Eleanor of Castile

[John Carmi Parsons]

I have been asked off-list to post this as it does appear the journal is
less readily accessed than I had once thought. To keep this manageable
both in terms of length and the time I have to use to type it, I will
divide it into 3 parts. This one deals with the year of Eleanor's birth.
(I'm digesting the substance of the whole article as briefly as I can.)

Eleanor of Castile, first wife of Edward I of England, was the only
daughter born to Ferdinand III (1201-52) of Castile's second marriage to
Jeanne de Dammartin ([1215/20?]-1279), later (1250) countess in her own
right of Ponthieu and Aumale in France. After Ferdinand's first wife
Beatriz of Swabia d. Nov. 1235, his mother Queen Berenguela feared he
might take lowborn mistresses if he stayed single, and aggressively set
out to find him a new wife. Attracted by Jeanne's inheritance, Henry III
of England had tried to marry her (1235), but Berenguela's sister Blanche,
the regent of France, quashed this betrothal and sent Jeanne to marry her
nephew Ferdinand III in Oct. 1237 (Parsons, _Eleanor of Castile_ [NY
1995], pp. 8-9; Miriam Shadis, "Berenguela of Castile's Political
Motherhood," in _Medieval Mothering_, eds. J.C. Parsons, B. Wheeler {NY,
1996], pp. 335-58).

Agnes Strickland's influential but flawed _Lives of the Queens of
England_, 2nd ed., 12 vols (London, 1851), ii, 164 note, makes Eleanor
"about ten" at her 1254 marriage, and most later English historians have
followed this. But an impeccable Castilian source indicates she must have
been born before that. _De Rebus Hispaniae Libri IX_, a Latin chronicle
by King Ferdinand's chancellor, Archbishop Rodrigo de Rada of Toledo, was
finished on 31 March 1243. In his concluding paragraph giving that date,
de Rada states that Queen Jeanne by then had had 3 children: Ferdinand,
Eleanor (then "parvula") and Louis (then "parvulus"). De Rada's veracity
is heightened as these children evidently appear in the correct order of
birth--when de Rada had listed the 10 children of the late Queen Beatriz,
he gave all the sons first and then the daughters. (_De Rebus Hispaniae_,
ed. F. Lorenzano [Madrid, 1793; reprint Valencia, 1970], book 9, chaps 12
and 18; J. Gonzalez, _Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, 2 vols., i
[Cordoba, 1980], pp. 96-113, shows the real order of birth among Beatriz'
children.) As Eleanor was the second of 3 children Jeanne bore between
Oct. 1237 and Mar. 1243, she cannot have been born much later than 1241.

Castilian kings' formal chaters, the *privilegios rodados*, are not
generally of value for genealogy, but they can help here. It was
customary in the 13th century for the names of a king's sons to appear
together at the head of the lay witnesses to these acts. The name of a
particular *infante* was added to the lists when he was aged about 12;
thus King Ferdinand's 3rd son Philip, born late in 1231, first appears in
witnesses lists in 1243 (Gonzalez, _Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III_,
as above; E. Florez, _Memorias de la reinas catolicas_, 2 vols [Madrid,
1761], i, p. 435). Eleanor of Castile's elder full brother Ferdinand
first appears in the lists in Aug. 1251, and her younger brother Louis in
Oct. 1255 (for Ferdinand, M. de Manuel Rodriguez, _Memorias para la vida
del Santo Rey Don Fernando III_ [Madrid, 1800], pp. 528-46, and A.
Ballesteros Beretta, _Alfonso X el Sabio_ [Barcelona, 1963], pp. 57-58;
for Louis, Madrid, Archivo Historico Nacional, seccion Clero, carpeta
3436, piece 12). If young Ferdinand was 12 in 1252, he would have been b.
in 1240 or perhaps late in 1239; Louis, in 1243 (obviously before 31 Mar.)
or else very late in 1242. Again, as Eleanor was second-born, we would
look for her birth no later than 1241.

The accounts of Eleanor's executors record expenses for Nov. 1291
ceremonies in London on the 1st anniversary of her death. These records
show that the procession included 49 candlebearers (_Manners and Husehold
Expenses of England in the 13th and 15th Centuries_, ed. B. Botfield, T.
Turner [London, for the Roxburghe Club, 1841], p. 99). This very uneven
number fairly jumps off the page. Matched pairs of candlebearers--i.e.,
an even number--would strike one as more likely; why 49? In all
likelihood it represents Eleanor's age at her death (28 Nov. 1290). A
third path, this one English, thus also points to 1241 as the year of
Eleanor's birth.

To examine events of that year in Castilian sources, Ferdinand III was
absent from his wife's side on campaign in Andalucia for the 13 months
ending in Feb. 1241 (_Primera Cronica General de Espana_, ed. R. Menendez
Pidal, 2 vols [Madrid, 1955], ii, 737 [ch. 1053], 740-41 [ch. 1057]). If
Jeanne had conceived Eleanor before Ferdinand III went to Andalucia early
in 1240, Eleanor could have been born no later than summer 1240 and would
have been easily 50 years old at her death. But if Eleanor was conceived
at the time of her parents' reunion in Feb. 1241, she would have been b.
in Nov. or Dec. of that year. In all probability, then, she had either
just marked, or was very close to marking, her 49th birthday when she
died.

Section II will deal with the children I have been able to document fully.

Section III will discuss various names traditionally associated with
Eleanor's family, but which turn out to be anomalous additions by later
researchers ("Alice," "Isabella," "Juliana," etc.).

John Parsons