Abstract
William Dugdale, the seventeenth-century compiler of the histories of English monasteries and families, related a truly marvelous tale involving two widowed queens in his Baronage of England, published in 1675–76. As Dugdale told it, the dowager queen of France, Adelaide of Maurienne (d. 1154), widow of Louis VI (r. 1108–27), was enamored of a certain knight and pondered how she could marry him without losing status. She decided to hold a great tournament in Paris, believing that if her champion were to carry the day, she could take him as her new husband without shame. But at the tournament, she watched as a young knight from England, William de Albini, won the major prize of the day. Evidently forgetting her first knight entirely, Adelaide was seized with a burning lust for William. She summoned him to a banquet, presented him with many rich gifts, and asked him to become her second husband. Unfortunately for her, William announced that he was already betrothed to Adeliza of Louvain (d. 1151), widow of King Henry I of England (r. 1100–35). The outraged Adelaide, in consultation with her ladies, arranged to have William brought into her garden where she pushed him deep into a cave. Inside the cave was a fierce and hungry lion that was undoubtedly expected to put a quick end to the impudent knight. But William bravely thrust his fist directly into the lion’s mouth and down its throat, managing to kill the beast and extract its tongue with his bare hands. Forever known as “William Strong-Arm,” de Albini did marry the widowed Queen Adeliza, and it appears they managed to live out their lives untroubled by advances from the thoroughly humiliated dowager queen of France.1
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Notes
Andrew Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Order and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 55–56, esp. n. 43.
Heather Tanner,“Trial by Chronicle: Assessing the Failures of Three Rulers of England and Normandy, 1070–1300,” Majestas 4 (1996): 39–60.
V.H. Galbraith, “Good Kings and Bad Kings in English History,” History 30 (1945): 119–32.
John Carmi Parsons, “Family, Sex, and Power: The Rhythms of Medieval Queenship,” introduction to Medieval Queenship ( New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995 ), pp. 1–11.
Lindy Grant, Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth-Century France ( London: Longman, 1998 ), pp. 100–01.
Michael Clanchy, Abelard: A Medieval Life ( Oxford: The Blackwell Press, 1997 ), pp. 342–43.
Eric Bournazel, “Suger and the Capetians,” in Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis: A Symposium, ed. Paula Lieber Gerson (New York: Harry N. Abrams for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), p. 57 [55–94]. Bournazel paraphrases the letter generally attributed to Hilderbert of Lavardin, which was written to Stephen after his deposition (see note 29).
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© 2003 Kathleen Nolan
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Huneycutt, L.L. (2003). The Creation of a Crone: The Historical Reputation of Adelaide of Maurienne. In: Nolan, K. (eds) Capetian Women. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09835-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09835-1_3
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