The Duchesses of Lancaster: an Examination of English

Home , Blanche of Lancaster, Castilian Civil War, Catherine of Lancaster, Duke of Lancaster, Eleanor of Castile, Henry II of Castile

THE DUCHESSES OF LANCASTER: AN EXAMINATION OF ENGLISH

NOBLEWOMEN’S EXERCISE OF POWER AND INFLUENCE

DURING THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

A Thesis

AMANDA ELIZABETH SANDERS

Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University-Commerce in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2015 THE DUCHESSES OF LANCASTER: AN EXAMINATION OF ENGLISH

NOBLEWOMEN’S EXERCISE OF POWER AND INFLUENCE

DURING THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

A Thesis

AMANDA ELIZABETH SANDERS

Approved by:

Advisor: Judy Ford

Committee: Kathryn Jacobs William Kuracina

Head of Department: Sharon Kowalsky

Dean of the College: Salvatore Attardo

Dean of Graduate Studies: Arlene Horne

iii

Amanda Elizabeth Sanders

ABSTRACT

THE DUCHESSES OF LANCASTER: AN EXAMINATION OF ENGLISH NOBLEWOMEN’S EXERCISE OF POWER AND INFLUENCE DURING THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

Amanda Elizabeth Sanders, MA Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2015

Advisor: Judy Ford, PhD

The new trend among historians has been to explore how women of the lower and middling classes exercised different types of power and agency daily. Until recently noblewomen of the Middle Ages have been overlooked in this discussion of female agency because historians tend to exclude the privileged class. This project will rectify the situation by analyzing the exercise of power and influence in the nobility by comparing the wives of John of

Gaunt. Additionally, the project will examine these women against the context of the hierarchal- organized nobility in late-medieval England. Instead of subsuming all nobility into an undifferentiated category of elite, this analysis will consider what effect membership in the aristocracy, royalty, and gentry respectively, had on the use of power and influence by medieval women. The argument within this thesis is that these three women specifically, Lady Blanche of

Lancaster, Infanta Constance of Castile, and Lady Katherine Swynford, acted not only as representatives of their social status, but also possessed individuality, a sphere of influence, and autonomy unique to the Middle Ages. Therefore, by examining these women and the levels in the nobility of England to which they belonged through the lens of their power and influence this

v project will provide a better understanding of women of the English nobility and illustrate how the changes occurring throughout the late Middle Ages affected them as individuals, as women, and contributed to their effect on history. In examining this gender-specific study certain conclusions will arise. Primary, women of the nobility did exert certain types of influence at the least and power at the most. Secondly, these women can stand as representations of these classes because of their unique position of marriage with Gaunt and, more importantly, because noblewomen were expected to weld an amount of power and influence at times, regardless of legal status. However, for the vast majority of time, since the fourteenth century, scholars have overlooked Blanche, Constance, and Katherine and noblewomen in general. To formulate this project, a range of evidence is taken from primary literature, other relevant primary sources, historical monographs, and published articles.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank Dr. Judy Ford, Dr. Kathryn Jacobs, and Dr. William Kuracina, my Thesis

Committee, for all of the effort and support they provided in the creation of this work. Without their aid and direction this project would not have been possible. I want to give my gratitude to my wonderful and loving family: Garry, Patricia, Donna, Judy, Mark, Parker, and Zara. A huge portion of thanks goes to Danny, my husband, who has been the perfect supporter for this project, a good shoulder to lean on, and a listening ear in times of frustration and desperation.

Finally, I wish to dedicate this thesis to: my great-aunt, Vera, who has in many ways been my inspiration for life, my mother-in-law, Doris, who brought to life the medieval ideas of queenship, chivalry, and art, and to all the others who have gone on before to become a part of history.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

1. THE INTRODUCTION ...... 1 The Fourteenth Century ...... 3

The Three Duchesses of Lancaster ...... 11

The Historiography of Women in the Late Middle Ages ...... 14

2. MY GOODE FAIRE WHITE ...... 28

Blanche as Daughter and Wife ...... 32

The Power and Agency of Blanche in the Nobility ...... 41

The “Lady Bryght” ...... 56

3. THE EMPEROURES DOGHTER ...... 68

Tumultuous Castile ...... 74

The Long Interlude ...... 83

The Invasion of the English ...... 86

Constance’s Ideas and Exercise of Power ...... 89

Chaucer’s Constance ...... 108

4. THE ABOMINABLE TEMPTRESS ...... 113

Katherine’s Childhood and Education ...... 119

Katherine as Landed Gentry ...... 123

In the Widow’s Robes ...... 136

The Beautiful Mistress ...... 143

The Most Powerful Duchess in All the Land ...... 156

5. SOME CONCLUSIONS ON THE DUCHESSES ...... 161

viii

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edited Primary Sources ...... 167

Secondary Sources ...... 168

VITA ...... 176

Chapter 1

THE INTRODUCTION

Hir name is Bountee set in womanhede, Sadnesse in youthe and Beautee prydelees And Pleasaunce under governaunce and drede; Hir surname is eek Faire Rethelees The Wyse, yknit unto Good Aventure, That, for I love hir, she sleeth me giltelees.1

The established trend among social historians is to explore the ways in which lower class women exercised various types of power and agency in their everyday lives. This intense focus on lower class women have left noblewomen out of the historical discussion. The noblewomen remain the subjects of fictional romances and poetry while their own agency, influence, autonomy, and power are forgotten under the giant shadow of wealth and power their husbands possessed. These noblewomen are thrust into the background, both for being too wealthy for the current research preference and not masculine enough in the older generations of medieval historians. This endeavor will rectify the situation by analyzing the exercise of agency and autonomy in the female nobility by comparing Lady Blanche of Lancaster (1345-1368), Infanta

Constance of Castile (1354-1394), and Lady Katherine Swynford (1345-1403), the three wives of the famous John of Gaunt (1340-1399).2 Additionally, the project will examine these three women against the context of the hierarchal-organized nobility in late-medieval England. Instead of subsuming all nobility into an undifferentiated category of elite, this analysis will consider

1 Geoffrey Chaucer, “A Complaint to His Lady,” The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry Benson, Robert Pratt, and Fred N. Robinson, 3rd ed., (Oxford: Houghton Miffin, 1987), 642. Also note that where applicable the original Middle English is used throughout the rest of the thesis.

2 For further reading see Sydney Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905); Anthony Goodman, John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992); Norman F. Cantor, The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004); Charles William Empson, John of Gaunt: His Life and Character (London: Ladies Printing Press, 1874).

2 what effect membership in the aristocracy, in royalty, and in the gentry, respectively, had on the exercise of power and influence by medieval women. The goal of this thesis was to argue that these three women, specifically, Blanche of Lancaster, Constance of Castile, and Katherine

Swynford acted not only as representatives of their social status, but also possessed individuality, a sphere of influence, and autonomy worthy of historical analysis.3

By examining these women and the levels in the English nobility to which they belonged through the lens of their agency, autonomy, power, and influence, this project provides a better understanding of women of this time. To avoid confusion, an explanation of terms is proffered here that stand throughout the remaining chapters. The term noblewoman represents any women who hold a title either through marriage or lineage who are considered in the general category of upper class in the Middle Ages. Narrowed down from that broader term are the distinctions mentioned earlier in the introduction, that of aristocracy, royalty, and gentry. The royalty is obviously the top echelon of society and only includes those women who have royal blood or are married or born to a king. The aristocracy is nobility who have all the vestiges of the upper class.

They possess the title, the bloodlines, the wealth, and the land necessary to be considered by all of society as noble. The gentry, on the other hand, are flirting with the line of nobility and wealthy middle class or have the bloodlines but not the funds to sustain their title of nobility.

Therefore, Constance of Castile is easily identified with royalty and Blanche of Lancaster is very close to this ranking, but is high ranking aristocracy instead. Katherine conversely is certainly in the last category, for while she might have some claim to aristocracy in Hainault her father was a very poor knight who earned his title during battle. Although Katherine was a member of the

English royal house for years, it did not mean she had any of that prestige or wealth herself.

3 Hereafter this study will refer to the women as Blanche, Constance, and Katherine. Any other person or persons with the same name will be referenced with their full name or title.

Additionally as contended here Katherine is in the gentry because Sir Hugh Swynford (1340s-

1372) is a subsistence knight who is in the retinue of Gaunt, but comparatively he owns low- yield lands with a very poor manor.

The Fourteenth Century

John of Gaunt was the third surviving son of Edward III (r. 1327-1377), and Queen

Philippa of Hainault (1314-1369). Born in 1340, his childhood was marked by numerous English victories in France at the hand of his father and brother, the Black Prince, resulting in the beginning of the Hundred Years War and his own involvement at a young age in these battles.4

Following one “raid through Picardy” in the winter of 1355 the young Gaunt was knighted for his prowess in the expedition as the Earl of Richmond.5 As was the custom in the medieval era the young prince had been attached for some years to both the households of the Black Prince,

Edward (1330-1376), and Henry Grosmont of Lancaster (1300-1361). It was through the latter that Gaunt procured one of the best marriages of the time to Blanche. The marriage was an immense politically-savvy and financially smart move. Through this conjoining of Gaunt and

Lancaster, Gaunt unexpectedly amassed the entire estate of the late duke, easily becoming one the wealthiest men in England. This awarding fate of the complete Lancastrian lands was one of the defining points in Gaunt’s life, allowing Gaunt the financial security and the power-base necessary to carry out his later ambitions.6

4 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 6-8; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 31-32.At the age of ten or eleven Gaunt was thrown in the midst of a battle at sea where he fought alongside his elder brother, the Black Prince.

5 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 8-9.

6 See four of Gaunt’s biographies: Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 12-13; Cantor, The Last Knight, 77-78; Empson, John of Gaunt, 17-18; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33. Gaunt is also mentioned in most books concerning medieval England and medieval Castile. It is hard to find a book that does not at least mention him in passing.

In 1371 Gaunt took on the title of king of Castile and Leon even though he remained only the titular king over the course of his life.7 This marriage of strictly political maneuvering on the part of Gaunt was only a puzzle piece of the royal inducements of England to gain the alliance of the Castilian kingdom back from French interference. However, with this considerable rise in power and prestige Gaunt was well on his way to becoming a force in England and undoubtedly could be a rival to the throne. But no evidence survives to prove he had an eye on the throne and he ceaselessly worked throughout his life to strengthen the royal persona.8 Gaunt quickly, through death and illness of his two older brothers, found his way to his father’s good graces before the king died and earned the commanding position of “steward” in the first few years of

King Richard II’s (1367-1400), minority.9 Thus Gaunt was the most powerful man in England except the king, by the late 1370s.

At the same time Gaunt was patron of Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400), and John Wycliffe

(1320s-1384), two of the greatest minds of the fourteenth century, one for literature and the other for religious reform. Sydney Armitage-Smith has even proclaimed that Gaunt set the prerogative that the women in his family were “among the first ladies in England who learned to write.”10

Gaunt also boasted of the largest household, over two hundred, and owned approximately one third of England all together.11 As steward of England, Gaunt was constantly at court and in the

7 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 49.

8 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 410; Cantor, The Last Knight, 194-195; Empson, John of Gaunt, 50; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 71, 103.

9 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 70.

10 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 415.

11 Kate Mertes, The English Noble Household 1250-1600: Good Governance and Politic Rule (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 203. The term household refers to the people Gaunt had working for him personally. This would include both his retinue of knights and other people in service to him. Weir estimated Gaunt made about triple the amount most aristocratic noblemen did, with about forty-three billion pounds per annum. Alison Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster (New York: Ballantine Books,

5 middle of most of the policies and parliamentary meetings over the years. Although he was a respected lord and supposedly was very generous, his polices and aspiration for Castile stirred some of the middling sort to revolt.12

However, the preeminence of Gaunt in England at this time led inevitably to enemies in the royal court, Parliament, and in the third estate. During the volatile years between 1377 and

1381 Gaunt became the brunt of numerous unfounded rumors of his traitorous schemes to overthrow young Richard II and bore the weight of the destructive event, the Great Revolt in

1381.13 As a result of these fiery darts peppering his character and person, and the growing animosity Richard II had towards Gaunt, Gaunt withdrew for awhile from the strains of politics in England and focused mostly on France, Scotland, and Castile. From 1386 to 1389 it is generally agreed that Gaunt technically ruled Castile as its sovereign, and Richard II at least recognized him as an equal.14 The more established ruler, Juan I (1358-1390), was anxious to see

Gaunt removed from his territory and to completely renounce his claim to the kingship of

Castile. Therefore, in the Treaty of Bayonne in 1389 Gaunt agreed to these terms for a generous sum of money and returned to England.15 Upon his homecoming Gaunt regained the majority of his previous power and once again sought to preside over a good portion of the economic and

2007), 47. Jointure allowed women lucky enough to require it from their husbands to enjoy the full powers of lordship that had been open to their husbands. Mavis E. Mate, Women in Medieval English Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 67. Jointure was land settled jointly on the husband and wife so the wife could continue to hold it after the husband’s death. Jennifer C. Ward, English Noblewomen: In the Later Middle Ages (London: Longman Group UK Limited, 1992), 172. This type of agreement was very rare and was usually reserved for wives who came from wealthier backgrounds than their husbands. Nigel Saul, For Honor and Fame: Chivalry in England, 1066-1500 (London: The Bodley Head, 2011), 273.

12 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 354-360.

13 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 247-252.

14 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 118.

15 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 128.

6 political doings of England. By 1396 Gaunt had once more departed from the public eye and proceeded, amidst great controversy, to marry his mistress of over twenty years, Katherine.

Gaunt’s accomplishments, power, and influence are obvious when looking at England in the fourteenth century.

Another great man of the fourteenth century was Chaucer. Chaucer and his contributions to society have been written about since the first moment he put pen to parchment. There is much that could and has been said about this genius of literature.16 He was born about 1342 the son of a well to do wine merchant. His father’s class was the emerging middle class that was slowly gaining power and prestige at this period. By 1357 Chaucer was employed in the household of the wife of Lionel, Duke of Clarence as a page.17 From there he was employed by the crown during both Edward III’s and Richard II’s reigns. He held in his lifetime the job of soldier in the

Hundred Years War, comptroller of customs, overseer of repairs, and Justice of the Peace for

Kent.18 Despite his busy life in the civil service, Chaucer also spent countless hours in the court of Richard II. He was one of the “men of letters” indirectly employed for works of literature, one of Richard II’s favorite orators, and even has referred to Richard II as his “beste frend.”19

Chaucer has been labeled as the “first finder of our fair language” by Thomas Hoccleve and John

Lydgate, concurrent authors, wrote that Chaucer crafted the modern condition of the English

16 Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, ed., The Riverside Chaucer, xv-xxvi. See The Riverside Chaucer for an overview of Chaucer’s biographical information.

17 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33.

18 Nevill Coghill, trans., The Canterbury Tales (London: Penguin Books, 1951), xiv.

19 Chaucer, “Fortune II,” lines 77-79, quoted in Terry Jones, Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher, and Juliette Dor, Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2003); 39-46.

7 language, “Chaucer came and through his poetry first began to enlarge our language.”20 Some of

Chaucer’s best known works include The Canterbury Tales, Book of the Duchess, Troilus and

Criseyde, and The Legend of Good Wives. Thus both Gaunt and Chaucer were instrumental during the 1300s in creating the culture of the century. They both influenced a great number of people and were in the midst of the changes taking place. One acted out the transitions and one documented them.

The atmosphere of the Middle Ages from 1350 to 1403 was unique in its makeup. Most historians, when writing about the subject of these years, agree that it was a time of transformation and yet, profoundly ingrained in traditions. Many of these traditions came from the deep roots of Christianity that permeated the culture, society, beliefs, and individuals of the

Middle Ages. The fourteenth century, many historians contend, is one of the most transitional centuries heralding the end of the traditional High Middle Ages leading to the unrest of the Late

Middle Ages. The feudal system of service in England was the sinews which held the country together in harmony of lord to vassal and lord to king, who was the “ultimate overlord.”21 Such strong lordship meant in the Early Middle Ages the idea of a God-anointed king was present, but nominal. He was chosen king by noblemen who swore fealty to him. In the countryside, most people lived under a lord for protection and property. By the 1310s the bonds of the feudal system were already strained for the population of England numbered approximately six million—it would not be this large again until after 1750.22 The majority of people were

20 Thomas Hoccleve, Regement, lines 1967-1974, quoted in Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer, 4-5; John Lydgate, Troy Book, vol. 3, II, lines 4541-4547, quoted in Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer, 4-5.

21 Michael Prestwich, Plantagenet England 1225-1360, ed. J. M. Roberts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 32.

22 Judith M. Bennett, A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344 (Boston: McGraw-Hill College, 1999), 65-66.

8 desperate for work and most lived in dire conditions because labor was plentiful, but land was divided by lordships and it was difficult, to say the least, to move from one lord’s territory to another. However, the conditions of climate, society, and cultural norms were in the midst of a global change. Beginning in the late 1200s to the early 1320s, chroniclers of the time period began to notice a series of severe years in which the weather took a turn from its normal patterns.

Between 1315 and 1316 was “by far the worst of particularly foul weather” in England when continuous rain, fell, damaging the crops.23 Thomas Walsingham, a chronicler, wrote that there

“was a great downfall of rain which lasted from midsummer till Christmas, and this was followed by mortality in the east among the Saracens and other unbelievers.”24 Historians have now identified it as the start of a major shift in the climate where all of Europe became colder.25

This change in the weather which led to crop failure and famine across England in the years before the 1340s left at least ten percent of the population dead due to malnutrition.26 The next event was far worse than anyone could have foreseen. On Italian merchant ships in the mid

1300s rode the pestilence of the Black Death. By 1348 the virulent diseases had arrived in the southern tip of England and ravaged the kingdom till late 1349.27 Anywhere between two-fifths

23 Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 6.

24 Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, vol. I, 277-278, 409, quoted in Francis R. H. DuBoulay, An Age of Ambition: English Society in the Late Middle Ages (New York: The Viking Press, 1970), 32.

25 Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 5.

26 Judith M. Bennett and C. Warren Hollister, Medieval Europe: A Short History, 10th ed., (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006), 327.

27 “Isto anno circe pascha vel modicum ante incepit pestilencia in custodia Cantebrigiense et duravit per totam esatem”. Grey Friar of Lynn, “Chronicle,” in A. Jessop, The Coming of the Friars (1890): 208-209, British Museum Additional MS. 47214, quoted in Antonia Gransden, Legends, Traditions and History in Medieval England (London: The Hambledon, Press, 1992), 283. The Black Death was made up of three different strains of diseases; “bubonic plague, which is carried by rats and spread by the fleas the rats carry and infect; pneumonic plague, which combines bubonic plague with respiratory infection and is therefore spread easily by coughing and sneezing; septicemic plague, which attacks the bloodstream and can be transmitted by fleas from one human to another”. Bennett and Hollister, Medieval Europe, 327. Giovanni Boccaccio in his Decameron stated that the disease showed itself first by “the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or armpits, some of which grew as large as an

9 and one half of England’s population died in the year between 1348 and 1349.28 The numbers did not stop there. Not only did the diseases run rampant in these years, but for decades afterwards there were always pockets of the Black Death in towns and on manors in the summertime.

When massive numbers of people died across England in the manors and in the towns a chasm was left where once all the farmers, craftsmen, and servants had been. Moreover, where there had been a strong feudal system in England before the Black Death there was left only a remnant of people to work. Henry Knighton, a chronicler of the time, bemoaned that “many buildings both great and small in all cities, towns, and boroughs fell into total ruin for lack of inhabitants…for all those who had dwelt in them were dead and it seemed likely that many such little villages would never again be inhabited.”29 Overnight it seemed the feudal system, on which the English had known for centuries, stumbled. Husbandmen, franklins, and serfs who worked on the manors became a precious commodity and the price of food rose to meet the high demand when there were few people to harvest it. Hence the “plagues produced a double effect,” on one hand the gaping chasm created greater freedoms for the labor force from their manor

apple…black spots making their appearance in many cases on the arm or the thigh”. Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron (1358), quoted in Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 21. People who contracted the diseases “died in three days, or one, or sometimes in an hour or two, according to the form it took.” Michael Packe, King Edward III, ed. Lewis C. B. Seaman (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), 187.

28 Bennett, A Medieval Life, 70. There is some discussion between historians as to the exact number of deaths because for one many of the local courts did not keep records during the Black Death and the years that followed because the clerks died. Even Parliament and the court of Common Pleas closed its doors in 1348. Calendar of Close Rolls, 1346-1349, Public Record Office, (London), 613-614, quoted in W. Mark Ormrod, eds., England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium (Dover, New Hampshire: The Boydell Press, 1986), 175. See the following for more information on the differences of numbers. Bennett, A Medieval Life; Prestwich, Plantagenet England; Ormrod, England in the Fourteenth Century; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy; Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1969).

29 Henry Knighton, Chronicon Henrici Knighton, (Rolls Series, 1895), II, 58, in English Historical Documents (1327-1485), edited by Alec Myers. Vol. 4 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 89-91.

10 lords and better nutrition.30 While at the same time the national conscience became disenchanted with the government and the Church.31 These freedoms meant less direct interference of lords and a raise in wages, as well as more inheritance of land even to women.

Towns also were able for the first time to request their own charter stating they “had acquired privileges as boroughs, marking them off from the feudal and manorial world outside.”32 No longer under the thumb of their lords, the towns wished to control themselves through the members of the guildhall.33 However, with the added freedoms in the towns and the rearranging of the feudal system there began a migration of people moving from the rural areas of the manors to the towns to seek these substantial opportunities.34 This movement inevitably led to a cultural shift from England having many small villages on various manors out in the countryside to having cities where seeds of a metropolitan culture could be seen. Therefore, in the years leading up to the birth of these three women, the face of old England distorted and in its

30 DuBoulay, An Age of Ambition, 34.

31 There is some discussion about this. Ziegler states the Church had “diminished credit” in the eyes of the population and Prestwich gives some convincing evidence that people gave less land to the Church and did not built as many chantries after the Black Death. Valente concurs with this idea by saying “the king’s subjects followed the fortunes of war more closely, were less tolerant of defeat or ineffectual campaigns.” While Ormrod had the opposite thought; “The government was clearly capable of swift recovery and aware of the need for firm action” in the years following the outbreak of plague. However, the argument that the people had some problems with both in later years has serious weight, mainly because of the Great Revolt and which is discussed later in this study. Ziegler, The Black Death, 212; Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 551; Claire Valente, The Theory and Practice of Revolt in Medieval England (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2003), 164-165; Ormrod, England in the Fourteenth Century, 177.

32 George Holmes, The Later Middle Ages, 1272-1485, vol. 3, Christopher Brooke and Denis Mack Smith, eds., A History of England (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd. 1962), 38-40.

33 Bennett and Hollister, Medieval Europe, 333. The guildhall was made up of members from the main guilds of the town. Each guild had at least a master, a journeyman, and an apprentice. The purpose of the guilds was to make sure that each branch of the guilds was adhering to the laws, creating quality products, and creating job security through a monopoly on each product.

34 Edward Britton, The Community of the Vill: A Study in the History of the Family and Village Life Fourteenth Century England (Canada: Macmillan Company, 1977), 146-147.

11 wake left an opening for the massive cultural shift as the wounds of the plagues were being covered with the new conditions and wealth in the novel economy.

As this transformation gained momentum the economy shifted even more to accommodate. People began to buy and sell products that matched a consumer market instead of a necessity market. In this consumer market the number of people who were literate and in want of a more English culture rose exponentially.35 Before this migration of people into the towns higher society relied on a French cultural standard for their class; even in the English court the language of use was French. The lower classes, that were now almost en masse constructing new ways towards middle class society, had little training in French or Latin. Business therefore had to be conducted almost solely in the English vernacular. This narrowing of linguistics led to an increasing tendency of “criticism and protest—by bondmen against bondage, menials against gentry, knightly persons against aristocrats and almost everyone against an entrenched clergy.”36

Therefore, Blanche, Constance, and Katherine grew up as these circumstances were transforming

England and its people. These women on the cusp of the new culture and society experienced the fruits of the transformation due to their noble positions, marriage, and personal predilection—as far as these preferences affected their human environment.

The Three Duchesses of Lancaster

Although there are a great many studies of Gaunt, Chaucer, and the fourteenth century, a study of the three wives of Gaunt is missing. Thus this thesis is a combination of research on each of the women and a comparison on how they used their power, influence, and autonomy in

35 Bennett and Hollister, Medieval Europe, 368. More and more lay people read, especially among the English, but there was also a more prevalent convention of people who would listen to readings. Therefore one reader meant a good number of informed individuals.

36 DuBoulay, An Age of Ambition, 15.

12 their positions. Blanche exemplified aristocratic women in the English court who were born into a great inheritance and title, could expect to marry high in the social ladder, and arguably had the best chance for traditional agency. Her father was the famous Henry Grosmont of Lancaster and it was her immense inheritance of the Lancastrian lands that allowed Gaunt to become the most powerful man in England, after the monarch.37 Blanche also enjoyed not only the royal backing of her husband, but was depicted by Geoffrey Chaucer as the epitome of a pure, good wife and lady of the realm. He not only wrote one of his better known pieces concerning her after she died with The Book of the Duchess, but, as some scholars argue, wrote other works at her behest and was closely acquainted with her. She had the opportunity to maintain a wide range and variety of power and influence. Some of these avenues included her household, her individual tastes, her patronage, and the education of her children. Therefore, Blanche cultivated her own cultural interests and was a muse to the literary genius of the 1300s. Her actions and power has been disguised and disregarded by historians in favor of the men around her.

Constance of Castile was born a royal princess who legitimately could claim entitlement to the Castilian crown through her father Pedro I, king of Castile and Leon.38 Her royal birth afforded all the rights and privileges, as well as potentially the responsibilities of the crown.

Therefore she took her own unique type of queenship to England. By marrying Gaunt, Constance provided him the ability to claim the Castilian crown for himself. But because she was his wife,

Constance is barely mentioned in the records of the time and her own political autonomy plays second hand. However, Constance had an active queenship and power which she used to invade

Castile, end the civil war, and sign treaties. Constance exercised her autonomy by dispensing

37 See Dan Jones’s book for a discussion on Henry Grosmont of Lancaster. Dan Jones, The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England (New York: Viking, 2012).

38 See Clara Estow, Pedro the Cruel of Castile, 1350-1369 (New York: E. J. Brill, 1995).

13 patronage through the use of her household. Through Blanche and Constance the royal line of kings and queens have descended in England, Portugal, Castile and Leon; yet, only their progeny and the works of literature concerning them are celebrated, not the women themselves.

Katherine, however, was clearly of another mold since she was not of the aristocracy or royalty. After being the mistress of Gaunt for over twenty years she finally married him following the death of Constance. Katherine was a famous social climber who started out in the lesser gentry and gained greater status after choosing to become Gaunt’s mistress. Her life affords interesting perspectives on the cycles of women and the life of mistresses in the medieval era. One level of Katherine’s social role includes those noblewomen who possessed little to no monetary assets, but who held precariously to a title with no political backing. As a woman in this position, Katherine was born to Payne de Roet, a poor knight to Queen Philippa of Hainaut.

She married Hugh Swynford, another poor knight under the vassalage of Gaunt with a small entitlement of land far to the north.39 Although Katherine was technically a member of the noble class she was far from belonging to the high nobility. Secondly, after Hugh Swynford’s death in the 1370s she became a widow, although from the poorer gentry had a powerful affiliation with the royal family. However, she also used her position as Gaunt’s mistress to access more power in the English court and to procure excellent titles and marriages for her offspring with Gaunt.

Her actions help illustrate the last example of women, those who chose for whatever reason to become mistresses to some of the most powerful men in England. Additionally, Katherine’s children and future generations are deemed pivotal in British history, while Katherine remains neglected within a dense cloud comprised of one line comments and adultery. She was arguably perhaps one of the most influential women of the 1300s. Not only did she have the heart and ear of the wealthiest man in England, but she enjoyed every comfort and legal recompense of

39 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 22.

14 widowhood. In addition to these facts she held as a brother-in-law Chaucer, as nephew Richard

II, and as a step-son Henry IV. Therefore, these three women had the capacity for power and influence, and as Madeline Pelner Cosman noted “nothing in such a woman leader’s day or night could be without political implication.”40 Despite the duchesses’ importance the historiography is greatly sparse regarding their lives.

The Historiography of Women in the Late Middle Ages

While there is no extant study of the three wives of Gaunt, there is a considerable body of scholarship on medieval women developed especially during the last thirty or forty years. The broad subject of women in the Middle Ages is multifaceted and variant and perhaps best understood when the scholarship is grouped into categories concerning the different phases of women’s lives. Women were considered vital members of society, while simultaneously confronting barriers in each aspect of society. Even in the midst of these social constrictions women were highly influential. In her monograph Jennifer Ward clarified that just because women lack medieval records and legal identity does not mean their role in society was

“subordinate and shadowy.”41 Instead she proclaims that these noblewomen were “able to exert influence not just because of their personalities, but because there were many areas in which society expected them to be active and to exercise power of various kinds.”42 As the reclaiming of feminine history becomes more inclusive it is clear that their relationship with the three main categories of the medieval society—law, family, and culture—is decidedly complex with layers of tradition, cultural ideals, and agency. According to new historical studies, under the law

40 Charity Cannon Williard, trans., Madeleine Pelner Cosman, eds., A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor: The Treasury of the City of Ladies (New York: Bard Hall Press, 1989), 25.

41 Ward, English Noblewomen, 11.

42 Ward, English Noblewomen, vii.

15 women who were single, no matter their estate, held an almost modern legal status. If they were able to act on this position is still in question however. In Judith Bennett’s A Medieval Life:

Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344 (1999), Bennett carefully explains the life of a single, free, peasant women in the early 1300s who was able to benefit from the single life.

Penifader had the legal and financial ability to own acres of land, meet requirements to go to the local court as an independent land-holder, and was, to Bennett’s best knowledge, savvy enough with her own money to buy more land as the Great Famine depleted the population around the town.43 However because of her gender she was unable to purchase the land without a male relation to serve as a pledge if she was to fail in her payments.44

Likewise widows enjoyed an equal or greater amount of autonomy and opportunity, at least in theory, to personally own land and make their own legal and financial decisions.

However, these generalizations cannot be considered factual or even practical for every woman and many of the freedoms held by some women depended on their wealth, general knowledge, and if the other male members of their family allowed them an inheritance or allowed them to remain unmarried. As Mavis Mate expounded in her work, Women in Medieval English Society

(1999), the number of widows who did not remarry “varied a great deal…depending on legal as well as economic circumstances.”45 Nevertheless, Mavis declared that although widows enjoyed some new freedoms that they could not have gained at any other station of life, women had some difficulty in their decision to remain a widow or remarry; “marriage clearly had its advantages, such as companionship, protection, status, and…larger income.”46 In any phase of a woman’s

43 Bennett, A Medieval Life, 80-81.

44 Bennett, A Medieval Life, 80.

45 Mate, Women in Medieval English Society, 35.

46 Mate, Women in Medieval English Society, 37.

16 life in the Middle Ages there were obstacles to her own autonomy and power, yet there were also numerous widows through which their own type of power could flow. Who is to say that their type of power was less influential, maybe it was simply different than men’s power.

Legal status of married women in medieval society, even all the way up to the Victorian era, was very weak.47 The “husband and wife are one person…the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage.”48 In this sense, a married woman of any rank was under the authority of her husband in legal matters as well as family dynamics. Even noblewomen of Blanche’s aristocratic background could not control their own legal assets or create their own wills while in the covenant of marriage because of the law of coverture.49 The same is true for the women’s households. Noblewomen had their own households where they could hire, record, and run their own administration separate from their husbands, but ultimately the husbands could oversee these households and were responsible for their wives actions.

Noblewomen who wished to retain assurances they would receive their widows dues needed to be married in the church. Even if the property was small, to have legal rights to her widows’ third, or the estates set aside for her, the woman had to be married in the church where it would be recorded. As noted by Kathryn Jacobs, often the women’s “ability to gain a bargaining point would depend on, first, the rights given her at her nuptial, and then how deftly she can

47 For more information on the changes and the traditions of marriage and land after the fourteenth century see Hrothgar J. Habakkuk, Marriage, Debt, and the Estates System: English Landownership, 1650-1950, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 145-242.

48 Frances and Joseph Gies, Women in the Middle Ages (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1978), 30.

49 Katherine L. French, “Women in the Late Medieval Parish,” in Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Mary C. Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 160.

17 manipulate them.”50 Hence, married women who owned property had to have legal knowledge of contractually what she was agreeing to in a marriage. On the other hand, married women carried the weight of their husbands’ power and status when taking action or carrying out tasks. This authority could be very lucrative if the husbands retained a high rank and therefore could confer greater power to the wife’s word.

The power a woman could potentially enjoy in the family unit was seemingly limited. For instance, the medieval Church taught that because Christ was the head of the church and the man was the head of the household, his authority reigned supreme. However women were expected to care for the family unit and the household. At the same time, peasant and middle class women were also expected to work along with their husbands whether in the fields or in a shop.51 In this notion women found themselves in another opposing social idea. On one hand, this type of work seriously limited the careers available to married women and only added to their lack of autonomy for they were around their husbands throughout the work day. However, because women were fully expected to engage in this type of work they could easily move daily from the house to the work place and had a wide range of social interactions with fellow neighbors, both men and women. These conditions meant that women, although not the master of the work place, could still exhibit intelligence, responsibility, and may have the possibility of a successful career.

Nevertheless, the sanction of marriage also brought with it child-rearing. While the

“knowledge of contraception or abortitfacients certainly existed” it was “regarded contrary to the

50 Kathryn Jacobs, Marriage Contracts from Chaucer to the Renaissance Stage (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001), 45.

51 During the fourteenth century there is the beginning of a middle class, many wealthy merchants and business owners. Chaucer is an example of one such person.

18 purpose of marriage and hence sinful.”52 Therefore, most wives could assume they would be mothers quickly throughout the years they were fertile. By this idea noble wives were more constricted, for society demanded they hire wet nurses for their children and hence to have more children over the course of their lives.53 Within both the common and noble households the mothers were also responsible for the education of their children. This allowed for some influence and agency on the part of the women. Most lower class women self taught the children and even if proper education was not an option, the children at least could learn social skills and how to care for their own future family. Noblewomen on the other hand, had distant responsibility for their children. Most hired mistresses or governesses until the children reached the age of seven or eight when the children would go to another, higher ranking noble family to acquire a more complete education and learn how to care for their households.54

Education nonetheless was under the umbrella of responsibility held by the noblewoman.

The lady of the household was responsible for her children and any children she housed for peers. She would furnish the younger generation with knowledge of social norms, social etiquette, deepen familial ties with other families, and provide a more classical education.

Placing noble female children in other houses also provided an opportunity to find suitable mates and learn vital leadership skills for their own future households. To noblewomen these households were their main outlet for influence, autonomy, and power in the medieval society.

These households had “important social and economic impacts” locally and across the country and were dependent on the noblewoman. Within this entourage were opportunities for

52 P. J. P. Goldberg, “Women,” in Fifteenth Century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval England, ed. Rosemary Horrox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 128.

53 Paul B. Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages (Jefferson: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2007), 48- 50.

54 Ward, English Noblewomen, 95-97.

19 employment, patronage, and social climbing. The noblewoman had charge over her own household, providing general employment, daily care, payments, and service. Throughout the year a noble lady’s household would visit multiple locations, meaning through her own tastes and fashions as the lady of the house she would affect the surrounding towns and traders who would supply her household.55 This variant of patronage to vendors or towns would allow for economic growth and fluidity around her favorite estates and across England. Also the buildings themselves could be an outlet for the noblewoman and the middle class urban woman to exhibit her power and influence more individually. In the final two chapters of Gendering the Master

Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages (1994), Sarah Rees Jones and Felicity Riddy go into great detail of how the woman had power through her design of the home and how she retained power through this home.

Service was another arena in which the noblewoman or any woman could acquire limited power. In her book, Fifteenth Century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval

England (1994), Rosemary Horrox expounds on the complex medieval idea of service. She contends that people of any gender “wanted to serve at least as much as the lords wanted service.”56 The calculation behind this attitude is that those who were providing the service had stable “links with a lord” or lady which “constituted a public statement of the value attached to his abilities or standing. More important, carrying out the lord’s commands allowed him to demonstrate his own power.”57 Therefore, “a man acting for a nobleman enjoyed more power than he might claim in his own right.”58 If this idea is applied both ways to women, it stands to

55 Ward, English Noblewomen, 58.

56 Rosemary Horrox, “Service,” Fifteenth Century Attitudes, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 66.

57 Horrox, Fifteenth Century Attitudes, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 66.

58 Horrox, Fifteenth Century Attitudes, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 66.

20 reason that the lower class women who worked for nobility could claim power of her master or mistress when carrying out their commands and a noblewoman could, at the same time, earn respect and exert power over her servants and employees. Moreover, noblewoman acting in reverence and service to her husband could lay claim that same type of power that came from acting under her husband’s name. Therefore marriage was in fact both limiting and empowering: if the woman could gain a husband who commanded some influence or power of his own she herself could benefit greatly from the power.

The historical community has effectively argued that the fourteenth century was an era of additional freedoms for women and men alike. The greatest leading factor in this push for more self-determination in the society is the reduced population after the Black Death passed through

England in 1348. After the Great Revolt of 1381, both the Church and the Crown endeavored to curtail these advancements. The transformation here is that within the various estates women were able to exert different types of “freedoms.” However, as far as women were concerned the

1300s witnessed some new developments in the third estate, and in the nobility, some positive and some not. The women who were members of the third estate, or those who worked, were able to theoretically choose their jobs and spouses. They performed tasks for their parish churches and in urban areas they could even run their own businesses as members of guilds.59 On the other hand, noblewomen possessed the means to own personal households and property separate from that of their husbands and therefore could afford to have a sense of inter- dependence with their husbands. Additionally, if they outlived their husbands then theoretically they acquired a portion of the lands and monetary goods of the late husband. Many times these dowager rights would allow the women a great amount of power and autonomy, and legal status

59 Carole Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, “A New Economy of Power Relations: Female Agency in the Middle Ages,” in Gendering the Master Narrative, ed. Erler and Kowaleski, 4 and 156-157.

21 to exert that power. Jennifer Ward proclaimed in her book, English Noblewomen in the Later

Middle Ages (1992), noblewomen were “able to exert influence not just because of their personalities, but because there were many areas in which society expected them to be active and to exercise power of various kinds.”60 However, Mavis E. Mate took another approach when she successfully argued that although the noblewomen did not make any significant progress towards more autonomy, they were not “downtrodden” either.61

Medieval culture, however, was a constant struggle for women. On one side was the power they were capable of and on the other side there were the limitations placed on women.

Some of the layers of culture surrounding medieval England were the Church, literature, ideals, and leaders. Regardless of their rank or estate women were portrayed as weaker vessels throughout society—physically, mentally, and spiritually—in literature, the Church, and government. Additionally, society held up the ideal woman as an unmarried virgin who was the epitome of three elements, “service, silence, and submission” and who stringently emulated the

Virgin Mary, who “transcends all categories to embody the ideal of womanhood.”62 The medieval Church’s promulgations on women’s roles in society were a bit of a conundrum.

Women were of equal importance to God and equally able to ascend into heaven. But in the male medieval mindset, women were born with a “fundamental character defect inherited from Eve.”63

As one medieval author maintained, the act of wedding was to women “too expensively bought,

60 Ward, English Noblewomen, vii.

61 Mate, Women in Medieval English Society, 100. See Mate’s book, Women in Medieval English Society for more information and great general comparison of the changes in women’s autonomy between the Early Middle Ages and women of the High and Late Middle Ages.

62 Margaret Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows: Chaucer’s Women and Medieval Codes of Conduct (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1993), 11-16.

63 Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows, 9.

22 for which thou soilest thyself, and surrenderest thine own dear body to be given up to ill useage.”64 These two elements generated high barriers for married women to be more Christ- like. They could achieve this goal through constant ministrations of piety and chaste character as well as a removal of worldly cares. Juxtaposed with all women striving for a virgin life style, whether they were single or married, was almost this idea of legal favoritism towards single and widowed women compared to married women. Therefore, it was more prevalent for society as a whole to look to single women as closer to God and closer to perfection, if a woman could be deemed perfect, than a woman attached to the world who had to worry about her husband and children.65

Similarly Katherine L. French proposed women were equally vital to parishes in their tithes, wills, and annual contributions to the individual parishes and church guilds of which they were members. French’s major argument was the parish “activities reasserted women’s secondary status and upheld traditional gender definitions” while participation in the local parish

“simultaneously challenged them by providing women with unprecedented leadership roles and sanctioned opportunities for social comment.”66 This study does not entirely agree with French’s ideas of the parochial responses to female involvement, it does however wish to highlight some of the ways women exerted power and influence in their local churches. In her chapter in

Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages (2004), French provided

64 “Holy Maidenhood: A Debate on Marriage,” quoted in Emile Amt, Women’s Lives in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., 1993), 91.

65 Take for example Margery Kempe. While she was popular, she went through great hardships in her marriage and in the end to “fully” be able to follow God she left her family for her pilgrimage. Topping this Kempe was lauded in the public arena for leaving her “worldly” life to pursue the more heavenly path. See Louise Collins’ biography of Kempe for more information. Louise Collins, The Memoirs of a Medieval Woman: The Life and Times of Margery Kempe (New York: Harper Perennial, 1983).

66 French, “Women in the Late Medieval English Parish,” in Gendering the Master Narrative, ed. Erler and Kowaleski, 172.

23 excellent instances of women’s power through their wills. The majority of lower class women willed household items, clothing, and jewelry to the parish church. At the same time women of the nobility possessed the resources to give land, fund church houses, and were benefactors for family members while also willing household goods and accessories to multiple churches they attended.67 While the lower class household materials represent that many times these items was all a peasant woman, or even a middle-class woman, possessed to her name, the way in which they willed these earthly goods is evident of their use of power and influence. Compared to the men of the parish more women delineated how their gifts were to be used, rather than leaving it up to the church administrators. For example, Agnes Bruton stated that her “red damaske mantell and mantell lyned with silk” was to become “costumes for the parish’s Mary Magdalene play.”68

Women also were able to create their own single-gender fundraising group, become guild wardens, and participate within the general weekly routine of the church.

In the later fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, French found women’s piety blinked with their influence. When pews seats were sold in the church in St. Margaret’s parish in

Westminster, 737 women compared to 275 men bought seats.69 This monetary gesture showed they were concerned with exhibiting piety, or at least social influence, by being able to purchase prime seats within the church. The guilds, and eventually the pew seats, were outlets for the female population of the church, hence the town and surrounding countryside, to come together

67 Ward, English Noblewomen, 152-157.

68 French, “Women in the Late Medieval English Parish,” in Gendering the Master Narrative, ed. Erler and Kowaleski, 161.

69 French, “Women in the Late Medieval English Parish,” in Gendering the Master Narrative, ed. Erler and Kowaleski, 163.

24 and “congregate, converse, compare, and compete.”70 Through this membership women of every age and social rank, except for maybe the wealthiest of the aristocracy and royalty, were able to influence each other and society in many respects equally, but differently than men. Although the noblewomen were able to influence churches financially and in more obvious ways, the rest of the female population provided their time, energies, and influence to the parish churches and therefore the town itself because the individual churches were intertwined in the daily life of the township.

The contradictory points of view on women bleed into the full scope of literature of the time. Within London a peasant might witness a morality play equating the deceitfulness of Eve to every woman while Chaucer sat at his desk conjuring the monologue of Criseyde. As described above, many of the Church’s writings, if not subjugated women, at least did not present them in a favorable light. They were not the only ones: in the literature of the period most authors were just as harsh on the female gender, as were the morality plays. However,

Chaucer was not a part of this group. The majority of his works had virtuous, intelligent, and beautiful female protagonists. He even defended woman through women characters such as the

Wyf of Bath. One of the strongest and most feminine power-filled monologues can be found in

Troilus and Criseyde. Criseyde is a wealthy widowed aristocrat in ancient Troy. She is still young, beautiful, and has all of the good virtues women could have according to Chaucer.

Through most of the book Criseyde is shown as strong willed, except when it comes to Troilus.

She allows her uncle to talk her into a relationship with him, but always is weary of her precarious position and reputation. In this respect she is like most of her female character counterparts in Chaucer’s writings, but in Book II Criseyde was given a unique inner monologue

70 French, “Women in the Late Medieval English Parish,” in Gendering the Master Narrative, ed. Erler and Kowaleski, 165.

25 debate about whether or not she should agree to become Troilus’s courtly lover. This internal struggle is a highly realistic debate on the joys and woes of being in a relationship or remaining single in the Late Middle Ages for a well-to-do woman. This type of debate and the issues of love, freedom, and womanhood it brings up seem modern and unnatural for a man to include during the Middle Ages. The monologue is a priceless inner look into women’s worries of the time, but even more for highlighting the certain types of autonomy and power aristocratic widows could have enjoyed in life. Criseyde makes bold statements, “I am myn owene womman, wel at ese—I thank it God—as after myn estat, right yong, and stonde unteyed in lusty leese, withouten jalousie or swich debat: Shal noon housbonde seyn to me ‘Chek mat!’”71 She continued with “Allas! Syn I am free, sholde I now love, and put in jupartie my sikernesse, and thrallen libertee? May I naught wel in other folk aspie hire dredfull joye, hire constreinte, and hire peyne?”72

Chaucer had an understanding of some power and agency widowed noblewomen could possess. Criseyde was concerned with being in another relationship and not enjoying the same freedom she had on her own. She even further in the monologue was worried about how “bisy” she would be in order to “plesen hem that jangle of love, and dremen, and coye hem.”73 She therefore thinks of her time, reputation, and self as being subjugated if she was to choose Troilus.

It stands to reason then that Criseyde was aware of her autonomy and agency and Chaucer’s audience would have acknowledged it as well. Although there are no surviving records of

Chaucer modeling this monologue on a specific female contemporary, he certainly would have kept this potential aristocratic audience in mind.

71 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 499.

72 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 500.

73 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 500.

This mixture of cultural and religious thought is fused together in the medieval culture’s ideal woman. Over the course of the Middle Ages there were many traditions that were solidified into the ideals that not only the medieval culture could identify, but contemporaries today can readily imagine when asked. One of the strongest models that have remained in the public consciousness is the chivalrous metal-plated knight honoring a beautiful and highly sought-after lady dressed in a huge flowing gown sitting above the crowd by partaking in a joust. While this idea might have been historically twisted as it made its way down the centuries, the familiar idea of strong gender roles is the same. The honor and action rests on the shoulders of the knight while the silent, but beautiful woman poses as an angelic prize untouched by the worldly scene below her.

The epitome of the perfect woman is a fusion of religious beliefs on how women should be, namely, virginal, virtuous, and subordinate to the males in her life staring with God. Kinship additionally upheld this ideal. Women had no need for land because they would always be under the protection of a male therefore primogeniture was acceptable.74 Medieval culture also supported this ideal woman. Although most women, regardless of rank, worked either in their household, at a job, or with their husbands the woman who could devote her time to pursue holy thoughts was the most revered. The strongest female role model was Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Mary was able to remain a virgin while having the perfect son and she could easily focus on the heavenly aspects rather than earthy concerns. She embodied the woman men wished to mold in society. This ideal woman is present in many of Chaucer’s writings. He included many female characters that were wealthy, young, and unreachable by men because of profound wholesome virtues. Characters such as Emelye, Grisildis, Cecile, and the maiden in The Book of the Duchess

74 This means the oldest son inherited the lands while any subsequent sons inherited moveable goods or went to work in the church.

27 were all such women. Therefore, somewhere between this dichotomy of the historical woman and the ideal woman found in medieval literature is a picture of how the three women this study focuses on are presented in the surviving records.

Some of the ways in which Blanche, Constance, and Katherine fit the legal, social, and cultural norms of their time are clear. They were individuals who were human and made their own decisions and left their own footprint in fourteenth century England. Through their unique position as a wife of the powerful Gaunt and in their own rights these women possessed power, influence, and autonomy. Only a few historians have examined these women on their own, and even fewer present the duchesses as having tangible power. There has been a trend to understand women in history in the past sixty years, but popular research focuses on lower class women, and even when the elite are discussed these three women are not mentioned. Coming from three different categories of the nobility, the aristocracy, the royalty, and the gentry, the duchesses can be used as case studies of the personal power and influence and that of a wide range of noblewomen in general during the fourteenth century. Moreover, these three women were powerful, each in their own right. Hence, a closer look at Blanche, Constance, and Katherine is merited.

Chapter 2

MY GOODE FAIRE WHITE

Therto she koude so wel pleye, Whan that hir lyste, that I dar seye That she was lyk to torche bryght That every man may take of lyght. Ynogh, and hyt hath never the lesse. Of maner and of comlynesse Right so ferde my lady dere.75

To Geoffrey Chaucer and many contemporaries the image of Blanche of Lancaster, the

“bryght lady dere” found in his Book of the Duchess, and her own persona were synonymous.

Even now, six hundred years later, the image and ethereal words of Chaucer conjures a character of fairy tale proportions. Yet very few have answered the question of who Blanche was as an aristocratic woman of the fourteenth century, and even fewer have asked how she exerted agency, autonomy, influence, and power in her life. Moreover, did she inherent more power because of her rank or family? How did the power and influence manifest in Blanche’s family, her social circle of the high aristocracy, and in the culture of England in the Late Middle Ages?

These questions are the crux of this chapter. The chapter commences with Blanche’s biography in the context of her family, analyzes her power and autonomy within the framework of her privileged ranking as a high aristocratic daughter and wife, and finally evaluates Blanche’s influence as it pertains to her cultural image and her lasting effect on history.

Even though the most prominent writers and individuals of the fourteenth century determined that Blanche of Lancaster was worth mentioning, the historic question of who

Blanche, daughter of Henry Grosmont of Lancaster, and first wife of John of Gaunt, was as an authoritative stand-alone figure still remains unanswered. Although thousands of interdisciplinary scholars have scoured the pages of Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess, most

75 Chaucer, The Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 961-964.

29 have shied away from drawing conclusions about the historic Blanche. Chaucer, though, devoted his first published book to her life, even if he took some literary license. Jean Froissart, one of the well-known chroniclers, called attention to Blanche in his Chronicles and his Le Joli

Buissonde Jonece. Some of Gaunt’s registers and accounts have survived, though the majority has not been translated and were written after the death of Blanche. Additionally, there are other contemporary works that provide some insight into the life and expectations of a noblewoman of the medieval era. Most notable is Christine de Pizan’s A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor:

The Treasury of the City of Ladies. Again, there remains a lack of sources from the Middle Ages concerning women in general, many could have been lost to time, but nonetheless there are a few contemporaries who allow historians a glimpse of Blanche.

Today there are a few very well-researched biographies of other contemporaries close to

Blanche that have been published which provide an insightful analysis of her life. Norman

Webster produced a short biography in 1990, Blanche of Lancaster which answered the question of the chronological order of events of Blanche’s life. However he only offered a two- dimensional character. Webster did not make clear how she interacted with these events or other figures in her life. He also did not explain if Blanche enjoyed any autonomy or power through, or despite, these events and people.76 The older generation of biographies, written in 1905, concerning Gaunt was Sydney Armitage-Smith’s John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster. This book is the foundation for the majority of the information on

Gaunt and many others around him. Again Armitage-Smith barely allowed Blanche to be seen as separate entity from Gaunt. Sans the few instances where Armitage-Smith placed a few

76 Norman Webster, Blanche of Lancaster (Driffield, Yorkshire: Halstead Publications, 1990), 38. For example when Webster mentioned Blanche remained a good portion of the time after her marriage at Bolingbroke Castile in the Lancastrians lands he neglected to tell his audience that through her time at this particular area she was able to enhance the economy, easily provide for her massive household, and conveniently engage in her supervision of the rest of the Lancastrian lands since Bolingbroke was almost in the middle.

30 anecdotal notes on Blanche in his biography, the audience again is only privy to the facts that

Blanche was beautiful, died, and allowed Gaunt to “fulfill his destiny” of being the wealthiest landowner in England.77 Anthony Goodman’s John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in

Fourteenth-Century Europe, published 1992, is an excellent biography of Gaunt which affords a highly researched synopsis of Gaunt’s life and movements as well as those around him.

However, Blanche is rarely written about apart from her appearance, her children, and her death.78 Although it is recognized that Blanche was not Goodman’s focus, the most power he bestowed on Blanche was that Gaunt “gained…portion of the Lancastrian inheritance in the right of his wife.”79 There is no explanation of how Blanche influenced Gaunt’s life otherwise, or how she aided the supervision of the lands that were hers to begin with, while Gaunt was gone.

Therefore, the two most lauded biographies focused on Blanche’s husband abound with Gaunt’s uses of power and influence to move armies, lands, and politics but there remains no further look into the possibilities for Blanche.

Jeannette Lucraft’s 2006 book, Katherine Swynford: The History of a Medieval Mistress, is slightly more pointed in its attempt to show Katherine’s power, and illustrate Blanche’s power as well. Lucraft states Blanche had highly educated gentry servants, was a patron of Chaucer, and might have been able to employ people of her choosing.80 Resources from her level of other high ranking noblewomen are more prevalent, allowing researchers an educated guess and a balanced examination of what most likely happened in Blanche’s own life, which are helpful, but do not provide any definitive answers. Some of these are Ffiona Swabey’s Medieval

77 See Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 14, 25, 19.

78 See Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33-38, 46-47, and 254.

79 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 43.

80 See Jeannette Lucraft, Katherine Swynford: The History of a Medieval Mistress (Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2006), 5, 10, and 113.

Gentlewoman: Life in a Gentry Household in the Later Middle Ages (1999) and Jennifer Ward’s

English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (1992). Although these two monographs are indispensible for their insight into the power and influence of noblewomen in general they can only give an estimate of how Blanche used her power, how she understood her autonomy, and how her actions influenced others.81

The problem is then more often than not, many of the more personal aspects of women overall are overlooked or considered background information in historical and literature scholarship when writing about power and influence. In historical monographs and biographies concerning the individuals around Blanche she is mentioned mainly in conjunction with her vast wealth and beauty as well as her status of being the first wife of Gaunt. However, while it was this wealth that jettisoned and solidified Gaunt’s claim to power, she obviously had a deeper impact on Gaunt than just to offer monetary gain. Her own power and movements are lost to history and denied having any consequence. Nevertheless, the society existent directly after her death and even today’s culture includes a very strong image of Blanche, whether or not it is a true likeness. Thanks to Chaucer and to a smaller extent Froissart, the Blanche that has come down to us is a construct of an ideal, and not a flesh and blood depiction of this fourteenth century woman. The labor is to show Blanche can, and should be, seen as an influential individual, a powerful noblewoman, and as the epitome of both an authoritarian figure and a piteous perfect medieval woman to those of the Middle Ages.

81 See Ward, English Noblewomen, 13-14 and 17. However, Ward does use Blanche as an example twice. Once to show how the nobility who were closely related were able to receive a dispensation and again, how Maud of Leicester’s death led to Gaunt owning massive amounts of land through his wife.

Blanche as Daughter and Wife

Blanche of Lancaster was born to Henry Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster, and his wife

Isabel de Beaumont sometime between 1341 and 1346.82 Only her older sister, Matilda or Maud,

Countess of Leicester, Duchess of Bavaria and she survived infancy. As the Duke of Lancaster,

Henry was extremely wealthy and had made a name for himself in the employment of Edward III as a chief executor of his diplomatic and military polices in France and Scotland both on land and sea.83 Because of Lancaster’s immense success, his daughters were highly prized noblewomen on the marriage market. In view of Lancaster’s status and hopeful expectation of combining the two families one day, Edward III put his third son, John of Gaunt, into service under Lancaster during the French campaigns in 1355.84

Sources on the childhood of any specific noble, whether man or woman, rarely survives and yet it is through these childhood experiences that the foundation of the nobility’s ideas of power and influence is instilled in the new generation. Blanche’s childhood, if she was generally raised the same as other children in the medieval nobility, was no different. As a young girl one out of two scenarios took place. She might have gone to another high noble household to be educated there, or Blanche’s mother might have hired personal tutors for her two daughters.85

82 There is a great deal of controversy surrounding Blanche’s age. Froissart states in his commemorative poem states she was “young and pretty when she died, about twenty-two years old.” Jean Froissart, Jean Froissart: An Anthology of Narrative and Lyric Poetry, ed. Kristen M. Figg and R. Barton Palmer (New York: Routledge, 2001), 277. This would mean she was born in 1346. However, other biographies published more recently agree her age was about twenty-six or twenty-seven when she passed away, meaning she was born closer to 1341 or 1342. See Goodman, John of Gaunt, 46; Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 21; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 33. However, Webster states that while Blanche was born in 1341 he argues that she did not die until 1369 bringing her age to twenty-eight. Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 11.

83 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33.

84 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 7-8.

85 There is evidence for both of these practices. For example Katherine was hired to be a governess for Blanche’s children. See Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 6. On the other hand Gaunt was sent as a young man to the household of his older brother, Edward. See Goodman, John of Gaunt, 30-32. Also note Isabel de Beaumont,

Alison Weir in her book, Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of

Lancaster, put forth the argument that Blanche “spent some of her formative years at court in the care of Queen Philippa.”86 However, Weir did not produce evidence for where she found this information.87 Without surety of the situation both of these practices would have been acceptable, but the first was more prevalent in the 1300s for aristocracy. Sending children to other households could cultivate more independence in a young noblewoman, compared to those girls who remained at home.88 Moreover, during the medieval era noblewomen employed wet nurses and governesses to care for the daily needs of their children and this practice would undoubtedly make it easier for noble children to be comfortable in command of their own households and be more independent, if not more autonomous and powerful.89 Hence, this social norm of sending one’s children to other, and preferably higher ranking, households was to “gain valuable social contracts, advantageous marriages, and an education in the widest sense of the term.”90

The majority of the time education for girls would consist of learning hands-on techniques of how to properly run a noble household, types of sewing and embroidery, and

Lancaster’s wife, was most likely the one who would have hired the tutor or sent her off, because the women were responsible for the education of their children. Ward, English Noblewomen, 95-97. 86 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 33.

87 None of the other biographies or monographs that mention Blanche specifically promotes one idea over the other. In fact Weir is the only one to put forth an idea of what Blanche might have done as a child.

88 Although this theory is pure speculation on the part of Ward it leans to reason that most children removed from their parents’ home are more likely to mature quicker. Ward, English Noblewomen, 95.

89 See Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages, 49-50.

90 Ward, English Noblewomen, 97. For more information on the care of children both royal and aristocratic please see Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages; Ward, English Noblewomen; W. Mark Ormrod, “The Royal Nursery: A Household for the Younger Children of Edward III,” The English Historical Review 120 (April 2005), 398-415; Mertes, The English Noble Household.

34 various entertainment virtues, like dance, and singing.91 There were also certain types of formal education as well, and Blanche was doubtless privy to the art of language and reading. Armitage-

Smith has even proclaimed that Blanche probably knew how to write for “among the first ladies in England who learned to write, were those of the family of John of Gaunt.92 Undoubtedly

Gaunt and the remaining English court around this time could apparently read or at least understand French, Middle English, and probably Latin.93 This wide range of literacy is easily illustrated, for while the traditional language of the English court was French, in Richard II’s court, Chaucer and some of his contemporaries were writing in the vernacular and their audience, whether the works were read or orally presented, were the aristocratic class.94 As will be discussed later, Blanche herself may have commissioned Chaucer to write poetry, in English, for her.95 Therefore, linguistically Blanche’s educational background was a grand success in both practical life applications and in social elements that led to greater autonomy and influence over even the famous Chaucer as she matures.

Some scholars maintain that the evidence suggests that over the course of her childhood

Blanche had been betrothed as a young child of about seven to a man, John de Segrave.96

Needless to say that agreement came to nothing, if it existed at all. However, it is quite possible that the betrothal was nullified because around 1350 Lancaster was raised to a new and more

91 Vincent J. Scattergood and James W. Sherborne, ed., English Court Culture in the Middle Ages (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), 71.

92 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 415.

93 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 37-39. Goodman certainly argued that Gaunt could in fact read, and perhaps write, in all of these languages as well as understand “astronomical formule.” Although this does not mean that Blanche had an equal education, most in his household were patrons of literature and later on humanistic education.

94Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer?, 52.

95 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 113.

96 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 21.

35 powerful position as the first Duke of Lancaster.97 With this new title came the honor of

Lancaster receiving “palatinate powers for life,” meaning he was given kingly authority within his duchy.98 Hence, Lancaster certainly was in a stronger position to marry his daughters higher in the social rank than before this new entitlement. Regardless of the actual circumstances, problematical marriage contracts earlier might have been one reason she was not married to

Gaunt until she was a little more mature, at age seventeen or eighteen.99 Normally, noblewomen would be pledged in marriage in their early years, similar to Blanche’s possible betrothal at seven, then they would be married in elaborate ceremonies anywhere between the ages of twelve and twenty.100 To the majority of the nobility the younger the better, passed the age of consent; because this meant the girl would be fertile for longer and hopefully produce an heir that would survive to adulthood.101 Though Blanche’s age is on the end of the spectrum, she was a very worthy lady of the realm to be wedded with her father’s excellent title and lands, an impeccable upbringing, and undeniable education.

For noblewomen adolescence is a time for political and economic advancement through courtship. Primarily nobility did not enter into marriage for love, which is why Chaucer’s interesting portal into Gaunt’s and Blanche’s courtship in The Book of the Duchess is so memorable and unique. Their marriage through Chaucer’s pen sounds more like a courtly love story than a contract developed, more than likely, by Henry Grosmont of Lancaster and Edward

97 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 17.

98 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 17.

99 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 1-12. In fact Armitage-Smith in his biography of Gaunt goes into detail about Gaunt’s own failed betrothals before his pursuit of Blanche.

100Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages, 252-254. The age of twelve was set for girls and fourteen for boys by the Church demanding that children not formally married before this age limit, or the “age of reason,” because the children had to be able to comprehend their actions and give their formal consent. Ward, English Noblewomen, 12-13.

101 Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages, 252-254.

III. Either way in 1859, when Blanche was about seventeen, the available sources state she was attending Christmas and New Year’s parties in Hatfield with the royal households of Elizabeth,

Countess of Ulster, wife of Lionel, Duke of Clarence and John of Gaunt.102 During this holiday

Edward III finalized his agreement with Lancaster for Blanche’s hand in marriage to Gaunt.103

This arrangement was an important social advancement for both Gaunt and Blanche. The inheritance Blanche was to receive provided Gaunt with half of the wealthiest “inheritance in

England after the Crown.”104 Legally Gaunt gained the title of duke by Blanche’s ability to inherit the lands. Similarly, Blanche was placed in a higher hierarchical standing within the strict social structure of England because of her marriage into the royal family. This new position brought more prestige and power to Blanche simply through her stronger ties with the crown. In

England hierarchy was “seen as a reflection of the divine order which created and sustained the universe,” this hierarchy translated to the law, the Church, and social status.105 However, before they could officially have a ceremony the couple sent off a mandatory petition for a papal dispensation to Pope Innocent VI in 1358 since they were third cousins.106

Once Blanche married Gaunt in Reading Abbey in May of 1359 their social roles were solidified by centuries of tradition in England. Gaunt was absent through most of their marriage campaigning in France and Castile. Meanwhile Blanche, as per the social norm, oversaw her own household, a few of Gaunt’s affairs and lands, and provided for her children. Although more

102 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33.

103 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33. Chaucer mentioned Blanche reciprocated Gaunt’s expressions of love with “al hooly, the noblr yifte of hir mercy…[and] a ryng.” While this act of the “first gift” was given by both men and women, it is very curious that Blanche indicated the exchange thereby utilizing agency of her own to pledge marriage to Gaunt. Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 345.

104 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33.

105 Horrox, “Service,” in Fifteenth-Century Attitudes, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 61.

106 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 32. Ward, English Noblewomen, 17-18.

37 on the subject of Blanche’s agency and influence through her household is discussed in the next section of this chapter, in the intimate family circle Gaunt’s absence provided more opportunity for Blanche to influence her family and exercise more power in the decision making of the family unit. Although Gaunt was technically the overall authority, Blanche had the ability to solely manage and direct the economic and physical daily needs of the entire household. Her duties ranged from ordering more cloth to insuring that her staff and those in her children’s service were adequately fed during the winter. Blanche’s personal household could range anywhere from twenty to sixty individuals alone.107 Moreover, as will be further discussed in the next section, Blanche made strides to cultivate and encourage her children’s education and religious knowledge.

In her marriage Blanche was also very conventional in that she spent most of her nine years of marriage pregnant, accomplishing for the medieval culture the single most important duty of her gender, producing an heir. There is some disagreement as to how many children she birthed, but scholars assume between five and seven children, three of whom survived into adulthood, Philippa, Elizabeth, and Henry.108 During her lifetime Blanche employed both a wet nurse for each of her children and governesses.109 While the wet nurse cared for the children

107It has been noted that other noblewomen had “twenty-odd” people in their employment for their personal households, although the noblewoman mentioned was a countess and as a duchess Blanche holds a higher ranking. Ffiona Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman: Life In A Gentry Household In The Later Middle Ages (New York: Rutledge, 1999), 21. Ward’s statistics build on this idea, for she asserts that Elizabeth Berkeley’s household was around fifty people and Anne Neville employed about sixty. Ward, English Noblewomen, 51. So with her daughters’, son’s, and her households the number of people under Blanche’s general employment can easily be a hundred to two hundred.

108 Webster, Armitage-Smith, and Goodman argue in favor of five children, while Weir states in her genealogical tables that Blanche had seven. Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 43; Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 94; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 46-47; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, appendix. Either estimate is possible, although Gaunt was gone for many months at a time and for years at points during their marriage. However, because Blanche, as a noblewoman, most likely did not breastfeed she could have easily been fertile a month or two after each child. Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages, 49-50.

109 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 105.

38 while they were infants, the governess, who was of lesser nobility, was attached to the

Lancastrian household to serve as a private tutor, at least to the young girls, while Henry had his own household and tutors.110 One of the governesses for the Lancastrian girls was Lady

Katherine Swynford.111 It has been reported that Blanche herself hired Swynford for her household when she married Gaunt in 1359.112 Then as the Lancastrian children became older,

Katherine became a permanent member of the household by being the governess between 1366 and 1370.113 Katherine, raised in the household of Queen Philippa, acquired a very formal education and even took over Blanche’s household, after Blanche’s unexpected death while

Gaunt was on another campaign.114 However, in the midst of her close association with the

Lancastrian family Katherine became Gaunt’s mistress and surprisingly, eventually his third wife as well. However, it has been successfully argued that a serious liaison between Gaunt and

Katherine did not begin until a year or so after Blanche’s death in 1368.115 Although Blanche did not live to see her children grow up to be extremely successful, her early care and inheritance greatly influenced their future. The most famous of her children is, of course, Henry

110Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages, 49-50 and 237.

111 Jean Froissart, Chronicles, translated and edited by Geoffrey Brereton, (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1968), 418. For more information concerning Swynford please see Chapter 4 of this thesis.

112 Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and ed. Brereton, 418.

113 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 6.

114 For evidence concerning her education see Froissart’s Chronicles, he states Katherine had a “perfect knowledge of court etiquette.” Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and ed. Brereton, 420. Also see Lucraft concerning Katherine’s education for she formulated an interesting argument: that Katherine received all of the learning and training that other high noble girls were given even though she was not of high noble birth. Because Katherine was hired as a governess and she was entrusted with Blanche’s household after her death, as mentioned above. Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 5 and 10.

115 Although some question the timing, most of the well-known historians side with Armitage-Smith for he states a valid point that in their dispensation to the pope Gaunt and Katherine explain the terms of their close relationship such as he was godfather to her daughter and that they had broken a number of other papal rules. However, they explicitly mention they had been “living in adultery during the lifetime of the Duchess Constance.” Therefore, if they were going to upfront with everything else why lie about the timing of their liaison? Armitage- Smith, John of Gaunt, 461.

Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV in 1399 and began the House of Lancaster in England.

Philippa was also able to marry into the royal house of Portugal as queen consort. She is the mother of Henry the Navigator, her progeny include Isabella of Spain and Catherine of Aragon, and she was known to have inaugurated a “new era in the Portuguese court by the careful education of her children.”116 Thus, Blanche was an immensely important figure in the history of

England, but also left one of most enduring marks on the people of Europe through her progeny.

This impressive list of children consequently, is exactly how the medieval world remembered a woman, yet it is arguable that without her early influence on the education and administration of care for her children they were able to transition to powerful reigns.

Between 1361 and 1362 Gaunt’s and Blanche’s power and responsibility mushroomed, since both Blanche’s father and her only sister succumbed to the plague, leaving the couple to inherit the entire Lancastrian estate.117 The conditions are, in this situation unique, because

Henry Grosmont of Lancaster did not have a male heir and Maud did not have any children.

Hence the entirety of the Lancastrian estate reverted back to Blanche who held it in conjunction with Gaunt.118 This event was so atypical a rumor circulated proclaiming Maud had met a violent death, and by proxy viewed Gaunt suspiciously.119 However, this rumor was either not widely believed or squelched well for it is mentioned only briefly in Webster’s biography of Blanche

116 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 415.

117 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33-43.

118 As Mate mentions this ability of couples to hold land jointly only became possible during the thirteenth century. Otherwise Gaunt may not have been able to retain all of the inheritance after Blanche died before this change in policy. Mate, Women in Medieval English Society, 79.

119 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 49-50.

40 and Weir.120 Nonetheless, this unusual and tragic development meant that Gaunt and Blanche was now by far the wealthiest couple in England, barring the crown.121

Despite the great wealth and bright future ahead of Blanche she did not survive past her twenties. It is widely thought that she succumbed to the bubonic plague as it swept through

England again.122 There is another possibility that she suffered from complications due to her last pregnancy. Earlier that year she gave birth to another baby, but neither the mother nor the child survived past 1368.123 Even though he outlived Blanche by thirty years, Gaunt did not stop honoring her. He made sure her soul was cared for by ordering commemorative services every year on the anniversary of her death and her body was cared for as it made its way to London.124

In fact in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess Gaunt’s character of the Man in Black promises “nay, while I am alive her, I nyl foryete hir never moo.”125 Gaunt chose to have her entombed in St.

Paul’s Cathedral and despite his twenty-year liaison with Katherine, was buried next to Blanche in St. Paul’s until the fire in 1666 destroyed their monuments.126 By being, in the colorful colloquialism, cut down in the flower of her youth, Blanche only added to the medieval image of perfection. Her death furthered Blanche’s image of the perfect literary figure in the minds of her

120 See Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 18, 49; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 47. Webster stated this rumor originated in the legends of Kempsford. Webster does not give much credit to these rumors either; therefore, this study errs on the side of caution that likely Maud died from the plague and nothing to do with Gaunt.

121 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 49; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33.

122 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 46. Although, Armitage-Smith and Webster state 1369, Goodman gives as evidence a letter of Gaunt concerning Blanche’s orbit in August 1369, therefore, she died September 12, 1369. Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 75; Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 53.

123 The sources do not agree on which gender the child was, but Goodman does raise a valid point with interjecting she might have died as a “result of childbirth.” Although both scenarios are plausible, it might have been a combination of both. Blanche might have not recovered from the birthing as well with this last pregnancy and as a result caught some type of disease or contracted the plague easier. Goodman, John of Gaunt, 46-47.

124 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 55.

125 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 344.

126 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 63-64.

41 contemporaries and dominated the figure of the more realistic independent, influential noblewoman.

The Power and Agency of Blanche in the Nobility

Outside the realm of her intimate family Blanche’s power, influence, and autonomy is even more obvious when seen in the larger picture of other high ranking noblewomen. The discussions within this section will consider Blanche as an aristocratic noblewoman compared to other late-medieval noblewomen to establish a context for understanding the potential power and influence Blanche could have maintained. Blanche’s adolescent years were the beginning of her ability to exert some portion of volition. According to Chaucer her first act of independent decision making took place when Gaunt and Blanche arrived at a social party: Chaucer’s Man in

Black character, which scholars believe was meant to be Gaunt, wistfully recounts how he singled out Blanche’s character from among a group of lovely ladies.127 Blanche’s character did not share the Man in Black’s enthusiasm. In fact even after the Man in Black’s extensive proclamations of love and loyalty “she acounted nat a stree…but this was the grete of hir answere: she sayde ‘nay’.”128

Whether or not Blanche actually spurned Gaunt’s advances, she still had a choice in the relationship. Her agreement to the relationship continued until marriage. In the Middle Ages the legal proceedings of noble marriages and courtship included many steps that had nothing to do with Blanche’s personal approval. But she did have the legal right to, and through Canon law had to, give her consent.129 In this agreement women had to reach the age of consent or canonical

127 Arthur W. Bahr, “The Rhetorical Construction of Narrator and Narrative in Chaucer’s the Book of the Duchess,” The Chaucer Review 35 (2000), 43, 59.

128 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 345.

129 Goldberg, “Women,” in Fifteenth Century Attitudes, ed. Horrox, 126.

42 majority, twelve for women and fourteen for men, before they could be legally married.130

Consent was of high importance to the medieval Church, and therefore the culture, and through consent, women’s potential power and agency can be seen.131 Many young women in noble families were engaged to men with whom they were unfamiliar, usually relying on their fathers or legal guardians to choose ideal men. Therefore, the vast majority of time noble girls did not exercise this agency, but it was available to them. Marriage for the nobility according to Kate

Mertes, “primarily served the purpose of cementing family alliances and consolidating estates and fortunes.”132 Mertes even goes so far to contend that “every document discovered, every text reinterpreted confirms the view that all nobles and gentles, male and female, expected their marriages to serve their families economically and politically.”133 Therefore, even if Blanche believed Gaunt was just a good investment and she went along with her father’s agreement with

Edward III, she still exercised her liberty and consented.

After marriage, as previously mentioned, Gaunt was continuously fighting in either

France or Scotland on campaigns for the king during the Hundred Years War leaving Blanche to run her own household and the Lancaster lands.134 This requirement was quite normal for any lady of high noble birth to handle. As a refined aristocratic child, she would have been taught from a very young age to conduct business in her own personal household and to care for her

130 Goldberg, “Women,” in Fifteenth Century Attitudes, ed. Horrox, 126.

131 Georges Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth-Century France, trans., Elborg Forster (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 1-22.

132 Mertes, “Aristocracy,” in Fifteenth-Century Attitudes, ed. Horrox, 45.

133 Mertes, “Aristocracy,” in Fifteenth-Century Attitudes, ed. Horrox, 45.

134 Their first child, Philippa, was born in March 1360. Goodman, John of Gaunt, 36.

43 husband’s interests in his absence.135 It was normal for married couples to have separate household accounts and employees. These were divided by the husband’s retinue who were the outer household or those who would travel with the husband even when he went on campaigns.136 Then there was the inner household—those who stayed at the main residence, both part of the small group of the lady’s retinue and those of her entire household—or the residence that the lady was calling home for the time being.137 For at this time it was expected for the noblewomen to move from estate to estate to keep a weathered eye on the landholdings. At the same time she would have been expected to defend her husband’s lands, collect revenue, and ensure that each person who owes the couple service has completed their duties.138 Although the majority of time the wife would not have to literally defend the land holdings of her husband without him, it did happen as Margaret de Badelesmere discovered in 1321.139 Moreover, according to Ward’s research “royal orders for the provisioning and defense of…castles were sent to noblewomen just as they were to lords” during times of war or upheaval, leading many noblewomen to call and provision their own men for military service.140

The responsibilities of noblewomen during the absence of husbands was so normal in fact that Christine de Pizan in her famous treatise, Le Livre des Trois Vertus which was translated by

Charity Willard and re-titled A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor: The Treasury of the City of

Ladies encouraged princesses and noblewomen to ensure they knew all of their own importance

135 Mate, Women in English Medieval Society, 70.

136 Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman, 15.

137 Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman, 15.

138 Ward, English Noblewomen, 134-135.

139 Ward, English Noblewomen, 167.

140 Ward, English Noblewomen, 166.

44 and power. Many of the aspects Pizan discusses are the building up of women’s knowledge and agency apart from the men in their lives, how to use diplomacy, and to have all knowledge of their husbands’ enterprises. These are effects of Pizan’s main point for women to follow the three virtues she introduces who appeared in her first book, The Book of the City of Ladies.

These three Virtues, Dame Reason, Dame Rectitude, and Dame Justice, argued what Madeleine

Cosman labeled as “well-tempered feminism.”141 This feminism, far from being watered-down or passive, simply used other ways of calling upon women of authority. These women were to utilize every capacity to prove that they were virtuous, which was extremely important in the medieval mind. If a woman of authority, even one of common origins, was proved to be deceitful, she fed the male-centered argument that she was simply “acting like a woman.” Pizan stated the dilemma this way, “I have heard you say, that so much good has come into the world by virtue of the understanding of women. These men usually say that women’s knowledge is worthless. In fact, when someone says something foolish, the widely voiced insult is that this is women’s knowledge.”142 Yet, if a woman proved virtuous then these virtues and her knowledge of the working world would not only allow the woman to become self-reliant in the face of the

“insecurity in society,” but self-determining.143

A few examples mined from Pizan’s long list of ways in which a woman in the position of power can continuously hold authority and autonomy, and how these assertions of Pizan are true experiences of noblewomen follows. The first issue Pizan claimed noblewomen need to have is knowledge concerning their responsibilities of “managing their property, revenues, and

141 Williard, trans., Cosman, eds., A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, 26.

142 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 33.

143 Willard, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 37.

45 their lands.”144 Moreover, by accounting for the yearly income of the estate the lady should be able to come to a mutual plan crafted by her and her husband as to the uses of this income. The

“lady…must be well informed about the rights of domain of fiefs and secondary fiefs, about contributions, and lord’s rights of harvest, shared crops, and all other rights of possession, and the customs both local and foreign.”145 In other words, women needed legal training and mathematical skills, as well as knowledge of contracts to fulfill their duties as noblewomen.

Beyond the rights of the land, the noblewoman should supervise, plan, and be completely knowledgeable about farming, her laborers, the different planting seasons, and her livestock.146

Supporting Pizan’s authority on these matters of noblewomen are “The Rules of St. Robert” written by Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, for Margaret, countess of Lincoln. Bishop

Grosseteste issued seven “rules” to make the countess more successful in her legal training and awareness of her lands. The first rule he taught the countess was how to “know in each manor their lands by their parcels, all their rents, customs, usages, services, franchises, fees and tenements.”147 Bishop Grosseteste continued by clearly stating how she should go about doing this through “buy[ing] the king’s writ to inquire by the oath of twelve men” concerning their lands and the financial situation therein.148 Then she was to have one roll with this information

144 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 170-171.

145 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 171.

146 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 171-173.

147 Jennifer Ward, eds., Women of the English Nobility and Gentry, 1066-1500 (Manchester: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 128-132.

148 Ward, eds., Women of the English Nobility, 128-129.

46 on it and her chief steward was to have another, so that “if plaintiffs come to you…look yourself at the rolls…to them give answer and maintain justice.”149

Pizan continued with another element this study has covered, children. The lady “will consider carefully all aspects of [her children’s] welfare. Proper development of their habits, especially their moral and intellectual instruction…the children…should be taught their letters…Latin and have some knowledge of the sciences…cherish[ing] her children as evidence that she is both wise and good.”150 Then, in addition to the instruction of her children and their welfare, the woman’s responsibility lay in the hiring, and the “character and competence of her children’s masters,” and only “benevolent, intelligent women will be hired to guide her daughters.”151 In Guibert de Nogent’s autobiography he explicitly wrote how his mother adhered to Pizan’s list. Nogent’s mother’s actions as a parent are very similar: “with what purity and holiness in obedience to Thee [God] was my upbringing, what care of nurses in infancy, of masters and teachers in boyhood, she gave me.”152

A third example concerns how a noblewoman should oversee her finances. Pizan wrote eloquently that a “habit that should be cultivated not only by the nobility, but by anyone else desiring to live wisely…is to supervise carefully her revenues and expenses.”153 Women should not “hesitate to find out for herself the amount of her revenues and pensions or to insist at certain times upon reviewing the records of her agents and paymasters…[women] should know how her stewards supervise her servants and how they regulate her daily household expense, distributing

149 Ward, eds., Women of the English Nobility, 129.

150 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Wiliard, ed. Cosman, 102-103.

151 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 103.

152 Amt, eds., Women’s Lives in Medieval Europe, 146.

153 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 114.

47 food and wine and overseeing other…affairs.”154 Pizan also provides a great organization tool for women to divide their revenues and records into five separate parts: alms and gifts to the poor, expenses of her household, payments to her officers and ladies, gifts to those “subjects giving evidence of particular merit,” and finally a portion going into her own treasury.155 These categories hearken back to the idea of service, hospitality, and authority. These requirements by

Pizan were not just the musing of a French author; Isabella de Forz countess of Aumale carefully recorded numerous aspects of her lands, expenses, crops, and tenets.156 She required her household to painstakingly write down everything from how many deliveries were made to some her tenets to how many quarters of oats her stallions consumed and how much it cost.157 This meticulous accounting allowed her to control the financial and economic advancement of her lands and to clearly keep track of the elements of the lands as Pizan suggested.

Finally, Pizan spoke of the need for noblewomen, “powerful women,” living on her husband’s lands especially, to be “highly knowledgeable about government” and this knowledge must be “comprehensive” to cover both the kingdoms’ government and government of her husband’s lands.158 The second being the most beneficial for the noblewoman was her husband’s

“companion” and must therefore:

represent him at home…although her husband is served by bailiffs, provosts, rent collectors, and land governors, she must govern them all…she must be so skilled…[and] knowledgeable in the mores of her locality, and instructed in its usages, rights, and customs…She must know the laws of arms and all things pertaining to warfare, ever prepared to command her men if there is need of it. She has to know both assault and

154 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 114.

155 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 115.

156 Ward, eds., Women of the English Nobility, 132-138.

157 Ward, eds., Women of the English Nobility, 134-137.

158 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 168-169.

defense tactics to insure that her fortresses are well defended, if she has any expectation of attack or believes she must initiate military action.159

This book asked women to know legal and military tactics, or at least the defense capabilities of each of their castles, and assumed that the women should already have this knowledge. The governance and military defense of the manor or lands can be seen through Margaret Paston’s preparations for Lord Moleyn’s attack on her manor at Gresham. She asked her husband for more “crossbows and windlasses” and she exhibited her extensive knowledge of her situation and experience when she further requested “crossbowbolts…because your houses here are so low that no man can shoot out with a long bow.”160

Although these elements of a self-sufficient and authoritative noblewoman are strong,

Pizan wrote this book to urge noblewomen to possess consideration and guardianship for their administrational duties. But some women were no longer concerning themselves with this practice. Hence there is every possibility that Blanche, as a peer of an older generation who participated in the same ideals, adhered to some of these four facets of a successful noblewoman, with her knowledge of the land, her children, household, government, and military tactics. The reasoning behind this assumption is that if she had neglected her duties then Gaunt would be forced to hire others, or he would not be able to leave for France and Castile as easily. However, he was gone constantly without hiring an over-abundance of overseers and there are no records of major disturbances on his lands during Blanche’s life, unlike the next twenty years. Although

Pizan wrote her works in the early 1400s, forty years after the death of Blanche, surely it is not a far stretch to surmise that many of Pizan’s helpful notes are based on past successes rather than random musings.

159 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 169.

160 Norman Davis, eds., The Paston Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 13-14.

One complex reoccurring theme in Pizan’s writings was the lady’s household. How a noblewomen influenced and provided for her children, the household, and lands was the most prevalent and significant conduit through which her authority and influence could flow. As will be discussed in the following subsection there were multiple ways in which a noblewoman like

Blanche accessed and used power, business, and influence in her household and lands. These include records, retinues, homes, hospitality, service, local economies, use of personal imagery, and patronage. It is a recognized trend in most historians’ research, that noblewomen, whether gentry or aristocracy, ran their lands like significant business ventures. Blanche, coming from the aristocracy and marrying into the royal family, was expected to do the same. Not only that, but by 1362 Blanche held the largest amount of land jointly with Gaunt in England, second to the crown. Therefore, even if she was not happy with administrative duties they were a part of her life. That magnitude of land and people needed intensive oversight and Blanche was highly educated and was molded for this office of power since she was a child. Therefore, in this capacity Blanche would hire and employ around sixty people for the running of her personal household. A portion of these people would aid Blanche intimately; however, the greater percentage would be employed for the business by one of her the departmental overseers. Similar to any noblewoman, Blanche would also have enjoyed a full retinue of her own, such as maids, exchequers, and chamberlains, which she hired, paid, and tightly controlled through intricate acts of service and contracts.161 This retinue would follow Blanche as she traveled across England to inspect her vast landholdings and they would remain in her employment for years. These people would include knights and ladies of lesser nobility, clerks, esquires, yeomen, and other supervisors for each sub-section of the household including the chamber, wardrobe, kitchen, bailiffs, stables, councils, and clergy. As far as Blanche is concerned she more than likely had

161 Ward, English Noblewomen, 50-68.

50 her own household to supervise as well as the households of her daughters and son, and the skeleton households living permanently at her husband’s estates.

Historians agree that married noblewomen, with or without absent husbands, would indeed collect revenue and keep detailed records of their transactions and business for their households and that of their husbands.162 Of course, the intensity of this record keeping varied by woman, but their close records was not only helpful to the business, but essential to the women’s responsibility to their households. Therefore, it was necessary to hire multiple men to record the daily expenses of the noble households, lands, and the revenue from those lands. For example,

Elizabeth de Burgh kept Diet accounts, or daily accounts, running from 1325 to 1360. These included “journals, chamber, wardrobe, chapel, and household accounts.”163 All of these had

“strict departmental division,” after which a list of all departments would be brought to the clerk of the wardrobe, then a “roll was drawn up of daily expenditure listed under departmental headings” and given to de Burgh at the end of the day.164 Among these household accounts were the purchase of food, clothes, products, wine, building materials, and jewelry.165 Other expenses were a part of the more public side of the noblewoman’s household such as rents from tenants, serf’s labor, and the profits from the lands at each landholding. The landholdings could be anywhere from one main castle to the multiple castles and manor houses Gaunt and Blanche

162 This research has already been mentioned as argued in Pizan, Ward, Horrox, Mate, Lucraft, Johns, Stuard, and Swabey.

163 Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman, 14.

164 Ward, English Noblewomen, 53.

165 Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman, 14.

51 held. The major Lancastrian castles numbered ten to fifteen ranging from London to Lincoln.166

Most noblewomen would have educated men as their assistants in the business and household governance. For example, aristocratic women such as Blanche probably required an exchequer, who headed the financial situation of her lands, while the creation of the records would fall to the wardrober, clerks, and stewards in both the business and household sections.167 In this business situation the nobleman or noblewoman would supervise the process, and may even “checked the steward’s accounts every night.”168 Therefore, if de Burgh engaged that much in oversight and records it is highly possible that Blanche had done so and the evidence has just been lost. For both de Burgh and Blanche were close in status and power, with Blanche having a slightly higher rank. Hence, the workload of most noblewomen, aristocrats and gentry was just as intensive as if they had been C.E.O.s in today’s economic and career-driven world, all the while expected to provide for and produce children.

Another channel through which Blanche might have displayed her influence and autonomy, was in her various homes and hospitality. The idea of homely influence was the brain-child of Sarah Rees Jones as she argued that for the common urban woman the home was

“empowering…gave women status, the design of those homes also reinforced differences of power, wealth, and opportunity among women.”169 Jones argued for the power and influence flowing out of the home for urban women in the Later Middle Ages. When this premise is

166 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 218. This projected number does not include any of the smaller castles, manors, houses, or other properties they owned. Gaunt was estimated to own or be overlord for about one third of England. See Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 47.

167 Margaret Wade Labarge, A Baronial Household of the Thirteenth Century (New York: Barnes and Noble, INC., 1965), 75.

168 Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman, 19.

169 Sarah Rees Jones, “Women’s Influence on the Design of Urban Homes,” in Gendering the Master Narrative, ed. Erler and Kowaleski, 211.

52 transposed onto Blanche some interesting ideas are brought forth. If the emerging middle class women could design their homes to present their agency, the aristocracy could design their castles and manors in the same way to optimize their demonstration of wealth and power.

Although it was quite normal for a noblewoman to move into a castle or manor which had been on that land for centuries, their exhibition of power and influence could come through their decorations, their hospitality, and their fortifications. The decorations showcased power and wealth through the physical expense and quality of material goods. More than simply a lavishly decorated abode, if the noblewoman had visitors then her influence and power could grow.

Hospitality was essential to the medieval community. Swabey equated the household of a lady to a “political powerbase” and “hospitality….was a means of dispensing patronage and reminding neighbours of the social hierarchy.”170 Even Chaucer commented on how a generous host was appreciated in his The Canterbury Tales when the Frankeleyn luaded as a “housholdere, and that a greet, was he; Seint Julian he was in his contree…his table dormant in his halle always stood redy covered al the longe day.”171 In Swabey’s research concerning Alice de Bryene’s (1360-

1435) “Household Book,” her hospitality was evidenced through the numerous meals and guests she had at her estate in Acton. On average de Bryene served forty-four meals a day, equaling in one year, 1412 to 1413, de Bryene provided over 16,500 meals to her guests.172 According to her

Diet Rolls, de Bryene’s guests varied constantly ranging from eminent families of the nobility, bailiffs of adjacent manors, clergymen, and even maidservants and other workers.173 In this way not only could de Bryene grow the amount of people in her affinity, but she could cultivate

170 Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman, 11.

171 Chaucer, “General Prologue,” in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, Robinson, 29.

172 Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman, 11.

173 Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman, 11.

53 loyalty from her employees, continue to keep up with current happenings and even pursue stronger ties with those situated above her on the social ladder. Thus, if Blanche served half as many meals in one year she would have a very large pool of people whom she could influence and even exert power and service. However, because of her close association with the royal family, social rank, and her inheritance she should have been able to greatly surpass de Bryene’s numbers. In fact it would be highly expected of Blanche in such a lucrative position to handle many people who wished to make alliances with her and Gaunt.

Moreover, as a noblewoman, Blanche “enjoyed a two-way relationship with all members of her affinity.”174 Members of this “affinity” included people in her household and those she chose to patronize. In this special relationship the nobility was expected to provide wages, clothing, land, benefices, and contacts in court, while receiving some type of service.175 Horrox explained this entrenched medieval tradition as not “defined by the nature of the tasks being performed, but by the relationship involved: that of master and man,” or in this case mistress to man or woman.176 Often this relationship would last for lifetimes and be cross-generational.

Katherine is only one type of example from Blanche’s affinity, but in return for her work in the household she received a husband, who was a part of the landed gentry.177 Then as she continued in the Lancastrian household she was given a greater position as governess, which in turn not only gave her greater standing, but her daughter became the godchild of Gaunt and Blanche.178

Consequently, Blanche was able, and expected, to influence numerous people and their careers,

174 Ward, English Noblewomen, 135.

175 Ward, English Noblewomen, 134-135.

176 Horrox, “Service,” in Fifteenth-Century Attitudes, ed. Horrox, 63.

177 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 8.

178 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 461.

54 as well as patronize up-and-coming authors and cultural notables. Blanche’s ability to combine both power and piety in a traditional way is clear through these acts towards the people paying her due service. In the same token the idea of service can be applied to Blanche herself. If

Horrox’s assumptions are correct, “service was its own reward” in that “a man acting for a nobleman enjoyed more power than he might claim in his own right” because it allowed the one providing the service to “demonstrate their own power” under the umbrella of the master’s name.179 Therefore, since Blanche had the backing of Gaunt’s name and status as a member of royalty she automatically enjoyed more prestige and power at her disposal. Additionally, any service she provided for her in-laws or husband would have the backing of the crown of

England. Hence Blanche had a great quantity of power individually, but when she married her power became exponentially greater.

Besides employing a number of people, these retinues and acts of hospitality also impacted the society around the household by purchasing local goods and foods. Hence, if the noble lady had a favorite castle or manor then the towns in the surrounding areas would experience growth and more commerce.180 Even those commercial sellers and individuals who sold homemade products that did not have direct patronage of a noblewoman could benefit from the continued attendance of a noble in their vicinity, for they might go shopping, or send out for goods at the numerous fairs and markets taking place throughout the year. Blanche, it has been maintained, spent the majority of her time at the remote Bolingbroke, about fourteen miles away from a grand medieval seaport at Boston.181 Therefore, Boston or Lincoln was probably where

Blanche would receive her more luxurious products and her bulk items, while smaller towns like

179 Horrox, “Service,” in Fifteenth-Century Attitudes, ed. Horrox, 66.

180 Ward, English Noblewomen, 50-54.

181 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 38.

Sleaford would provide Blanche’s staff with their mundane needs. For instance, de Burgh’s household incorporated a number of esquires and yeomen who each had a different job in purchasing goods: some were trained to buy fish, meats, salt, and honey, others dealt in buying wines, and still others focused on cloth, shoes, and embroidery.182 There was even a man called the avener who was to find hay, oats, and litters for the stables.183 These numbers do not consist of the men who were investors and buyers for the business side of the aristocratic women’s lands. Although it is true that the castle and manor lands produced some of the most basic crops and meats for the use of the household, it is just as true that the nobility supported local economies. Their need for hospitality and service only furthered this economic flow.

Finally, one of the easiest avenues through which scholars can trace the nobility’s influence is through the people and institutions they patronize. Two of the best known individuals who received support from Blanche will be discussed in the next section, but they are not the only people Blanche sponsored. It has been noted that Blanche is listed as one of the founders of St. Mary’s College, which was close to St. David’s Cathedral, which was overseen by Bishop Adam Houghton. Blanche and Gaunt both helped Bishop Houghton lay his

“foundations” in the clergy.184 As shown above through her household, retinues, home, hospitality, local interests, and imagery Blanche, not only could have enjoyed an extensive network of employees or at least people willing to provide a service, she could easily have influenced thousands of people in England either directly or indirectly, almost weekly. This amount of influence and power could have been cultivated this over time to an extremely solid power base and business if her untimely death had not prevented it. However, her legacy was not

182 Ward, English Noblewomen, 55.

183 Ward, English Noblewomen, 55.

184 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 257; Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 145.

56 completely forgotten, it just transferred over to a lasting literary image which defined the medieval ideal.

The “Lady Bryght”

Thus far this study has compared medieval sources and recently published historical works in hopes to form a clearer view of the corporeal person of Blanche of Lancaster: who she was as an individual, a noblewoman of higher rank, and how she fits into the discussion of medieval women in general. The question still remains: how does she fit into the literature and chronicles of the fourteenth century and who did the medieval society remember once Blanche was deceased? Blanche, like Gaunt, was a patron of great literary artists. The most famous was

Chaucer himself. Chaucer and his contributions to society have been written about since the first moment he put pen to parchment. John Lydgate wrote that Chaucer crafted the modern condition of the English language, “Chaucer came and through his poetry first began to enlarge our language.”185 Therefore, it is to his poetry that this study turns to first to see the effects of

Blanche’s influence.

Between 1361 and 1367 it has been attributed to Blanche that she commissioned Chaucer to write his very first short poem “An ABC.”186 This poem, if actually requisitioned by Blanche, encompassed a twofold purpose in the Lancastrian household. First and foremost it was written

185 Hoccleve, Regement, lines 1967-1974, quoted in Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer, 4-5; Lydgate, Troy Book, vol. 3, II, lines 4541-4547, quoted in Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer, 4-5.

186 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 113. Although there is some disagreement among scholars as to the truth of Blanche’s involvement with this poem, it is quite possible since Gaunt was already a patron of his and he was well known around the court, just not for his written word. See Armitage-Smith for information of Chaucer’s involvement in the English court during the 1360s. Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 10-11. See Tison Pugh’s An Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer for information concerning the timeline of his writing. Tison Pugh, An Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2013), xvi-xvii. However, it is not the intention of this study to decide if Blanche requested the poem, rather that she could have and how she would have used it. Blanche had enough power and influence to commission the poem and as proposed had a great interest in both education and piety to enjoy the poem. Pearsall agrees with the poem uses, just not the timing stating the poem was probably written in the late 1370s. Derek Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), 83-84.

57 as a devotional poem honoring the Virgin Mary’s role as “intermediary between sinners and

God.”187 Lucraft has asserted that besides its religious aspects this type of poem was also used as a device from which to teach children to read because of its alphabetically ordered stanzas.188

Hence, if this was an act of patronage, it can be seen as a testament to Blanche’s piety and supportive efforts towards her children’s education while also indicating her wealth and influence. However, it is in Chaucer’s eulogy of Blanche that the full extent of her influence can be examined, even if the produced image was beyond the physical reach of Blanche. It is the contention of this study to propose that Blanche’s imagery fashioned after her death did as much to hold true to the medieval idea of the ideal woman as it did to help fashion that ideal.

Therefore, the first hurdle that must be traversed is the subject of what constitutes the epitome of the “ideal woman” to the medieval world in the fourteenth century.

Over the course of the Middle Ages many traditions solidified into the ideals with which not only the medieval culture could identify, but contemporaries today can readily imagine when asked. The example that was given in Chapter 1 was the image of a chivalrous metal-plated knight honoring a beautiful and highly sought-after lady dressed in a huge flowing gown sitting above the crowd observing a joust. The silent but beautiful woman assumes an angelic pose untouched by the worldly scene beneath her. This medieval ideal woman was then someone who, as discussed in Chapter 1, was a virgin, or one who exhibited virginal attributes being unattached to earthly worries, and who was worthy of adoration by those around her.189 Often the ideal woman would be pursued by a man who believed her above him in heavenliness and social

187 Pugh, An Introduction, 127.

188 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 113.

189 See Chapter 1 for a more detailed description of the similarities between Christianity’s influences on the medieval ideal for women.

58 manners. She would not be like those women who were seen as fanciful, deceitful, or wanton.

Therefore, overall the ideal woman would have physical beauty coupled with a stable reputation, and holy qualities analogous with similar qualities found in Christianity. The medieval woman took care of her household, her children, the needy, was beautiful, and held the heavenly over the earthly; the Christian woman should do the same. No matter how much Blanche physically adhered to these ideals, Chaucer forever entombed her postmortem in the mantle of perfection.

Despite Chaucer’s well-known fame for The Canterbury Tales, his first published work was the Book of the Duchess. Although in this book Chaucer fashioned a character more commonly associated with courtly love literature, he nevertheless included unique details of

Blanche’s characteristics and courtship with John of Gaunt in order to create a lasting eulogy for

Blanche.190 It has been determined that Gaunt commissioned Chaucer to produce this eulogy sometime between her death in 1368 and 1372.191 There has been much contention as to when

Chaucer wrote this poem; most prevalent in recent scholarship seems to be within the four years after her death. John N. Palmer provided some evidence-driven reasons to this timeline. Palmer states that the poem had to be created before 1372 for that year Gaunt gave up the title of

Richmond and Chaucer clearly refers to Gaunt as earl of Richmond in verse 1319 “Be Seynt

190 See Arthur W. Bahr’s and John J. Anderson’s articles on the discussion and evidence for Chaucer adding unique characteristics of Blanche within the French model of poetry. Which “does more than break the mould of the set-piece description of a beautiful woman by adding individual touches; it suggests a complexity in the lady.” John J. Anderson, “The Man in Black, Machaut’s Knight, and Their Ladies,” English Studies 5 (1992), 418; Bahr, “The Rhetorical Construction of Narrator and Narrative,” 43-59.

191 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 966. The editors of The Riverside state they found in the Fairfax Manuscript a note in the hand of John Stowe “stating that Chaucer wrote the poem at the request of the Duke of Lancaster “pitiously complaynynge the deathe of the sayd dutchess Blanche.”” Sumner Ferris also mentioned the same note by John Stowe. Sumner Ferris, “John Stowe and the Tomb of Blanche the Duchess,” The Chaucer Review 18 (1983), 92-93.

Johan, on a ryche hil.”192 Furthermore, Palmer contended that if the poem was written after

Gaunt’s second marriage, then it could have been both an “insult to his new wife” and a “satire directed against the duke” placing him as the “inconstant lover” because of his liaison with

Katherine.193 Palmer does not agree with this contention, because it would have greatly hurt

Chaucer’s reputation and chances for patronage. Nevertheless, in this eulogy Chaucer fused ideas of a corporeal woman with an idealized figure molded by traditional medieval culture.

In Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess, Blanche’s image is molded by the three elements of the ideal medieval woman: beauty, a stable reputation, and holy qualities. All of the characters showed signs of traditional courtly love, morality, and legends of people from saints to Arthur juxtaposed with Christian and medieval ideals. It is Blanche’s image that is recreated for

Chaucer’s audience. Stephen Manning in his article “Chaucer’s Good Fair White: Woman and

Symbol” also proposed Chaucer “idealize[d] Blanche.”194 However, Manning’s theory generalized Blanche’s image by focusing on quantifying Blanche as a personification of beauty, goodness, and joy themselves, meaning “the loss, then, becomes not merely John of Gaunt’s, but the world’s.”195 However, to further break down her image as the medieval ideal and the first of these ideal elements is necessary. Her indescribable beauty is the first thing the Man in Black notices about her, “among these ladyes thus…for al the world so hadde she surmounted hem alle

192 John N. Palmer, “The Historical Context of the Book of the Duchess: A Revision.” The Chaucer Review 8 (1974), 258; Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 346. Derek Pearsall agrees with this contention. Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, 109.

193 Palmer, “The Historical Context,” 259.

194 Stephen Manning, “Chaucer’s Good Fair White: Woman and Symbol,” Comparative Literature 10 (Spring 1958), 98.

195 Manning, “Chaucer’s Good Fair White,” 99.

60 of beaute, of manner, and of comlynesse, of stature, and of wel set gladnesse.”196 The Man in

Black continued with a long lament that he had “no wit that kan suffise to comprehende hir beaute. But thus moche dar I sayn, that she was whit, rody, fresh, and lyvely hewed, and every day hir beaute newed. And negh hir face was alderbest, for certes Nature had swich lest to make that fair that trewly she was hir chef patron of beaute, and chef ensample of al hir werk.”197 Thus

Chaucer took numerous liberties with his description of Blanche’s beauty and simply followed the French tradition in terms of how he presented the information. However, he exaggerates her immutable and unattainable perfection to the point that the audience has no choice, but to imagine a model. At the same time Chaucer added in his poem certain characteristics that

Anderson has proclaimed as unique to the original French poetry when the Man in Black proclaimed “Nas seyn so blysful a tresor. For every heer on hir hed, soth to seyne, hyt was not red, ne nouther yelowe ne broun hyt nas; me thoghte most lyk gold hyt was,” was such an instance.198 Anderson stated that here the “convention is satisfied, but the reader is left with a sense of an individual hair colour.”199 Hence Blanche clearly adheres to the medieval convention of beauty, both traditionally and individually.

The next element of Blanche’s lasting image is her reputation. Here we can use another of Anderson’s unique finds about Blanche personality when Chaucer focused on her “goodly

196 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 340-341.

197 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 340-341.

198 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 340. Armitage-Smith agreed with this theory. For despite necessary modes of literature he was writing this for those who knew Blanche the best and therefore, certain characteristics, he could not change. See Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 14.

199 Anderson, “The Man in Black, Machaut’s Knight, and Their Ladies.” 421-422.

61 speke and so friendly, and so wel ygrounded.”200 Obviously to Chaucer, his character Blanche was educated, and openly friendly with a steadfast demeanor. Moreover this version of Blanche

“loved so wel right she wrong do wolde to no wyght. No wyght myghte do hir noo shame, she loved so wel hir owne name.”201 Here, if Chaucer can be believed, Blanche took care of her name, meaning her reputation was a priority. The Man in Black’s memory spoke equally highly of her reputation when he recalled “hir eyen semed…hyt nas no countrefeted thyng; hyt was hir owne pure lokyng.”202 Therefore, with a steady and true reputation, she seemingly was so well loved by her family, social peers, and society that it was natural for this over-perfected image to be the norm for Blanche. The Man in Black even made this assumption as well, “I leve yow wel, that trewely yow thoghte that she was the beste…Nay, alle that hir seyen seyde and sworen hyt was soo.”203 More unique and interesting is the Man in Black’s proclamation that his lady’s

“record was founde as trewe as any bond or trouthe of any mannes hond.”204 The equalization of

Blanche’s word to that of a man is highly rare. In a time that women are found to be fickle, as

Pizan bemoaned, for Blanche to have such a strong image is a testament to her own power and her life-long adherence to maintaining her reputation. This study advanced the claim about

Blanche’s unmarred reputation because there are no chroniclers that have survived stating otherwise, and there are numerous records which survived that slandered Katherine and Gaunt.

Even Constance is mentioned in these records and although she is not disliked by the authors she is also not commemorated as the ideal woman. Rather, Constance is seen as more the unfortunate

200 Anderson, “The Man in Black, Machaut’s Knight, and Their Ladies.” 421-422.

201 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 342.

202 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 340-341.

203 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 343.

204 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 341.

62 displaced queen whose life has been a series of dead ends, a much more humanized figure compared to Blanche. It seems natural also because Blanche, if she was even remotely like other noblewomen half her rank, had an extensive network of people under her employ and service who easily could have debunked Chaucer’s assessment of her reputation. Not only did this image persist, but it grew stronger till The Book of the Duchess became the best and closest source for finding information concerning the appearance and personality of Blanche.205

This “goode faire white” lady was further described as perfect in her morality and piety giving her countenance an almost legendary or saintly aura with her holy qualities. Therefore, this unattainable, saintly woman was held up for all to remember and emulate, and truly even

Blanche herself could not keep up with this image. In many ways, to the medieval audience, this expression of grace, character, and proper upbringing was enough to depict an ideal woman.

Although this piety is the last attribute considered in this study, the Man in Black mentioned it first. Before the figure began to talk to the Dreamer he lamented to himself that “Now that I see my lady bryght, which I have loved with al my myght, is fro me ded and ys agoon.”206 Numerous times Chaucer used a word play on Blanche’s name; however, these words easily allude to a saintly aura as well. The symbolism of white restated time and again stood for purity, sinless, and heavenly beings. Blanche’s name is not the only instance. Chaucer continued down this path when he compared her to the “someres sonne bryght” and “ys fairer, clerer, and hath more light thean any other planete in heven.”207 Finally Chaucer and the Man in Black teeter on the edge of making a heretical statement concerning this perfected image, that she “had as moche debonairte

205 This assertion was made because Chaucer’s description of Blanche is used verbatim in many books that describe Blanche. See Goodman, John of Gaunt, 33-34; Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 14; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 34.

206 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 336.

207 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 340.

63 as ever had Hester in the Bible, and more yif it were possible.”208 Norman Webster also emphasizes this theme, including in his short biography numerous illustrations of Blanche’s piety and kindness. For example, she requested from the pope special “portable alters” for her and the household and sent a number of interventions to the king on behalf of others, such as a pardon for one John Bulleson accused of killing another man.209 It is very interesting that to the

Man in Black beauty is only a third of the endearing qualities of his “lady bryght,” while he spends more time, as does the medieval model proposed here, on the “inner nature” where the character believed her true “value to him lies.”210 Additionally, by placing her character on the same plane as a woman from the Bible, Chaucer connected the traditional comparisons of the medieval society on the Bible and elevated Blanche herself to almost saintly status with her holy qualities.

In fact, Chaucer was not the only admirer and commemorator of Blanche’s beauty and personality. Jean Froissart, chronicler and poet, was born in Valenciennes in Hainaut around

1337 and was a fellow countryman of Queen Philippa. Froissart accomplished many literary works and was quite famous during his time. His best known work, Chronicles and his poetry revolve around actions of the nobility of Europe and the “renewal of the chivalric code of behavior and the glorification of the concept of nobility.”211 Froissart mentioned Blanche in his

Chronicles and his long narrative poem, Le Joli Buissonde Jonece. This inclusion is almost to be expected because Froissart serviced as Queen Philippa’s secretary until her death in 1369, a few months after Blanche had passed. What is unique is according to Froissart’s Le Joli Buissonde

208 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 342.

209 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 44-45.

210 Anderson, “The Man in Black,” 428.

211 Figg and Palmer, ed. Jean Froissart, 1.

Jonece Blanche might have been his second largest supporter in England, because after his praise of Queen Philippa, Blanche is mentioned in eleven lines, with both of these ladies enjoying voluminous comments.212 Froissart begins by calling Blanche the queen’s “daughter of

Lancaster” and speaks of his sorrow at her death, “when I remember her, it is certainly fitting for me to sigh…so full of melancholy…I wring my hands, I beat my palms.”213 He then, similar to

Chaucer, enumerates Blanche’s plentiful virtues “young and beautiful…gay, pleasing, lively, full of joy, sweet, simple, of humble demeanor…this very good lady was named Blanche.”214 It is also worthy to note that Froissart lists three women of the English court, before he continued across the channel to his patrons in Europe. There was no mention of Gaunt at all and even

Edward III is noted after his wife, Blanche, and his daughter, Isabel of Coucy.215 On the other hand, Froissart in his extremely popular Chronicles does not provide Blanche with the same importance. However due to the military nature of the Chronicles this is not surprising. Blanche is mentioned in passing however, in Book IV along with the other two duchesses of Lancaster.

Froissart focused more on the unexpected marriage of Katherine to Gaunt, but does indeed state that Katherine was employed by Blanche and Gaunt in their household.216 Finally Froissart strongly established Blanche’s high birth by comparing her to Katherine’s and by proxy as

Katherine ranked “as the second lady in England” so too did Blanche before her death.217 Thus

212 Froissart, Le Joli Buissonde Jonece, in Jean Froissart, ed. Figg and Palmer, 277.

213 Froissart, Le Joli Buissonde Jonece, in Jean Froissart, ed. Figg and Palmer, 277.

214 Froissart, Le Joli Buissonde Jonece, in Jean Froissart, ed. Figg and Palmer, 277.

215 Froissart, Le Joli Buissonde Jonece, in Jean Froissart, ed. Figg and Palmer, 277.

216 Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and ed. Brereton, 418-419.

217 Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and ed. Brereton, 419.

Froissart is more practical and succinct in his description of Blanche, but despite the briefness, the attributes and image portrayed are extremely similar to Chaucer.

Blanche, both the woman and the image, exonerated the necessary qualities of unmistakable beauty, pure reputation, and piety that were expected in a woman who was the epitome of medieval womanhood. Moreover these self-same qualities were mentioned in Pizan when the French author urged women to be virtuous so that men would speak more highly of women’s intelligence and steadfastness. Hence, just as much as Blanche’s image adhered to the traditional epitome of medieval womanhood, it is possible that she, through Chaucer, enhanced the ideal. Although it is extremely doubtful Pizan read the Book of the Duchess, both literary works require the same standards of medieval women. Additionally not many other noblewomen have a eulogy written and published concerning them. Therefore, shown within this section is how similar Chaucer’s “lady bryght” is to Pizan’s ideal woman. First when admonishing women to care for their households, Pizan emphasizes that women should not put on false fronts in court or “slander” another at court creating injury and harm.218 This use of slander is something that the Man in Black said was opposite of his lady’s character for her gaze was not counterfeited towards men, nor was there “never yet through hir tonge man ne woman gretly harmed.”219

Noblewomen were to be courteous and friendly, just as Blanche was, as stated above, “she will be so humane and courteous that her words will be pleasing to God and to all the world.”220

Many times Chaucer explicitly implied the lady’s intelligence, “which a goodly, softe speche…up al resound so wel yfounded.”221 Finally, Chaucer expounds that this representation

218 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 162.

219 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 341.

220 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 83.

221 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 341.

66 of Blanche had the “moste grace to have steadfast perseveraunce and esy, atempre governaunce.”222 Pizan likewise touches on this subject throughout her book, speaking of the

“wise and capable” wife, a woman who can act “with good judgment” in her family, lands, and households.223 Although these are only some of the major instances of the similarities between

Pizan and Chaucer’s “lady bryght,” suffice it to say they at least held the same ideal women up for emulation by others, whether or not it was added by Blanche. These similarities further define Blanche’s perfected image and how this image could not have been all found in the corporeal person of Blanche, but rather was an invention after her death which raised her to perfection of the medieval ideal woman. This ideal woman remained in the medieval consciousness for many years.

As discussed in this chapter, Blanche, although placed high on an idealized pedestal, was a highly influential, autonomous, and powerful aristocratic woman in her own right. Her power and prestige only grew with her marriage to Gaunt and her inheritance of the entire Lancastrian lands. Through her family circle she had many avenues to exert her power and influence while

Gaunt was away and in the early lives of her children. Then through her rank as an eminent aristocratic noblewoman Blanche was able to deploy numerous tools to distribute her influence and agency. Some of the greatest of these were her household, castles, hospitality, local economies, and patronization. Despite her possible exceedingly active life very few records have survived to show evidence for the more historical figure. Instead, Chaucer’s and Froissart’s more idealized ideas of Blanche are more prevalent. Although they solidified her place in history, they removed the power, influence, and autonomy of a noblewoman and fashioned instead a saintly figure which was the perfect woman—subdued and pure, unattainable and beautiful. If she was a

222 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 342.

223 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 170-171.

67 fusion of both of these images, beautiful and powerful, influential and subdued, then she truly would have been an ideal woman of the fourteenth century.

Chapter 3

THE EMPEROURES DOGHTER

Of the Emperoures doghter, dame Custance… A doghter hath that, syn the world bigan, To rekene as wel hir goodnesse as beautee, Nas nevere swich another as is shee. I prey to God in honour hire susteene, And wolde she were of al Europe the queene.224

Constance of Castile, who inspired Geoffrey Chaucer in his “Man of Law Tale,” is the largely ignored second wife of John of Gaunt. Not only is she disregarded as a pawn by historians studying Gaunt, but she is largely neglected in the histories of her birth country,

Castile and Leon. She seems at first glance to be the means to an end for Gaunt, yet through her inheritance Gaunt was able to make a plausible claim to the crown of Castile and Leon.

Constance could easily have been a powerful foreign presence in England and in the Iberian

Peninsula. However, her father’s, Pedro the Cruel (1334-1369), reputation influenced her tenuous claim to the crown and his untimely death forced her to marry and remain in England.

Although a displaced and foreign queen, Constance used England and Gaunt as a conduit for authority and power. As in Chapter 2, this chapter will discuss Constance’s life and power first, then her rank as a foreign displaced royal will be studied, her use of queenship in a foreign kingdom, and finally, her influence on Chaucer will be analyzed.

Unlike Blanche and Katherine, who will be covered in Chapter 4, Constance has been passed over in historical scholarship, not only in favor of Gaunt, but for his two other wives as well. Blanche has been lauded for her vast inheritance, her major influence on Chaucer, and her branch of the Lancastrian line on the English throne. Katherine is a key figure in most histories because Gaunt put much of his energy into promoting her to the status of duchess and

224 Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 89.

69 legitimizing her children with him. Constance, however, allowed Gaunt to push for the Castilian crown and her actions, or lack of actions, helped to further the Hundred Years War.225 By marrying Gaunt, producing a daughter, Catherine of Lancaster, and trying to regain Castile with

Gaunt in 1386, Constance helped finalize the civil war in Castile. Regardless, Constance is relegated to mere footnotes in the annals of both England and Spain for the Middle Ages. She is treated with indifference for various reasons; yet, as claimed, Constance did in fact express her own power, through both her inaction and her choosing of Gaunt to marry in order to help regain the throne of Castile.

In academic dialogue, Constance’s relevance to events and power rarely is covered.

Similar to Blanche, Constance is always brought up in the same breath as Gaunt, and even then it is her inheritance that is the defining feature. No biography or article in English has been discovered for this research. The biographies published on Gaunt and Katherine, those who were closest to Constance, provides a foundation for her movement through time. Sydney Armitage-

Smith’s John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster included numerous instances of Constance’s background and her involvement with Gaunt. Armitage-

Smith primarily focused the notes for Constance on where she was at a certain time, such as the location and people who went with her to England after marriage or where she had her children.226 However, he also included frequent references to Constance’s actions or how she was consistently supporting, in one way or another, Gaunt’s recovery of Castile. Armitage-Smith does not explicitly say the words power and agency when discussing Constance, yet his wording

225 For more information on the Hundred Years War please see Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978); Jacques Le Goff, ed., The Medieval World: The History of European Society, translated by Lydia G. Coehrane, (London: Parkgate Books Ltd, 1990); George Homes, The Later Medieval Ages, 1272-1485, Vol. 3, Christopher Brooke and Denis Mack Smith, eds., A History of England (London: Thomas Nelson Ltd., 1962).

226 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 93, 119-120.

70 implies times when Constance exercised both.227 Armitage-Smith, writing in 1905, never delved into what this implementation of power by Constance meant for Gaunt or his ambitions in

Castile, and read too much into her “feelings” at times.228 But overall he published the most extensive biographical assessment of Constance, even while using her as a supporting character to Gaunt’s life. Another biography written in 1992 is Anthony Goodman’s John of Gaunt: The

Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe. Goodman includes Constance specifically in many events throughout Gaunt’s life, but only to the extent that she was a bystander. Twice however, Goodman conceded Constance did have a small portion of power. He mentioned Constance provided some small measure of advice for Gaunt and noted some authoritative power Gaunt gave to her.229 However, Goodman made the claim that after 1388 she had once again “lost her political importance” and was then only an obstacle to Gaunt.230

Goodman acknowledged Constance’s working influence, but after she gives up her claim to

Castile she descends back into oblivion. Goodman certainly does not give as much credit directly to Constance as Armitage-Smith, but he conceded some function of agency on the part of the duchess.

Alison Weir’s Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of

Lancaster (2007) offers a plethora of information about Constance’s movements and locations throughout her marriage with Gaunt.231 Her agency and power are given less significance than in

Goodman. After regaling her audience with step by step movements of Constance in England,

227 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 224, 301, 321. See also the section Constance’s Ideas and Exercise of Power in this chapter.

228 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 92.

229 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 314, 361.

230 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 361.

231 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 109, 122, 178.

Weir gives no indication that Constance had any tangible power there or any true agency while in Castile during the 1380s. In fact Constance’s involvement reads more like a hindrance or a duty for Gaunt, rather than an individual who was working closely with Gaunt to apprehend the throne of Castile.232 In Clara Estow’s Pedro the Cruel of Castile, 1350-1369 (1995), as far as histories of medieval Spain go, Constance is referred to more often, but still only in the context of her father or Gaunt. Constance’s mother and grandmother are shown as wielding power and influence on the affairs of state, but Pedro’s daughters are not.233 Granted, Constance and her sisters are minors at this time, but there are no defined powers or autonomy for them after the death of their father. Estow leaves them in the hands of Gaunt, just like the rest. These biographies, with the exception of Armitage-Smith, do not credit Constance’s actions to her own use of power or agency. Contrarily, as contended before, she did in fact have a great deal of power, she simply did not use it in the normal way a man would or even the English would.

Hence her actions are misconstrued or obscure to many contemporaries and academics.

Another primary feature to this chapter is Constance’s use and idea of queenship and power. John Carmi Parsons’ most valuable Medieval Queenship (1997), discussed queenship both English and foreign uses of power. Parsons’ anthology published a chapter by Parsons and one by Roger Collins. These two chapters dealt with queenship in England and the Iberian

Peninsula respectively. Parsons argued well the more subtle and feminine ways through which queens in England passed on their queenship to their daughters. Through the use of marriage alliances, queens could build up loyal subjects in England, thereby using their influence and

232 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 228, 243-245.

233 Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 128.

72 agency within the feminine realm, but accomplishing their goal just as readily as kings.234 These queens would also use educated daughters to build up loyalty and their own interests in foreign kingdoms.235 Although Parsons does not include Constance directly and most of his evidence lies with older generations of queens in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the information he has researched on the agency available to queens in England is relevant. In Collins’ chapter he also dealt with queens earlier in the Middle Ages, yet these royal women were living in the tenth century kingdoms of Leon and Navarre. These queens offer an excellent contrast to English queens, with Iberian queens engaging in more physical, kingly power than the queenship tendencies than the English.236 Both of these types of queenship influence Constance. On one hand she is raised in a kingdom more open for physical power of queens, but she is forced to work most of her life within England’s culture.

In addition to the anthology, two biographies of relevant queens focus a great deal on the idea of queenship. One is Parsons’ Eleanor of Castile (1995). Parsons develops more fully the ideas in the anthology with this biography. Eleanor of Castile’s queenship, similar to Constance, transformed with her traveling from Castile to England. Eleanor’s queenship as argued by

Parsons is deeply personal and political. Through “informal, relational arenas…unofficial and official, margin and center, ‘private’ and ‘public,’” Eleanor was able to command her own type of queenship, feminine in nature, but no less tangible.237 This powerful queenship and influence

234 John Carmi Parsons, “Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150-1500,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1997), 72.

235 Parsons, “Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150-1500,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 73-74.

236 Parsons, “Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150-1500,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 87-90.

237 John Carmi Parsons, Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 249.

73 was exhibited in her “literary interests, the marriages she arranged, the cultivation of her relatives, the training of her daughters,” which “all extended her reach within the diplomatic and curial milieu in which she functioned.”238 While discussing Eleanor of Castile for how a typical foreign queen in England exercised her power and influence it is also necessary to examine an atypical queen in Castile. The well-researched biography of Berenguela of Castile by Janna

Bianchini offered an exceptional contrast to Eleanor and a strong foundation for evidence on queenship in Castile. Berenguela utilized a great deal of physical, political, and familial power throughout her long life. She owned key properties, inherited Castile in her own right, and was the key instrument though which the kingdoms of Castile and Leon came together.239 Equally true however, to exercise her power Berenguela had to avoid perception as a “threat to the masculine order.”240 Although none of these works dealt with Constance by name, the situations and the ideas of queenship directly influenced Constance in her own time.

Thus Constance in this chapter should be viewed as more than a two-dimensional character tossed about and piteously waiting for Gaunt to win back the throne. She, as will be argued, came from a long line of queens and women from Castile who had defined ideas of queenship and substantial power. She, despite her circumstances, utilized what power and autonomy was left to her in England after the Castilian throne was wrenched away. Moreover,

Constance used this power and influence to aid Gaunt in the reclaiming of her inheritance, for it was not Gaunt’s fight but Constance’s rightful kingdom that led Constance and Gaunt to work

238 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 249-250.

239 Janna Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand: Power and Authority in the Reign of Berenguela of Castile (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2013), 257-258.

240 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 3-4.

74 for over a decade to regain what was lost. To salvage some of Constance’s power, this study will begin with laws, war, and women in Castile.

Tumultuous Castile

Castile was created in a hotbed of civil turbulence because of its location.241 In the tenth century, Castile was first recognized as a separate entity from Leon, the Asturias, and Galicia through the efforts of the famous Fernan Gonzalez Count of Castile (923-970). The small country differed from its neighbors in more ways than one. First, Castile was in constant contact with Islamic Spain, meaning Islamic invaders and raiding parties were consistent along the western Duero area and molded the inhabitants into a more militaristic and internalized society.242 Second, under the rule of Gonzalez the feudal “buffer” lands of Castile became embroiled in familial disputes. Gonzalez was extremely ambitious and through a series of advantageous marriages of himself and especially his daughter to three “royal heirs of Leon and

Navarre” managed to remain in the forefront of the political arena and feudal wars during the tenth century.243 These advantageous marriages helped to set the precedent for the heirs of

Gonzalez who were constantly battling for more land with their Islamic neighbors, while engaging in the dynastic politics of the kingdoms of Leon and Navarre. All of these events of course happened under the extensive Reconquista era in Spain lasting from the eighth to the fifteenth century. This “reconquest” of lands is best described by historian Joseph O’Callaghan in his book, A History of Medieval Spain. O’Callaghan argued the Reconquista:

241 For well-researched books on the history of medieval Spain please see Joseph O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975); Charles E. Chapman, History of Spain (New York: MacMillan Company, 1922); Gabriel Jackson, The Making of Medieval Spain (Norwich: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, INC., 1972); Stanley G. Payne, Spain and Portugal: In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973).

242 Jackson, The Making of Medieval Spain, 36-38.

243 Jackson, The Making of Medieval Spain, 39.

may be described as a holy war in the sense that it was a conflict prompted by religious hostility. But it was something more than that. By proclaiming oneself a Christian, Muslim, or a Jew, one espoused specific religious doctrines and…a whole system of cultural values that affected one’s daily life, one’s habits, traditions, laws, and even language. The difficulty…of reconciling or assimilating these different religious and cultural points of view was at the root of the struggle. Both sides came to recognize that it could only end with the complete triumph of one over the other.244

Another factor which set medieval Spain apart from the rest of Christendom was that noblewomen and royal women retained more authority and power, both in the political and physical sense. Marriage was an excellent way of forging alliances with familial ties reaching across medieval Spain. The noble and royal women were able to serve as regents in the case of minorities and this happened quite frequently. For example, Alfonso XI of Castile (1312-1350) ascended the throne when he was one year old and his grandmother, Maria de Molina, was recognized by the cortes, a type of Castilian Parliament, in 1315 as regent.245 O’Callaghan made a very convincing argument that Molina previously had “defended the throne and…guard[ed] the king’s person.”246 Moreover, during the remainder of Alfonso XI’s minority Molina was the only authority figure who was “capable of containing the contending factions” within the nobility.247

Throughout the Middle Ages all of the Iberian Peninsula was immersed in of upheaval due to the Reconquista, feudal wars, and an entangled web of dynastic politics. From the tenth century onward, Castile had also undergone a series of minors ruling the kingdom and the young kings coupled with the unsteady alliances with neighboring kingdoms and the Reconquista produced a very different culture from that of England. However, similar to the rest of Europe,

244 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 22.

245 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 403.

246 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 403.

247 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 403. See the section Constance’s Ideas and Exercise of Power of this chapter for more information concerning Castilian, Spanish, and English female royalty and power.

Castilian kings were questioning the ideas of kingship and rested heavily on the “concept of hereditary monarchy.”248 Constance’s grandfather, Alfonso XI, was ambitious and strove to strengthen his hold on Castile and the surrounding areas. At this time Portugal, Castile, Leon, and Aragon were constantly playing tug-of-war with lands and the situations were worsened by the numerous illegitimate pursuers of the crowns. Yet, under Alfonso XI Castile had a small reprieve from the worry of the surrounding areas and Alfonso XI was able to focus on the internal politics within Castile, by having his “ultimate goal” be the establishment of a “pure

[autocratic] royal sovereignty in Castile.”249 He was able to curb some of the feuding nobles in

Castile, most of who were his overzealous relations.250

The idea of direct hereditary monarchy came into sharp focus when Alfonso XI died in

1350, leaving the kingdom in the hands of his eldest legitimate son with Maria of Portugal,

Pedro. The sixteen-year old was automatically in a precarious situation with his older half brother, Henry of Trastamara (1333-1379), the issue of an illegitimate relationship with Alfonso

XI’s long time and powerful mistress, Leonor de Guzman. Trastamara, a serious contender for the throne, already had more experience and the powerful backing of some of the Castilian nobles.251 Unlike in England, the Castilian nobles retained much more power throughout the medieval era because of the multiple feudal wars and the struggle for power during the

Reconquista. There was very little time for the kings to consolidate the kingdoms for themselves, and the nobility continuously retained the ability to conquer more land. However, very early in

Pedro’s reign while he was trying to remove any and all opposition to his rule, legend has it

248 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 125.

249 Payne, Spain and Portugal, 144.

250 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 408-409.

251 Payne, Spain and Portugal, 147.

77 someone under the supposed advisement of Juan Alfonso de Albuquerque, had Trastamara’s mother murdered.252 There is much contention surrounding this event. All the sources seem to agree that de Guzman was murdered, rather than succumbing to some unfortunate illness. Yet, the timing of the execution and under whose authority it was ordered is another matter entirely.

O’Callaghan, contended it was the Queen Mother, Maria of Portugal that had de Guzman imprisoned and executed, rather than Pedro himself.253 Her involvement would certainly put

Pedro as innocent when the fighting began with Trastamara and explain why most of his common subjects were loyal to him during the first years of his rule. Furthermore, Estow argued that the “execution of Leonor was not unexpected, particularly shocking, or universally disapproved of.”254 If these statements are closer to the truth, then Pedro, whether or not it was his initiative, was in his authority to meet the rebelliousness of his step-brothers and his harsh actions are seen as unification efforts rather than retaliation. Armitage-Smith stated “Pedro began his reign with moderation and attempts to conciliate…it was only after his efforts were met with distrust and treachery that his temper hardened and…Pedro adopted harsher measures.”255 This clearly showed the power, autonomy, and authority of Maria. She commanded sufficient power to order the execution of another person, and de Guzman was another extremely powerful woman with many supporters.

This inward turmoil brought into sharp focus the differing ideas of kingship between

Castile and England. Whereas Pedro the Cruel was fighting for a strong “central monarchy” or an absolute monarchy, England was already adhering to this code. The idea of absolute

252 See Payne, Spain and Portugal, 146-147; Chapman, History of Spain, 118.

253 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 419. Estow agrees there is no evidence that Pedro was behind the execution. Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 128.

254 Estow, Pedro the Cruel of Castile, 127.

255 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 36.

78 monarchy according to Terry Jones “was seen as the only way to control the warring barons…the fear of factionalism and internecine war was particularly strong where the ruler was a child.”256 Pedro, from the beginning, constantly had to prove himself a mature and determined king. This idea of an absolute monarchy was extremely popular in Europe and was the precursor to the theory of divine kingship.257 Although Pedro tried to employ these popular ideals and the strength of his father when it came to ruling his subjects, allowing the murder of de Guzman and his leniency with some of the Jews living in Castile quickly created enemies.258 Trastamara was the major opposition to Pedro the Cruel. As Charles Chapman argued, Pedro “lacked the patience and diplomacy which had distinguished his father…he was, above all, impetuous and determined to procure immediate remedies.”259 When his illegitimate brothers, headed by Trastamara, began to revolt in the early 1350s, Pedro was clearly the victor, but gave more lenience towards his brothers than their mother.

In 1353 Pedro contracted a marriage to the French princess, Blanche of Bourbon (1339-

1361), which would haunt the rest of his reign and garner dislike across Europe. The issue was

Pedro’s interest in her only lasted two to three days.260 Pedro was much more involved with his own mistress, Maria de Padilla (1334-1361). Padilla came from a “good family” of lesser nobility in Castile, was quickly was catapulted to Pedro’s favorite at court, and had been in a relationship since May 1352.261 As a result of various events, Blanche of Bourbon was

256 Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer?, 50.

257 Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer?, 50.

258 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 36-37.

259 Chapman, History of Spain, 117-118.

260 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 420.

261 Chapman, History of Spain, 118-119; Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 131-132.

79 imprisoned and Pedro was able to have their marriage annulled despite the Pope’s interference.262 This greatly enraged the French for their princess had been abused and dishonored through Pedro’s actions in favor of his mistress. These actions also infuriated the papacy. Pope Innocent allied closely with France, and for many years defended Bourbon’s rights as queen and wife.263 However, Bourdon was not to be his last false marriage. In the mid 1350s

Pedro married Juana de Castro, but “was only able to wait one day before returning to Maria de

Padilla.”264 It was in the midst of these ill-received, albeit passionate, political movements that

Padilla bore Pedro three children: Beatrice, Constance, and Isabel.265 Born in 1354, Constance was thrown into this world of revolving politics. While no sure source has survived, the general consensus is that Pedro married Padilla at some point during their relationship. Armitage-Smith noted Pedro had “secretly” married Padilla around the time that he married and imprisoned

Blanche of Bourbon.266 However, Armitage-Smith did not include a reference for this proposal.

O’Callaghan supported and clarified the claim by stating in 1362 Pedro summoned the cortes and

“announced that ten years before he had secretly married.”267 If Pedro and Padilla were actually

262 Chapman, History of Spain, 119.

263 Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 142.

264 Chapman, History of Spain, 119.

265 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 92. Most sources do not mention the eldest sister that Armitage-Smith gives in his book. Armitage-Smith stated that Beatrice “took the veil and died soon after” around 1366 the same year the entire family had to go into exile in Bordeaux. Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 92. However, within recent years Estow agreed that Beatrice was born in 1353 and died in 1367. Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 137, 264. Therefore, with the strong evidence that Beatrice did in fact exist she was out of the picture by the time the Black Prince, Edward and John of Gaunt arrived in Castile in the late 1360s. Additionally a fourth child has come into the picture. O’Callaghan wrote that there were four children by Padilla to Pedro, however, he does not go into details. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 423. Yet, again Estow provided evidence to this fact. The fourth child was a son, Alfonso, born in 1359 and died in 1362. Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 212-13. Yet, this still means that by 1371 Constance was the heir.

266 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 37.

267 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 423.

80 married, or if like Katherine’s Beaufort children their daughters were legitimized after the fact, no one argued differently and Padilla could not discount the claim for by 1362 she was dead.

Added to this evidence, Estow agrees that Pedro proclaimed he had been secretly married to

Padilla since 1352 and had produced witnesses to attest to the highly questionable situation.268

Nonetheless, the assembly relied on the king’s claim and that of his witnesses and acknowledged his children by Padilla. This secret marriage would be an interesting and seemingly important fact to not only Pedro, but to Castile. Most histories and biographies side with Gaunt that

Constance was the legitimate heir, even the ones focused on Spain or Castile. Yet, if Constance was never legitimatized through true marriage or through legal avenues, then Trastamara would have almost as much right to the throne as she. Some thirteenth-century municipal laws in

Castile stated “half brothers and half sisters are all claimants” to inheritance rights.269 On the other hand, examining the feudal wars of Castile revels that legitimatization seems to mean something different to the Castilian people than it did to the English and it could be that

Constance was seen as the heir regardless of marriage simply because she was the first in line.

Beginning in 1361 a series of events set the stage for a number of transcontinental alliances and would bring the civil wars in Castile into the larger picture of the Hundred Years

War. That same year Padilla and Pedro’s ex-wife, Bourbon died within months of each other. By

1365 Trastamara formed an alliance with the king of Aragon, Pedro IV, France, and had gathered a “formidable mercenary” army encamping in France called the “White Companies.”270 The army equaled the entrance of France and thereby England into the Iberian Peninsula. For once

268 Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 212-213.

269 Susan Mosher Stuard, Women in Medieval Society (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 75.

270 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 38; Chapman, History of Spain, 120.

81 the French allied themselves with Trastamara and Pedro IV. Pedro the Cruel called on the old alliance with England. On New Year’s Day 1366 Trastamara plunged into Castilian lands calling himself King Henry II and the people were happy to receive him as Enrique “el Magnifico.”271

With this reception by Pedro’s subjects, the physical and financial backing of the French and the papacy, Trastamara dubbed himself Henry II of Castile. Pedro quickly decided to flee. By spring

Pedro and his three daughters landed at Bayonne in order to seek refuge with the English at

Bordeaux. After fashioning an extensive contract with the English, Pedro left his daughters at

Bordeaux as surety for repayment and as a good-will gesture.272 This alliance allowed Pedro to take advantage of the financial backing and fresh troops. This alliance was agreeable to the

English for it provided an avenue to fight their age-old enemy. On another front, the contract fulfilled the English wish of garnering a new political ally and more land, and more importantly led the Black Prince and Gaunt to Castile.

These events, all before Constance’s twelfth birthday, had to fashion Constance’s idea of power, royal authority, and the need for strong support. There is not much recorded about

Constance’s childhood, but presumably despite Pedro’s drop in popularity and reckless actions across the years she was still raised to be a princess of the realm. By rights her older sister,

Beatrice, was the heir. According to Armitage-Smith Beatrice decided to join a nunnery as mentioned above and eventually died in 1367.273 Constance did not give in so easily; she, with

Isabel, waited in tense surroundings in a foreign kingdom. This wait would only serve as a foreshadowing to the fifteen years she would wait for Gaunt to gather resources for the invasion into Castile. As a princess, she should have been commanding servants and learning how to be a

271 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 39.

272 Jones, The Plantagenets, 431.

273 Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 264.

82 helpmate to king through the royal household, gaining support from their nobles, and furthering his ambitions by being an example of medieval womanhood. These requirements were the foundations of queenly power a fusion of femininity, solid associations, and cunning politics.

However, this princess was displaced and unsure if her power would be intact tomorrow, not to mention her dwindling family.

Within this bleak setting it is quite possible that Constance formulated other ways to use her power. There are no readily available records of Constance’s exile in Bordeaux, but it is evident in later years that she did not lose connections in Castile. Numerous loyal knights and ladies follow her to England after her marriage.274 Yet, this “humble existence in a village” near

Bordeaux was the life of the princesses for five years “dependent on the charity” from the Black

Prince and Gaunt. Despite victory in regaining the crown in 1367 Pedro did not honor his agreement with the English. Hence Constance and Isabel remained in limbo waiting until they could be reunited with their father.275 During this confinement Pedro was again defeated by

Henry II’s forces and killed by “a plunge of [Henry II’s] dagger” on March 14, 1369.276 After this final blow to the princesses, it seemed as if they were to remain in the seclusion of

Bordeaux.

After Blanche’s death, Gaunt was free to pursue what had been lost in Castile after Henry

II captured the throne. Gaunt seemed to dream of his own possession of part of the Iberian

Peninsula. In order to have a justifiable claim he had to marry Pedro’s oldest surviving daughter,

Constance. According to most sources the original idea of marriage originated through a member

274 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 118.

275 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 107.

276 Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, 277; Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, 52.

83 of Gaunt’s council, Guichard d’Angle, Marshal of Aquitaine in early 1371.277 This suggestion was incredibly agreeable to Gaunt for whom, as Armitage-Smith eloquently stated, “Castile stood for boundless possibilities of adventurous ambition.”278 Considering the evidence and medieval traditions it was extremely likely a marriage of convenience for both parties. To

Constance, Gaunt was eligible, ambitious, exceptionally wealthy, and was already familiar with fighting in Castile, allowing her to have access to financial and military support. For Gaunt,

Constance was an excellent choice to pursue his ambitions of expansion and a crown. She was the chivalric choice as a young maiden in distress, separated from her country, and marriage was much easier than outright invasion. For this marriage to be sanctioned properly the couple needed to receive the approval of Edward III and the Gascon barons, allies to both Gaunt and

Pedro; these men granted Gaunt and Constance a marriage and the use of the title of King and

Queen of Castile and Leon.279 The couple was united at Roquefort in September with some celebrations befitting the new status of the royal couple. However, the physical act of actually obtaining this kingdom would prove to take the rest of Constance’s life’s efforts.

The Long Interlude

As queen of Castile and the more tangible title of duchess of Lancaster, Constance went back to England with Gaunt in 1371. They made the crossing in a salt ship, the Gaynpayn, where they were attended by a train of “Castilian knights wearing the Lancastrian livery, and Constance by a bevy of Castilian ladies.”280 The reception Constance received at the English court even further exhibited her station, power, and endeared her towards the English people as a displaced

277 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 108.

278 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 92.

279 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 108-109; O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 526.

280 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 109.

84 foreign queen, but one they could be proud to have in England. Constance was formally and publicly received in London on February 10, 1372, by the ailing Black Prince, numerous knights, and the mayor who escorted her around to Gaunt’s London residence, the Savoy.281 The rest of

London came out also to see the “beauty of…the young lady.”282 Although she had been in the kingdom for a few months now, her travel was slowed because of her first pregnancy.283

After Constance’s formal introduction into English society she withdrew to Gaunt’s

Herford Castle and there ran her own household and oversaw the care of Gaunt’s children by

Blanche, a duty to which she would soon add a daughter of her own.284 An heir to the Castilian throne would have quickly solidified Gaunt and Constance’s claim to the throne; no doubt both were hopeful for a son who would have endeared them more to the people of Castile and Leon.

But in 1372 Catherine or Catalina was born. It was not until 1375 that Constance was expecting her second child. This time Gaunt seemed to be taking no chances for he loaded up his household and Constance and left for Bruges. Weir made the argument that Gaunt was hoping for a

Castilian son born while “the eyes of Europe were on Bruges.”285 Much to the delight of

Constance and Gaunt a son was born in Ghent in late 1375. Unfortunately, the little boy was

281 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 49.

282 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 49.

283 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 110.

284 In the English nobility and royalty men and women had their own separate households. The term household refers to the people under the employment and service of a particular person, like Constance. These could be as large as Edward III’s with five hundred people or like aristocratic nobility could have about sixty. In the case of Constance she had a large household of her own that would have both English and Castilian members and it could be fairly large at time for the households of Gaunt’s children was under her care periodically. For a full explanation of Constance’s household, court, and retinue see the section Constance’s Ideas and Exercise of Power. See Ormrod, “The Royal Nursery,” 398-415; Ward, eds., Women of the English Nobility, 50-69.

285 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 149.

85 sickly and died around November 1376, debilitating the couple’s capacity to easily argue for the throne.286

After the death of her son Constance is widely ignored by contemporary chroniclers and historians until The Great Revolt in 1381. The uprising of educated, or at least aware of “written culture,” Englishmen led to many consequences in England, most which affected Gaunt directly.287 It is clear from Steven Justice’s Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381 that by burning Gaunt’s “magnificent palace, the Savoy,” the “insurgents” used Gaunt’s place as a serious symbol of their beliefs.288 Charles Empson concurred that Gaunt’s “speculative claim” of

Castile “proved nearly as disastrous to England.”289 A large portion of the violence directed at

Gaunt did stem from his feuds with the people of London, because he was using tax money to fund his recovery of Castile, in addition to his ambitious actions in the English court.290 Many of the biographies included in this study use Henry Knighton’s record of Constance’s quick flight from Hertford to Pontefract Castle as an anecdote of the revolt.291 The fear of Constance however, was more acute. She escaped northward as soon as word spread, not because of the burning of Savoy by crazed peasants, but because the revolt was led by men who were deliberate in their dealings with both written records and people.292 Constance could have easily been

286 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 149.

287 Steven Justice, Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 66.

288 Justice, Writing and Rebellion, 90-91.

289 Empson, John of Gaunt, 24.

290 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 79.

291 See Goodman, John of Gaunt, 79; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 193; Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 249.

292 Justice, Writing and Rebellion, 255-259.

86 construed as the reason Gaunt was so adamant about Castile. If she spurred Gaunt on through influential alliances and by a desire to see Castile reclaimed as soon as possible, then she would have even more reason to flee.293 Something more than just being Gaunt’s wife sent her on a journey of around one hundred and sixty miles from Hertford to Pontefract Castle. By the time she arrived the frightened constable of Pontefract Castle “declined” her entrance.294 She was then forced to travel almost thirty more miles by “night guided by a lantern” to Knaresborough.295

The abject fear by the constable of Pontefract Castle lends to the idea that it was not just because

Constance was a member of Gaunt’s household, but a larger instigator in his stubbornness for

Castile. While the immediate terror of the rebels did not last too long, it is interesting that

Constance is once again forced into hiding due to the ambitions of men and maybe even her own ambitions. Nonetheless this revolt led Gaunt to separate himself from the politics in England and focus on Castile.

The Invasion of the English

For fifteen years Gaunt had tried multiple times to create workable plans to invade

Castile and physically place himself and Constance on the throne. However, various events, lack of funds, the unpredictability of politics, and Juan I of Castile kept Gaunt from launching a major incursion. Just as could be expected the kingdom of Castile continued to undergo changes and by

1385 had once again entered into conflict with Portugal. Joao of Avis (1385-1433), an illegitimate son of King Pedro of Portugal assumed the “title of Defender of the Realm

293 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 101, 119, 224.For Constance and Gaunt had been forging alliances and trying to gather financial and troops for years to march on Castile.

294 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 249.

295 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 79.

[and]…became the champion of Portuguese independence.”296 Concurrently Juan I of Castile decided to fight for his tenuous claim to the Portuguese throne. The two met in battle at

Aljubarrota, the victory going to Joao of Avis. This “crushing victory,” as Armitage-Smith described it, “established Portuguese independence for good and crippled the military power of

Castile for a generation.”297 In this hour of weakness, Gaunt once again pleaded for the funds from Parliament to stake his own claim. Gaunt, Constance, and Joao I agreed on a formal alliance between England and Portugal in May 1386 and by July 9, 1386, Gaunt, Constance, and his daughters Philippa and Catherine of Lancaster set sail for Castile.298 Gaunt and his nephew,

Richard II expected that the excursion would be successful, for on April 22 before Gaunt left,

Richard II presented “golden crowns to Gaunt and Constance” proclaiming them royal equals.299

Most historians agree that for the rest of 1386 after the Lancasters landed in La Coruna,

Gaunt and his army was able to occupy Compostela and Orense, but he “found little popular enthusiasm for his cause and wasted the summer months in petty skirmishes.”300 Froissart was one of the first to comment that “progress was slow and the Castilians…delayed giving battle.”301 Some of the contention, Froissart argued, stemmed from Constance and the two daughters traveling with the men into Castile: “What was the Duke of Lancaster thinking…when he planned a big campaign yet brought his wife and daughter with him? It has held us back, all to no purpose. All of Spain already knows…that he and his brother Edmund are married to the

296 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 532.

297 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 298.

298 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 533; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 107.

299 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 118.

300 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 533.

301 Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and eds., Brereton, 328.

88 heiresses of this country…As for the…capture of towns, cities, and castles, the ladies are not much help there.”302 This inclusion of the women is interesting. The nameless people noted by

Froissart believed Gaunt brought the women as added weight in his claim for legitimacy.

Goodman proposed that Gaunt included them for possible marriage alliances, for Constance to have a child on Castilian soil, or set up an established court in Castile.303 Goodman was absolutely correct that the two daughters eventually were a part of purposeful marriage alliances with Philippa of Lancaster given to Joao I of Portugal and Catherine of Lancaster given to Henry

III of Castile. The ploy meant more than simple marriage alliances which could be made from the safety of England. It is possible Constance was needed in Castile for some of her supporters to aid Gaunt.304 Moreover, if she was there the people seeing the “rightful” heir might spur on an uprising against the House of Trastamara. Finally, this campaign was not the first in which

Constance joined Gaunt. Even though pregnant, Constance was with him when they tried in 1375 to 1377 to negotiate in France for peace between Castile, France, and England with Gaunt pressing his proper claim of the Castilian crown.305 Ultimately however, Gaunt’s final invasion in Castile ended without him or Constance on the throne.

In some ways the couple was successful in the Treaty of Bayonne for they were able to place their daughter on the throne, have some of Constance’s kinsmen restored to freedom after siding with Pedro the Cruel, and, although the couple had to give up claims to the crown and their holdings in Galicia, Juan I was to pay Gaunt and Constance 600,000 francs immediately

302 Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and ed. Brereton, 329.

303 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 118-126.

304 See the section Constance’s Ideas and Exercise of Power in this chapter for more information of queenship.

305 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 119.

89 and 40,000 francs for their life.306 This was the end of the alliance between Constance and

Gaunt. After they returned to England in 1389, Gaunt had no need to keep up appearances with

Constance and she remained far in the background, a symbol of Gaunt’s failure to physically hold a crown. However, there was no love lost for Constance either, making the parting a mutual one. Constance’s passing was uneventful in 1394. Although she was largely overlooked since

Gaunt’s incursion in Castile during the 1380s, after her death Gaunt “endowed a chantry” at St.

Mary’s Leicester where Constance was buried and he ordered a “brass effigy” for Constance in the same church where she had been a patron for many years.307 Despite her efforts, Constance was not able to regain control in Castile or hold Gaunt’s interest after their settlement in Castile.

Nevertheless, through her daughter, Catherine, Constance was the ancestor of famous individuals such as Henry the Navigator and Queen Isabella.

Constance’s Ideas and Exercise of Power

How Constance understood her power and how she applied influence throughout her time in England and Castile is the focal point of this section. It must be stressed that Constance was the unique bridge: able to bring the civil war in Castile and the constant conflicts between Castile and Portugal to a halt. Constance did not pick up a sword, rather she married. In the medieval society marriage would not be seen as a weakness, but rather a highly strategic move for the couple. If Constance had not agreed to marry Gaunt then he would have had very little reason to be in the midst of the Iberian wars. Constance was quite capable in her position as Queen of

Castile and duchess of Lancaster, yet there are some differences due to her life experiences and

Spanish heritage. To understand Constance’s ideas and actions concerning her power and queenship, a few examples must first be considered, both foreign and displaced queenship.

306 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 128.

307 Webster, Blanche of Lancaster, 46, 55.

When discussing queenship in the medieval era there are a few elements which fuse the act of being queen with the ideas of femininity. The major factor of queenship is balancing power with family. In most kingdoms across Europe women were expected to bring familial alliances into their marriage, produce worthy children, and ultimately be pure in their dealings with the world. Queens were masterful pieces in alliances, who were to be reminders to their husbands of their physical agreement with their birth kingdom. Queens also held court on their own where they could receive ambassadors and further uphold their husband’s interests and that of their families. Queens were placed under more pressure in procuring a perfect pregnancy ending with a son. As noted by John Parson, the queen’s daughters were almost as important for their unique ability to form strong alliances and promote peace both within the family and in the courts of their husbands.308 Once marriage is achieved the queen should be an example to her subjects in Christianity, the medieval idea of service, and knowledge of her surroundings.

However, in many ways this requirement was much more difficult for queen who came from a foreign kingdom, as did most of the queens in England’s Middle Ages. For these queens met with language barriers and had to navigate new cultural customs if they were to be successful in fulfilling their duties and finding avenues for power. In terms of her proclamations of queenship over Castile, Constance is no different than if she had married a true king. Gaunt and she would hold court at their various estates and she would entertain numerous ambassadors along with

Gaunt from Castile, France, Portugal, and England.309 However, queenship looked different in

Castile and the rest of the Iberian Peninsula compared to England. To understand the foundations of Constance’s understanding of queenship, and marriage in general this study turns to four

308 Parsons, “Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150-1500,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parson, 65-78.

309 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 101, 224.

91 examples: common municipal laws, tenth century queens and female rulers, Constance’s female relatives, and the reign of Berenguela of Castile.

The Early to High Middle Ages in the Iberian Peninsula witnessed numerous battles between religious sects and nobles.310 Within this time there were also many laws that were put into place to aid families in this physical and religious war. As mentioned by Heath Dillard who used two towns in Castile as his dominant examples, the majority of the laws on women dealt with property rights and illicit sexual relations. Dillard stated “women’s property rights [were] to serve the interest of her family” and “honorable women are the symbols of the superiority of

Christian society and of a family’s wealth and prestige.”311 While most of these laws were municipal laws created between the tenth and thirteenth century they provide excellent insights into Castilian ideas about women. Distinct from English laws, in Castile women were able to engage in “inheriting, buying, selling, making wills, serving as guardians of minor children, and acting” alone or with husbands or children “in a large number of legal capacities.”312 Moreover,

“inherited property is equally partible among the closest blood relatives,” meaning women received equal land and goods along with their brothers.313 These laws were created in the hopes of protecting familial lands from failing back into enemy hands and to facilitate “contact” between the daughter and her biological family “through its lively interest in her patrimony and it devolution.”314 Additionally, once married the inherited property was expected to be

310 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 22.

311 Stuard, Women in Medieval Society, 88.

312 Stuard, Women in Medieval Society, 71.

313 Stuard, Women in Medieval Society, 75.

314 Stuard, Women in Medieval Society, 76.

“dominated by the husband. Any advantages gained by the wife depended on the husband.”315

Although Constance was in a unique situation as far as property rights go, she absolutely had a legitimate claim to Castile, as did Gaunt since the husband was to be the main proprietor. This tradition could be one major reason why Constance did not do more in terms of powerful actions to try and gain back Castile on her own. Despite that Constance probably wanted Castile, she followed conventions and only supported Gaunt in his actions to regain what was lost. In

England the remaining autonomy of Castilian women under the law was not set down; in fact it was the opposite. Married women could not engage in the buying or selling of land without their husband’s consent and knowledge and they certainly did not have a legal voice. Hence Castilian women enjoyed more legal autonomy and power of inheritance than women in England.

During the tenth century, as Castile was just starting to be a separate entity under Fernan

Gonzalez Count of Castile, there were a number of extremely powerful women in the surrounding kingdoms of Leon and Navarre. The records concerning these very powerful women allow a foundation to be laid for Constance’s knowledge and avenues of power. In Sancho I’s of

Leon reign, Elvira, the titular abbess of the monastery of San Salvador de Palaz, became very politically active and influential. She would be in attendance in the court as it moved across the territory and in the later years of Sancho I’s life Elvira “appears as a signatory of all the extant royal documents.”316 Elvira was politically successful in her pull to create a new monastic house in Leon and to gather relics. This house was turned into a double monastery with Elvira ruling over the community as abbess.317 When Sancho I died, his wife, the queen, was placed as a nun

315 Stuard, Women in Medieval Society, 78.

316 Roger Collins, “Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 81.

317 Collins, “Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 81-82.

93 into the monastery where her sister-in-law was abbess, and not given the same status.318 The removal of the queen allowed Elvira to take control of her nephew and the kingdom as regent.319

She was the power in the kingdom after Ramiro III became king, not his mother. She certainly had enough power and autonomy to rule in Ramiro III’s stead for over a decade.320 At the same time, in Navarre in the tenth century Queen Toda Asnarez, the mother of Garcia Sanchez, held the role of regent and tutor for her young son the king. Her influence did not end there, from 933 to the 950s Queen Toda was still recorded as reigning together with her son.321 Queen Toda was capable of making “diplomatic, political, and military decisions.”322 Furthermore, Queen Toda’s granddaughter and Fernan Gonzalez’s wife, Urraca, ruled jointly with her grandson, Sancho III for a few years.323 Therefore, the precedent was set for the High Middle Ages in Castile to allow for strong and politically active women to reign. Certainly not every queen in Castile commanded so much direct power, but with greater legal flexibility in Castile there was a higher percentage of power and influence emanating from women.

Another strong female figure in Castile’s history, and more importantly in Constance’s life, was her paternal grandmother, Maria of Portugal. Maria of Portugal during the first two years of Pedro the Cruel’s reign actually ran the administration of his royal affairs along with

Pedro’s chief chancellor, Juan Afonso Lord of Albuquerque.324 Estow makes the connection that

318 Collins, “Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 85.

319 Collins, “Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 85.

320 Collins, “Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 85.

321 Collins, “Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 87.

322 Collins, “Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 87.

323 Collins, “Queens-Dowager and Queens-Regent,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 90-91.

324 Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 26, 34.

94 both Maria of Portugal and the late king’s mistress, de Guzman “wielded nearly as much power and influence as male members of the great nobility,” and that part of the tension in Castile stemmed from the women’s own “baronial feud.”325 Both women were instrumental during

Alfonso XI’s reign, but de Guzman had been the more powerful woman at court and even managed many affairs of the state; she “ordered appointments, transferred properties, conferred honors and lands, interceded on behalf of petitioners, and, as the ultimate recognition of her importance, was consulted by both the English and the French on their proposed negotiations concerning marriage alliances with Pedro.”326 Constance, even more than the tenth century queens, would have been influenced by the actions and power that these two women held. Even her own mother Maria Padilla, although she never commanded that much masculine power in

Castile, still held sway over Pedro quite easily and bended him to her aspirations and that of her family.

Finally, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was one remarkable queen of both

Leon and Castile whose influence and power should also be considered. She was Queen

Berenguela (1180-1246). Berenguela was extremely unique in the Iberian Peninsula for the amount of power, authority, and lordship she commanded. In Janna Bianchini’s book, The

Queen’s Hand (2012), Berenguela’s reign was rewritten to highlight the extraordinary woman’s actions to rule through “considerable legitimate authority, more often, more publicly, and more directly than queens elsewhere in Europe.”327 Throughout her life Berenguela exercised her queenship in various masculine ways. For example, Berenguela had her own personal seal which she used in conjunction with her husband on royal diplomas, documents that had been witnessed

325 Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 128.

326 Estow, Pedro the Cruel, 22.

327 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 5.

95 which pertained to the laws and decrees. Bianchini stated this “declaration of authority was usually reserved for contexts in which they acted alone.”328 Berenguela also had the authority to

“dispense patronage on a fairly grand scale” by choosing her own tenets, or wealthy magnates, she was able to give these “tenancies of her personal domains to some of her kingdoms’ highest- ranking nobles.”329 Thereby she gained the personal loyalty of many powerful nobles.

Berenguela was the type of queen who played a major role in the civil war between Leon and

Castile in terms of manpower and treaties. As Bianchini argued, the Treaty of Valladolid was the

“clearest evidence” of her “lordship and authority.”330 However, many of these actions could have been done by other queens and noble women in Castile; what made Berenguela even more atypical was she eventually gained Leon and Castile though war and inheritance. Berenguela made contracts after the passing of her husband to retain “regalia rights—to make war, manage the royal demesne, and levy taxes—to herself” while she was regent in Leon.331 She employed her own powerful allies and contributed her own personal wealth to end the civil war happening in Castile and won.332 Whatever the quantity of her power and authority, Berenguela was still limited by the constraints of medieval society. Yet, she expertly knew how to work within these boundaries. Berenguela used her femininity to make her power less threatening, but no “less authoritative.”333 For example, she made sure her chroniclers referred to her acts as being “driven

328 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 52.

329 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 13.

330 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 91-95. Valladolid was a border town under her dominion and as such was neutral land on which her husband, the king of Leon, and her father, the king of Castile, could meet. She also had a major role in the signing of this treaty and put her own seal on the document. Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 95.

331 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 108-109.

332 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 139.

333 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 260.

96 by modesty, piety, concern for the poor, and other…virtues.”334 Finally, she ruled Castile jointly with her son while she continuously retained her influence over the king and kingdom.

Archbishop Rodrigo wrote that the king had obtained Castile peacefully for the “noble queen managed everything; she trained her son diligently.”335 Here was a woman whose authority was recognized by contemporaries as an “inheriting queen, a reigning monarch, who shared authority with her son but did not surrender it to him.”336 She consciously juxtaposed her reign and actions as being distinctly feminine rather than an absolute monarchy.

On the other hand, when queens of foreign lands came to England many encountered limitations to their autonomy and agency from of the English idea of primogeniture. In many cases queens found different avenues of utilizing power and influence, which were just as effective in promoting their prestige; an example is Eleanor of Castile (1241-1290). Although she never enjoyed or employed the same type of power and authority Berenguela held, Eleanor drew a sizeable amount of influence. Edward I commanded a great amount of authority and

Parsons contends that because of his strong presence Eleanor was more limited in terms of influencing his policies.337 However, she worked within these margins, by utilizing more traditional methods of women’s societal roles. Thereby her administration, household, and patronage were her major outlets. Her administration of her properties was one of the most interesting and more masculine of her channels of power. She had a substantial amount of land in

England and in Ponthieu of which she kept abreast of through “tenant’s petitions, bailiffs’ reports, and meeting of her council, these prove…she was the final authority within her

334 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 260.

335 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 142.

336 Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, 257.

337 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 45-46.

97 administration.”338 Eleanor was not satisfied with her original amount of estates however. She was well known to underhandedly participate in land grabbing. Even as late as the 1800s

Englishmen were still bemoaning her greed for land by quoting “the king desires to get our gold/the queen, our manors fair to hold.”339 Many times Eleanor would settle gentry members of her household “near her estates,” even her clerks would receive churches “on or near her manors.”340 Eleanor’s household consisted of about one hundred and fifty persons, some of whom Edward I paid for and others who Eleanor employed herself.341 While it was important for

Eleanor to have a large household it was easily her most extensive use of her power and influence. Not only would these favorites receive manors, churches, and wardships in and around her own lands, but the vast majority had marriages arranged or suggested by Eleanor. Savvy about England’s culture and dislike of foreigners, Eleanor brought her “matrilineal kin from

Picard houses with long-established ties to England,” all of them “female cousins” given to

English husbands.342 Eleanor was careful to arrange these marriages in a “businesslike manner, insisting on guarantees that the husbands’ lands would be preserved intact.”343 Finally, Eleanor used patronage extensively to promote her ideas in fashion and in literature. She made popular the “Castilian fashion for tapestries and carpets” both of Castilian and English design.344

However, her patronage of cross-cultural literature, those bought and those made for her, was

338 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 116.

339 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 2.

340 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 90.

341 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 87.

342 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 35.

343 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 36.

344 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 51.

98 substantial. Parsons argued that her interest in “chivalric culture and secular history…complemented, if it did not inaugurate, Edward’s chivalric endeavors, ultimately helping him to broaden monarchy’s historical focus and unify British traditions of kingship.”345

Therefore, even though Eleanor did not physically exhibit the same strong lordship that

Berenguela did, she had multiple avenues through which she could grow her influence and retain a type of power over those in her administration, household, and under her patronage.

Additionally, both of these queens are very similar in that, despite their differences in the exercise of power, they were forced to work within the confines of femininity.

It is one thing to show other queens’ use of power, whether it is masculine or feminine, and how they used it in the context of the Iberian Peninsula or in England but it is another to show how Constance used her own power and agency. Constance’s queenship can be evidenced through her daughter, marriage, household, court, and reputation. To illustrate that the previously discussed women influenced Constance’s physically active power and feminine power,

Constance’s daughter is considered. By examining the power and authority of her daughter

Catherine, or Catalina, the same types of power emerge. Furthermore, as already shown in this thesis, women were expected to oversee their daughters’ education and Constance undoubtedly influenced her daughter greatly. Catalina had to have previous knowledge of this type of power for she quickly implemented it in her court. For instance, Catalina wielded considerable power while her own son was still a minor. For thirteen years Queen Catalina co-ruled with her brother- in-law Fernando.346 This time in history was known for its tranquility and it further helped that the queen ruled the north and Fernando ruled the south, so he could conduct his war and Queen

345 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 55.

346 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 541.

Catalina could run the more established areas of Castile.347 Also, just like her mother and father she took an active interest in the Great Schism.348 Finally after the death of Fernando in 1416,

Queen Catalina ruled “as sole regent” until her own death in 1418.349 Catalina was a capable ruler, politician, and was able to easily slip into the role. Hence, it was extremely possible for

Constance to have a great amount of physical and political power if she had been able to sit on the throne of Castile. She obviously knew of the type of power and influence she could have, and as contended she did have power, it was just continuously in the background of so many negotiations and was never able to spread because the recovery of Castile occurred. Therefore, while Constance potentially had plenty of power she was patient, leaning on her femininity to gain her favor and Castile, but limited by numerous situations and laws in England.

Constance’s own power is evidenced through the few sources concerning her movements.

In the 1360s as a queen whose house had been over taken by contenders to the throne, Constance was in a precarious position since she and her sisters went into hiding. This displacement greatly affected her future actions. Constance knew the dangers of striking out on her own without a solid financial and noble backing to regain the crown. Hence the beauty of marrying Gaunt even though he was not of the Castilian nobility. On numerous occasions as the couple tried to garner support Constance always chose patience and caution over rallying major allies in Castile until she knew for sure Gaunt and she could land in Castile. This consistent waiting illustrates her understanding of limitations to her power and queenship. Since Constance was the first surviving child of Pedro the Cruel she could have launched her own invasion into Castile, because she did

347 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 541.

348 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 546.

349 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 550.

100 have some noble alliances in both Castile and England. 350 Instead, she remained in the realm of marriage for her reputation and for more support; she knew Gaunt would have a stronger chance.

Regardless, if an invasion of that type would have been a success, Constance, like Iberian queens before her, could potentially carry that much autonomy and power. Also the more time it took for

Constance to be able to meet the House of Trastamara on the battlefield the less likely her subjects might to come to her aid. When Gaunt and Constance invaded in 1386 she was no longer the youthful princess who had been forced out of the kingdom by the pretenders.

Constance was, by that point, a married woman hoping to win back her inheritance through complex negotiations. As noted by Goodman, even though Gaunt and Constance were fairly successful in 1386 by conquering Galicia, their loyalty base was thin.351 The weakest town in northern Castile, Compostela, was not even willing to allow the English in unless they offered serious military protection.352 By 1386 most common people who had been loyal were dead and the rest had had minimal contact with Constance herself since 1366. Thus while Constance did have the inherited right to Castile and had been the self-proclaimed queen of it since 1371; she was a displaced queen without much political power or influence over her subjects, both common and noble in Castile itself. However, Constance’s use of queenship, and the power that it commanded, was sporadic, but the power and influence of being a duchess of Lancaster was constant. In England she had to take on a life-style that mirrored the royalty and aristocracy there. Naturally, Constance’s household was a blend of both high English aristocracy and

350 This idea rests on alliances as they were in late 1360s to 1370s. Therefore, she would have her father’s allies along with Gaunt and Edward, the Black Prince.

351 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 121.

352 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 120.

101

Castilian royalty. Here, three important continuous facets of her use of influence, power, and autonomy will be discussed: her household, her “court,” and her reputation.

Similar to Blanche, Constance’s influence and autonomy are best viewed through the household she employed after marrying Gaunt. Since her marriage in 1371, Constance welcomed

Castilian noblewomen and knights into her service. Loyal to her and Pedro the Cruel, these individuals came with her from Castile already wearing the Lancastrian livery.353 Between

January and April 1372, after her entrance into English society, it was recorded that Constance, in addition to her Castilian ladies, employed “many married damoiselles.”354 Among this number were Katherine, recently widowed, and Philippa Chaucer whom Gaunt requested specifically stating “by our especial grace for the good and agreeable service that our well-beloved damoiselles Philippa Chaucer has done, and will do in the future, for our very dear and well- loved companion the Queen.”355 To be employed in Constance’s royal household had certain benefits. Contained in the medieval idea of service Constance was expected by those employed in her household for some recompense in the form of wages, provisions, and/or commendations.

Similar to Blanche, the daily records of Constance have not survived, probably thanks to the

Great Revolt of 1381; however, the gifts Constance bequeathed to Philippa Chaucer are available. Unlike most of her servants, Constance gave Philippa lavish gifts for her extraordinary service in Constance’s household which allows historians to note two different ideas: Philippa was a favored servant, regardless of her sister, and Constance singled out Philippa to bequeath such gifts. Some of these gifts included “six silver-gilt buttons attached to a embroidered strip of

353 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 109.

354 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 111.

355 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 111.

102 fabric,” and a “silver hanap costing 609 pounds.356 Even Philippa’s annuity payment was ten pounds leading Goodman to note that “none of her other domicellae received such a high reward.”357 Even though historians have only found evidence for Constance’s generosity towards

Philippa as a unique instance, it could have translated into Constance’s idea of patronage.

Although, it is a well-believed theory that Chaucer and Philippa did not have a happy marriage as will be discussed in the following section of this chapter Chaucer did seem to write about

Constance or at least allude to her more than Katherine. Therefore, gifts to Philippa could possibly mean patronage for Chaucer.358 However, Philippa Chaucer was not the only individual receiving patronage. Armitage-Smith included in his book a mention of a letter belonging to

Constance has survived. The letter, an autograph, is addressed to the Chancellor of the

University of Oxford, “entreating him to commend a friar, Brother Alvarez, one of her own subjects, to the Prior of the Oxford Dominicans.” This letter in and of itself is amazing. Not only did she have the power and influence to send the letter, but she obviously was actively working to aid a fellow countryman, and presumably had others under her care and patronage.359 In addition to personal gifts and individual patronage, Constance was also a known member of the

Trinity Guild of St. Mary’s in Nottingham and an official benefactor of the Abbey of Saint

Albans.360 Thus through Constance’s use of gifts and patronage her queenship was evident and powerful.

356 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 129, 178.

357 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 363.

358 Craig R. Davis, “A Perfect Marriage on the Rocks: Geoffrey and Philippa Chaucer, and the Franklin’s Tale,” The Chaucer Review 37 (2002): 129-144.See the Chaucer’s Constance section of this chapter for more information concerning this theory.

359 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 358.

360 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 210; Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 170.

103

Dissimilar to Blanche some of Constance’s household financial allotments were recorded. In 1372 Constance received her allotment from Gaunt, since she could not draw annuities from Castile, at a thousand marks (111,569 pounds) per annum for her expenses in the wardrobe and chamber.361 This sum was increased twice in the 1380s as Constance became more important politically for gaining Castile, although some have stated it was because of Gaunt’s conscience for his affair.362 Constance favored the western coast of Gaunt’s property and spent most of her time at Hertford and Tutbury, probably because they were closer to London.363 It was here that she was able to influence daily the local economies. As with many of the high ranking aristocracy needed within her retinue, her own treasurer and clerk of the wardrobe denoted her wealth and status.364

Although her household was slightly more removed from regular English society she was expected to help hold a displaced court for various Spanish ambassadors. Between the years of

1371 to 1386 Gaunt and Constance met with envoys under title of “Monseigneur d’Espaigne” where they were able to make some lasting alliances, namely with the King and Queen of

Portugal.365 Although there is no way to quantifiably tell how influential Constance was during these meetings, her presence would still be an important factor, for without her Gaunt had no remaining leverage. Her court easily showed her continued use of queenly power and influence in Castile, and further proved her status as a displaced queen in England. Armitage-Smith laid out the scene poetically when speaking about Gaunt’s and Constance’s court, stating that they

361 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 115.

362 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 179, 183.

363 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 118.

364 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 226.

365 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 101.

104 had to “maintain a state to correspond with [their] position…the sovereignty of Castile must be brought home to Englishman and foreigner…envoys must realize that they are enjoying the hospitality of one who is not only the first subject of King Edward, but the legitimate heir of Don

Pedro.”366 Constance worked alongside Gaunt during some of the important meetings as evidenced by one of the first and most lucrative treaties between Gaunt and Constance for the alliance of Fernando and Leonor, the Portuguese monarchs. In this treaty the allies “bound themselves to attack the House of Trastamare,” which in 1386 was the reason Gaunt and

Constance were able to ally themselves with the new ruler, Joao I.367 Listed in the same breath as

Gaunt’s council Constance‘s name was given as a member of his foreign advisors. Besides setting “great store” in her guidance, in 1373 before going on his campaign to Castile, Gaunt

“empowered Constance to pardon, restore and reward all rebels from his Spanish realm who submitted to him, using the authority of her own seal.”368 Then in 1388, when signing the peace treaty between Juan I of Castile, both Gaunt and Constance undertook an oath to “renounce and to transfer” to Juan I the kingdom of Castile.369 Interestingly Constance saved direct suzerainty of three important towns, Guadalajara, Medina del Campo, and Olmedo, however the revenues and government went to Juan I.370 Hence Constance was not an afterthought, she was politically active when she had opportunities and used her queenship to support Gaunt in his dealings with

Castile.

366 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 224.

367Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 101.

368 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 314.

369 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 330-332.

370 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 330-332.

105

But certainly after 1389 we are to believe the household was reduced and largely forgotten in favor of Katherine and the political hotbed in which Gaunt found himself during the

1390s. Most historians and biographers agree that this separation was a somewhat mutual split because Gaunt had other pursuits and Constance “was of no further political importance.”

Moreover, Gaunt’s “abandonment of her cherished hopes,” Castile, was the final straw.371

However, the idea that Constance lost all of her value was not the case. Gaunt was otherwise preoccupied, but as for Constance she did not become a recluse. In October 1388 while in

Castile, she was fervently trying to put an end to The Great Schism. The Great Schism was a time during the Hundred Years War when the Catholic Church split, not because of “doctrine or religious issues, but for politics over who was pope, at one time there were three popes all located in different places.372 Constance met with Juan of Castile (1358-1390), without Gaunt to persuade Juan to propose a meeting with all of the Spanish kings to discuss ways of ending the schism.373 About the same time in Castile, Constance, ever in the background waiting and promoting her family’s interests, was working to “strengthen the position of the Princess of the

Asturias,” her daughter, and create better “relations between Lancaster and Castile.”374 Despite how simple it sounds, it took a very educated person to encourage the political aspirations of

Gaunt. Constance had to be aware of court procedures, command lawyer-like wit, and have enough charisma to be successful. Hence, Constance had the necessary education and knack to continuously promote Gaunt’s and her ambitions for Castile for over fifteen years. As a testament to her strength, she and her daughter were members of “Lady of the Fraternity of St.

371 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 228.

372 Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, 347. The Great Schism lasted from 1378 to 1418.

373 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 132.

374 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 334.

106

George and of the Society of the Garter…the highest English honor to which a woman might aspire.”375 Through the separation between her and Gaunt, she had enough autonomy to travel without Gaunt to visit her daughter in Castile in 1390. While there Constance continued to utilize some of her remaining powers to persuade her son-in-law, Enrique III, to end the Great Schism; just as she had with Juan.376 Furthermore, Constance was able to have her father’s remains exhumed and “honorably reburied.”377 Therefore, perhaps Constance agreed to the informal separation because Gaunt was no longer useful to her either. Gaunt had regained Castile, just not as imagined and they had always had events and people to get in the middle of their marriage.

Therefore, this separation allowed Constance to have more autonomy and freedom without the bad reputation or impossibility of divorce.

Finally Constance’s use of the public sentiment during her stay in England is very telling concerning her ideas of queenship. Like Berenguela and Eleanor, Constance was careful to remain in the good graces of the public. Although the atmosphere of her household reflected that of reserved nobility she did not bring over too many individuals from Castile and she did not try to grab land. Part of this estrangement could be due to language barriers for Constance “spoke little English” and Gaunt “only limited Castilian…[for] he had difficulty in following an oration in that language.”378 In the early years of her marriage Constance showed her awareness of the importance of public opinion when Gaunt and Katherine began to have an affair. Weir stated that as early as 1373 Constance and the rest of the English countryside knew of the pair. Weir provided the anecdote that in 1373 Constance’s ladies in waiting gossiped so intensely about the

375 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 224.

376 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 228.

377 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 228.

378 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 118.

107 liaison that Gaunt sent them off to Nuneaton Abbey, and there they stayed for two years until

Gaunt sent them to Leicester.379 Furthermore, since Katherine was under the employ of Gaunt as a governess for his children by Blanche, she would have been in close proximity to Constance, living at the same estate or simply being at the same place multiple times of the year. Yet, it is not recorded officially anywhere Constance took offence to Gaunt and Katherine. Weir suggested this lack of response could be that Constance expected she and Gaunt would quickly return to Castile. Katherine was of a lesser rank and her children who were illegitimate “pose[ed] no threat” to Constance’s own daughter, Catherine.380 However, it should be regarded otherwise.

Although the English were not as interested in upholding the rights of illegitimate children,

Castile had a long history of illegitimate children taking the throne. In addition to this history,

Constance and her father had been ousted by the illegitimate Trastamara. Although Katherine did not have a kingdom to offer Gaunt, she was still obviously important to him. Nevertheless, public opinion in terms of Gaunt’s liaison was very much on the side of Constance. Walsingham fervently stated “the duke’s character was dishonored by every kid of outrage and sin. A fornicator and adulterer, he had abandoned lawful wedlock and deceived both of his wives

(Blanche and Constance).”381 The insults did not end there, yet Constance did not officially do anything that either condemned the relationship or condoned it. Therefore, it is obvious

Constance, regardless of her opinions about the relationship, took the high road allowing others to criticize Gaunt and Katherine which put Constance on the moral high ground. However, in

1381 during the Great Revolt public opinion was greatly against Gaunt and thereby Constance

379 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 133.

380 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 134.

381 Walsingham, quoted in Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 172.

108 because of his many incursions and failures to retake Castile.382 From her upbringing and the dethronement of her father, Constance was very sensitive of how others viewed her actions. The final section this chapter will look at Chaucer and how he was possibly creating an homage or public sympathy for Constance.

Chaucer’s Constance

Just as Blanche was extremely influential to Chaucer in the beginning, so too there is a distinct possibility Constance supported Chaucer’s career. There is no surviving evidence that

Constance directly patronized Chaucer or requested any particular writings, but as proposed here her life and her need for public sympathy served to further Chaucer’s imaginative and famous book, The Canterbury Tales. In The Canterbury Tales the “Man of Law Tale” alluded directly to

Constance. In fact, there has been an ongoing discussion as to what the tale actually accomplishes.383 Some percentage of the tale could be Chaucer’s way of stating his loyalty to

Constance, obtain patronage from Constance, or even provide a eulogy. It is not convincing that the characters in this story are merely coincidence. Therefore, this last section of Chapter 3 will focus on Constance in Chaucer’s works and how this supports Constance’s use of power and influence in the public’s opinion of her life.

Chaucer’s “Man of Law’s Tale” has generated academic arguments over the years concerning the validity of the assumption that Chaucer referenced Constance. However, many specific lines are very reminiscent of Constance’s life and her own predicaments. For instance, the quote located at the beginning of this chapter is the first few lines in which the audience hears

382 See the section The Long Interlude for more information on The Great Revolt.

383 David Raybin, “Custance and History: Woman as Outsider in Chaucer’s Man of Law Tale,” Studies in The Age of Chaucer: The Yearbook of the New Chaucer Society 12 (1990), 65-84; Don-John Dugas, “The Legitimization of Royal Power in “Man of Law Tale,” Modern Philology 95 (Aug. 1997), 27-43; Roland M. Smith “Chaucer’s Man of Law Tale and Constance of Castile,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 47 (1948), 343-351.

109 about the character, Custance. Chaucer introduced her as “the Emperoures doghter, dame

Custance…A doghter hath that, syn the world bigan, To rekene as wel hir goodnesse as beautee,

Nas nevere swich another as is shee. I prey to God in honour hire susteene, And wolde she were of al Europe the queene…humblesse hath slayn in hire al tirannye.”384 Taking that Chaucer is referencing Constance there are already some similarities. Custance is royalty, she is young, and she is the model of Christianity. Custance could also be the queen that all of Europe would talk about. Although it is agreed Chaucer wrote the “Man of Law’s Tale” sometime between 1386 to the 1390s, when Constance was no longer young.385 If the tale is seen as the long story of her life, then, when Chaucer opens the story Constance would be twelve in the 1360s. Moreover,

Chaucer used foreshadowing when he mentioned queenship. Constance would become the queen that all of Europe was discussing. The Iberian Peninsula knew of her plight in Castile and Leon,

Portugal sided with her and Gaunt, England backed Pedro and Constance for decades, France was allied with Trastamara, and finally even the pope was involved with the exchange.

Constance herself was the glue holding all of the pieces together, especially after her father was killed. Finally, if Chaucer did write this tale around the second invasion of Gaunt and Constance into Castile in 1386, then his line that “humblesse hath slayn in hire al tirannye,” was true:

Constance was the essence of her name, constant. She was actively working for years to regain

Castile and when they launched another invasion it was not war that won the day, but the treaty she and Gaunt signed.

The Sowdan, the first suitor could be concluded as Trastamara himself, for in 1367 as he was marching on Castile one of his goals was to overtake Pedro and his daughters to at least take

384 Chaucer, “Man of Law Tale,” in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 89.

385 Chaucer, “Man of Law Tale,” in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 854.

110 them as captives, if not marry the eldest in order to end the war for good.386 However, it was not to be and the daughters made it safely to the shores of Bordeaux, or in the tale,

Northhumberlond, the first flight of Constance and Custance.387 Upon arriving there Custance remained in humble settings, spoke “a maner Latyn corrupt,” and as David Raybin stated

Custance “exist[ed] without name…and without prescribed status;” until King Alla came to her rescue.388 Similar to Custance’s circumstances and “outsider-ness,” Constance’s situation in

Bordeaux until Gaunt came proposing marriage was very much the same and even when she came to England she remained in part the outsider. The next part of the tale is overtly referencing

Constance and her hurried flight during The Great Revolt of 1381. While Custance has just given birth to her son, Maurice, King Alla is “gon to Scotlond-ward, his footmen for to seke.”389 It is in the absence of the king that the dowager mother plots against Custance and is able to banish her back out to sea with her son. This reference to the events during the Great Revolt would not be missed by the audience. Because Gaunt was off in Scotland when the revolt began and only came home after the damage to his castle, the Savoy, and after his family had to flee.390

Constance escaped to Knaresborough, after being denied entrance to Pontefract Castle, i.e. the second naval journey of Custance.

Although Custance and Alla are reunited it was not to last. Don-John Dugas surmised an interesting point, while Custance was a model in piety she was never able to be in a stable position through the workings of fate. Likewise, King Alla was of a lesser status than an

386 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 48.

387 Chaucer, “Man of Law Tale,” in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 94.

388 Raybin, “Custance and History: Woman as Outsider in Chaucer’s Man of Law Tale,” 70.

389 Chaucer, “Man of Law Tale,” in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 97.

390 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 78-80.

111

Emperoure. However, Dugas’ point was that Maurice “will achieve the rank that Alla and

Custance could not, one that links the political and religious objectives: "This child Maurice was sithen Emperour maad by the Pope, and lyved cris-tenly; to Cristes chirche he dide greet honour.”391 In Constance’s life this is exactly what transpired, her daughter Catalina, a melding of Gaunt and Constance was able to accomplish what they were not—the throne of Castile.

Although not every Chaucerian is convinced that Chaucer alluded to Constance in this tale, the similarities are plentiful and convincing.392 It is not known or recorded why Chaucer wrote this tale, or even his “Monk’s Tale” which references Constance’s father.393 Chaucer could be hoping for further patronage, providing a request or even a eulogy if the tale was written after 1394.

Throughout this chapter on Constance of Castile the importance of this powerful and influential, yet displaced queen of the fourteenth century will be emphasized. Born into a series of civil wars in Castile she was able to take certain aspects of autonomy and power and apply them through her marriage with Gaunt to ultimately not regain the throne for herself, but her daughter. As shown through multiple examples of other Castilian queens and Eleanor of Castile, who lived in England, it has been suggested that Constance had a sense of queenship. Her queenship, like many married women of the medieval era was shown best through her child, her household, her court, and her reputation. Furthermore, Constance whether directly or indirectly was able to influence Chaucer to write multiple tales concerning her or her family. Finally,

Constance was the queen that all of Europe knew. She able to push for the Castilian crown and her actions, while masculine or feminine, helped to further the Hundred Years War. By marrying

391 Dugas, “The Legitimization of Royal Power in “Man of Law Tale,” 37.

392 See Smith “Chaucer’s Man of Law Tale and Constance of Castile,” 343-351.

393 See Haldeen Braddy, “Chaucer’s Don Pedro and the Purpose of the Monk’s Tale,” Modern Language Quarterly 13 (Mar. 1952): 3-5; Sylvia Federico, “Chaucer and the Matter with Spain,” The Chaucer Review 45 (2011): 299-320.

112

Gaunt and producing a daughter Constance helped finalize the civil war in Castile. Yet,

Constance has thus far had only mere footnotes in the annals of both England and Spain for the

Middle Ages.

113

Chapter 4

THE ABOMINABLE TEMPTRESS

For that tyme Yowthe, my maistresse, Governed me in ydelnesse; For hyt was in my firste youthe, And thoo ful lytel good y couthe, For al my werkes were flyttynge That tyme, and al my thoght varyinge.394

Lady Katherine Swynford, Gaunt’s third wife, is a paradox. She rose to the heights of the

English court in the fourteenth century and yet she was discounted by many of her contemporaries for her long-time status of mistress. She became to some the black mark on the family tree that subsequent monarchs tried to remove from the public knowledge or rewrite into propaganda.395 Despite the detrimental reputation, Katherine is famous today through Anya

Seton’s 1950s novel Katherine. Seton’s work fostered recognition for the medieval woman in the genre of romance, while the vast majority of historians have almost refused to acknowledge

Katherine. How did Katherine exert power and influence through her status as a mistress and as a widow of the English gentry? Why are both of these labels of Katherine so important to the discussion of her? These questions mark the principle considerations of this chapter. The idea within the chapter will consider Katherine’s influence, power, and agency through her familial relationships as well as her status as a widow, and the significance of her being a mistress in the fourteenth century.

394 Chaucer, The Book of the Duchess, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 340.

395 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 39-56.

114

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich famously wrote “well behaved women rarely make history.”396

This statement fully captured a problem in studying women in the past. For if they did operate within the social norms they did not disrupt the natural flow and therefore the need to comment was nonexistent for medieval peers. But if the woman was in any way an anomaly then contemporaries did not hesitate to bring her transgressions into sharp focus. Some women have been lauded by both historians and peers for their counter-culture acts, such as Joan of Arc,

Christine de Pizan, and Margery Kempe. Yet, whenever a woman’s sexuality is the reason she is fighting society then she is blacklisted, even today. Historians examining the Middle Ages are no different. They have downgraded those women who have broken the cultural standards of sexual promiscuity or ignored their significance entirely. It is true the courtly love literature of that time was ripe with sexual connotations. The prevalent literature made it “romantic” to commit adultery if one was a part of the upper classes even if it were only through words, yet, for many individuals it did not stop there.397 Because most of the marriages among the nobility were arranged for political reasons, it was not uncommon for a nobleman to take a mistress. However, there was a double standard. While mistresses were fairly common, it was not seen as normal for a woman to take a lover. If a woman who was a widow became a mistress then it was even more rare and unseemly. Numerous chronicles and books written in the Middle Ages were speaking out against this fear, that the widows were too susceptible to lust and temptation which brought shame on them and their families. Compounding this idea, the worst type of woman was a sexually active widow and who used the influence from the bedroom in public. Katherine fits this last description perfectly. There is little to no evidence that Katherine sought to change

396 Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), xiii.

397 Gies, Women in the Middle Ages, 45.

115

Gaunt’s political agendas, but it is very possible she could have used her sexual influence in other avenues.

As a woman, who should be seen as a powerful force of astuteness, Katherine has been entombed in a historical memory only focused on her sexual promiscuity. Even Katherine’s historical worth has been summed up by most historians with an afterthought—“She was John of

Gaunt’s mistress and later, wife” and mother of their children.398 Although her relationship with

Gaunt lasted over twenty years despite “concealment, long separations, social ostracism, and public vilification,” the only time historians find her in the writing of the day was when an author was criticizing her adulterous liaison or when Gaunt was recording his expenses allotted to her.399 There raises the question of why almost every recent historian who decides to describe

Gaunt’s exploits only devote a word to Katherine—mistress. Those who are more astute in their description of her state some variation of “Gaunt’s beautiful mistress and future wife, Katherine

Swynford.”400 Either way the mainstream historians and readers of their books remember her only as compared to her children and as the mistress of one of the most influential men in history.

Only in recent years have two biographies appeared to shed a little light on who she was and the influence she might have possessed. The first is Jeannette Lucraft’s Katherine Swynford:

The History of a Medieval Mistress (2006). Lucraft labored to provide a well-balanced picture of

Swynford through extensive research and by placing her within the historical commentary of the culture of the 1300s. Lucraft stated her intention for writing this biography was to bridge a

398 See Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer?; Justice, Writing and Rebellion; Nigel Saul, Richard II (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). These are a few well-known books on the late fourteenth century. They cover extensively people closely and directly associated with Swynford but who only mention her in passing.

399 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 65.

400 Thomas B. Costain, Last Plantagenets (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1962), 61.

116 chasm in the historical literature over Swynford, to discuss to what “extent could a medieval woman control the way she was presented to, and perceived by, the wider world,” and to show her identity beyond that of mistress.401 To demonstrate Swynford’s agency Lucraft smartly honed in on Swynford’s humanist education, wide sphere of influence, and highly interesting chapter on what Lucraft argues was Swynford’s attempt to create an untainted public identity for herself by apprehending her patron saint as her symbol. The second biography published in 2007 was Alison Weir’s Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of

Lancaster. This book reads more like a recreation of her life in novel form with historical interjections and some comparisons. Although this biography is also well researched, it relies heavily on Lucraft, it strays from a strict historical background, and makes some emotional assumptions that historians cannot possibly prove.402 Weir’s book highlights events and movements of Katherine, unlike Lucraft’s analytical approach. Both of these books are essential to gathering information about Katherine and have between the two of them illustrated successfully the majority of events in Katherine’s life.403 It is interesting to point out that out of the three Duchesses of Lancaster; Katherine is the subject of more modern books and fictions than Blanche or Constance.

Katherine is noted briefly in many books which deal with Gaunt, although some provide more information than others. Anthony Goodman’s John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely

Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe (1992) and Sydney Armitage-Smith’s John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster (1905), are two biographies of Gaunt that

401 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, xix-xx.

402 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 65-66.

403 Because Katherine does have two superb biographies, unlike Blanche and Constance, there was no reason to rehash what had already been proven. Instead, the chapter will be broken up into sections of Katherine different uses of power with some biographical signposts for clarity.

117 allow fractions of Katherine’s actions and influence to be studied. In Goodman’s book

Katherine’s second-hand involvement in historical matters, is given little consequence. While the book was meant to focus on Gaunt, Goodman provided more information about Blanche or

Constance than Katherine. About two thirds of the time Goodman does mention Katherine she is called “mistress,” reinforcing the unflattering label and placing her significance firmly within the confines of sex and child-bearing.404 Armitage-Smith is comparable in his approach to Katherine.

Her movements are insignificant with only minimal recounts of gifts that Gaunt gave to her or juxtaposing Katherine’s name with his children, both the Beauforts and Blanche’s daughters.405

It is evident that Katherine’s children are much more important to Armitage-Smith than

Katherine herself.406 Outside her own biographies Katherine’s sexuality overshadows her actual person.

There is a substantial amount of historiography concerning the groups to which Katherine is a member: those concerning medieval gentry, mistresses, and widows. Jennifer Ward’s

English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (1992), specializes on English noblewomen in a generalized overview. Ward proclaims noblewomen were “able to exert influence not just because of their personalities, but because there were many areas in which society expected them to be active and to exercise power of various kinds.”407 To best exhibit dynamic social roles

Ward thematically organized her chapters in various, but very normal avenues such as marriage, widowhood, household, and lordship. While these themes are almost over-used when talking about noblewomen, Ward develops elaborate and stimulating examples juxtaposed with each

404 Some examples of this can be seen in Goodman, John of Gaunt, 50, 156.

405 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 390-391, 463.

406 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 391-392.

407 Ward, English Noblewomen, vii.

118 new topic she introduces in the chapters. Ward also included specific examples taken from

Lancaster at the time of Gaunt and his wives. Ffiona Swabey’s Medieval Gentlewoman: Life in a

Gentry Household in the Later Middle Ages (1999) is narrower in scope, looking at a gentlewoman who was of lesser rank than the aristocracy and who was a widow for years.

Swabey’s work, which does not utilize examples from Lancaster, offers insight into Katherine’s rank and possibilities at the time. On the same token there are a number of books on widowhood, one of these are Louise Mirrer’s Upon My Husband’s Death: Widows in the Literature and

Histories of Medieval Europe (1992). This anthology contributes a wide assortment of chapters about widows across classes and medieval Europe. By incorporating widows in the law, widows in literature, and common and noble widows Mirrer greatly adds to the conversation of

Katherine’s power and autonomy as a widow.

Even with the many books about medieval women, and surprisingly those that include a small section on Katherine, the power and influence and autonomy of this woman have been largely ignored. Lucraft offered an informative look at Katherine’s influence and agency with her analysis of Katherine’s construction of identity in her coat of arms and imagery associated with

St. Katherine of Alexandria.408 However, Lucraft focuses more on Katherine’s character and public image than her power through her status as a widow of the gentry and as a known mistress. Lucraft tried to argue Katherine’s status as a mistress was not as important a detail as believed in the past.409 Although a great deal of Lucraft’s conclusions are correct, the argument is that to understand Katherine’s power and autonomy the knowledge that she was a mistress and a widow is of upmost importance. Therefore, to recapture Katherine’s power and agency during the 1300s an examination of how she utilized her influence and sexuality to rise in the English

408 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 132-133.

409 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 99-100.

119 nobility will be throughout this chapter. At the same time Katherine strove to recreate her representation in society to avoid the stigma of being the temptress. She was ultimately successful in her waiting game for after twenty years of being Gaunt’s mistress she became his wife, an unlikely union in any century for a prince of the realm and a lower gentlewoman.

Therefore, this chapter begins with a look at Katherine’s intimate influence on and power over her family.

Katherine’s Childhood and Education

The evidence regarding Katherine’s birth and family is somewhat ambiguous. It is was widely believed that Katherine was born about 1345 in the region of Hainault, the youngest child of Sir Payne Roet, chief herald to Edward III. Sir Roet of Hainault came to England with Queen

Philippa after her marriage to Edward III in 1328.410 Lucraft has found some compelling evidence that Katherine and Philippa Chaucer had at least one older sister, Elisabeth, a nun, and possibly an older brother Walter, though the evidence for the brother is weaker.411 Katherine’s mother is not mentioned at all; presumably she died very quickly after the birth of her children, sometime after 1347.412 While there is no chronicle or writing pinpointing Katherine’s birth to the year 1350, only in the last ten years have the dates been disputed as well as her birth sequence.413 Until recently it was thought that Katherine was the youngest daughter of Sir Roet, yet Weir stated Katherine’s sister Philippa, who eventually married Geoffrey Chaucer, was the

410 Roet, did not own land in England, there is however some evidence that he might have owned land in Hainault. Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 120-122.

411 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 3.

412 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 3.

413 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 4-6.

120 younger of the two.414 However, Weir only gives one source for this claim, John Weever who was writing in 1631, over two hundred years after Katherine died. On the other hand, Lucraft upheld this claim and stated in her own research that Philippa was born sometime after

Katherine.415

There is also debate concerning the nature of the relationship between Katherine and

Philippa. There is a rumor that while Katherine was married to Sir Hugh Swynford in 1366, it was Philippa who first caught the eye of John of Gaunt. It has been argued that Chaucer’s children were not his children at all, but Gaunt’s.416 If that is the case then Gaunt “gets Thomas conceived and Philippa paid off…before Gaunt’s affair with Katherine began.”417 This opinion is not very popular and weak in its reasoning. If this was the way it transpired then why would

Gaunt go after the younger sibling then the older? If his affair with Philippa had happened, then it would have been seen as incest to the medieval minds, which could mean that there are no grounds for it.418 A liaison with both sisters would have required a dispensation and there is no mention of this type of incest in the dispensation written to the pope by Gaunt.419 Gaunt and

Katherine confessed to having an affair during his marriage with Constance and that he was

414 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 11-12.

415 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 4-6.

416 John Gardner, The Life and Times of Chaucer (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, INC., 1977), 158-162.

417 Gardner, The Life and Times of Chaucer, 162.

418 In the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 it was recorded that anyone’s wife, or sexual partner, are related to her sisters in the first degree which is incest. It was considered incest up to the fourth degrees of affinity. See Harry Rothwell, English Historical Documents, 1189-1327,” in Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages: A Sourcebook, ed. Conor McCarthy, (London: Routledge, 2004), 68-69.

419 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 78.

121 godfather to her eldest daughter with Hugh Swynford, which was seen as incest.420 It stands to reason that the couple would have confessed to both acts of incest if both were true. It is also worth mentioning that Katherine was able to marry into a higher ranking family than Philippa.421

Conclusively, Katherine was probably born closer to 1345 than 1350 and was older than her sister Philippa.

Katherine was closely associated with the royal family from a very young age. Sir Roet gained his title from exemplary employment in 1334, and not through hereditary means. Edward

III and Queen Philippa were obviously impressed enough with Sir Roet that he was able to secure the placement of his youngest daughters in the household of the queen in 1352.422

Daughters of the nobility, such as gentry in the Middle Ages, went either to live with a wealthy patron or to a convent between the tender ages of about six to eight. If they went to live with a patron they were taught the skills of running a household, etiquette, embroidery, and how to make a chaste wife, for it was the responsibility of the families to ensure the “valuable chastity” of the daughters.423 There was even a textbook of sorts written to accomplish this in the form of

“courtesy literature” which was very popular in the Middle Ages.424 Katherine did live with a wealthy patron, but that patron was the queen. This royal placement provided Katherine with a unique education in the court of Edward III and an advantage compared to other gentry-level daughters during the medieval era. As Lucraft plainly argued, Katherine would have been given

420 Please see footnote 418, Gaunt being godfather to Blanche Swynford would have been considered incest with Katherine because she was within the degrees of affinity with Gaunt.

421 Davis, “A Perfect Marriage on the Rocks,” 129. Chaucer was from the merchant class and therefore below the rank of the Roets. While Sir Hugh Swynford came from the gentry and was a part of Gaunt’s retinue. Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 8.

422 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 1; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 15.

423 Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows, 44.

424 Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows, 19.

122 an education both in an academic and artistic sense, but most importantly she would have been groomed to serve the royal house as well as being a proper lady.425 This close proximity of the king and queen affected Katherine as a young girl and allowed her to be of service to the highest individuals in the kingdom, giving her much more power and access though this act of service to royalty than many other gentry. It has been noted that the courts of both Edward III and Richard

II were famous for their more liberal attitudes. Gaunt was not the only one who was fostering the furthering of literature and language in late 1300s. In Terry Jones’ speculative study about

Chaucer and Richard II, he made a convincing argument that Richard II “deserves to be seen as a patron of letters” and was the “first king of England to be hailed as the protector of English language.”426 Froissart, the chronicler from Hainault, indicated that the language “generally spoken” at Richard II court was English instead of the traditional French.427 He also notably chose not to surround himself with “men of high blood…[but] men of ability and intelligence.”428 Froissart first recorded Katherine’s up bringing in his Chronicles, by stating

“she had a perfect knowledge of court etiquette because she had been brought up in it continually since her youth.”429 She more than likely knew, or maybe grew up with Gaunt and her future employer, Blanche.430 Weir contends that Katherine might have even had her own nurse, commissioned by Queen Philippa, named Agnes Bonsergeant.431 Therefore, even at a young age

425 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 104-107. For comparison see Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages, 237-239.

426 Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer?, 35.

427 Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer?, 36.

428 Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer?, 53.

429 Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and ed. Brereton, 420.

430 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 33.

431 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 14.

123

Katherine was already forming strong ties with the royal family and some of the most influential people in England. Her education in the court was the foundation on which Katherine learned how to contend with and manage power and influence.

Froissart, Lucraft, and Weir all state that Katherine moved to the Lancastrian household, when Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster were married in 1359, or as Weir gives 1360.432 The first mention of her in the registers was in 1365 when she was mentioned as an “ancille” or servant of

Blanche of Lancaster, Gaunt’s first wife.433 Katherine would have been around fourteen when she began to work for Blanche. As an ancille Katherine more than likely worked as a caretaker for Blanche’s children even before she officially became their governess. Her upbringing in court would have made her a great companion, while her lower status as gentry meant that she needed a powerful and wealthy employer to keep her in a life style to which she was accustomed.434

Thus to be in the service of Blanche was a smart strategy. Though the option of employment could have come directly from Blanche it is slightly more likely that Katherine went to Blanche seeking a position. The easy movement of Katherine from the household of Queen Philippa and her continuation of work after marriage are evidence that Katherine had some pull with the duchess. Whether this ability stemmed from a familial relationship or political clout remains a mystery, but it gave Katherine lasting protection and foothold in high society.

Katherine as Landed Gentry

Blanche had a responsibility for Katherine’s advancement and care because she was a member in the household. It can be stated with some surety that Katherine was in good standing

432 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 103; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 31.

433 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 5.

434 As Lucraft commented, Katherine was highly educated, both formally and informally. She knew how to read, in at least three different languages, embroider, “music and dancing…and religious instruction.” Along with “social skills and refinement of manners” Katherine was an ideal tutor for the young girls. Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 103.

124 in the Lancaster house and as such Blanche probably played a large role in finding an appropriate marriage for Katherine. Katherine married in the 1360s, about 1363-1365, to Sir Hugh

Swynford, a vassal of Gaunt. Swynford owned two manors, Colby and Kettlethorpe in

Lincolnshire.435 Like most of the elite men who were married in this era, Swynford was much older than Katherine, at least ten years her senior.436 Swynford was probably chosen for him by both Gaunt and Blanche since Swynford was in Gaunt’s household and would have been considered a suitable match for the foreign heiress.437 Similar to the medieval idea that it was the duty of the daughter to submit to her father’s wishes when it came to marriage, so too this marriage was advantageous to all parties.438 Hugh Swynford gained a beautiful bride with land and an array of excellent contacts with the royal court. Under the idea of service, Katherine’s links with the court was very highly prized. Since she had provided a service under Blanche’s and the queen’s households she possessed some of the most coveted connections. On the other hand, Katherine could have gained more from the marriage than at first glance. If Blanche, like

Eleanor of Castile in the earlier century, used marriages within her household to advance and strengthen ties to herself, then both Katherine and Blanche could easily gained from the match.

Katherine profited from being married to a landed knight of England under the vassalage of

Gaunt and running her own household. This marriage was important also to reinforce her standing in the Lancastrian household. Finally, Blanche and Gaunt benefitted from the marriage.

435 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 6. Weir backs up this statement. Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 68.

436 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 67.

437 Both Katherine and Swynford might have owned about the same amount of land, but Swynford had a title, and although her father Sir Roet had one Katherine needed to marry into a title if she was to use the term “lady.”

438 In many circumstances the father used his daughters as “merchandise displayed for sale to attract the customer” that in turn could produce a political or territorial advantage. Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows, 43.

125

Blanche would be seen as a loyal benefactor and able to carry out part of her duty to provide for a member of her household. Gaunt was able to follow through on his unwritten contract with a member of his retinue and fortify Hugh Swynford’s loyalty and that of any offspring who inherited; for the Swynford’s lands were with the Lancastrian holdings.

Under medieval legal requirements the couple should be married in a church. The reasoning behind this medieval tradition was purely legal, because of the property both Swynford and Katherine owned. Lincoln Cathedral might have been the church considering her long term association with it as a member of the Confraternity of Lincoln Cathedral.439 If the couple did marry in the church, then Katherine actively provided for her future. Church weddings “was necessary to vest property…and dower rights,” meaning there needed to be legal record of the transaction and consent to marriage.440 This vested right allowed Katherine to have legal proof and power over her dowry rights and the property for which the couple jointly was responsible.441 It was not just the women who pushed for this strengthened legal claim. For those couples who did not marry at the church door or inside, multiple problems could have arisen.

The husband’s “claim to his wife’s property, his right/duty to act for her (coverture), and even…the inheritance rights of the children,” could be jeopardized.442 Even though Katherine did not have much property, the legal power she was able to retain even in marriage gave her a

439 Whether or not it was Lincoln Cathedral, it was more than likely one of the ducal chapels. Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 68; Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 104.

440 Jacobs, Marriage Contracts, 2.

441 Dowry rights refer to the usual legal amount widows can receive from their husband’s estates, whether or not they have property. In London it was agreed that women could stay in the houses of their late husband’s for life as long as they did not remarry. Plus they would receive one third of all the moveable goods-anything, but land- from the husband’s estate. Other places only allowed the one third of the moveable property. While it was possible for widows to receive more, most went to court if they did not receive at least the one third. Caroline Barron and Anne F. Sutton, eds., Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003), xvii-xxi.

442 Jacobs, Marriage Contracts, 7.

126 distinct advantage and showed her savvy in marriage and legal rights. At a time when married women did not have a separate legal identity outside their husbands, this type of record was powerful indeed. Therefore, Katherine clearly and legally had established rights, should

Swynford die, through the church.

After marrying one of the more modest knights of the gentry, the Katherine had responsibilities to maintain the efficiency of the household no matter how modest the lands.

Swynford’s properties were meager compared to the royal court or the ducal estates, the land was

“hard, stony, and uncultivated” and the manor close to ruins from floods.443 The Colby estate only brought in about 37s10d (600 modern pounds), which was on the extremely low end of incomes, most lords were able to have an income of 600 li.444 Kettlethorpe brought in more money, being the principle manor, but as there are not many records there is no way to tell just how much the Swynfords were earning from their estates exactly. During the early years of her marriage Katherine, like Blanche, would have been expected to run the household and lands, although the household would be far less people than the upper nobility. She still had certain responsibilities. Comparable to Blanche, Katherine exhibited her influence and power through her own household and the surrounding countryside where her manors were located, just on a small scale.

Katherine’s household as Lady Swynford was very meager compared to the court and the

Lancaster households that had been her norm. There are no available records to indicate how many people Katherine kept, but it was more than likely fewer than fifty.445 As comparison

443 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 6-7.

444 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 71; Mertes, The English Noble Household, 216-218.

445 Mertes, The English Noble Household, 216-218.

127

Gaunt’s own household was usually anywhere from 115 to 200 and had incomes coming in from one third of all of England.446 It is little wonder then that Katherine sought employment elsewhere. The two manors could not keep up with her standard of living. However, Katherine showed a solid understanding of her situation and was savvy in her dealings with her husband.

When she married Swynford the couple had the lands in jointure, allowing her more independence while married and a great deal more financial independence when she was a widow. 447 Swynford also was absent for large portions of the time, being a member of Gaunt’s retinue. Swynford fought for Gaunt in numerous instances, the last of course in the 1370s.448

Katherine had complete control over the estate while Swynford was gone. She did not neglect these lands, but she was not there much either. Over the years Katherine made it a point to try and refurbish some of the lands as her power grew in the Lancaster household. In 1375 it was recorded she was one of the landowners responsible for “maintaining” a dyke adjacent to the

Swynford lands.449 In 1383 she petitioned Richard II to enclose three hundred acres of her lands and woods as parkland.450 This was granted and remained in effect until 1810.451 Moreover since the death of Swynford she held the land in wardship for her son until he was of age.452 That

Katherine was responsible for these types of situations shows her autonomy and her influence in

446 Mertes, The English Noble Household, 203. Weir estimated Gaunt made about triple the amount most aristocratic noblemen did, with about forty-three billion pounds per annum. Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 47. See footnote 11 for further explanation of Jointure.

447 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 10.

448 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 229, 239.

449 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 7.

450 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 211-212.

451 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 12.

452 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 138.

128 the meager lands he owned from Swynford. Nevertheless, this estate was not her only responsibility.

As her influence over Gaunt grew and their relationship deepened over the years,

Katherine acquired a number of new estates that allowed her income, power and autonomy to blossom exponentially. By 1377 Katherine owned manors at Waddington and Wellingore given to her by Gaunt.453 She then amassed manors in Boston, Grantham, a house in Lincoln, and a residence in King’s Lynn.454 All of these lands Katherine obtained as mistress to Gaunt, and she would gather more as his wife. Yet, the interesting point to these lands was that all of them were flourishing port towns in the Middle Ages.455 Although it is possible that Gaunt gave her lands because he anticipated that they helped her, it is also likely that Katherine specifically asked for them. It is obvious she had more port towns than not and this could mean she was interested in trade, or at least travel. If for the former reason Katherine was quite cunning in her ability to gain these individual lands. She understood the importance, accessibility, and land value of this type of real estate. Plus, as Ward made clear, the bond between the lord and the town was a symbiotic relationship where the lord would benefit from the income of the town and have supplies close at hand from vendors or merchants and the town would have a stronger economy with the money flow from the patronage of the lord. To fulfill her household management of both the Swynford properties and her other estates Katherine had to have a working knowledge of the feudal system, economics, finance, and crops because ladies were responsible for looking after their husbands’

453 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 160.

454 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 288.

455 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 288.

129 property when he was absent.456 Thus Katherine exhibited her education, her influence, and agency in the governance of her lands and the close association with port towns.

In the 1360s it seems that to Katherine she would not be able to live comfortably just off the income of her Swynford estate alone, even when she was a domicella in Blanche’s household. To supplement her income, Katherine was promoted to the rank of a governess. A governess for Blanche’s daughters was the equivalent to a tutor for sons. Therefore, Katherine was responsible for the girls’ education, finances, overall care, and the running of their household.457 Other governesses to the girls were paid about 67 pounds or 18,000 pounds

(modern) per annum.458 Katherine’s payments increased for various reasons throughout the years she served as governess. It is difficult to trace by increments the jumps in income, but in the space of a few years in the 1370s her set income per annum jumped from 2,000 to 9,000 pounds, not counting gifts of money, goods, and necessities.459 By 1387 Katherine had amassed enough money and invested it well enough to lend Gaunt money before his invasion of Castile.460 Some of this wealth was due to her responsibilities, but a large reason was because Katherine now had to care for Gaunt’s illegitimate children. Thus Katherine’s household and power expanded through her job and through her sexual liaison. Katherine was responsible for the very large household of the daughters and her own growing household for her children. At one point the children under her specific supervision could have numbered nine, while the household could

456 Barbara Kanner, eds., The Women of England: From Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present, (Brooklyn: Shoe String Press, INC., 1979), 90-91; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 116.

457 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 321,363.

458 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 98-99.

459 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 140-143.

460 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 116.

130 have totaled anywhere between fifty to one hundred people.461 If Katherine had been a more normal governess she would have been attached to the girls until they had married, which was not until 1386, but Gaunt let Katherine go in 1381 after the Great Revolt forced him to publicly renounce his dalliance with Katherine.462 However, she was still provided for by Gaunt and was sent to Mary de Bohun’s household, his daughter-in-law. Therefore, over the course of her life

Katherine worked for many higher ranking women, including Queen Philippa, Blanche,

Constance, and Mary de Bohun, even while she had her own household and estates to concern herself with.

Katherine continued to have a close relationship with Blanche and to cultivate her standing within the powerful household. When Katherine became the governess for Blanche’s children, she was promoted to a high position in Blanche’s household. Katherine would have to be highly educated and found worthy despite the low position of Swynford in the landed gentry.

This advancement could mean one of three situations. One, Katherine was held privately in high esteem by Blanche although she by marriage was vastly lower rank, as obvious with Gaunt agreeing to be godfather to her daughter. Two, Katherine had already begun a liaison with Gaunt and therefore he promoted her within the household. Finally, and far more likely, Katherine used a combination of the first idea and her proven excellent education to advance her position in the most powerful household in England after the crown. Katherine’s possible influence and friendship with both Blanche and Gaunt become even more evident when Blanche died.

Katherine took over Blanche’s entire household while the duke was away in 1368.463 The command of the Lancastrian household was a huge jump from management of her own manor of

461 Ward, Mistress of the Monarchy, 53-57.

462 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 66-68.

463 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 10.

131

Kettlethorpe. Blanche’s household was extensive and her responsibilities were great while Gaunt was gone on a campaign. In some respects Katherine never stepped down from this exalted position.

After Gaunt married Constance, Katherine continued in her responsibility for his daughters by Blanche, Philippa and Elizabeth of Lancaster, even though Gaunt could have chosen other suitable governesses.464 This position conferred more power and influence to

Katherine and brought her closer to Gaunt. Therefore she had, and retained, the necessary knowledge to be a governess for such a royal brood. Katherine must have “held a certain level education and accomplishment,” a degree of piety, and a knowledge of household economics “to have been considered for the post.”465 Since Gaunt was the patron of both John Wycliff and

Chaucer he had to have a unique affinity for literature and education. This affinity was passed down to his daughters as well for when Philippa of Lancaster became the Queen of Portugal she was “credited with inaugurating a new era at the Portuguese court through the education of her children.”466 Also according to Harold F. Hutchison in his book, The Hollow Crown (1961),

Katherine “did the honours of his household, and was welcomed and honoured at court.”467

Katherine was very ambitious with her time, and yet she did not meddle in the affairs of state.

Instead Katherine chose to use her ability to patronize through her family and the church.

464 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 226-227.

465 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 106.

466 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 112.

467 Harold F. Hutchison, The Hollow Crown: A Life of Richard II (New York: The John Day Company, 1961), 143.

132

Katherine was not expected to be “domestic…her duties dealt with a wider sphere.”468 As

Swabey argued, noblewomen had influence on the wider world. They had court obligations, lands to maintain, records to supervise, patronage to dispense, churches to supply, and responsibilities for family.469 Katherine took on each of these duties with energy. She actively patronized churches and made sure of the advancement of her family. There is only one recorded incident in 1375 which Katherine was approached by an outside party, the mayor of Leicester, to provide patronage and to put in Gaunt’s ear a good word.470 However, there is no way to know if this type of request was a common act. It does seem that if Katherine was open for others to seek that type of patronage then there would be more public outcry concerning her usurping

Constance’s position as duchess.471 Either way Katherine was more likely to patronize churches than others. She had always had good relations with Lincoln Cathedral, being in the confraternity there and she rented a house, the Priory, there for over a decade.472 Katherine bequeathed “many fine ecclesiastical vestments, some embroidered with her own device of a Catherine wheel.”473

When Katherine died, she had the privilege of “burial within the presbytery of the cathedral, close to the altar.”474 The vestments Katherine gave to the cathedral are another aspect of

Katherine’s influence and agency. That she could afford to give them in the first place shows how much more wealthy Katherine was when she was a widow the second time. Also the vestments had her own coat of arms with the three Catherine wheels, a separate coat of arms

468 Labarge, A Baronial Household, 147.

469 Swabey, Medieval Gentlewoman, 146.

470 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 127.

471 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 126-128.

472 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 197.

473 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 256.

474 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 256.

133

Katherine designed on her own. Her arms were not a branch off either one of her husbands, and therefore Katherine in giving them was separating herself from either line of the male figures; instead she chose to represent her own self and seemingly had a relationship with the cathedral disconnected from her association with Swynford or Gaunt.475 The honor of her burial position is also an interesting feature, the closer to the alter the better and more prestigious. Outside of her religious concerns Katherine was a patron of St. Katherine-by-the-Tower, a hospital that many of the royal family patronized including Queen Philippa.476 Although Katherine removed herself from political patronage she had ways of providing for the communities around her and her family. By the 1370s Katherine more than likely advanced her sister Philippa Chaucer and her daughter Blanche Swynford. Philippa Chaucer was sent to be in the household of Constance and as already noted was an invaluable servant to Constance.477 Then as early as 1368 the young

Blanche Swynford was placed in the chamber of Blanche’s own daughters as a playmate and servant.478 Thus Katherine showed her power, influence, and agency through her lands, her service as governess, and her patronage. At the same time Katherine was focused on the wider world of English society and her own upward movement into wealth, Katherine was proficient as a mother.

Katherine had at least six to seven children over the course of her life. At least two of these children were by Swynford.479 Katherine’s first child, a daughter named Blanche or

Blanchette Swynford, was born about 1367. Her second child was a male, Thomas Swynford

475 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 138.

476 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 10.

477 See Chapter 3 for more information.

478 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 77-79.

479 May McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399, ed. Sir George Clark (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), 393.

134 born in 1368.480 There was also mention of a third child, Margaret, but there is a great deal less evidence about her. Pregnancy and child birthing was very interesting and highly dangerous in the Middle Ages. It was “painful at best” and fatal at worst with an extremely high infant mortality rate and a slightly less high maternal mortality rate.481 Nevertheless, Katherine excelled at fulfilling her role as a child bearer and a mother. For instance, through Katherine’s own influence or at least loyalty to the Lancastrian household, Gaunt became the godfather to

Katherine’s daughter, Blanche Swynford.482 That Gaunt would agree to be godfather speaks volumes to the position of Katherine. The act of being a godparent to a child was quite an undertaking and a responsibility. The godparent, or godparents, was responsible for the child’s wellbeing, education, and spiritual conduct.483 The godparent might even be obligated to taking in the child if the biological parents die. As Paul Newman’s work suggests, the parents were able to choose their children’s godparent. This idea precludes the potency of Katherine’s influence on and powerful ties with Gaunt and Blanche. The decision of having Gaunt stand as godparent also showed Katherine’s tactful way of creating an even stronger bond with Gaunt and intelligently advancing the connections of her daughter. Therefore, her choosing them for this responsibility does not seem farfetched. That Gaunt agreed to it adds to Katherine’s prestige, influence, and power in the House of Lancaster even before she became entangled with Gaunt.

As Gaunt’s mistress Katherine had four surviving children to add to the growing family.

They were called the Beauforts after a long-lost Lancastrian estate. The children, John, Henry,

Thomas, and Joan, were very well cared for by Gaunt and Katherine. Gaunt constantly sent

480 The birth years were taken from Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 9.

481 Gies, Women in the Middle Ages, 207.

482 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 461.

483 Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages, 24-26.

135 money and supplies to Katherine for their upkeep, for it was Katherine’s household that was responsible for their needs. Gaunt was extremely interested in their advancement, not as much as his legitimate children, but while the Lancastrian children received kingdoms, the Beauforts were able to land some of the wealthiest families in England. Highly educated and with strong familial ties with both Richard II and Henry IV, they enjoyed the best connections. Richard II pronounced them as “our most dear kinsmen…sprung from royal stock” in 1397.484 Just as with his other illegitimate child by Marie de Saint Hilaire Gaunt recognized the Beauforts.485 They were unique in that Gaunt was extremely public in his protection and patronage of his

Beauforts.486 Katherine was no different. She made sure that they were well cared for and promoted at every opportunity. Froissart even went so far to say that John Beaufort was a “great favorite with his father.”487 Providing Gaunt with sons served to strengthen his loyalty and gifts to Katherine which in turn gave her more power within society and the surrounding areas.

Although she continued to have the Swynford lands until Thomas Swynford was of age, Gaunt granted her annuities and estates in Lincolnshire and Nottingham, thus giving her a greater area of protection and influence.488 The care of Gaunt and Katherine become evident in how far the four children were able to advance. John became earl of Somerset, marquis of Dorset, Henry was bishop of Lincoln, Winchester, and finally a cardinal.489 Thomas enjoyed a very successful

484 Saul, Richard II, 246.

485 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 460-461.

486 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 391.

487 Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and ed. Brereton, 419.

488 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 391.

489 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 365, 255.

136 military career and guardianship of Henry IV’s son, Henry V.490 Joan Beaufort married into the

Neville family bringing with her royal blood and gaining an ancient wealth and title.491 Goodman stated Gaunt, through his “promotion of their marriages and careers, he developed a strong

Lancastrian entrenched position in the English nobility and among European princes.”492

Katherine was able to influence not only Gaunt’s children and her own greatly through their education, their connections, and their progeny which spread across Europe.

In the Widow’s Robes

In 1372 Hugh Swynford died in battle leaving Katherine a widow in her early twenties.

Katherine remained a widow for twenty-two years after the death of Swynford, an interesting choice considering she was very young and had small children. Yet, she was not completely bereft. She already owned property in Hainault from her father, she was able to hold the

Swynford lands for her son, and she was under the employment of Gaunt’s wives.493 A consideration of the medieval ideas and ideals of widowhood, widows in medieval law, and finally Katherine as a widow is in this section. First, to understand the full power and agency behind Katherine’s status as a widow and her decision to remain in that state the medieval ideas of widows must be discussed.

Medieval widows were in a rather interesting position in England. On one hand medieval

“common law…contradicted both feudal and social attitudes about the inappropriateness of women as landholders, but the contradiction was accepted by the ruling class and even

490 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 365.

491 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 366.

492 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 366.

493 John M. W. Bean, From Lord to Patron: Lordship in Late Medieval England, ed. Edward Peters and Henry Charles Lea (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 158, 192 n. 25.

137 strengthened through the Magna Carta.”494 On the other hand, there was a constricting social ideal of widowhood that was rigorously enforced. In the English law the feudal duties “should in theory have prevented women” from being able to own or command property, yet over the centuries noblewomen governed the estates of their husbands, defended family property—both militarily and politically—and commanded a substantial amount of power. Moreover women were “expected by her husband and her peers to perform all these duties efficiently and with skill.”495 While one law and social expectancy upheld the idea of a powerful widow with agency, the feudal law was in place to limit widows. Unlike married women, widows were not under the authority of a man. The women who found themselves in this situation were able to be independent, control their own property, had certain social obligations, and were in some respects in charge of their own lives. There are multiple instances where widows were able to successfully and legally have their rights as widows preserved. In the case of Maud Mortimer in the thirteenth century, she fought a legal battle for years with her son over her dower, and especially the lands connected with her husband’s will.496 Maud Mortimer held “more than half” of the lands over which her son was titular lord and he did not gain any income from them or have authority over them as long as Maud Mortimer was alive.497 Even though they fought legally over the control of the land, Maud Mortimer was able to hold onto her rights. Likewise,

Katherine used her position as widow of Gaunt to receive her dower from both Richard II and

494 Linda E. Mitchell, “Noble Widowhood in the Thirteenth Century: Three Generations of Mortimer Widows, 1246-1334,” in Upon My Husband’s Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe, ed. Louise Mirrer, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 171.

495 Linda E. Mitchell, Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage, and Politics in England, 1225- 1350 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), 45.

496 Mitchell, “Noble Widowhood in the Thirteenth Century: Three Generations of Mortimer Widows, 1246- 1334,” in Upon My Husband’s Death, ed. Mirrer, 178.

497 Mitchell, “Noble Widowhood in the Thirteenth Century: Three Generations of Mortimer Widows, 1246- 1334,” in Upon My Husband’s Death, ed. Mirrer, 178.

138

Henry IV, even in the midst of the insurrection. In 1399 Gaunt died leaving Katherine a very wealthy widow, but Henry Bolingbroke had already made his stance against Richard II. In turn

Richard II took the entire Lancaster estate in to custody, leaving Henry out of his inheritance and

Katherine out of her dower lands and goods.498 A month after Gaunt’s death, Richard II extended

Henry of Bolingbroke’s exile to life and declared his inheritance forfeit, but Katherine’s dower, which was extensive, Richard II restored.499 Both the estates, which ranged across England numbering about thirty manors, castles, abbeys, honors, and rents, and her annuity of 1,000 pounds (379,163 modern pounds) was given quickly to Katherine.500 Her removal from the court during this upheaval did not anger Richard II or Henry IV and she wisely kept up appearances of loyalty to both. As Judith Bennett cautioned, while widows were able to take “advantage of many new and unusual opportunities, they were nevertheless restricted in important ways, because of their sex. Widows had many opportunities, but not all took them up, and none were truly liberated.”501 Widows had some unique avenues through which they could potentially exercise their power and autonomy without being outside social norms.

However, if widows were allowed to have these extra outlets for power, they needed to remain chaste in every aspect of their lives. There was a distinct distrust of widows in the culture and literature of the Middle Ages for their “increased knowledge and assertiveness that came with all this power.”502 A large portion of this distrust stemmed from the idea of the lecherous

498 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 279.

499 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 179-280.

500 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 259, 280.

501 Judith M. Bennett, “Widows in the Medieval Countryside,” in Upon My Husband’s Death, ed. Mirrer, 69.

502 Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows, 143.

139 widow. According to the cultural consensus “all the virtues practiced by any woman are to be practiced more fervently by a widow, since she ‘maintained her reputation by her modesty, her chastity, and by her acceptance of the authority of others.’”503 Even though society and the

Common Law allowed and acknowledged widows as owning agency and power in their own right, the widow who broke Christian conduct was condemned. Furthermore, in the fourteenth century there was the idea of three grades of chastity set down by St. Augustine. These ranked in order of the ideal to the lowest form of sexual temptation beginning with virginity, widowhood, and marriage.504 This scale of how pure women were in terms of their sexuality was reinforced everywhere, in paintings, moral plays, instruction manuals, and in literature. Part of this idea at least in England might have rested in a fear of female sexuality and authority.505 This study tends to lean in another direction. It is far more likely that women inheriting, even if it was only for their life time, disrupted the idea of primogeniture. At a time when armies and noblemen who could lead them were very real and with land being scarce in England, it was important to the

English to have a set standard of inheritance, insuring the lands—the most important commodity—to remain in the hands of able-bodied men, and those who could serve to strengthen the crown.

While it has been proven that some women successfully defended their lands, this role reversal could not go on for long if the English were to continue their way of life. Also if widow’s inherited and then remarried there was a chance that their new husbands or new children would steal the family lands away. The most famous instance of this would be William

503 Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows, 140.

504 McCarthy, Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages, ed. McCarthy, 11.

505 Heather M. Arden, “Grief, Widowhood, and Women’s Sexuality,” in Upon My Husband’s Death, ed. Mirrer, 317.

140

Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where Hamlet’s step-father/uncle has stolen the prince’s inheritance of the crown by marrying Hamlet’s mother. Likewise, Heather Arden in her examination of medieval French literature found that “despite their manifest grief, recently bereaved widows…soon begin thinking of getting a new man. When these widows remarry, they do so only to provide a legal sanction for their sexual desires.”506 The widows in Arden’s research almost immediately left the side of their husband’s body and fall for a new man who steals her attention, if not her sexual awareness. Each time Arden found that these women’s acts of following the new man would lead to the betrayal and disrespect of the dead, and sometimes a terrible end to the woman.507 Pizan writing her books about the conduct of medieval women spoke to both aspects of widowhood as well. Pizan wrote about the widow’s care for her children, preserving their inheritance, and the widow’s conduct should war arise over the land or while her son is still minor.508 There was no mention of the woman remarrying; precluding that remarriage was not an option for the widow, whether she was young or old.509 Finally, in English literature there are many widows represented there, but one of the more famous is Chaucer’s

Wyf of Bath. She had five husbands at the church door, with the understanding of property being agreed on, and through these multiple marriages she had gathered an impressive amount of goods.510 Her lifestyle of remarriage showed her as a savvy woman in today’s society, but the worst type of widow to the medieval mindset. She cared for her husbands as long as they were

506 Arden, “Grief, Widowhood, and Women’s Sexuality,” in Upon My Husband’s Death, ed. Mirrer, 306.

507 Arden, “Grief, Widowhood, and Women’s Sexuality,” in Upon My Husband’s Death, ed. Mirrer, 310- 312.

508 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Willard, ed. Cosman, 119-121.

509 Pizan, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 119-121.

510 Chaucer, “The Wyf of Bath’s Prologue,” in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 105-116.

141 pleasuring her, she quickly turned from their graves to her next victim, and was powerful enough to trap more men in her web while amassing their lands from their family.511 Therefore, chastity remained the preferred state, for all women.512 As daughters women were under the authority of their fathers and were the purest form of virginity. As married women, sex was assumed, but allowed only so far as it was for procreation purposes.513 Widows, on the other hand, had a taste of sexual pleasures in marriage and while in the culture they were suppose to remain in a constant state of widowhood to once again remove the stain of sex, they were the easiest to tempt and be pulled back into the frivolous vestiges of marriage or worse, sex. This fearful atmosphere permeated the society when Katherine became a widow in 1372, and through her actions and reactions in widowhood she became one of the most famous widows in the fourteenth century.

When Katherine became a widow for the first time she had two options open to her. She could remarry or she could remain a widow. While it was quite common for young widows to remarry, it was also dangerous.514 It was dangerous because her son was still a minor and there was a chance he might lose his inheritance and Katherine would once again lose some of her autonomy. Although it is impossible to tell Katherine’s motivations completely, she does seem to hold her autonomy as important. For instance, she does not remarry until it would be beneficial to her children, she owns the property in both marriages jointly, and as will be discussed in the next section she created her own coat of arms and saintly symbols. It is therefore possible, that

511 Chaucer, “The Wyf of Bath’s Prologue,” in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson, 105-116.

512 Margaret McGlynn and Richard J. Moll, “Chaste Marriage in the Middle Ages,” in Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage, (New York: Garland Publishing, INC., 1996), 104.

513 McGlynn and Moll, “Chaste Marriage in the Middle Ages,” in Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. Bullough and Brundage, 103-116.

514 Barron, “The Widow’s World in Later Medieval London,” in Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500, ed. Barron and Sutton, xxv.

142

Katherine did not want to marry again. After all, there were more options for widows in terms of autonomy and power separate from men. However, it is also interesting that Katherine, when society told her to remain chaste in widowhood, she consciously chose to have relations with

Gaunt. More than a want of love or sex, this move to become a mistress could be a way for

Katherine to promote herself. An affair was one of the only ways in which a woman could independently rise in prominence and Katherine strove for the top. Regardless of her real motivation, Katherine was able to rise in power, in wealth, and status through her relationship with Gaunt, while safeguarding her autonomy as a widow. Many in England spoke out against

Gaunt’s decision to maintain her and society as a whole discredited her actions as a lecherous widow. Yet she had more freedom than the majority of women in England. Katherine could have her own interests in merchants in port towns, she was given moveable property as gifts, and she could build up her estates.515 She also had more power through her affair. Gaunt’s name and image provided more power to those in his service and Katherine was the same. Gaunt’s name gave her more access to the court, to a better standard of living, and to a stable future for her children.

The second time Katherine became a widow, in 1399, was very different. Because she had been Gaunt’s wife she was the richest widow in England. She had an annuity of 1300 pounds

(416,705 modern pounds) and over thirty estates that she legally could hold for life, only when she died would most go back to the Lancastrian inheritance.516 She was very politically savvy for in the midst of the coup d'état Katherine was able to remove herself from the picture while successfully petitioning for her dowry from both Richard II and Henry IV. Their respect for

515 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 69. She not only gained a number of new houses, but she was able to build a new arch for Kettlethorpe and enclose part of it for a park.

516 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 292.

143

Katherine stood on its own, separate from Gaunt. Because even before Henry IV and Gaunt was on the wrong side of Richard II, he showed favor to Katherine for in 1387 he appointed her a

“Lady of the Fraternity of St. George and of the Society of the Garter”—the “highest English honor to which a woman might aspire.”517 After Henry IV gained the throne he promoted and honored Katherine by calling her on multiple occasions the “king’s mother.”518 Thus in her second widowhood Katherine had an immense amount of power and influence even over the king and was able to own vast amounts of estates on her own, keeping her autonomy . However, there was one huge distinction between Katherine in 1372 and 1399. After 1372 Katherine became one of the worst people as understood by her culture by defiling her chastity and her first husband’s memory, but in 1399 she was the picture of perfect widowhood. Katherine went quietly to her own property, the Priory located at Lincoln Cathedral, she removed herself from the public eye and court, and there she remained until her own death.519 Thus Katherine was a unique widow in both instances. The first time she defied convention and became a lecherous widow. This decision allowed her power and a growth in status while amassing property, yet it was seen by the public as disreputable. Yet, when she became Gaunt’s widow her power base and influence was at its highest, but she was the picture of a good widow. However, it was not just her widowhood that made her upward mobile. Her actions as a mistress also furthered her power, influence, and autonomy.

The Beautiful Mistress

The men and women of the medieval world lived and breathed in a world that equated men with Adam the patriarch of the entire human race and considered women as the descendents

517 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 224.

518 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 284.

519 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 289-290.

144 of Eve, the temptress and scapegoat for the fall of humans from the grace of God. England was no exception. In the medieval mindset, whether they were base-born or an element of the nobility, women were born with a “fundamental character defect inherited from Eve.”520 Along with the women being defective in some physical way they were subject to the males in their life since Christ was the head of the Church so was a husband the head of the family. Therefore,

“because the existence of woman is ordained for that of man, her state of life is defined by her relationship with him, whether father to daughter, husband to wife, or deceased to widow.”521

The issue of sin was another large part of the Church’s teaching, leading the list of sins and most vital to this paper was the sin of lust. Throughout the Middle Ages the fear of temptation by lewd women was prevalent. Everyone from the husbandman behind the oxen plow to the king could be damned through lusting after women, even in marriage.522 This is why women were to emulate the Virgin Mary and men to ensure that they did not become too promiscuous and worldly minded. For those women who, like Katherine, decided to go against the grain of tradition there were consequences.

Mistresses have been a constant in England across the three estates, in the Middle Ages.

Chris Given-Wilson proposed that ten out of eighteen English kings between 1066 and 1485 took at least one mistress and fathered many children from these unions.523 Clerics also were notorious for their concubines and mistresses across Europe. The style of living for clerics was

520 Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows, 9.

521 Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows, 11.

522 James A. Brundage, “Sex and Canon Law,” in Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. Bullough and Brundage, 34. St. Augustine of Hippo, “On Marriage and Concupiscence,” in Women’s Lives in Medieval Europe, ed. Amt, 27-28.

523 Chris Given-Wilson and Alice Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (New York: Barnes & Noble, INC., 1984), 8.

145 so prevalent, that even though the official church regarded it as a sin, the majority of the population was completely fine with the situation, it did not bother their religious sensibilities.524

Even in rural areas mistresses were abundant.525 In one town of Halesowen the statistics showed for every “two women who married one woman gave birth to a child out of wedlock.”526 Despite the proliferation of mistresses, the overall cultural view of adultery and extramarital sex was unfavorable. At least the culture the church promoted was negative towards mistresses, concubines, and prostitutes.527 For those individuals who participated in adultery there were serious penalties by law.

For the common people, those of the third estate, the sentences ranged from public humiliation to religious chastisement. As Given-Wilson noted, in the thirteenth century there is a move from punishment to more public humiliation. Some of the earlier Anglo-Saxon laws listed guidelines for confessors for offenders, such as a woman who commits adultery shall do penance for seven years or if a couple have intercourse at the “improper season he shall fast for forty days.”528 Under the laws of Canute in the tenth century, married women who committed adultery could have their ears and noses removed.529 After the change to more public humiliations the man and the woman could be subject to whipping around the market-place or churchyard or wear

524 Brundage, “Sex and Canon Law,” in Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. Bullough and Brundage, 37.

525 Rothwell, ed., English Historical Documents, 1189-1327,” in Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages, ed. McCarthy, 89-92.

526 Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, 49-50.

527 There is a distinction between the three categories shown by focusing on mistresses who engaged in wife-like duties and sexual relations over a longer period of time, perhaps for money, lands, promotion or love. More historians have covered prostitutes than mistresses, but there are a few monographs devoted to this study, like Given-Wilson’s and Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England and John Ashdown-Hill, Royal Marriage Secrets: Consorts & Concubines, Bigamists & Bastards (Gloucestershire, The History Press, 2013).

528 “The Penitential of Theodore,” in Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages, ed. McCarthy, 45-49.

529 “Laws of King Canute,” in Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages, ed. McCarthy, 103-104.

146 penitential clothing denoting their acts.530 Therefore, the laws tried to permeate the culture with the idea that illicit unions and every kind of adultery should be avoided at all cost. However, extramarital sex continued. In 1300 in one town’s ecclesiastical court there were at least nineteen cases of different types of sexual offences.531 These were all examples in the third estate; similar to most aspects of the medieval era there was a double standard when comparing the common class to the nobility.

In the Early Middle Ages it was more acceptable for royalty and nobility to have multiple wives or concubines, like Charlemagne who had at least four wives and four concubines at different times in his life.532 The English kings too, had many mistresses and many illegitimate children from these unions. Henry I had at least twenty children out of wedlock, and his many mistresses were able to have minimal influence over the king and the court.533 These mistresses were able to promote themselves and their family in the good graces of the king, and were sometimes love matches, which lasted for years, like Henry II and Rosamund Clifford.534 The influence they were able to exert depended on the strength of the king and courtiers or their own personalities. Most mistresses in England did not have direct power over the policies of the kingdom, but did usually offer access to the king’s ear and thus had a distinct influence over the king because of their services. No other royal mistress was quite as ambitious and successful in the Late Middle Ages as Alice Perrers. Perrers utilized her influence with Edward III to “amass a

530 Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, 38; Rothwell, “English Historical Documents, 1189-1327,” in Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages, ed. McCarthy, 88.

531 Rothwell, “English Historical Documents, 1189-1327,” in Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages, ed. McCarthy 89-92.

532 Stuard, Women in Medieval Society, 104.

533 Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, 8.

534 Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, 9; St. Augustine of Hippo, The Excellence of Marriage, in Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages, ed. McCarthy, 30.

147 fortune of staggering proportions…[and] meddle in political affairs at the highest level.”535 She was so powerful that Edward III awarded her lands in England and allowed her to have her own contingency and faction at court, where she remained Edward III’s mistress for fourteen years.536

This overreaching by Perrers led her to be a national scandal; she was tried publically in

Parliament for “corruption” and was convicted and sentenced to “exile and forfeiture of all her lands and goods.”537 However, most high ranking mistresses were not like Perrers and none up until that point had caused such a wide spread hatred of her policy and ambition. Nevertheless, it was one thing to have an affair with men, quite another for women to promote these liaisons.

Most did not receive such good returns as Perrers for their sexual relationships. Concurrently, it was usually acceptable in society for noblemen to have a woman on the side; the woman was still degraded and viewed as fallen. No women were safe from this stigma, but married noblewomen who participated in adultery were considered the most despicable. This extra level of betrayal was a palpable fear for the nobility, for if a married noblewoman had an affair with another man then potentially the whole order of primogeniture would fall and there would be no legitimate heir to the family estate. In 1314 two French daughters-in-law to the king were imprisoned and the knights with whom they had an affair were killed because of this breach in chastity.538 Katherine on the other hand, is distinct in this discussion for a number of reasons: her ability to gain land and promote herself, her efforts to combat the stigma of being a mistress, and her eventual marriage to Gaunt.

535 Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, 10.

536 Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, 10.

537 Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, 10.

538 Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, 8.

148

It is widely believed that Katherine became Gaunt’s mistress in late 1371 or 1372 after the death of their spouses. Armitage-Smith, Lucraft and Weir agree that by the spring of 1372 they were defiantly lovers, for Gaunt lavished her with an extravagantly large sum of money for the first time.539 Armitage-Smith provided the evidence that before late 1371 Gaunt’s gifts to

Katherine were “no greater than might have been made to any other member of his household.”540 This affair with Gaunt had advantages for Katherine. Since she was a widow she was able to make autonomous decisions concerning her own lands, both in Hainault and

England, and she did not jeopardize her young son’s inheritance.541 Gaunt romantically involved with Katherine, bestowed on her protection and steady advancement. Thereby she gained influence and power in society and in the court. A good parallel to Katherine is Leonor de

Guzman, the mistress of Alfonso XI, Constance’s grandfather. Guzman, a mistress in the

Castilian court, had a very successful relationship with Alfonso XI. She produced multiple children, enjoyed a great deal of power and influence in the court and kingdom, and supposedly was more of a love-match than Alfonso XI’s wife. Likewise, Katherine was able have the same type of success in England. She, like Perrers and de Guzman, obtained numerous estates, promotion in status in the court, and influenced the highest ranks of the English kingdom. The estates were located in Yorkshire, Norfolk, and Sussex, and were comprised of manors, castles, honors, rents, avowsons, chapels, and priories.542 These lands were fit for a queen, yet they were given to Katherine. Thus the autonomy Katherine was able to retain during their relationship and the properties Katherine was able to gain during the affair were all atypical. Most mistresses

539 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 10-11; Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 115.

540 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 463.

541 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 29.

542 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 258-259.

149 were not kept in such circumstances or given such gifts. Katherine also made regular appearances at court with and without Gaunt. When Gaunt was in Castile, Richard II continued to show favor to Katherine for in 1387 he appointed her a “Lady of the Fraternity of St. George and of the Society of the Garter.”543 This honor was bestowed for her help in matters between the king and the town of Sretton; she was given robes for this ceremony and a number of other lavish gifts.544 Because Katherine defied society and took on the mantle of the lecherous widow and the adulterous woman, she had more autonomy and power, even more than if she had simply remained a chaste widow.

As a widow Katherine had more autonomy than most women in England, however, she was only gentry and had poor lands. No one can say with certainty why she became Gaunt’s mistress, however, if Katherine was the least bit ambitious it would not be out of line. With the income of a governess to Gaunt she was better set, but by being a mistress to Gaunt many opportunities would present themselves for Katherine to further her position. While she could have innocently agreed to be Gaunt’s mistress without thought of promotion, it nevertheless came to her. As governess Katherine was making a good annuity and could influence Gaunt indirectly through his daughters. However, after they became a couple Katherine was given lands, manors, monies, and a plethora of gifts, along with a unique position in court; thus being able to greatly increase her status.

By the later 1370s Katherine, as Gaunt’s “nostre tres chere et bien amee,” was being approached as a “channel” for patronage from those seeking the good graces of Katherine and

543 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 224.

544 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 357-358.

150 thereby Gaunt.545 She and Gaunt were very open with their affair, and while some wished to use her sexual power over Gaunt for their own purposes, certain outspoken men in society were beginning to condemn both individuals. Their negativity was primarily directed at Gaunt because he was married.546 Their promiscuity was a problem, yet, if they had not been so public or if

Perrers had been not so willing to utilize her newfound power and agency society might not have worried so much. But despite the lasting ramifications of the Great Revolt of 1381, Katherine’s and Gaunt’s affair outlasted the uprising. Although there is dissention between authors as to how deep the impact went as far as Katherine was concerned. Lucraft argues that after the revolt

Gaunt drafted a document in legal terms denying Katherine and her offspring any right to

Lancastrian heritage, yet the couple were still together and the “parting was an official ploy.”547

Her reasoning for this is because Katherine was included in Mary de Bohun’s household, the wife of Gaunt’s first surviving son, Henry Bolingbroke.548 This placement meant Katherine was well taken care of and still in close proximity to Gaunt. Weir agrees that Katherine was a participant of their household in 1382.549 Yet, the revolt did create a great financial burden for

Gaunt and made him publicly renounce, as Walsingham stated, “his liaison with Katherine

545 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 11-12.

546 Part of this theory rests on the idea that adultery was worse than fornication; therefore Katherine was committing fornication, but not adultery. But Gaunt was married. On the other hand, being a man it was not as serious in society that he had extramarital sex. Either way there were more pressing reasons than Gaunt’s sex life when the revolt broke out, such as he had been trying and failing at gaining Castile and was using men and money. Brundage and Jacqueline Murray, Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. McCarthy, 42, 198; Justice, Writing and Rebellion, 90-96; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 79.

547 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 67.

548 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 13.

549 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 205.

151

Swynford…so by his tears and his expressions of grief he seemed to produce the fruits of true repentance; by these devices, so he believed, he placated the Lord’s anger.”550

Whether Gaunt and Katherine officially broke off the affair or not, the fact remains that he publicly withdrew from her company for a few years. Gaunt had his motives. One was because he wished to recapture positive public opinion or, he may have even “genuinely felt he had to make amends for his sins.”551 Another was because he knew he must politically secure his holdings once more and if he had not heeded the outcry of the rebels then there could have been even more ramifications. Finally, it was safer for Gaunt and Katherine and their children if he withdrew. However he ensured that Katherine and their children would be well care for by de

Bohun.552 The situation gave rise to the assumption that even if Katherine was estranged from

Gaunt she was still favored by Henry of Bolingbroke and Richard II.

Although she was accepted in the courts of each king she lived through, in the eyes of the chroniclers and the aristocracy in England she was a dangerous menace and sin for Gaunt. The

Church “maintained the marital intercourse was permissible only for the purpose of procreation,” which fed into the people’s beliefs about Katherine and Gaunt.553 The courtly love literature of that time however was ripe with sexual connotations. This type of literature came into being to channel some of that sexual energy the Church otherwise did not allow. The courtly love ideas made it “romantic” to commit adultery if one was a part of the upper classes even if it was only

550 Eleanor C. Lodge, eds., “John of Gaunt’s Register, 1379-1383,” (Camden Society, 3rd series, 1937), II, 241 and 351, in English Historical Documents (1327-1445), edited by Myers, 143-144; Walsingham, The St. Albans Chronicle, 567, quoted in Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 66. However, there is evidence, Lucraft argues, that this “quitclaim” was just a publicity ploy to get figures like Walsingham and Knighton off his back and for him to look good in the public eye. Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 66-67.

551 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 194.

552 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 196-204.

553 Gies, Women in the Middle Ages, 53.

152 words, yet, for many individuals it did not stop there.554 It is obvious that whether or not

Katherine and Gaunt loved each other, Katherine’s use of power through her liaison was disturbing to Gaunt’s peers. Additionally she could have her own agenda politically, and was at least a distraction to Gaunt who many between the 1370s and 1380s disliked greatly. Therefore,

Katherine stood as a scapegoat to Gaunt’s unpopularity and his own over-reaching. Although

Katherine strove to combat this evil reputation forced on her, society was flooded with accusations and slanders. These negative comments about Katherine’s and Gaunt’s adultery and his neglecting of responsibilities for her drove Katherine to discount and actively combat public aversion and the stigma of mistress.

A few of the comments degrading Katherine were voiced by popular chroniclers in

England, Thomas Walsingham, Jean Froissart, and Henry Knighton. Walsingham alleged that

Gaunt had “deserted his military duties” and was “putting aside all shame of man and fear of

God” by having his union with “a witch and a whore” for all to see his unworthiness; much like in today’s society where one politician takes down another by airing his dirty laundry.555

Katherine was also referred to as “an abominable temptress” by Walsingham in 1378.556 Jean

Froissart, an accomplished writer and frequent attendee of Edward III’s court as well as native of

Hainault along with Katherine, was “problematical” in his writings concerning Katherine.557

Froissart had an interesting dynamic published during various years concerning Katherine. Even though Froissart was most of the time pro-Lancastrian he wrote contradictory thoughts. Most of the time Froissart did not have much against Katherine directly, but he made it clear Gaunt

554 Gies, Women in the Middle Ages, 45.

555 Thomas Walsingham, “Scandalous Chronicle,” quoted in Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 170-171.

556 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 57-58.

557 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 85-86.

153 should not have married her. Froissart jabbed that from all accounts Gaunt was a “doting fool” for her and because of, or regardless of, Gaunt’s ambition he decided to marry in the end for love.558 Lucraft gives another author who wrote out against Katherine such as Henry Knighton, a canon of St. Mary of the Meadows in Leicester, who was very pro-Lancastrian, but had a problem with their “liv[ing] in open sin.”559

Katherine did not ignore the slanderous talk. She made no outright responses back to her accusers; if she did it did not survive. But she did combat this reputation through her use of imagery. Unlike Blanche who had no say about how her image would be used in the public sphere by Chaucer, Katherine took a subtle defensive stance. Katherine connected various types of strong images in her heraldry and certain saintly images to fashion a new representation for herself.560 This use of specific imagery illustrates Katherine’s recognition of the need to counteract the tarnished reputation her adultery created with Gaunt, but also speaks for her own influence and autonomy. However, Katherine is not the first to do so; some recent historical scholarship has brought to the academic discussions the idea of noblewomen’s use of physical imagery. Historians Susan M. Johns and Jeannette Lucraft both include chapters in their works concerning noblewomen’s use of specific imagery on their seals, liveries, and badges throughout their transactions and household duties. Seals are defined by academia as “visual representations of power, and…convey notions of authority and legitimacy.”561 Johns traced the use of seals in

England, stating that while there are some from the tenth century, most steadily become more

558 Froissart, quoted in Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 126.

559 McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399, ed. Clark, 393.

560 Most of this section is thanks to the brainchild of Lucraft. Without her restless research this section would not have been possible.

561 Susan M. Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), 122.

154 popular in the royalty and the noblemen, with the noblewomen taking them up in the early twelfth century and “by the thirteenth century sealing was common to all ranks of society.”562

Johns has stated that until recently seals were studied more for their descriptive properties rather than their ability to analyze social, cultural, or gender movements. Yet Johns placed special significance on the twelfth century English noblewomen’s seals proposing the seals reaffirmed these women’s authority, identity, land tenure, and lordship throughout their life.563 These seals adhered to certain conventions, such as sixty-four percent of seals include a standing female figure and are oval, unlike noblemen’s seals which tend to be an equestrian figure on a circular seal.564 Therefore, while very gender specific, they are also very personalized with women choosing to add statements of ancestry, inheritance, humor, and group identity with that of the nobility.565 Lucraft likewise claimed Katherine purposefully linked herself with the symbol of St.

Katherine in order to “carve a respectable reputation for herself,” in the face of negative accusations placed on her after her liaison with Gaunt was publicized. 566 At the same time the coat of arms Katherine fashioned was as personal as the seals in the High Middle Ages. Women usually did not “bear arms in their own right but displayed them as an extension of their male family.”567 Yet, Katherine’s “represent[ed] Katherine alone…she adopted them on her marriage

562 Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power, 126-127.

563 Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power, 140.

564 Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power, 127-128.

565 Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power, 133-134.

566 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 156.

567 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 137. For a discussion on women using coats of arms Saul offers a look at certain noblewomen using these as status symbols and to promote their family. Most women, according to Saul did usually derive a part of their coat of arms from either their husbands or fathers. In some instances they would include both their husband’s arms and their own derivative of their ancestor’s arms on their tombs. Saul, For Honor and Fame, 272-274.

155 with Gaunt in replacement of her Swynford arms.”568 The use of her personal image is important to this study for two reasons. First it shows that even in the midst of her marriage with Gaunt, when she could have flaunted the fact she married him, she instead chose to create her own. Her agency and autonomy can clearly be seen. Katherine spent the majority of her life in the state of widowhood. She was independent, retained very separate estates, and has enjoyed legal power.

Second, as Lucraft claimed, this image was very specific in that it combated the public idea of

Katherine as mistress, and put in place a saint known for her “noble birth, educat[ion],” and saintly virgin status.569 Katherine put this symbol of the St. Katherine wheel on many things such as badges, emblems on vestments, and on her own livery collar.570 Katherine is not the only one who was breaking new ground in the fourteenth century with images of their own creation.

Gaunt also brought into fashion livery collars in general. Since Gaunt employed the largest retinue his promotion of the esses on the collar was introduced by Gaunt some time before

1371.571 Most of the royal house and those associated with Gaunt enjoyed them and the status the collar brought. There were some simple changes individuals outside of Gaunt’s retinue and household, such as Richard II added forget-me-nots to one he owned.572 Symbolism and imagery was very important and fashionable to the fourteenth century. It showed allegiance, it projected a type of easily recognized individual icon, and it gave Katherine her own autonomy. In the Later

Middle Ages it was maintained that married women “apart from bearing children…lost their

568 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 137-138.

569 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 139-140.

570 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 155-156.

571 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 133-134.

572 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 134.

156 usefulness.”573 It was through her ability to have children that she was able to advance her career and expand her wealth. Therefore, her sexuality proved to be an avenue she could gain more power and influence while promoting her status and autonomy, and combating the label of mistress. The last abnormality of Katherine’s relationship with Gaunt which highlights her power and influence is that Gaunt married Katherine.

The Most Powerful Duchess in All the Land

In 1396 after Gaunt’s second wife, Constance of Castile, died, he quickly and freely married Katherine in the Lincoln Cathedral.574 By marring Gaunt, Katherine stood out as one of the most extraordinary mistresses in the Middle Ages. Even though Katherine did not come with vast estates or a kingdom like Gaunt’s first wives, Katherine was married to Gaunt in the church.

As established, church weddings were important to both parties especially with property.575 That the couple was married legally in a church shows two interesting facets of their relationship and

Katherine’s agency. First of all, a church wedding would be in Katherine’s best interest and could refer to Gaunt’s attachment to Katherine and his want to protect her should anything happen to him. While the greatest amount of property went to Gaunt’s children, he allotted

Katherine movable goods and annuities.576 As a testament to Katherine’s status and relationship with Gaunt’s son, Henry IV, Henry IV fulfilled his father’s will and granted Katherine these goods.577 Even so, Katherine received lavish gifts on her wedding day also; with “all the jewels

573 Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, ed., Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977), 114.

574 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 14-17.

575 See the section on Katherine as Landed Gentry for the discussion on church weddings.

576 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 274-275.

577 McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399, ed. Clark, 490.

157 he kept in a little coffer, his best royal badge… and his best collar with all the diamonds.”578 At the same time, Gaunt did not receive much benefit from the church wedding, since the Swynford properties went to Thomas Swynford. Thus the church wedding can be seen as a benefit for

Katherine and even more so their children. Within the church wedding they were labeled as

“mantle children.” Mantle children were usually children who were born out of wedlock between two single individuals, but Gaunt and Katherine observed the ceremony of covering their children with a “mantle cloth, or care cloth,” at the wedding and then in Parliament.579

Additionally, Katherine was able to receive a jointure, with Gaunt this time, and it sanctioned through Richard II, for the lands Gaunt had gained in exchange for the earldom of Richmond.580

The same year Katherine and Gaunt strove to legitimize their children. Pope Boniface IX issued a papal bull “declaring the offspring past and future legitimate” for the newlyweds and in 1397

Richard II in Parliament granted the Beauforts letters patent of “legitimation.”581 After her marriage to Gaunt she also was entitled to be a member of the Coventry Gild of the Holy Trinity,

St. Mary, St. John the Baptist, and St. Katherine, quite fitting titles for the “second lady in

England.”582 In her new role as duchess of Lancaster, Katherine had many of the same avenues of power and influence she had garnered while Gaunt’s mistress, just legitimized. Her household and estates were secured, her children legitimate, and her stigma of mistress on the mend,

Katherine should have been able to enjoy her success. Not only did her marriage solidify her

578 Goodman, John of Gaunt, 364.

579 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 117.

580 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 258.

581 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, 391-392.

582 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 14. Froissart described Katherine as the second lady. The other aristocratic ladies in England were scandalized by Katherine’s promotion, stating “The Duke of Lancaster has quite disgraced himself by marring his concubine. And since she has got so far, it will mean that she will rank as the second lady in England.” Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and ed. Brereton, 419.

158 children in English society, but it granted Katherine a concrete foundation from which she could have a stronger and flowering power base. It showed to those of the upper nobility Katherine had used her autonomy as a widow, her power as a mother, and her influence as a mistress to ultimately succeed in moving from the bottom of the landed gentry to the “second lady,” a powerful testament indeed.

In 1399 Katherine’s became a widow for the second time. Gaunt died leaving Katherine in excellent shape. Her dowry included everything from gold chalices, his personal cypress chest full of precious stones, sacred images, a complete vestment of gold cloth, multiple beds and the entire bedroom suite of carpets, hangings, pillows, and beddings.583 Gaunt also included mantle of ermine and all “those possessions and castles which she had before our marriage, together with the other property and jewels which I have given to her since said marriage,” and “2,000 pounds or 758,325 pounds.”584 This was an enormous gift for the widow. No other person in

Gaunt’s will except Henry IV received as many or as valuable gifts. This allowed Katherine to have considerable autonomy and live in complete comfort as an extremely powerful widow.

The same year Henry Bolingbroke, Gaunt’s heir, with the help of Thomas Arundel, attempted a successful coup d'état and ascended the throne. Katherine’s estate was not “seriously disturbed” during the upheaval and the “annuities granted by Gaunt…were confirmed.”585 After he acquired the throne Henry IV called Katherine “the mother of the king,” a manifestation of

Katherine’s enduring influence over the children she had helped care for in the past.586 Despite the great regard of the new king, Katherine ultimately withdrew from the court after the death of

583 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 274-275.

584 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 274-275.

585 McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399, ed. Clark, 490.

586 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 16.

159

Gaunt. Lavishly provided for by Gaunt in his will, and by Henry IV, Katherine decided to reside in Lincoln for the remainder of her years.587 There is no record of how she died, but on May 10,

1403, she was deceased. As a testament to Katherine’s and Gaunt’s power their children became prominent in the politics of England, especially after Henry IV, their half brother, took the throne. John became the earl of Somerset and marquees of Dorset, Henry a powerful cardinal,

Thomas an influential knight, and Joan married into the powerful Neville family of the house of

York. As Lucraft argued “there is no evidence of the Beauforts suffering because of their status, and, indeed, they can be seen to have lived and worked at the highest social level with ease.”588

Even Thomas Swynford enjoyed a magnificent position in the new court by his long-time relationship with Henry IV. Therefore, all of Gaunt’s and Katherine’s children were very close and held highly prestigious positions because of their connections and royal blood. Katherine left a lasting influence on her children, giving them both a royal father and an inheritance of power and position.

Lady Katherine Swynford, Gaunt’s third wife, was one of the most unique women of the fourteenth century. She exerted a great amount of power and autonomy through her legal status of widow for the majority of her life, and she exercised influence through her sexuality as a mistress. However, she was discounted by many of her contemporaries because of the cultural ideas of widowhood and extramarital relations. Despite the detrimental reputation, Katherine is still known today mostly through fiction, but a few historians are starting to rewrite Katherine’s story of romance into something more tangible. Katherine utilized both traditional feminine roles—mistress and widow—and masculine autonomy—widow, jointure of lands, and port towns—to successfully rise to the top of the English hierarchy. She was very conscious and

587 Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy, 274-288.

588 Lucraft, Katherine Swynford, 119-120.

160 deliberate in her representation of herself and worked to remove the stain of adultery, and yet, despite this she was able to use her sexuality to her advantage. Therefore, Katherine fashioned an extensive legacy for herself, was able to have more freedoms than most women in the fourteenth century, and had a lasting relationship with Gaunt.

161

Chapter 5

SOME CONCLUSIONS ON THE DUCHESSES

This knight avyseth hym and sore siketh, But ate laste he seyde in this manere: “My lady and my love, and wyf so deere, I put me in youre wise governance; Cheseth youreself which may be moost pleasance And moost honour to yow and me also. I do no fors the wheither of the two, For as yow liketh, it suffiseth me.589

Few women in the Middle Ages enjoyed the ability to govern their husbands like

Chaucer’s Wyf of Bath wished. But this study of the three wives of John of Gaunt demonstrates that at least some women had power, influence, agency, and autonomy in their daily life and that they helped determine the course of events. Madeline Pelner Cosman noted “nothing in such a woman leader’s day or night could be without political implication.”590 Elite women in general were required by society to exercise their power and influence on a daily basis. This expectation was especially true of each branch of the nobility: royal, aristocratic, and gentry. The three duchesses of Lancaster represent each of these ranks, yet just as the three women were typical in some respects of noblewomen, they were unique. Each of the women, Blanche, Constance, and

Katherine brought different experiences and different ideas of power and agency to the discussion. Likewise, through studying their unique lives they can be seen as both personal individuals and symbols of their gender and social rank.

The duchesses have been overlooked however, by academics as a whole, for many years because of their gender and lack of records. Most of the secondary studies have been biographies. No biography has been written about Blanche in over twenty years. The last book,

589 Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Pratt, and Robinson. 121.

590 Cosman, A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Williard, ed. Cosman, 25.

162

Norman Webster’s Blanche of Lancaster (1990), was a short biography which mainly covered events in Blanche’s life with minimal analysis of her impact on England. Constance cannot boast of even one biography, at least in English, showing how important her actions and designs for

Castile affected the civil war in the Iberian Peninsula or the Hundred Years War. Katherine is the only one who has two historical biographies, and those were written in the last decade. These two books were Jeannette Lucraft’s Katherine Swynford: The History of a Medieval Mistress

(2006), and Alison Weir’s Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster (2007). Gaunt, their husband, does have a few biographies and is mentioned in several monographs about the fourteenth century for his actions, power, and influence on the society and culture. Anthony Goodman’s John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in

Fourteenth-Century Europe (1992), and Sydney Armitage-Smith’s John of Gaunt: King of

Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster (1905), two of Gaunt’s well-researched biographies, do include small amounts of information about each of the duchesses and help fill in the missing literature. However, these biographies do not examine how each of these duchesses was able to exercise power, influence the outside world, or how they retained their autonomy as married women. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how the duchesses and noblewomen in general, were able to wield a great deal of power, influence, autonomy, and agency for two reasons. One, that medieval society expected noblewomen to participate in culture, in business, and in service that of employee to employer which gave them power and influence even though they were women and married. Two, the duchesses’ backgrounds and families allowed them to mature with a sense of power and status. Being married to Gaunt only furthered this sense of entitled nobility, but it is important that Blanche and Constance were the heiresses and Gaunt only gained as much power and land as he did due to the duchesses’ established legitimacy.

163

Katherine was the exception; she ranked as gentry and poor gentry at that, though she did have some property in Hainault. However, Katherine utilized the power and autonomy associated with widowhood and being a mistress to enjoy the same type of authority. Thus the point argued in this thesis was the importance on noblewomen in society, culture, economy, and government throughout the fourteenth century, in part by their life circumstances and in part because women had that capability.

It has been demonstrated that Blanche could, and should be, seen as an influential individual, a powerful noblewoman, and as the epitome of the perfect medieval woman of the

Middle Ages. Blanche led the archetypal life of a noblewoman of high aristocracy by marrying young in an advantageous marriage, she governed the lands while Gaunt was gone on campaigns, and was pregnant most of the years she was married. However, as shown through her household, her patronage, her children, and the “normal” avenues open to noblewomen Blanche potentially wielded a great amount of power. Her noble qualities as discussed through the lens of

Pizan brought some of the expectations of influence and agency women were supposed to be knowledgeable about. Some of these included the education of her children, the records and knowledge of her and her husbands’ lands, military tactics, and governance laws and customs.

The list is extensive. However, one of the major channels of women’s power and influence proceeded from her household. In the household Blanche could dispense patronage, engage in service, expand economic growth in nearby towns, and employ a hefty number of lesser gentry to care for her administration. Yet, the tangible persona behind the figure of Blanche is almost never considered. Most historians and contemporaries chose to remember her better as the “lady bryght” from Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, which commemorated her death, fashioned her as the model woman, and likened Blanche’s image as a personification of beauty, goodness, and joy

164 themselves, meaning “the loss, then, becomes not merely John of Gaunt’s, but the world’s.”591

Such depictions leave the realm of reality and place Blanche at almost saintly status.

Constance, on the other hand, was royalty without a throne. Constance’s life was a series of events which never allowed her the same amount of power and autonomy she would have possessed if she had been a true queen in Castile. After losing the kingdom to Trastamara,

Constance entered into a marriage of convenience and political support. Although she was never able to sit upon the throne, she commanded an array of power and influence. As illustrated in the lives of other Castilian queens and noblewomen it was apparent Castile gave more power and autonomy to women than England. Constance would have grown up knowing this type of power as she saw the women in her family utilizing their influence to maneuver in the midst of unrest.

The Castilian women were able to own their own lands, have a distinct part in the policy and landownership of the kingdom. Similarly, Constance exhibited as much of that self-same power as she could through her queenship as a displaced royal. Nevertheless, Constance held a close- knit but important household, held court, helped create treaties, and participated in patronage.

Although many sympathized with her plight both when her family lost Castile and when Gaunt’s and Katherine’s affair became public, Constance was not seen as a key figure in the events.

However, as alluded to in Chaucer’s “Man of Law’s Tale,” Constance was in fact the queen that all of Europe knew. She helped end the Castilian civil war with the treaty she partially created by giving her daughter in marriage to the heir of Castile, and by proxy brought Castile into the limelight of the Hundred Years War.

Katherine is different from Blanche and Constance. Katherine was a popular topic during the fourteenth century. She always seemed to be in the midst of the chroniclers’ admonitions, first for becoming Gaunt’s mistress and second for becoming his wife. Katherine’s historical

591 Manning, “Chaucer’s Good Fair White,” 99.

165 worth has been summed up by most historians with an afterthought: “She was John of Gaunt’s mistress and later, wife.”592 Nonetheless, Katherine was a powerful woman. As part of the lesser gentry she did not have as much land as Blanche or prestige as Constance, but she made up for it by having autonomy. Unlike the other two duchesses Katherine was a widow for the majority of her life. Therefore, she had lordship over the estate of her late husband, she had a legal identity, and she was not beholden to any man unless she so wished. Becoming Gaunt’s mistress was demeaning in the eyes of the public, but it was a strong move politically and socially. The influence she was able to exert allowed her to have a sizable amount of power over Gaunt and access the court with ease. Moreover she was a highly intelligent woman as well. She was the governess for Gaunt’s daughters with Blanche, and as Froissart stated Katherine had “perfect knowledge of court etiquette because she had been brought up in it continually since her youth.”593 For years after both Blanche and Constance passed, Katherine continued to hold even more power and influence as duchess.

All three of these women had been constrained by masculine conventions in medieval

England. Yet, all three in their own unique way adhered to traditional “feminine” roles or were quite capable to working around sociality’s standards. Blanche used these standards to leave behind the perfect image, Constance used public opinion and the idea that she was a banished young woman to garner financial and political backing, and Katherine put forth a strong pious feminine image in her seals and liveries in order to combat her tarnished reputation. In many ways these were regular avenues women of the nobility had been using for centuries. In turn, women although only recently are being rewritten into history, did in fact always enjoy types of power and influence. Some only had a small amount of influence in their families, like peasant

592 See Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer?; Justice, Writing and Rebellion; Saul, Richard II.

593 Froissart, Chronicles, trans. and ed. Brereton, 420.

166 women, but women like the duchesses of Lancaster had vast amounts of power and influence.

They acted more like successful business women of today than women who were shoved into the background. It is true that in the medieval society the man had more legal power and was able to utilize his own power quite easily, but women were instrumental in upholding and transforming society. For instance, Chaucer was influenced highly, through different avenues, by each of the duchesses. Blanche patronized him when he was just staring his career and her death allowed him to publish his first book under the request of Gaunt. Constance dogged focus on Castile sent him into Spain and influenced his writing of The Canterbury Tales. Katherine was Chaucer’s sister-in-law for years and helped to promote Philippa through her service in Constance’s household. Chaucer was just one man, thus these women aided and supported and promoted many people over their life time, even if we have no solid records, the evidence is there to show that they all took an active role in the politics, the wars, and the public arena of England.

Why are these women important to the historical conversation six hundred years later?

Because they were obviously important figures in England, to literature, and they can represent the many other noblewomen whose records are nonexistent. These duchesses were not stagnant characters who allowed the ebb and flow of time to move them towards oblivion, rather they were active. They possessed power, utilized their agency, promoted their influence, and stove for autonomy all while remaining within the society of the time. They were unique in their capacity to have so much power, from their own inheritances, but also because they were married to the most powerful man in England, except the king. Consequently it was not Gaunt who made them famous, but they who provided Gaunt with lands, power, a claim to a throne, and an enduring legacy throughout Europe’s royalty.

167

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edited Primary Sources

Amt, Emile. Women’s Lives in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, Chapman

and Hall, Inc., 1993.

Benson, Larry, Robert Pratt, and Fred Norris Robinson. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Oxford:

Houghton Miffin, 1987.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Nevill Coghill, trans. London: Penguin Books, Ltd.,

1958.

Coulton, George Gordon, eds. The Brut. E. E. T. S. (1908). In Social Life in Britain from the

Conquest to the Reformation. HardPress Publishing, 2013.

Davis, Norman. The Paston Letters: A Selection in Modern Spelling. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2009.

Froissart, Jean. Chronicles. Translated and edited by Geoffrey Brereton. London: Penguin Books

Ltd., 1968.

———. Le Joli Buissonde Jonece. Jean Froissart: An Anthology of Narrative and Lyric Poetry,

ed. Kristen M. Figg and R. Barton Palmer New York: Routledge, 2001.

Galbraith, Vivian Hunter eds. The Anonimalle Chronicle. In English Historical Documents,

(1327-1485), edited by Alec Reginald Myers. Vol. 4. New York: Oxford University

Press, 1969.

Knighton, Henry. Chronicon Henrici Knighton. Rolls Series, 1895. II. 58. In English Historical

Documents (1327-1485), edited by Alec Reginald Myers. Vol. 4. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1969.

168

Lodge, Eleanor C., eds. “John of Gaunt’s Register, 1379-1383.” Camden Society, 3rd series.

1937. II. In English Historical Documents (1327-1485), edited by Alec Reginald Myers.

Vol. 4. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.

McCarthy, Conor. Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages: A Source Book. New York:

Routledge Press, 2004.

Myers, Alec Reginald, eds. English Historical Documents, (1327-1485). Vol. 4. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1969.

Pizan, Christine de. A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor: The Treasury of the City of Ladies.

Trans. Charity Cannon Willard. Edited by Madeleine Pelner Cosman. Bard Hall Press,

2001.

Richard II, Rot. Parliament. III. In English Historical Documents (1327-1485), edited by Alec

Reginald Myers. Vol. 4. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Scott, Kathleen L. An Index of Images of English Manuscripts From the Time of Chaucer to

Henry VIII. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2011.

Secondary Sources

Anderson, John Julian “The Man in Black, Machaut’s Knight, and Their Ladies.” English

Studies 5 (1992): 417-430.

Armitage-Smith, Sydney. John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and

Lancaster. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905.

Ashdown-Hill, John. Royal Marriage Secrets: Consorts & Concubines, Bigamists & Bastards

Gloucestershire, The History Press, 2013.

Bahr, Andrew. “The Rhetorical Construction of Narrator and Narrative in Chaucer’s Book of the

Duchess.” Chaucer Review 35 (Issue 1 2000): 43-59.

169

Barron, Caroline and Anne F. Sutton, eds. Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500. London:

Bloomsbury Academic, 2003.

Bean, John M. W. From Lord to Patron: Lordship in Late Medieval England. Edited By Edward

Peters and Henry Charles Lea. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.

Bennett, Judith M. A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344. Boston:

McGraw-Hill College, 1999.

———. Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock

Before the Plague. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Bennett, Judith M. and C. Warren Hollister. Medieval Europe: A Short History. 10th ed. Boston:

McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Bianchini, Janna. The Queen’s Hand: Power and Authority in the Reign of Berenguela of

Castile. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2013.

Braddy, Haldeen. “Chaucer’s Don Pedro and the Purpose of the Monk’s Tale.” Modern

Language Quarterly 13 (Mar. 1952): 3-5.

Bridenthal, Renate and Claudia Koonz, ed. Becoming Visible: Women in European History.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977.

Britton, Edward. The Community of the Vill: A Study in the History of the Family and Village

Life in the Fourteenth-Century England. Toronto: Macmillan, 1977.

Bullough, Vern L. and James A. Brundage. “Chaste Marriage in the Middle Ages,” in Handbook

of Medieval Sexuality. New York: Garland Publishing, INC., 1996.

Cantor, Norman F. The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the

Modern Era. New York: Harper Perennial, 2004.

Chapman, Charles E. A History of Spain. New York: Macmillan Company, 1922.

170

Collins, Louise. The Memoirs of a Medieval Woman: The Life and Times of Margery Kempe.

New York: Harper Perennial, 1983.

Costain, Thomas B. The Pageant of England: The Last Plantagenets. New York: Doubleday &

Company, INC., 1962.

Davis, Craig R. “A Perfect Marriage on the Rocks: Geoffrey and Philippa Chaucer, and the

Franklin’s Tale”. The Chaucer Review 37, no. 2 (2002): 129-144.

DuBoulay, Francis R. H. An Age of Ambition: English Society in the Late Middle Ages. New

York: The Viking Press, 1970.

Duby, Georges. Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth-Century France. Translated by

Elborg Forster. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.

Dugas, Don-John. “The Legitimization of Royal Power in “Man of Law Tale.” Modern

Philology 95 (Aug. 1997): 27-43.

Empson, Charles William. John of Gaunt: His Life and Character. London: Ladies Printing

Press, 1874.

Erler, Mary and Maryanne Kowaleski. Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in

the Middle Ages. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004.

Estow, Clara. Pedro the Cruel of Castile, 1350-1369. New York: E. J. Brill, 1995.

Ferris, Summer. “John Stow and the Tomb of Blanche the Duchess.” Chaucer Review 18 (Spring

1983): 92-93.

Foster, Michael. “On Dating the Duchess: Personal and Social Context of the Book of the

Duchess.” The Review of English Studies 59 (April 2008): 185-196.

Gardner, John. The Life and Times of Chaucer. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, INC., 1977.

171

Gies, Frances and Joseph. Women in the Middle Ages. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company,

1978.

Given-Wilson, Chris. The English Nobility: In the Late Middle Ages. London: Routledge &

Kegan Paul Ltd, 1987.

Given-Wilson, Chris and Alice Curteis. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England. New York:

Barnes and Noble Books, 1984.

Goff, Jacques Le, eds. The Medieval World: The History of European Society. Translated by

Lydia G. Coehrane. London: Parkgate Books Ltd, 1990.

Goodman, Anthony. John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century

Europe. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

Habakkuk, Hrothgar John Marriage, Debt, and the Estates System: English Landownership,

1650-1950. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.

Hallissy, Margaret. Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows: Chaucer’s Women and

Medieval Codes of Conduct. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993.

Holmes, George. The Later Medieval Ages, 1272-1485. Vol. 3. Christopher Brooke and Denis

Mack Smith, eds. A History of England. London: Thomas Nelson Ltd., 1962.

Horrox, Rosemary. Fifteenth-Century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval

England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Hutchison, Harold F. The Hollow Crown: A Life of Richard II. New York: The John Day

Company, 1961.

Jackson, Gabriel. The Making of Medieval Spain. Norwich: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, INC.,

1972.

172

Jacobs, Kathryn. Marriage Contracts from Chaucer to the Renaissance Stage. Gainesville:

University Press of Florida, 2001.

Johns, Susan M. Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman

Realm. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.

Jones, Dan. The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England. New York:

Viking Press, 2012.

Jones, Terry, Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher, and Juliette Dor. Who Murdered

Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2003.

Justice, Steven. Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381. Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1994.

Kanner, Barbara, ed. The Women of England: From Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present.

Brooklyn: Shoe String Press, INC., 1979.

Labarge, Margaret Wade. A Baronial Household of the Thirteenth Century. NewYork: Barnes

and Noble, INC., 1965.

Lucraft, Jeannette. Katherine Swynford: The History of a Medieval Mistress. Gloucestershire:

Sutton Publishing Limited, 2006.

Manning, Stephen. “Chaucer’s Good Fair White: Woman and Symbol.” Comparative Literature

10 (Spring 1958): 97-105.

Mate, Mavis E. Women in Medieval English Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1999.

McKisack, May. The Fourteenth Century, 1307-1399. Edited by Sir George Clark. Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1959.

173

Mertes, Kate. The English Noble Household, 1250-1600: Good Governance and Politic Rule.

Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988.

Mirrer, Louise. Upon My Husband’s Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval

Europe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992.

Mitchell, Linda E. Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage, and Politics in England,

1225-1350. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003.

Newman, Paul B. Growing Up in the Middle Ages. London: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2001.

O’Callaghan, Joseph F. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975.

Ormrod, W. Mark, eds. England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton

Symposium. Dover, New Hampshire: The Boydell Press, 1986.

———. “The Royal Nursery: A Household for the Younger Children of Edward III.” English

Historical Review 120 (April 2005): 398-415.

Packe, Michael. King Edward III. Lewis C. B. Seaman, ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,

1983.

Palmer, John. “The Historical Context of the Book of the Duchess: A Revision.” Chaucer Review

8 (1974): 253-261.

Parsons, John Carmi. Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England.

New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

———, eds. Medieval Queenship. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1997.

Payne, Stanley G. A History of Spain and Portugal: In Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Madison:

University of Wisconsin Press, 1973.

Pearsall, Derek. The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell

Publishers, 1992.

174

Power, Eileen. Medieval Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Prestwich, Michael. Plantagenet England 1225-1360. Edited by J. M. Roberts. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2005.

Pugh, Tison. An Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press,

2013.

Raybin, David. “Custance and History: Woman as Outsider in Chaucer’s Man of Law Tale.”

Studies in The Age of Chaucer: The Yearbook of the New Chaucer Society 12 (1990): 65-

84.

Saul, Nigel. For Honor and Fame: Chivalry in England, 1066-1500. London: The Bodley Head,

2011.

———. Richard II. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

Scattergood, Vincent J. and James W. Sherborne, ed. English Court Culture in the Middle Ages.

New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983.

Smith, Roland M. “Chaucer’s Man of Law Tale and Constance of Castile.” The Journal of

English and Germanic Philology 47 (1948): 343-351.

Stafford, Pauline. Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers: The King’s Wife in the Early Middle

Ages. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983.

Stuard, Susan Mosher. Women in Medieval Society. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania

Press, 1993.

Swabey, Fiona. Medieval Gentlewoman: Life In A Gentry Household In The Later Middle Ages.

New York: Rutledge, 1999.

Tuchman, Barbara W. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century. New York: Alfred

A. Knopf, 1978.

175

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History. New York: Vintage

Books, 2007.

Ward, Jennifer C. English Noblewomen: In the Later Middle Ages. London: Longman Group UK

Limited, 1992.

———, eds., Women of the English Nobility and Gentry, 1066-1500. Manchester: St. Martin’s

Press, 1995.

Webster, Norman W. Blanche of Lancaster. Driffield, Yorkshire: Halstead Publications, 1990.

Weir, Alison. Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster.

New York: Ballantine Books, 2007.

Valente, Claire. The Theory and Practice of Revolt in Medieval England. Burlington: Ashgate

Publishing Company, 2003.

Ziegler, Philip. The Black Death. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1969.

176

VITA

Amanda Elizabeth Sanders is a graduate of Texas A&M University-Commerce. Mrs.

Sanders earned a Bachelor of Science in History and a Bachelor of Science in English (magnum cume laude) from Texas A&M University-Commerce in 2010. She completed her Masters of

Arts in History from Texas A&M University-Commerce in 2015. While earning her Masters of

Arts degree Mrs. Sanders focused on medieval and gender studies within a general History degree.

Mrs. Sanders was employed at Texas A&M University-Commerce in many capacities.

She worked in the Financial Services Department from 2007 to 2012 as an assistant to the Billing and Receivables Coordinator and the Assistant Bursar. The most recent employment has been as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the History Department from 2012-2013. Between 2013 and

2015 Mrs. Sanders was employed as a Teacher of Record for the History Department.

Mrs. Sanders has been a member of Phi Alpha Theta and Alpha Chi since 2008. She also has a publication in A.S.C.E.N.T.S. Vol. 2 University of North East Texas Phi Alpha Theta

Journal June 2013. In the academic year of 2014 to 2015 Mrs. Sanders was the recipient of the

Eugene Hollon Scholarship at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

History Department, Ferguson Social Sciences Building, Texas A&M University-Commerce P.O. Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75429 Email: [email protected]