“My liege lady! generally,” quoth he,
 “Women desiren to have soverainetee.”

The point was that the Wife of Bath, like Queen Blanche and Queen
Eleanor, not only wanted sovereignty, but won and held it.

That Saint Louis, even when a grown man and king, stood in awe of his mother, Blanche of Castile, was not only notorious but seemed to be thought natural.  Joinville recorded it not so much to mark the King’s weakness, as the woman’s strength; for his Queen, Margaret of Provence, showed the courage which the King had not.  Blanche and Margaret were exceedingly jealous of each other.  “One day,” said Joinville, “Queen Blanche went to the Queen’s [Margaret] chamber where her son [Louis IX] had gone before to comfort her, for she was in great danger of death from a bad delivery; and he hid himself behind the Queen [Margaret] to avoid being seen; but his mother perceived him, and taking him by the hand said:  ’Come along! you will do no good here!’ and put him out of the chamber.  Queen Margaret, observing this, and that she was to be separated from her husband, cried aloud:  ’Alas! will you not allow me to see my lord either living or dying?’” According to Joinville, King Louis always hid himself when, in his wife’s chamber, he heard his mother coming.

The great period of Gothic architecture begins with the coming of Eleanor (1137) and ends with the passing of Blanche (1252).  Eleanor’s long life was full of energy and passion of which next to nothing is known; the woman was always too slippery for monks or soldiers to grasp.

Eleanor came to Paris, a Queen of fifteen years old, in 1137, bringing Poitiers and Guienne as the greatest dowry ever offered to the French Crown.  She brought also the tastes and manners of the South, little in harmony with the tastes and manners of Saint Bernard whose authority at court rivalled her own.  The Abbe Suger supported her, but the King leaned toward the Abbe Bernard.  What this puritan reaction meant is a matter to be studied by itself, if one can find a cloister to study in; but it bore the mark of most puritan reactions in its hostility to women.  As long as the woman remained docile, she ruled, through the Church; but the man feared her and was jealous of her, and she of him.  Bernard specially adored the Virgin because she was an example of docile obedience to the Trinity who atoned for the indocility of Eve, but Eve herself remained the instrument of Satan, and French society as a whole showed a taste for Eves.

[Genealogical chart showing the relationships among the three queens.]