Free Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir

Champagne. Raoul, who was a cousin of the King, held wide estates to the north of France, between Flanders and Normandy; Petronilla was a very desirable bride, for she had been granted estates in Normandy and Burgundy for her dower, although she had so far refused all offers of marriage. Now she wanted only Raoul, while he, according to John of Salisbury, "was always dominated by lust." Eleanor seems to have supported the lovers from the first; she wanted to indulge her sister's desire to marry Raoul and encouraged him to have his existing marriage annulled. The Queen had no love for Theobald of Champagne, who had long been Raoul's enemy and had so recently failed to honour his feudal obligations to Louis, and she doubtless relished the prospect of his anger at this insult to his sister. In the meantime, she herself brought pressure to bear on Louis.
    Soon after Louis returned to France, it was brought to his notice that the archbishopric of Bourges had fallen vacant. Bourges was an important city, being situated near the border with Poitou, and therefore a convenient place for Louis and Eleanor to hold court for their vassals. The canons of Bourges had put forward their own candidate, Pierre de la Chatre, a Clunaic monk, to fill the vacancy, but the King nominated instead the rather less suitable Carduc, his own chancellor, to this politically significant office. The cathedral chapter wisely but provocatively opted for Pierre de la Chatre. Louis vetoed their choice, but Pierre was already in Rome, where Pope Innocent II confirmed his appointment and duly consecrated him Archbishop of Bourges.
    Louis exploded in fury on learning of this and had the gates of Bourges closed to Pierre upon his return, whereupon the Archbishop complained to the Pope, who in turn voiced the suspicion that it was Eleanor rather than Louis who was opposed to Pierre's appointment. Although there is no proof of the Queen's involvement, Innocent presumably felt that she was following in a family tradition of anticlericalism. As for Louis, the Pontiff warned the King's ministers that he was a mere child who needed to be taught good manners, and exhorted them to make him stop "behaving like a foolish schoolboy": those with any influence on him should ensure that he did not in future meddle in what was clearly not his business. Innocent's rebuke was reported to the King, who was deeply insulted and retaliated by swearing, on holy relics, that while there was breath in his body, Archbishop Pierre should never again set foot in Bourges.3
    Furious, Innocent threatened to excommunicate Louis, but the King defied him, declaring that he would not renounce a vow he had sworn directly to God with his hand on holy relics. The Pope decided instead to place the royal household under an interdict, effectively excluding its members from the sacraments of the Church-- a terrible punishment for one so devout as Louis, and one that horrified his advisers. Yet even now the King would not give way, and his fury was further fuelled by reports that Archbishop Peter had been granted asylum by Count Theobald of Champagne.
    Enticed by the prospect of marriage to the Queen's sister, with whom he seems to have begun cohabiting, Raoul of Vermandois had now deserted his wife and had finally decided to have his marriage annulled. At the end of 1141 Louis, who was almost certainly pressured by Eleanor, found three compliant bishops-- Raoul's own brother, the Bishop of Noyon, and the Bishops of Laon and Senlis-- who heard the case and willingly granted the Count of Vermandois an annulment on the grounds of consanguinity. Early in 1142 these same bishops officiated, with the King's approval, at the nuptials of Raoul and Petronilla.
    At the Church's behest, an enraged Count Theobald took under his protection his abandoned sister Eleanor and her children, and, heeding her pleas, protested forcefully to the Pope, to whom he sent documents drawn up by himself proving that both the