The Labors of Ruling: The Mothering Queen

Abstract

Berenguela’s queenship was manifested through her roles as wife, heir, and mother. The nexus of marriage and inheritance made possible her motherhood, and as a mothering queen she had great power. Berenguela’s brief experience as sole ruler of Castile, lasting at the most a few months in 1217, was not unsuccessful; through her right to rule, the Castilian throne was preserved for her family and most immediately for her son Fernando. Berenguela’s complex queenship evolved throughout her life, as she ruled with her son, much as her sister Blanche did during the reign of Louis IX. As was the case for queen-wives, queen mothers had no specially designated office, and no evidence of a coronation or special ritual for queen-making in Castile exists, unlike France or England.¹ As has been suggested for French queen-regents, an absence of office with institutional limitations meant that a woman such as Berenguela, with a legitimate hereditary claim to rule, theoretically had an almost unlimited political space in which to effect her power.² However, to say that her power was merely informal fails to recognize the extent to which Berenguela’s authority derived from her place in her lineage, her position as a lord with an army, her great wealth and access to royal justice, as well as recognized status as an heir to the throne. “Informal power” implies a lack of authority and legitimacy, power vulnerable to the intrigue and favoritism that could characterize court life, and is often applied to the position of queens in the High Middle Ages, who held seemingly anomalous positions: without office, yet with access to the centers and machinery of government.³