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In a newly published history of the region’s female monarchs, ���������� scholar shows the connections between love, grief and madness

Like many of their royal European counterparts of the time, the medieval queens of Spain and Portugal often married for politics, but rarely for love.

Instead, their marriages generally embodied the political intrigue facilitated by personal relationships in hereditary monarchical power structures. During a time of religious conflicts between Christian and Muslim kingdoms, as well as cultural and philosophical developments spurred by the rediscovery of Aristotle, their marriages were more political maneuvering than swooning.

And even when love was involved, it rarely ended well.

Núria Silleras-Fernández

In a newly published exploration of emotion and political power in the medieval Iberian Peninsula, which is composed largely of peninsular Spain and continental Portugal, ���������� scholar Núria Silleras-Fernández, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese, analyzes a time and place and the royal women who navigated the treacherous territory between heart and state.

In her book The Politics of Emotion: Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia, Silleras-Fernández focuses broadly on these powerful emotions through the individual stories of three queens, whose stories in some ways presage the issues that women in politics still face today.

Somewhat confusingly for the reader, several were named Isabel, so Silleras-Fernández gives each woman a brief distinguishing title: Isabel of Portugal (1428–96), who was the grandmother of Isabel of Aragon (1470–98) and Juana of Castile (1479–1555).

A comparative study of the three women, whom historians had not previously put together, is informative not only because their lives tell us about the politics and culture of their society, but because—despite facing similar tragedies—Juana, Isabel of Aragon, and Isabel of Portugal’s lives took very different directions.

‘El amor es un gusano’

According to Silleras-Fernández, these three women “suffered from very intense grief following the death of their spouses.” Their grief was ultimately viewed as excessive, in part because of the cultural attitude towards love— expressed in the poem , Silleras-Fernández says. “She describes love as un gusano, a worm.

“In medieval times, passionate love was seen as a sort of affliction. When someone was really in love, it was seen as dangerous.”

This is not to say that love had no place in court culture; in fact, according to a historian whom Silleras-Fernández cites, it was fashionable for Spanish lords to pretend to be in love.

������The Politics of Emotion: Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia, ���������� scholar��Núria Silleras-Fernández notes that��in medieval times, passionate love was seen as an affliction.

Nonetheless, authentic, passionate love was seen as a personal affliction, a spiritual danger and a political vulnerability. “Passionate love was even medicalized,” Silleras-Fernández says, and in a way, it “was seen as an affliction that was tied to melancholy,” with unrequited passions causing lovesickness.

When it came to medieval Christian culture in Spain, she explains, “there was something called the religion of love. For men, their lady was not merely the object of their desire, as in courtly love; she became more important to them than God.” This was understood as a form of idolatry and therefore a violation of the second of the 10 commandments from the Bible.

Moreover, Silleras-Fernández says, “royal marriages were arranged for political purposes, so it was common for women not to be in love with their husbands. The idea was that the couple would enjoy some sort of affection and collaborate in ruling the kingdom and producing heirs.”

To the extent that it interfered with remarriage, love was even an obstacle to the political maneuverings of the royalty. Ultimately, then, passionate love “was seen as dangerous, and it was not encouraged for royal partners.”

Conflict at court

Isabel of Portugal, who was born in Portugal but became Queen Consort of Castile and León through her marriage to King Juan II (as opposed to becoming a queen regnant in her own right by inheriting the throne), exemplified the dangers of “loving too much.”

According to Silleras-Fernández, the chronicles of her life suggest an unusually intense love for her husband. The conflict between her and Álvaro de Luna, the royal favorite and Constable, is an example of this.

Both Isabel and Álvaro exercised significant influence over Juan, Silleras-Fernández says: “Álvaro de Luna’s role as adviser put him in clear competition with the functions of the queen.” Isabel and her faction within the nobility and Juan’s entourage eventually won out, and she convinced the King to have Álvaro executed.

While overtly political, this situation may not seem at first to involve love. However, according to Silleras-Fernández, Álvaro wrote a letter to Juan’s advisors from prison, asking them to prevent the king from having too much sex, arguing it could compromise his health. This suggests the intimate nature of Álvaro’s interference with the king and queen’s relationship and demonstrates the importance of love to a queen consort’s political power.

Perhaps more illustratively, Isabel “felt such great pain at the death of her husband that she fell into a sickness so grave and long that she was never able to recover,” Silleras-Fernández writes, and lived the rest of her life without much political influence.

Mixing politics, religion and grief

Isabel of Aragon, one of Isabel of Portugal’s grandchildren, also suffered greatly after the death of her first husband. She became Princess of Portugal through her marriage to Crown Prince Afonso, and this marriage was, by all accounts, happy, Silleras-Fernández says—if brief.

"Infanta Isabel de Trastámara," artist unknown.

Unfortunately, Afonso died young, which caused national grief and inspired a series of consolatory texts by noted clergymen. Isabel of Aragon was “presented with works explaining that his death should be seen as an opportunity for her to become a better Christian, and that she needed to remember that it was important to love God above anyone else,” Silleras-Fernández explains.

Like her father-in-law, João II, Isabel received letters from important clergymen blaming the bereaved for the death of their loved ones, Silleras-Fernández explains. João was even accused of loving his son more than God, and informed that his son’s death was a form of retribution for this sin.

Despite Isabel’s continued mourning, she was a princess and therefore a political asset for the Catholic monarchs, most especially because she could secure a marriage alliance for them. Whether because she did not want to remarry, or because the religious messages in the consolatory letters had heightened her Catholic convictions, she requested, as a condition of her planned second marriage to Manuel I, that all the “heretics” b