Berengaria of Navarre

Gisant of the Berengaria in the monastery L'Épau

Berengaria (Spanish: Berenguela , French: Bérengère ) (* between 1165 and 1170; † December 23, 1230 ) was Queen of England from 1191 to 1199 as the wife of King Richard the Lionheart .

Berengaria was the eldest daughter of King Sancho VI. “The sage” of Navarre and Sancha of Castile , daughter of Alfonso VII of Castile-León and Berenguela of Barcelona .

Life

Childhood and youth

As with many English queens of the Middle Ages, little is known about Berengaria because the chroniclers wrote little about her. Because of Navarre's proximity to southern France, the princess grew up in a Provencal rather than Spanish milieu. The mediaeval historians only say that she had dark eyes and hair and that she was beautiful, which latter attribute is a standard description of most royal daughters. The English chronicler Richard von Devizes , however, notes that she is more clever than beautiful. How many noble ladies did she receive? a. Instruction in poetry, music and sewing. Long before his wedding to Berengaria, Richard (I) the Lionheart, at that time still Count of Poitou, was invited by Berengaria's brother Sancho (VII.) To a tournament in Pamplona and on this occasion is said to fall in love with the young princess and to hear glowing verses they have judged.

Marriage preparations

In 1190, a year after he came to power as the English king, Richard began negotiations about his marriage to Berengaria. He sent his almost 70-year-old mother Eleanor of Aquitaine to Navarre for this purpose, because he himself set out on the Third Crusade with the French King Philip II of August . Both monarchs arrived in Messina , Sicily , in September 1190 , where Richard freed his widowed sister Johanna from the captivity of the new Norman king Tankred of Lecce . Richard later concluded a contract with Tankred and spent the winter of 1190/91 in Sicily with Philipp August.

In the meantime, Eleanor had either traveled personally across the Pyrenees to Navarre or had sent a delegation there to meet with Sancho VI. sign the marriage contract for Richard and Berengaria. The Queen Mother at least advocated this marital union; According to some sources, she is even said to have been the initiator and Richard the obedient son. The court of Navarre approved the marriage project. The bride received the strategically important castles of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Roquebrune from her father as a dowry, and from her husband as Wittum the Gascony south of the Garonne . After Eleanor's death, her dowry in northern France and England was to be given to Berengaria as a Wittum.

Eleonore escorted Berengaria across the Alps to Italy. In February 1191 the two women arrived in Naples . However, since Richard had already been betrothed to Alix , the sister of Philip II August, in 1168 , this bond had to be broken. This led to a dispute between Richard and the Capetian , who again, but in vain, demanded that Richard marry Alix.

According to the English chronicler Roger von Hoveden , Philip August sent the Duke of Burgundy to Tankred to allegedly inform him about Richard's supposedly hostile attitude and about Richard's intention to conquer Sicily. In February 1191 Tankred's people did not allow Eleonore and Berengaria to dock in Messina because they had too large a retinue with them. The royal ladies therefore had to move into quarters in Brindisi first . Richard then went to Tankred personally and was able to restore the agreement. Tankred is said to have told Richard Philip's secret information and Richard then confronted Philipp about what led to the scandal. Richard had declared that he could not enter into marriage with Alix, as she had previously had a relationship with his father Heinrich II . Many details of Hoveden's report cannot be verified due to a lack of other sources.

The French chronicler Rigord reports that in mid-March 1191 the French king urged Richard to leave quickly. Either he should leave Sicily with him before Berengaria's arrival and go on the crusade or, if he stayed, marry Alix. Richard rejected these demands.

In any case, the Capetian eventually released Richard to marry at will. On March 30, 1191, Philip Augustus left Sicily for Tire , the same day that Eleanor and Berengaria arrived in Messina on a ship that Richard had sent them to Reggio. As it was Lent , the marriage was postponed. Eleanor returned to western France, where she represented Richard as regent during his absence; Berengaria and Johanna stayed in Richard's suite.

Marriage during the Third Crusade

When Richard's fleet left Messina on April 10, 1191, Berengaria was on a different ship than the king, as the two were not yet married. His future bride was together with his sister Johanna on a stationary, but slow watercraft under the command of Roberts of Thornham . Ships of this type were called "busciae" or something similar. With two escort ships, the royal ladies drove ahead of the main fleet, which would overtake them again in the course of the voyage due to their slower pace. Johanna and Berengaria were about the same age and quickly became lifelong friends.

While crossing to the Holy Land, Richard's fleet got caught in a storm on April 12, 1191. The small convoy of royal women was driven to Cyprus , where the escort ships capsized near Limassol on April 24th. The survivors who escaped ashore were captured by the Cypriots and robbed of their belongings, but were able to free themselves. According to the Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi , the self-proclaimed Cypriot Emperor Isaak Komnenos , who was hostile to the Crusaders, did not appear at the scene until eight days after the shipwreck. He ordered an army to be set up near the coast to prevent Richard's army from landing. On the other hand, he invited Berengaria and Johanna, whose ship was undamaged, to Limassol. For fear of being captured there too, they declined the offer. Johanna justified this measure against Isaac by claiming that she was not allowed to leave the ship without her brother's permission. She and Berengaria were waiting for Richard to arrive off the coast of Cyprus.

Richard and Berengaria on their way from Cyprus to the Holy Land (1337)

The Chronique d'Ernoul and L'Estoire de Eracles claim that Isaac now attempted to seize the noble ladies by force. In any case, the English king arrived in time to help. He landed on April 17th in Crete and on April 22nd in Rhodes , where he stayed until May 1st. Finally, on May 6, he arrived off Cyprus and conquered Limassol. In the St. George's Chapel there, he was married to Berengaria on a Sunday, May 12th 1191, by his chaplain Nicolas, who would later become Bishop of Le Mans . The bride wore a white dress, a brocade cloak over it and a white veil covering her hair. She was then crowned Queen of England by Bishop Jean of Évreux . Soon after his marriage, Richard took control of the entire island and Isaac surrendered to him on May 31st or June 1st. The emperor's daughter, whose name has not been recorded, was taken prisoner. Richard entrusted her to his sister and wife for upbringing. The girl was part of Johanna's entourage on the further crusade.

Queen of England

Further course of the crusade

Little is reported about Berengaria's role during the further course of the crusade, she saw her husband quite rarely. On June 1, 1191, she sailed with Johanna from Cyprus to Acre . King Richard did not leave Famagusta with his fleet until June 5th and arrived at the camp outside Acre on June 8th. Berengaria attended the siege of Acon , which surrendered on July 12th and was divided into an English and a French occupation zone. When Richard first entered the conquered city on July 21, he moved into quarters in the royal palace with Johanna, Berengaria and Isaac's daughter. After a slaughter of Muslim prisoners, Richard set out from Acre on August 22nd and fought several battles with Saladin's troops . Berengaria and Johanna remained in the care of Stephan von Longchamp and Bertram de Verdon in Acre until October . Then they resided in Jaffa and at Christmas in Latrun .

Richard's captivity

After the crusade was not very successful, Richard concluded a peace treaty with Saladin and traveled to Acre. From there he let Berengaria and Johanna go on September 29, 1192 on board a ship that was supposed to bring them back to the West; he made his way back on October 9th. While the two women landed safely in Brindisi and traveled on to Rome , Richard was less fortunate. He was captured in December 1192 near Vienna by his enemy, the Austrian Duke Leopold V , who gave him to the German Emperor Heinrich VI. delivered. This blocked Richard u. a. on the Trifels . Berengaria and Johanna, who by Pope Coelestin III. had been courteously received, stayed in Rome for six months for fear of the German Kaiser. Then they asked the Pope to provide escorts for them to travel to France. A cardinal then escorted them to Marseille via Pisa and Genoa . From there they traveled first with King Alfonso II of Aragón and then with Count Raimund of Toulouse to Poitou, where they arrived around mid-1193.

Political importance

Richard was only handed over to his mother Eleanor after paying a large ransom in February 1194 and returned to his kingdom, but did not live with his wife. The reasons for this apparent alienation are unknown. Some historians suspected that the English queen was sterile. Politically, Berengaria stood in the shadow of the Queen Mother Eleanor and played no role in the government of England, where Richard was almost permanently absent. In 1195, a hermit is said to have reminded the English king of the fall of Sodom as a warning about his sinful life , and Richard then became seriously ill, whereupon he called his wife back and made a public confession. On April 4, 1195 he saw Berengaria again in Le Mans and the couple spent Christmas 1195 together in Poitiers . It is not known whether the couple saw each other otherwise. It is also unclear whether the marriage was ever consummated; In any case, she remained childless. After Richard was fatally wounded by an arrow during the siege of Châlus , he died on April 6, 1199 in the arms of his mother Eleanor. Berengaria, however, was not present with her dying husband. There are no letters from her or any other source to show how she received Richard's death. Berengaria never set foot in England during Richard's lifetime, as Richard only set foot on English soil for 6 months during their entire marriage. Therefore, the traditional name: "The only English queen who has never set foot in her country" applies to her in the truest sense. However, there are indications that she stayed briefly in England as a widow.

Widowhood and death

After Richard's death, Berengaria stubbornly sought payment of the pension she would receive as a former widowed queen. She sent messengers to England several times with corresponding demands, but King John Ohneland , who had followed his brother Richard, did not fulfill her demands. Under political pressure, he met Berengaria in Chinon in 1201 and promised her the northern French city of Bayeux , two castles in Anjou and an annual payment of 1,000 marks, but then he did not keep his promise. On April 1, 1204 the queen widow Eleanor died and her dowry was to go to Berengaria. The French King Philipp August now handed over Berengaria Le Mans including the associated territory as Wittum, for which she waived further claims. Since then she has spent most of her time at Le Mans. Innocent III. supported her monetary demands that she made on Johann. The Pope wrote several letters to the English king on this matter and threatened him with an interdict if he did not pay. In 1215 the parties to the dispute finally reached a settlement, but when Johann died the next year, according to their statements, he still owed Berengaria more than 4,000 pounds. The government for the underage son of the late king, the then nine-year-old Heinrich III. , but met the payment obligations, and since 1217 Berengaria received the pension she was entitled to.

In Le Mans, Berengaria made a name for itself mainly through the support of the clergy and churches. In 1226 she was co-heir of the estates of her distant relative Wilhelm, Bishop of Chalons. In 1228 she founded the Cistercian Abbey L'Épau in the immediate vicinity of Le Mans, lived in this abbey after its completion and was buried there in a magnificent tomb after her death in 1230. Today her remains are in the Le Mans Cathedral.

ancestors

Ramiro Sánchez of Navarre

Cristina Rodríguez

Gilbert de l'Aigle

Juliane du LePerche

Raymond of Burgundy

Urraca of León

Raimund Berengar III. Count of Barcelona

Douce of Provence

García IV of Navarre

Marguerite de l'Aigle

Alfonso VII of León and Castile

Berenguela of Barcelona

Sancho VI. of Navarre

Sancha of Castile

Berengaria of Navarre

literature

• Elizabeth Hallam: Berengaria (c.1165-1230). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Volume 5: Belle-Blackman. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861355-5 , pp. 321–322, ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of May 2008
• Charles Higounet: Berenguela of Navarre . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7608-8901-8 , column 1940 f.
• William Hunt :  Berengaria . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 4:  Beal - Beaver. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1885, pp. 325 - 326 (English).
• Ulrike Kessler: Richard I. Lionheart . Verlag Styria, Graz; Vienna; Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-222-12299-7 .
• Steven Runciman : History of the Crusades . Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04670-8 , pp. 813-817; 832; 848 (original edition London 1950–1954, German first 1957–1960).
• Ann Trindade: Berengaria: in search of Richard the Lionheart's Queen. Four Courts, Dublin 1999, ISBN 1-85182-434-0 .
• Laura York: Berengaria of Navarre . In: Anne Commire (Ed.): Women in World History . Vol. 2, 1999, pp. 440-444.

Web links

Commons : Berengaria of Navarre  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ L. York, 1999, pp. 440f.
2. ↑ U. Kessler, 1995, pp. 125f.
3. ↑ U. Kessler, 1995, p. 64f.
4. ↑ U. Kessler, 1995, pp. 127-132; S. Runciman, 1997, pp. 814-816.
5. ↑ U. Kessler, 1995, pp. 132-144; S. Runciman, 1997, pp. 816-818.
6. ^ Régine Pernoud : Queen of the Troubadours . Paris 1965, German 14th edition Munich 1996, p. 208.

predecessor	Office	Successor
Eleanor of Aquitaine	Queen Consort of England 1191–1199	Isabella of Angoulême