{"id":979,"date":"2020-05-26T19:00:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T18:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/?p=979"},"modified":"2020-10-05T14:19:38","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T13:19:38","slug":"eleanor-of-aquitaines-impact-on-english-castles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/2020\/05\/26\/eleanor-of-aquitaines-impact-on-english-castles\/","title":{"rendered":"Eleanor of Aquitaine\u2019s impact on English Castles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sara Cockerill, author of the recently published biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, looks at her role in English castle development.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the areas which has stayed slightly \u201coff-camera\u201d as I have written about Eleanor is the question of her relationships with the castles of her era. The headlining castles built under Henry\u2019s aegis show no signs of Eleanor\u2019s input. More intriguing however, is her relationship with those castles which pre-dated Henry\u2019s reign and which found themselves in need of a bit of TLC \u2013 not necessarily from a military point of view, but in order to function as homes as well as defences. Where this sort of work is concerned there seems to be some ground for tracing a link between Eleanor\u2019s regencies and the initiation of refurbishment programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start with the most obvious example \u2013 the Tower. On Eleanor\u2019s first arrival in London the Tower was uninhabitable, and the royal couple had to stay instead at Bermondsey Abbey. While it is clear that Henry II put Thomas Becket in charge of refurbishing the equally run down Palace of Westminster, money does not commence to be spent on the Tower until 1166 \u2013 during Eleanor\u2019s regency, suggesting that she had some hand in the decisions as to its refurbishment. Quite what these were is of course a matter of some debate, but they included as well as defensive works, quasi domestic features, such as work to the chapel and living accommodation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tower of London Chapel of St John, By Slowking4 – Own work, GFDL 1.2, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=34675029<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another castle which came under Eleanor\u2019s review is Berkhamsted \u2013 initially given to, and refurbished by Becket, it was transferred to Eleanor,  who held the barony as part of her dower assignment, during the course of Henry\u2019s quarrel with Becket, with the royal family spending Christmas of 1163 there; an event which involved numerous items of plate being sent from Westminster to dress the rooms to best advantage. In the years which follow, again during Eleanor\u2019s regency, there is regular work noted in the accounts, on the \u201cKings houses\u201d there, at the granary, the bridges \u2013 and the lodgings. Her interest in the property is further evidenced by her travelling to stay there as soon as she gained a greater measure of freedom in 1184, with the advent of her daughter Matilda, then in exile from Saxony. Eleanor and Matilda\u2019s family seem to have spent the whole summer there. And finally – work stops on the castle just at the period when Eleanor departs to her retirement in Poitou. However even in retirement her steward for the Berkhamsted estate would travel to visit her at Fontevraud\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Berkhamsted Castle bailey from the motte including remains of buildings built in Eleanor’s regency<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other places where Eleanor was particularly at home and where her interest can be traced are Old Sarum (Salisbury) and Winchester \u2013 her main locations during her captivity. But everything suggests that she was sent there not because she disliked them, but rather the reverse. Both are places she positively chose to visit on more than one occasion as regent in the 1150s and 1160s. Winchester, of course, was Henry I\u2019s main residence, and had benefitted from a constant programme of renewals ever since. Interestingly however its domestic architecture was thoroughly overhauled from the year after Eleanor arrived in England. In 1155\u20136 \u00a314 10s. 8d. was paid for making the king’s house and the next year another \u00a314 10s. was spent for work on just one chamber in the castle. In 1170 \u00a336 6s. was paid, and in 1173 \u00a356 13s. 1d. was paid for work on the king’s houses at Winchester and \u00a348 5s. for work on the castle and provisioning it. Large sums of money were, interestingly paid for the King\u2019s chapel, in the years when Eleanor was a frequent resident there in confinement.  To this period too can be traced the first indications of development of the gardens. Old Sarum for its part had a residential area which was modern, having been built as recently as 1130 under the aegis of the then bishop. During Eleanor\u2019s residence at Salisbury in the 1170s and early 1180s, there was consistent expenditure including \u00a347 on the houses in the year Eleanor came to live there. That Eleanor positively liked Salisbury is shown by the fact that after her release she chose to organise the wedding of Andr\u00e9 de Chauvigny to the heiress Denise of D\u00e9ols there; and Winchester too was a voluntary stop for her more then once in her later years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Old Sarum from the west in C12, (Model: John B. Thorp. Photo: Kurt Kastner<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In a similar category is Windsor castle. Though predominantly a project of Henry\u2019s \u2013 the defensive remodelling smacks of his planning \u2013 Eleanor spent considerable periods of time here \u2013 bearing Matilda here when the castle must have been a building site, and visiting repeatedly both as regent when she may well have had a hand in the development of the domestic buildings, which were to form a family base for her descendant Henry III\u2019s family. Again it is a castle she seems to have positively chosen to visit with Matilda on Matilda\u2019s return, and again following her release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although of course Berkhamsted has fallen into disrepair, one can perhaps therefore trace Eleanor\u2019s hand in creating a core of castles which could double as homes, which was to influence the lives of generations to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured image: Aerial photograph of Old Sarum site, on departure from Old Sarum airfield by Mark Edwards.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sara Cockerill, author of the recently published biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, looks at her role in English castle development. One of the areas which has stayed slightly \u201coff-camera\u201d as I have written about Eleanor is the question of her relationships with the castles of her era. The headlining castles built under Henry\u2019s aegis show … Continue reading Eleanor of Aquitaine\u2019s impact on English Castles<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,37],"tags":[151,163,192,193,33,196,195],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}