isabellacapets: “…Eleanor of Castile speaks most clearly, even touchingly, in the conce
isabellacapets:“…Eleanor of Castile speaks most clearly, even touchingly, in the concern for her daughters that reveals her awareness of the patterns of medieval royal women’s lives, perceptions that suggest a queen’s understanding of herself as a daughter, wife, and mother. Her protection of her daughters, the heraldic displays that included her mother’s arms, the many marriages that she arranged for her female cousins and attendants-surely these mean that Eleanor understood herself in terms of her membership in a female network that effectively, if silently, paralleled the political alliances among princes. That membership propelled her across boundaries that were cultural as well as geographical, eliciting choices and decisions that could be a powerful impetus to self-realization, and placing at her command the cross-cultural currents she manipulated to advantage through literary patronage.”-Eleanor of Castile, John Carmi Parsons -- source link
#history#13th century#queens