Lesson video

Hello.

Welcome back to history here at Oak National Academy.

I'm Miss Barnnett, and thank you for joining me for our second lesson, looking at an inquiry into what the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine can tell us about who had power in the Middle Ages.

Please use this opportunity to make sure you've got paper and pen or pencil to write with.

And our title for today is Eleanor and the Angevin Empire.

So please pause the video here to give yourself time to get the title written down noting where the capital letters are in this title and just checking your title is accurately spelt and grammatically correct.

Once you're done, unpause the video and we'll get started.

Okay, so in today's lesson, we're going to start off with an image.

What do you think is happening in this image? What do you think this image is of? Now, this picture painting is an image of Eleanor of Aquitaine's wedding to King Louis.

You can see King Louis here in the blue gown with his crown on, and Eleanor is to the right hand side here, and the wedding is taking place with a church official in the middle.

Now we've chosen this image, because this is what we were looking at in lesson one.

We were looking at Eleanor's marriage to Louis.

We were looking at some of the unconventional activities Eleanor took part in including going on crusade as well as publicly disagreeing with Louis about whether they should go on to Jerusalem or not.

I've also picked this image, because we're going to be looking at quite a few images from manuscripts during today's lesson, and it's just so we familiarise ourselves with the type of images we're going to be looking at.

Now, before we get started on today's lesson properly, then let's use this image to recap some key points from lesson one.

We're going to do that using a true or false exercise.

So what we have here are four statements, and I would like you to work out if this statement is true, or if it is false.

So pause the video here, work out if the statement is correct or not, and when you think you've got the answers, unpause the video and we'll go through them.

Okay, welcome back, everyone.

So, let's have a look at these answers and see how well we have done.

So statement a was indeed true.

Eleanor's first husband was the King of France, King Louis.

We can see him here in this image in the blue gown.

The second statement, statement b, is false.

Eleanor didn't refuse to go on crusade with Louis.

In fact, she insisted on going with him, which we know was quite unconventional for a queen at this time.

I think it's fair to say Eleanor was quite unconventional.

And she travels with him to the Holy Land and stays there with him.

So she actually went along.

Statement c, Eleanor and Louis had a son together.

This is also false.

The royal couple had two daughters, but they did not have the all important male heir that Louis needed to make sure that there was someone to take over his land after he died.

And finally, statement d, Eleanor kept control of Aquitaine.

This is indeed correct.

So, although she married King Louis of France and she became queen consort, she was still able to keep complete control over Aquitaine and her own lands.

And at the end of lesson one, we learned that when their marriage gets annulled, she returns to Aquitaine as Duchess of Aquitaine and continues her control of her lands there.

So, she always remains in control of Aquitaine.

Let's revisit our inquiry question then.

The whole focus of this inquiry over these four lessons is thinking about what the life of Eleanor can tell us about who held power in the Middle Ages.

Does her life challenge the traditional ideas about who was powerful at this particular time? Now so far in our inquiry, we have kind of covered one key area of Eleanor's life.

So here is Eleanor's timeline.

We are a bit zoomed in compared to where we were in less than one.

So Eleanor of Aquitaine born around 1123.

As I mentioned the lesson one, we're not entirely sure, but we think that's the most likely guess.

She dies in 1284.

And in lesson one, we covered her marriage to King Louis.

And at the end of lesson one, we learned that their marriage is annulled, and she returns to Aquitaine.

So in today's lesson, lesson two, we're going to be picking up here where this pink arrow is, which is in 1152.

We're going to be looking at what Eleanor gets up to after her marriage is annulled to Louis and what happens in the next stage of her life.

So, the next stage of her life then is with a man called Henry.

We can see them here in this image.

As I said, lots of images from manuscripts today.

And in this image, we have Eleanor seated on the left and we have Henry seated on the right.

Henry at this time, 1152, is in control of quite a few lands in France.

Henry is the Duke of Normandy, which is an area in Northern France.

And he's also the Count of Maine, and he's the Count of Anjou.

This is all through his family connections.

And so through having so much land, he's quite a powerful person.

He also is the heir to the throne of England.

And at this time, King Stephen is on the throne in England, but he has named Henry as his heir, the person who will take over after he dies.

Now, Eleanor and Henry get married in 1152.

Interestingly, it's actually only eight weeks after she separates from King Louis.

So there is a bit of controversy about the fact that she remarries again so quickly.

And she also remarries someone who has lots of land and power in France.

King Louis, not very happy about this decision, but there isn't anything that he can do.

The couple, their marriage goes ahead anyway.

Now let's have a look at these territories.

So let's remind ourselves then Eleanor's lands of Aquitaine.

We looked at this in lesson one.

Here it is on the map again.

Huge territory.

The richest, and one of the most powerful areas of land in the South of France that she is in control of as the Duchess of Aquitaine.

Now, Henry, then, we know has land in Normandy, Maine, and Anjou, and they are here.

So we can see where they are.

And so the couple is creating a kind of a block of territory that they are in control of now that they have become married.

Now we're zooming out on this map slightly here, because in 1154, Henry became King of England.

King Stephen dies, and as part of the transition process, Henry, who was his named heir, becomes King of England.

And so the royal couple now add England to their combined lands and their combined territories.

Now this makes them pretty powerful.

If you had land at this time, you had power and you had influence, and we can see here on this map just how much land the royal couple now have.

Now a really important term is that Elanor and Henry's combined lands became known as the Angevin Empire.

So if we refer to that term throughout the lessons, if we see it come up in our reading sheets, the Angevin Empire is the name given to their combined territories.

So thinking about this map, it's the name given to England, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Aquitaine, and the land that the royal couple govern all together.

Okay, now before we add in any more information, we are going to do a quick check to see how much we can remember from lesson one and from the slides we've gone through so far.

So, as we did in lesson one, I'm going to say a question.

One of the answers, excuse me.

The answer is one of these four options on the slide, and you're going to say the answer out loud.

Okay, so question number one.

Who was Eleanor's first husband? King Louis.

Did you get it right? Great job.

Question number two.

Who was Eleanor's second husband? Fantastic work, everyone.

King Henry the Second.

Question three, what was the name of Henry and Eleanor's combined lands? Did you get it right? Well done.

Final question, what's the name of the territory or land that Eleanor inherited when she was 13? Did we get this one right? Hopefully we did.

How many did we get out of four, everyone? Great job, well done.

Now we're going to look at some primary sources for the next part of our lesson.

By primary sources, we mean a source that was created at the time, a record created at the time, and in particular, we are going to be thinking about the Charters of Aquitaine.

But what is a charter? We need to make sure we know what a charter is before we can move on.

So, here is an example of a charter.

A charter is a written record of an agreement made between two or more people.

Now it could be a written record of a law that was made by a king or a baron.

The one that you can see in front of you is an example of that, obviously a very long one.

It could be a written record of some land being sold between two people.

It could be a written record of a local person being promoted, being a baron, or being given a reward by the king or the queen.

At its simplest level, a charter is a written record of an agreement that is made.

So the Charters of Aquitaine, which is what we're going to be thinking about, are the written records of agreements made in the lands of Aquitaine.

And we know that Eleanor is the Duchess of Aquitaine, and so she would be expected to be overseeing the charters.

You would normally expect to see the person who's in charge of an area of land, their name on the charters.

So we are going to be looking and seeing what we can learn from these charters.

And what we're going to be doing is dividing them into three time periods.

Now, between 1156, so two years after Eleanor marries Henry, up to 1167, none of the Charters from Aquitaine mentioned Eleanor's name.

Some of them include Henry's name, but none of them mentioned Eleanor's name.

Okay, so none of the written records from Aquitaine at this time mention her name.

So, what I want you to do is pause the video and think through some answers to these three questions.

Don't need to write anything down.

I just want you to think through the answers to them.

Why do you think Eleanor's name was missing from the orders issued to her homeland at this time? What do you think she could have been doing? And what does this tell us about her power? So pause here, and then unpause the video when you're done.

Okay, so hopefully we've had a chance to think about our ideas about why her name isn't mentioned on any of these charters.

Let's look at the next timeframe.

Okay, so between 1167 and 1172, the Charters of Aquitaine were mostly issued jointly either between Eleanor and Henry or Eleanor and her second eldest son, Richard, who has become heir to the land of Aquitaine.

So three questions I want you to think about again.

So you're going to pause the video in a second, and you're going to think through your answers to these three questions.

Why do you think Eleanor has started to issue charters again? Why do you think she's issuing them jointly when she is the Duchess of Aquitaine? And what does this tell us about her power? So pause, think through these answers, and then when you've thought them through, come back and we'll move on.

Okay, welcome back, everyone.

So, the plot thickens.

We see in this time period, Eleanor is issuing some charters, but jointly.

So let's have a think about the final timeframe.

Okay, so we have less charters from this time period.

They haven't all survived, but we do have three charters, so three written records that were issued just by Eleanor on her own, and the wording is to her own faithful followers.

Now, very quick thinking point just before we look at this in a bit more detail.

What do you think has changed? Why do you think all of a sudden she's now issuing them on her own? Okay so, what we're going to do to see if we can decipher this a bit more is we're going to actually look at another source from the time.

We're going to see if that's going to help us answer any of these questions.

So why at the beginning of the time period is she not got her name on any of them? Why in the second time period do you see her issuing them jointly.

And why in the final time period is she doing them on her own? And what do we learn about her power and influence? You're going to look at another primary source to see if we can understand what was going on.

And this primary source is an image.

It's taken from a English manuscript, and it helps us understand a bit more about what was happening with those charters.

But what we're going to do is we're going to look at some individual parts of this source and see if we can decipher what's happening in this image.

So, couple of questions then to see if we can pick this apart.

So, I want to work out if we can identify who this is.

So some questions to get you thinking about it.

Why might this person be holding a sword? What is he sitting on, and what is on his head? So pause here, think about those three questions, see if you can work out who it is, and then unpause when you think you've got the answer.

Okay, any guesses? You can give yourself a pat on the back if you worked out that this is Henry, Eleanor's husband.

Some of the eagle-eyed amongst you might have just been able to make out his name above this, but this is King Henry.

He has a crown on his head.

He's sitting on a throne, holding a sword, showing that he's very powerful, but here he is.

Okay, so this is the first part of this image.

Let's draw our attention to this bit.

So we have got eight people underneath Henry, and I want to see if you can work out who do you think these eight people are? And on the left hand side of this image, you'll see a pink arrow pointing towards a line connecting Henry to each of these eight people.

I want to know what is this line meant to represent.

So pause here.

Who do you think these eight people are, and what is that line meant to represent? And when you've got some guesses, then you're going to unpause the video and we'll see if you're right.

Okay, welcome back.

Again, you can give yourself a big pat on the back if you worked out that these eight people are Henry's children.

And we know that they are his children, because of those lines.

Those lines show that they are direct descendants born from Henry.

Let's look at this a bit clearer.

Here we go.

It's a bit overexposed, but we can see their names here, which just makes it a bit easier for us.

Who's missing from this image? We've got Henry.

We've got his eight children.

Who is missing from this image? And say it out loud.

Eleanor's missing.

Henry is married to Eleanor, and Henry and Eleanor have the children together, but there's no Eleanor in here, which is interesting in itself.

It gives us a bit of an insight into how the person who created this image of the manuscript reflected on her position about how important she was.

And it's interesting that she is left out of this, but obviously, Henry and Eleanor, these are their children.

What we can see on this image with the writing over the top is the names of their children.

And with the bit in red underneath, are the year of their birth, and then the year of their death.

These dates are quite important to us.

We're going to turn our attention to them.

Can you see, can you work out from those dates, what's the first date that Eleanor has her first child? And what's the date when she has her last child? Managed to work it out? Her first child, William here on the left hand side, is born in 1153.

And her last child, John, is born in 1166.

So does this help us understand the charters a bit more? Does this help us understand why Eleanor is perhaps missing from them? Let's go back.

So, if Eleanor's first child is born 1153, and her final child is born 1166, we can see here that from our first time period of 1156 to 1167, there is a correlation.

What we learn is that Eleanor isn't issuing charters at this time, because this is when her children had been born.

This is when she is raising them and looking after her family.

And so she's in England looking after her children, and that's why she's not issuing charters in Aquitaine.

So did that match up with your ideas when I asked you what you think was going on when Eleanor wasn't there? Now, her youngest child, John, is born in 1166.

And what we see, is that after that period, Eleanor starts to issue charters again in Aquitaine.

So we can see that once her last child is born, she starts to take back some control in Aquitaine.

She actually goes back to Aquitaine in 1168 and lives there from that point forward.

And so this is why we see her name start to come through more and more in the charters.

So, she is prioritising her family at the beginning part, and then after that, we see her become more and more independent, taking more and more influence over her lands.

So, let's kind of do a very quick recap.

The time period of today's lesson is 1152 to 1173.

And during this time period, she remains the Duchess of Aquitaine.

She still has complete control over Aquitaine.

They are her lands, but she is also the queen of England, because she has married Henry, and he becomes the King of England.

With or as as part of that relationship, she becomes mother to eight children with Henry.

Really importantly, five of those children are sons, so there are going to be plenty of heirs to take over their combined lands.

Remember the term for that was the Angevin Empire.

And let's have a quick think.

What does this mean for Eleanor's power and authority? Now she's not in Aquitaine issuing the charters.

They're being issued by Henry, but is she gaining power under authority with her marriage to Henry and by providing him with children? She's certainly gaining respect.

She certainly seems to have done what is expected of her by providing her husband with those important heirs.

And that in turn is going to give her some power and authority.

But if we're thinking about her lands, she doesn't quite have the power and authority there for a little while.

Lots of information there.

So we are going to do another knowledge check.

But as you can see, we've got six answers now, because we've learned some more stuff.

So we're going to see how many of these we can get right.

Remember, we're just going to say the answers out loud.

We are going to aim for four marks.

So, question number one, who was Eleanor's first husband? Great job, everyone Oh no, slightly different question.

Question two, what was the name of Eleanor's land? Fantastic.

So this was Aquitaine.

Question three, one of Eleanor's marriages was to the King of France.

Who was that? Well done, everyone.

I just knew that I couldn't fool you with a slightly differently worded question.

Next question, who was Eleanor's second husband? Great work.

How many children did Henry and Eleanor have? Eight.

Well done.

Who did Eleanor have eight children with? Oh, I've gone on two slides.

Sorry, everyone.

We're going to try that question again.

What was the name of Henry and Eleanor's lands? I'm very sorry.

Excellent work, well done.

Let's try the next question.

Who did Eleanor have eight children with? Brilliant.

Where was Eleanor Duchess of? Fantastic.

How old was Eleanor when she inherited Aquitaine? Brilliant.

Well done, everyone.

Lots of questions that time.

How did you do? Probably slightly better than me.

I muttered up my questions.

So very well done if you stuck with me.

We're going to move on, but similar questions, but slightly differently this time.

So this is your written question activity.

So in a second, you're going to pause the video, and you're going to read the worksheet for today's lesson.

And once you've read through it, you're going to answer these five questions in full sentences.

So I want to know who was Eleanor's second husband? What was the Angevin Empire? Why don't any of the charters of Aquitaine between 1156 and 1167 include Eleanor's name? What was she doing? Question four, how was Eleanor able to gain power and respect whilst in England between 1156 and 1167? And then final question, when Eleanor returns to Aquitaine in 1168, does she have complete control and why? So we are aiming for full sentences.

That means that you're including the question in your answers.

You are going to pause the video here, go and read that reading sheet, answer those five questions, and then once you're done, you're going to return, we're going to go through some answers.

Okay, welcome back, everyone.

I always recommend having a green pen.

It doesn't actually have to be green, but a different colour pen to the one you're writing in just so you can give yourself some big ticks and to add anything.

It's really important we add and amend our answers.

Remember as well, that my wording may be different to your wording.

So it doesn't matter if your sentence looks slightly different to my sentence.

It's just important that you have got the key details.

So for question number one, who was Eleanor's second husband? The acceptable answer here is Henry, but it'd be really great if we've all got something that looks like the good answer, which is Eleanor of Aquitaine's second husband was King Henry the Second.

So pause here if you need to add anything to your answer, amend it.

If you are happy with your answer, we are going to think about question two.

Okay, what was Angevin Empire? Going to go straight to the good answer, 'cause I reckon that you've got a good answer.

The Angevin Empire was the name given to Eleanor and Henry's joint lands.

This included Aquitaine, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and England.

If you've just got the first sentence, that's completely fine.

I added in the second one for a bit of extra detail.

So you can add that in if you wish.

If you're happy with your answer, we're going to go to question three.

If you're not, pause here, just to add anything you want.

Why don't any of the Charters of Aquitaine between 1156 and 1167 include Eleanor's name? What was she doing? Straight to the good answer Between 1156 and 1167, Eleanor's name doesn't appear on the Charters of Aquitaine.

At this time, she was in England giving birth to and raising her and Henry's eight children.

Henry ruled Aquitaine in her place.

Okay, so, again, pause here if you need a bit longer.

If you're happy with your answer, we're going to move on to question four.

How was Eleanor able to gain power and respect whilst in England between 1156 and 1167.

So between 1156 and 116, Eleanor gained power and respect in England.

She did this by providing Henry with the male heirs needed to inherit their lands.

She also attended the meetings at the Royal Court with Henry and ruled England whilst he was away fighting in France.

So just check you've got those key details.

It's important to note at this point that when Eleanor is in England raising her family, she is doing a bit extra than that by attending the Royal Court and by looking after England when Henry is away fighting.

So pause here if you need to add anything in, If you're happy with your answer, we're going to look at question five.

Okay, when Eleanor returns to Aquitaine in 1168, does she have complete control and why? So straight to the good answer.

After 1168, Eleanor regained some of her power and control of Aquitaine.

We know this from the charters issued in her name.

However, she doesn't have complete power and control, because the money from Aquitaine goes directly to Henry, and he controls the army.

So even though Eleanor has returned to Aquitaine, her land, she's Duchess of Aquitaine, she doesn't have complete control.

There are certain parts, two really important parts, that Henry is still in control of, and that's the money from Aquitaine and the army.

Great job, everyone.

Now let's revisit this inquiry then, because we've covered more of Eleanor's life in today's lesson.

We're now up to 1173.

So we're constantly thinking what can the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine tell us about who held power in the Middle Ages? What does her life teach us about how far she kind of challenged the ideas of who had power? And so begin to revisit this inquiry to finish off today's lesson.

So quick key events check.

Kind of four key bits here.

I'm seeing we've looked at more than this, but these are the four key parts of Eleanor's life so far.

So in lesson one, we learned that she inherited Aquitaine age 13, and she retains control of that land as Duchess of Aquitaine.

She then is married to Louis who becomes the King of France.

And during that marriage, she goes on crusade with him to the Holy Land, very long journey, difficult journey, very unusual.

And while she's there, she very publicly disagrees with Louis.

Again, quite unusual.

Normally wives are expected to support their husband and their decision making.

She openly disagrees with Louis.

We know that kind of variety of different scenarios leads to their marriage being annulled, ended in 1152.

So in this lesson, lesson two, we learned that she married Henry who becomes King Henry the Second of England, and that their territories combined create what we call the Angevin Empire.

It makes them very powerful.

Land equals power.

And so this royal couple were quite powerful at this time.

And she's in England.

the royal couple have eight children together.

However, in 1168, she returns to Aquitaine and then begins to issue charters more and more independently by 1173.

So she's starting to take back some power and some influence.

We know she doesn't have complete power and influence, because Henry keeps control of the money and the army, but she's regaining some of that power and influence.

So we're going to take all of that information, we're going to pull it together to think about at this halfway stage in our inquiry, how far has her life, up to this point, challenge the traditional ideas on who had power? Now this isn't a straightforward yes or no question, because it's a how far, so we tend to think of how far as a scale.

And so on the slide in front of you, I have drawn a very quick scale, and at one end is the idea that she didn't challenge the traditional idea at all and that, in reality, she had very little power or influence by 1173.

And at the other end of the scale is the idea that she completely challenged the traditional idea, and that by 1173, she was a woman with lots of power and influence.

So, I would like you to, in a second, pause the video and to draw out this scale, can just go across kind of your A4 piece of paper, ideally with a ruler.

Let's make it nice and neat.

And I want you to, on this line, I want you to Mark on there whereabouts you agree or whereabouts you would place Eleanor and the power and influence she has by 1173.

So, if you put it more towards the left hand side, you don't think she has much power or influence.

If you put it in the middle, you think that in some way she does And in some way she doesn't.

And on the right hand side is where she clearly has quite a lot of power and influence by 1173.

So pause the video, draw this scale, reflect on Eleanor's life so far, and just draw a line on your scale That kind of shows where your opinion is about how far she's challenging the traditional ideas by this point.

We should all have an opinion by now.

We should all have a line on our scale, and we're going to use this to write up our opinion.

So, on the sLide in front of you, last task for today, everyone.

On the slide in front of you are three sentence starters.

You're going to choose one of them.

And what you're going to do is add an example that finishes off the sentences and matches up with the opinion expressed in it.

Now these sentence starters match up with the scale you've just completed.

So, if you put your mark on your stale to the left hand side, then you are going to have a go at finishing the first sentence starter.

So that says, "By 1173, Eleanor's actions "had completely challenged the traditional ideas "on who had power.

"This can be seen when.

." So you're going to finish that with a really good example that shows that she had completely challenged the traditional ideas.

If your mark on your scale was more in the middle, then you are going to have a go at the middle sentence on this slide.

So this says, "By 1173, Eleanor's actions had somewhat "challenged the traditional ideas on who had power, "but in some ways, these ideas stayed the same, "for example.

." So you're going to pick an example that shows that perhaps she had shown that she had power and influence, but at the same time, probably she hadn't gained lots of power and influence.

The final sentence on here correlates or matches up with the right hand side of the scale.

So if you put your mark on the right hand side, you're going to have a go finishing this one.

So this says, "By 1173 Eleanor's actions hadn't challenged "the traditional ideas on who had power.

"This was because.

." So you're going to think of an example that shows that in reality, she wasn't very powerful or influential by 1173.

So I would like you to pause the video here, have a go at completing one of these three that should match up with your opinion on the scale.

And then once you're done, unpause the video.

Okay then, everyone, welcome back.

Really great job.

I hope that we have a really strong opinion now on Eleanor and how much she's got power and influence.

We're halfway through our inquiry.

We're halfway through looking at her life and her actions and what they teach us.

So it's important we're developing an opinion as we go through.

So really, really good job we're doing.

Excellent work, everyone.

And I'm really pleased with how well we're doing.

I look forward to seeing you here for lesson three where we're going to continue looking at Eleanor's life, and you're going to be thinking about whether that power or influence continues to develop or whether she stays, in your opinion, as someone who's not powerful or influential at this time.

So I will see you here again soon for lesson three.