overstates its importance by omitting other aspects of the barons' fractured relationships with Henry, thereby simplifying diverse national and international issues. Moreover, when addressing Eleanor's private life at home, Wilkinson unfortunately has to employ qualifying words like “probably” and “usually” to discuss Eleanor's leisure activities or expressions of piety; although primary sources inform us about the lifestyles of other noblewomen, few shed light on this aspect of Eleanor's life.
One source that does provide a glimpse into Eleanor's private world is her sole surviving household roll, one of the most important early household accounts from medieval England. In a fascinating final chapter depicting the events of the tumultuous year 1265 from Eleanor's standpoint, Wilkinson wisely considers this document in its proper chronological context, to illustrate this year's momentous events (the portion that survives covers February through August 1265), rather than employing the roll elsewhere in the text to describe a noblewoman's daily life. In a year that began with the Montforts at the height of power and ended with Eleanor in exile in France after Simon's death, many of the purchases made, the visitors hosted, and the issues of concern recorded in this document were surely unique to these months. Wilkinson's discussion of the accounts and Eleanor's role in personal and national events before and after the battle of Evesham is superb.
In conclusion, Wilkinson has offered up a fine biography of Eleanor de Montfort based upon an impressive assortment of primary texts. Although she does not find major points of contention with historians who have been more focused on the era's men, the concerns and events of the thirteenth century from a noblewoman's perspective are refreshing. Though avoiding much direct engagement with feminist scholars in the debate over female agency or victimization, Wilkinson nevertheless highlights Eleanor's opportunities and involvement rather than portraying her as a pawn in marriage or politics. Finally, with great success, Wilkinson provides an understanding of the wider world of thirteenth-century noblewomen. She discusses Eleanor's childhood, marriages, and role in motherhood in the context of the lives of other women; she places Simon and Eleanor's patronage of mendicants in the wider context of the expansion of these orders; and she analyzes Eleanor's quest for dower alongside the legal and cultural expectations for dower in thirteenth-century England.
