Chapter 4 - The Countesses’ Dynastic, Religious, and Spousal Powers

Summary

WITH IN THEIR LANDS, the countesses played a central role in governing. Stemming from societal beliefs that marriage created a single corporate body with the husband as its head, the count-consort shared in the governance of his wife's lands. As discussed in the previous chapter, the couple's officials were careful to specify that the source of legitimacy and authority for the count's acts stemmed from the countess. In distinct contrast within the counts’ lands, the husband's primacy within the couple resulted in a focus on the countess as wife, and a corresponding emphasis on her familial and religious expressions of power. Thus, the countess appears in the acta when the count is absent from his lands. The countess is central in these documents as mother of heirs, as conveyor of her lineage's status, as her husband's regent, and as a grantor of religious gifts. As with the acta recording lordly decisions, the language of religious donations enunciated, both aloud and in writing, the grantor's lineage and their piety, and it publicized and affirmed their legitimate authority and prestige.

Countess-Consort

It is well established that widowed noblewomen exercised lordly power. More recent work is expanding our understanding of the role that noblewomen played during their married lives, and not just in the absence of their husbands. Linda Mitchell's work on Joan of Valence and the Marshal women demonstrates their life-long role in governing the family's lands, fostering loyalty and political ties through their hospitality, and their participation in the political actions and rebellions of their male kin. Similarly, Louise Wilkinson's analysis of the life of Eleanor of Montfort establishes the central role that she played in the Barons’ War, led by her husband and elder sons. Women served as lordly administrators and regents for their male kin's property during and after marriage, although the acta often effaced the countess's role in governing when her spouse was present.

As consorts within their husband's land, countesses’ power derived from marriage and tended towards the private, religious, and dynastic when their husbands were home. As a result, the countess was often referred to as wife (uxor) rather than countess (comitissa) in the joint acta of the lordly couple. This practice reflects the significance of who inherited the land and title, as well as the patriarchal subordination of a wife to a husband in marriage.