The idea of consanguinity or shared blood was important in medieval marriage. During the Eleventh century you weren’t supposed to marry anyone within seven degrees of blood relationship but the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 changed it to four degrees – which must have been something of a blessing to assorted royal houses who were all kin to some degree or other. Essentially the method of working out prohibited degrees of consanguinity was to count four generations back up the family tree and if the proposed spouses shared any direct ancestors a papal dispensation was required if the marriage was to go ahead. Obviously the papacy did not hand dispensations out without payment – it was a fairly lucrative pastime. Just look at Eleanor of Castile’s immediate family.
Eleanor of Castile and Edward I are related – by counting straight back up their family trees, within the prohibited degrees of affinity to Eleanor of Aquitaine who was Edward’s great grandmother and Eleanor’s great great granny (think I’ve got that right).
Eleanor’s father was Ferdinand III of Castile but her mother was Jeanne de Dammartin, Countess of Ponthieu. Jeanne’s parents, Eleanor’s maternal grandparents, were Simon de Dammartin and Marie, Countess of Ponthieu (whose mother was Alys of France). Simon’s mother was Marie of France, the daughter of King Louis VII of France and his first wife Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Marie of France was something of a miracle as the saintly French king wasn’t much interested in fulfilling his marital duties. Born in 1145, Marie was only seven years old when her parents’ marriage broke down completely in the aftermath of the Second Crusade. She and her two year old sister, Alice, were declared legitimate but were separated from their mother who returned in the general direction of Aquitaine avoiding fortune hunters en route. She had plans of her own and stopped to marry Henry FitzEmpress at Poitiers. Eleanor and Louis’s divorce had been easy enough to obtain because they were kin within the prohibited degrees. Nor was Eleanor’s case in France helped by the fact that she had only given birth to two daughters and it was unlikely she would provide Louis with an heir – however the French king was not happy that his former wife had married Henry who was Duke of Normandy as well as count of Anjou, Maine and Touraine. Louis didn’t want the young upstart getting his hands on Aquitaine – technically Henry was his vassal but the duke was acquiring an empire of his own.
Marie of France’s son, Simon de Dammartin (Eleanor of Aquitaine’s grandson), married Marie Countess of Ponthieu. Another dispensation was required. The bride and groom were first cousins. Both of them shared a grandparent in the form of King Louis, who married Constance of Castile almost immediately after his marriage to Eleanor was annulled. It should be added that Constance also failed to provide Louis with a male heir. She gave him two more daughters — Alys and Margaret. Alys was Marie’s of Ponthieu’s mother. You might also want to pause to consider that Louis VII named both his younger daughters Alys (although I’ve used the English spelling for the first one in a vain attempt to avoid confusion).
Margaret of France was married off to Eleanor of Aquitaine’s oldest son with Henry Fitzempress who was by then Henry II of England. Now while Margaret and Henry, the Young King, weren’t related by blood there was a degree of affinity. Margaret’s father (Louis) and Henry’s mother (Eleanor) had once been married – affinity did, on occasion, come to an end with the death or other of the people who shared a close relationship but when in doubt a papal dispensation was an essential.
I start the Eleanor of Castile Zoom class on Monday 13th April.
