25 jan

Fairytales can be based on reality. Like Cinderella, the lovely girl with the awful stepmother and ugly stepsisters. She was the girl with the glass shoes that only fitted her feet. The story is old, like fairy tales should be, and has been made famous by the brothers Grimm.
The story of the glass shoe is based on a mistake, I read today. In the 12th century rich women would wear shoes made of vair, the soft fur of the squirrel’s belly. This french word sounds like verre, the french word for glass. It does not make the story less valuable, it only shows how valuable mistakes are.
I read the story in the book April Queen, a book about Eleanor of Aquitaine. She is the richest woman in history, Time revealed a few years ago. Next to wealthy she was also fabulous, with a great appetite for men, comparable to the appetite for women of current French rulers. She was first married to the french king Louis VII who found her a little too frivolous and divorced her. Afterwards she married the later English king Henry II, who imprisoned her for the last fifteen years of his life because she undermined his position by plotting with their sons (under whom Richard Lionheart) against him. They were reunited after death and have layn for almost a thousand years now in happy harmony at the Cistercian Fontevraud Abbey, close to Saumur.
Bernard of Clairvaux looked rather disapprovingly on her behaviour. Virtuous behaviour, in his opinion, could be defined as doing the opposite of what Eleanor would do. Which makes her the ultimate role model I suppose.
She inherited most of what consists of current Southwest France from her father. William X, duke of Acquitaine died on a pilgrimage to Santiago. He got food poisoning, or was poisoned, close to his destination. His vassals brought him into the church and buried him right there. I will go and try to find the grave in a few months. While burying him they were praying for his soul, prayers that were being repeated in dozens of different languages by the more than 2000 pilgrims that were assembled in the cathedral that day, all having arrived there from all possible different destinations in Europe.
I find this a fascinating detail. 2000 people, praying for the wellbeing of the soul of some distant warlord. And by praying this way expecting to get a better deal when they themselves would face St Peter at the stairway to heaven.
The death of William was kept a secret between the walls of the cathedral of Santiago. If it would have become public, the wellbeing of heiress Eleanor would be in serious danger. There would be plenty of bravado men who would want to kidnap Elenaor, force her into a marriage, and this way become incredibly wealthy. The archbishops of Bordeaux, Paris and Cluny arranged a marriage between Eleanor and Louis, who was expected to be king soon. His father, Fat Louis, was rather ill. Eleanor was immediately bored with her husband, who preferred to be a monk. In fifteen years time she had two children, girls, probably from affairs with different men.
After fifteen years Louis couldn’t face living with his excessive wife anymore. She married Henry and got 8 children with him. Most of these children married heirs to different European thrones. For this reason she is called the mother of Europe.
I do have the feeling her role is underestimated. That is a pity, her life is terribly exciting. And I am looking out for some shoes of squirrel fur. Julie is often complaining about cold feet. Glass shoes are not much of a help then.