Queens of Middle Ages

Short answer

• The queens of the Middle Ages were far more than royal wives. Some ruled kingdoms in their own right, some governed as regents for young sons, and some shaped politics, war, and culture as consorts with lands, wealth, and influence of their own.
• A queen regnant ruled in her own right, as Isabella I of Castile and Tamar of Georgia did. A queen consort was the wife of a king, as Eleanor of Aquitaine was twice over. A queen regent governed while a king was a child or away, as Blanche of Castile did for her son Louis IX of France.
• The most powerful medieval queens include Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella I of Castile, Margaret I of Denmark, Empress Matilda, Blanche of Castile, Tamar of Georgia, Urraca of Leon, Margaret of Anjou, Emma of Normandy, and Matilda of Flanders.
• Queenship brought real tools of power: coronation, dower lands and income, a household and court, the right to plead for mercy on behalf of others, and the chance to act as regent. It also brought real limits, because law and custom usually passed the crown to men.
• This article is a survey with stated selection criteria, not a ranking. The queens below were chosen because they lived within the medieval period, roughly 500 to 1500, and because their political power is documented in named reference sources.

What Queenship Meant in the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages, roughly 500 to 1500, were centuries in which kings ruled and armies, laws, and churches were run by men. Yet queens were everywhere in the politics of the period. A royal marriage was not a private romance. It was a treaty between kingdoms, a way to end a war, to secure an alliance, or to give a king an heir. The woman at the center of that bargain arrived with a dowry, with family connections, and often with lands of her own. What she did with those assets decided whether she would be remembered as a footnote or as a ruler.

The first distinction a reader needs is between the kinds of queen. A queen regnant ruled a kingdom in her own right, inheriting the crown herself. Isabella I of Castile and Tamar of Georgia are the clearest examples in this survey. A queen consort was queen because she was married to a king. Eleanor of Aquitaine was queen consort of France and then of England, and in both marriages she held power that went far beyond ceremony. A queen regent governed when the king was too young to rule, as Blanche of Castile did for her son, or while he was away, as Blanche did again during his crusade. A queen dowager was a widowed queen, and a queen mother was the mother of a reigning king. One woman could hold several of these roles across a long life, and Emma of Normandy did exactly that, as queen to two kings and mother to two more.

Coronation mattered. A crowned queen had a public, sacred status that an uncrowned wife did not. Matilda of Flanders was the first consort in England to be crowned and formally recognized as queen rather than simply the wife of the king, and her coronation at Westminster on 11 May 1068 was staged as a great festival. A queen also usually received dower lands, estates set aside for her support, which gave her income, tenants, and officials of her own. Those lands made her a landholder in her own right, able to grant favors, reward followers, and fund building.

Queens also had a recognized political role called intercession: pleading with the king for mercy, for a pardon, or for a favor. What looks like a soft, wifely duty was in practice a channel of influence, because access to the king was itself power. A queen who could get a hearing could change the fate of a prisoner, a town, or a rebel lord. Patronage worked the same way. Queens founded abbeys and churches, paid for manuscripts and music, and kept courts where poets and scholars gathered. Those acts were political as well as pious, because they advertised the queen’s wealth, taste, and connections.

None of this made queens equal to kings. Law and custom in most kingdoms favored male succession, and a woman who claimed a throne in her own right usually faced open resistance. Empress Matilda was named heir by her father and still lost the crown to her cousin. Tamar of Georgia faced opposition from her nobles when she took full power. But the limits were not the whole story. The queens in this survey raised armies, signed treaties, governed kingdoms, and founded dynasties, and they did so inside a system that was not built for them.

For readers who want the wider background, our guide to famous women in history places medieval queens alongside women rulers and reformers from other eras, and our guide to a lord from medieval times explains the feudal world of land, loyalty, and service in which queens operated.

How This Survey Was Chosen

This article is a survey, not a ranking. The queens are listed in chronological order, by birth, and no claim is made that one was greater than another. They were chosen against four stated criteria. First, each queen lived and ruled within the medieval period, roughly 500 to 1500. Second, each exercised documented political power, as a queen regnant, as a regent, or as a consort whose influence is recorded in the sources. Third, together they represent different kingdoms and different routes to power, from inheritance to marriage to regency, so the list is not only English or only French. Fourth, every queen in the list is documented in named reference sources, principally Encyclopaedia Britannica, with supporting detail from the World History Encyclopedia, Historic Royal Palaces, and Encyclopedia.com, so that no biographical claim rests on an unnamed source.

The list is not exhaustive. Dozens of medieval queens played important political roles, and a single article cannot cover them all. Queens who are sometimes listed in popular articles were left out when their dates fall outside the medieval frame. Catherine de Medici, for example, was born in 1519 and ruled as a Renaissance queen, so she does not appear here, and the reasons are explained in a section below. Where a date is uncertain, this article says so, because medieval birth dates are often approximate and the sources do not always agree.

Emma of Normandy, Queen to Two Kings and Mother to Two More

Emma of Normandy, born about 985 and died in 1052, was a dominant figure in English politics for nearly fifty years. She was the daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy, and she married King Aethelred II of England in 1002. When Aethelred died and the Danish king Cnut conquered England, Emma married Cnut in 1017, becoming queen of England for a second time and also queen of Denmark and Norway. She was the mother of two kings by her two marriages: Edward the Confessor, son of Aethelred, and Harthacnut, son of Cnut.

Emma’s career shows how a queen could survive the fall of one dynasty and thrive in the next. She outlived both of her husbands and worked to place her sons on the throne, acting as queen mother with real authority. During the reigns of her sons she is listed as mater regis, mother of the king, in witness lists, a formal recognition of her standing. She also did something no English queen before her had done: she commissioned her own version of history. The Encomium Emmae Reginae, written in 1041 or 1042, tells the story of the Danish conquest and the succession of her sons from her own point of view, presenting her family in harmony and writing her inconvenient relatives and rivals out of the story. The manuscript’s frontispiece shows Emma enthroned, receiving the book, with her sons Harthacnut and Edward watching. She is the first English queen depicted in contemporary artwork, and the Encomium remains a key source for early eleventh century English politics. Emma died on 6 March 1052, having been queen, queen mother, and political survivor across three reigns.

Matilda of Flanders, the First Crowned Queen of England

Matilda of Flanders, born about 1031 and died in 1083, was the wife of William the Conqueror and the first consort in England to be crowned and formally recognized as queen. She was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, one of the most powerful principalities in northern Europe, and she married William, then Duke of Normandy, about 1051. Her descent from Charlemagne and from Alfred the Great gave William’s claim to the English throne a legitimacy his own birth had not provided, since William was the illegitimate son of a Norman duke.

When William conquered England in 1066, Matilda stayed in Normandy as regent, governing the duchy while her husband secured his new kingdom. She crossed to England in 1068 and was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey on 11 May 1068, Whit Sunday, in a ceremony described by chroniclers as a very rich festival. William was crowned a second time at Winchester at Easter 1070. Norman writers called her la Royne, the queen, a title that implied she was a female sovereign in her own right rather than only a king’s wife. Matilda governed Normandy as regent during William’s absences, founded a priory near Rouen in 1060, and was the mother of at least nine children, including two future kings of England, William II and Henry I. Her coronation set the pattern for English queenship: from Matilda onward, the queen was a crowned figure with her own lands, household, and public role.

Urraca of Leon, the Queen Who Held Spain Together

Urraca of Leon, born about 1080 and died on 8 March 1126, was queen of Leon and Castile from 1109 until her death, and, as Encyclopedia.com notes, she ruled longer than any other queen of a major western European kingdom during the High Middle Ages. She was the eldest surviving child of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile, and when her half brother Sancho died in battle in 1108, her father named her his successor. She became queen on his death in 1109.

Urraca’s reign was a fight for survival. She inherited kingdoms threatened by the Almoravids from the south and by ambitious nobles at home, and her second marriage, to Alfonso I of Aragon in 1109, was meant to unite Christian Spain but collapsed into open war and was annulled in 1114. Urraca governed through rebellion, war, and disputes with her own son, Alfonso, whom she eventually made her heir and co-ruler in parts of the kingdom. By 1116 she had re-established control over most of Castile, and when she died in 1126 she handed her son a kingdom that was whole and at peace. Her son succeeded as Alfonso VII. Urraca is sometimes described as the first recognized queen regnant in Europe, and while that title is debated among historians, her reign is documented and her achievement is not: she held together three kingdoms for seventeen years in an age when few expected a woman to hold even one.

Empress Matilda, the Queen Who Was Never Crowned

Empress Matilda, born about 1102 and died on 10 September 1167, came closer than any woman before her to ruling England in her own right, and she never wore its crown. She was the daughter of Henry I of England, and she was first married to Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, which gave her the title empress. When her younger brother William died in the wreck of the White Ship in 1120, Matilda became her father’s only surviving legitimate child. Henry I named her his heir and made his barons swear an oath in 1126 to support her succession.

When Henry I died in 1135, her cousin Stephen of Blois seized the throne, and the dispute became a civil war known as the Anarchy, which lasted nearly two decades. In 1141, after Stephen was captured at the battle of Lincoln, Matilda controlled enough of the kingdom to take the title Lady of the English, and preparations were made for her coronation. But Londoners drove her from Westminster before she could be crowned, and the war dragged on. Matilda never gave up her claim. She secured Normandy for her family and campaigned for her son, and in 1153 Stephen agreed by treaty that her son would succeed him. Henry became King Henry II in 1154, founding the Angevin dynasty. Matilda’s story shows both the power and the limits of medieval queenship: her claim was not dismissed out of hand, the nobles had sworn to support her, and she fought for nineteen years, yet the crown still went to a man, and it was her son, not herself, who finally wore it.

Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Most Powerful Woman of the Twelfth Century

Eleanor of Aquitaine, born about 1122 and died on 1 April 1204, was perhaps the most powerful woman in twelfth century Europe. She was the daughter and heiress of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, and when her father died in 1137 she inherited one of the largest domains in France, larger than the lands held by the French king himself. In the same year she married Louis VII of France and became queen of France, a title she held until their marriage was annulled in 1152. Within weeks she married Henry Plantagenet, who became Henry II of England in 1154, making her queen of England as well. She was the only woman ever to be queen of both France and England.

Eleanor went with Louis VII on the Second Crusade from 1147 to 1149, an extraordinary act for a queen of the period. She bore Henry five sons and three daughters, and two of her sons, Richard I and John, became kings of England. Her court at Poitiers became a center of literature and courtly manners, and she was a patron of writers such as Wace, Benoit de Sainte-Maure, and Chretien de Troyes. When she supported her sons in their revolt against Henry in 1173, Henry had her held in confinement, and she regained her liberty only when he died in 1189. In her final years she acted as regent for her son Richard while he was away, and she traveled across Europe to arrange marriages and secure the succession for her family. Eleanor ruled Aquitaine as duchess in her own right for more than sixty years, and her life shows how a queen who held land of her own could exercise power no husband could simply take away.

Tamar of Georgia, the King Who Was a Queen

Tamar of Georgia, born about 1160 and died in 1213, was the first woman to rule Georgia in her own right, and she presided over the high point of the Georgian Golden Age. She was the daughter of George III, King of Georgia, who had her crowned as his co-ruler in 1178 so that the nobles would accept a woman as his heir. When George died in 1184, Tamar became sole ruler, and she was crowned a second time at Gelati Monastery. Her position as a female ruler was so unusual that she was given the title mepe, meaning king, rather than queen.

Tamar faced opposition from the start, because many nobles refused to accept a woman on the throne. She answered by ruling firmly: she dismissed her first husband, the Rus prince Yuri, in 1187 after a failed marriage, and she chose her second husband, David Soslan, herself, marrying him in 1191. Under her rule Georgia reached its greatest territorial extent, taking advantage of the decline of neighboring powers, and her reign became a golden age of Georgian culture. The poet Shota Rustaveli wrote his epic The Knight in the Panther’s Skin during her reign, and the work is read as a celebration of her rule. Her two children by David Soslan, George IV and Rusudan, both succeeded her as rulers of Georgia. Tamar was later declared a saint by the Georgian Orthodox Church, and she remains a national symbol in Georgia today.

Blanche of Castile, Twice Regent of France

Blanche of Castile, born in 1188 and died in 1252, was queen of France by marriage to Louis VIII, and twice regent of France for her son Louis IX, later Saint Louis. She was the daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile and of Eleanor, daughter of Henry II of England, and her marriage to the French heir had been arranged to seal a peace between France and England. When Louis VIII died in 1226, their son Louis was only twelve years old, and Blanche became his guardian and regent of France, a role she held from 1226 to 1234.

Blanche moved fast. Within three weeks of her husband’s death she had the young king crowned at Reims on 29 November 1226, and she faced down a rebellion of barons who resented rule by a woman and a foreigner, using diplomacy, negotiation, and force to hold the kingdom together. She signed the Treaty of Paris in 1229, which brought stability to France, and she remained her son’s most trusted adviser after he came of age. When Louis IX left on crusade in 1248, Blanche became regent a second time, governing France until her death in 1252. Her two regencies, totaling twelve years of rule, make her one of the most effective medieval rulers of France, king or queen.

Margaret I of Denmark, Founder of the Kalmar Union

Margaret I of Denmark, born in 1353 and died on 28 October 1412, was the ruler who united Scandinavia. She was the daughter of Valdemar IV of Denmark, and she married Haakon VI, King of Norway, in 1363, becoming queen consort of Norway and briefly of Sweden. When her father died in 1375 she became regent of Denmark, and she later became regent of Norway in 1380 and of Sweden in 1389. Her only son, Olaf, died in 1387, leaving her without an heir, so she adopted her great nephew Erik of Pomerania and raised him as her successor.

Margaret’s achievement was the Kalmar Union of 1397, which joined Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under a single monarch. She summoned the councils of the three kingdoms to Kalmar, where Erik was crowned king of all three on 17 June 1397, but Margaret kept actual power in her own hands until her death. The union she created lasted, in one form or another, for more than a century, and the union of Denmark and Norway that grew out of it lasted until 1814. Margaret ruled three kingdoms without ever being crowned queen of any of them in her own name, which makes her a reminder that formal titles do not tell the whole story of medieval power. She died suddenly aboard her ship in Flensburg harbor on 28 October 1412, and she is buried in Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark.

Margaret of Anjou, the Queen Who Led an Army

Margaret of Anjou, born in 1430 and died in 1482, was queen of England by marriage to Henry VI, and she became the driving force of the Lancastrian cause in the Wars of the Roses. She was the daughter of Rene of Anjou, titular king of Naples, and she married Henry VI on 23 April 1445, when she was fifteen. She was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey on 30 May 1445.

Margaret’s political life began in earnest after 1450, when her husband’s mental illness left him unable to rule and the rival Yorkist faction challenged the Lancastrian claim to the throne. After her only son, Edward, was born in 1453, Margaret became the champion of her husband’s and her son’s rights, calling councils, raising support, and at times leading the Lancastrian faction in person. Her enemies called her fierce and implacable, and the Yorkists spread scandalous stories about her, including claims that her son was not the king’s child, which the sources treat as baseless. At the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 her son was killed and her cause was lost, and Margaret was taken prisoner. She was ransomed by her cousin Louis XI of France in 1475 and spent her last years in France, dying in poverty in 1482. Margaret’s story is a reminder that medieval queenship could mean war as well as ceremony, and that a queen who fought for her family could lose everything.

Isabella I of Castile, the Queen Who Made Spain

Isabella I of Castile, born on 22 April 1451 and died on 26 November 1504, was queen of Castile from 1474 to 1504 and queen of Aragon from 1479 to 1504, ruling jointly with her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon. She was the daughter of John II of Castile, and she was not originally the heir to the throne. After her half brother Henry IV died in 1474, she took the throne and had herself proclaimed queen at Segovia. Her marriage to Ferdinand in 1469 had joined the two greatest kingdoms of Spain, and their joint rule brought about the permanent union of Spain.

Isabella’s reign changed Europe. She completed the Reconquista, the centuries long campaign to retake the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule, and she sponsored the voyage of Christopher Columbus that opened the Americas to European exploration and conquest. The same reign also had a dark side that no honest account can leave out: Isabella ordered the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain and empowered the Spanish Inquisition. She ruled as a queen regnant, not as a consort who borrowed her husband’s authority. Her daughter Joanna succeeded her in Castile, and her grandson Charles became the first king of a united Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. Isabella’s reign points directly toward the early modern world that followed it.

What Power a Medieval Queen Actually Held

Looked at together, these ten queens held power through the same handful of routes, and the routes are worth naming plainly. Inheritance was the rarest and the hardest: Urraca, Tamar, and Isabella ruled because a father named them heir, and each faced nobles who doubted that a woman could hold a throne. Marriage was the most common route, and it could be powerful when the queen brought lands of her own, as Eleanor did with Aquitaine, or when she outlived her husband and governed as regent or queen mother, as Blanche and Emma did. Regency was the most accepted form of female rule, because it was framed as temporary, a mother guarding a son’s throne rather than claiming one herself, yet regents such as Blanche governed for years and made decisions no king could overturn.

A queen’s everyday power came from her household, her lands, and her access. Her dower estates paid for her servants, her chaplains, her clerks, and her messengers, and those people carried out her orders across her lands. Her coronation gave her a sacred standing that made rebellion against her an offense against the order of the kingdom. Her place at the king’s side gave her the chance to intercede for prisoners, petitioners, and towns, and those favors built networks of gratitude and obligation. And her role as a mother gave her a stake in the succession that no minister could match: the future king was her son, and his interests were hers.

The limits were just as real. A queen regnant usually needed a husband to lead armies and to father an heir, and that husband could become a rival, as Alfonso of Aragon did to Urraca. A queen consort’s power depended on her husband’s favor and on producing a son, and a childless queen or a widowed queen could lose her standing fast. A woman who claimed a throne, like Empress Matilda, could find that oaths sworn to her counted for less than the prejudice of the barons. The queens in this survey succeeded not because the system welcomed them, but because they used the tools the system gave them with unusual skill and persistence.

Queens also shaped the world beyond the court. Towns grew around royal households and pilgrimage centers, and queens founded religious houses that became centers of trade and learning. Our guide to towns in medieval times describes the market towns and walled settlements where ordinary medieval people lived, and queens were among the founders and patrons who made those places thrive.

Queens as Patrons and Builders

Patronage was one of the most lasting ways a medieval queen exercised power, because a church, a manuscript, or a poem outlived the politics of a single reign. Emma of Normandy commissioned the Encomium Emmae Reginae, a history written to defend her family’s claim to the throne, and the manuscript she paid for is still one of the main sources for her century. Eleanor of Aquitaine kept a court at Poitiers where troubadours sang and writers worked, and her patronage of Wace, Benoit de Sainte-Maure, and Chretien de Troyes helped shape the literature of courtly love. Tamar of Georgia presided over a court where Shota Rustaveli wrote The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, an epic that is still read as the great work of Georgian literature.

These acts were not decoration. A queen who founded an abbey gained prayers for her soul, a burial place for her family, and a loyal community in a strategic place. A queen who paid for a manuscript put her version of events into the hands of future readers. A queen who kept a brilliant court attracted the nobles, clerics, and poets whose support she needed. Patronage turned wealth into reputation, and reputation into political strength, and it is one reason these queens are still remembered when so many of their male contemporaries are forgotten.

Why Catherine de Medici Is Not on This List

Readers who know their queens may wonder why Catherine de Medici does not appear in this survey, since she was one of the most powerful queens in European history. The answer is a matter of dates. Catherine de Medici was born in Florence on 13 April 1519 and died on 5 January 1589. She was queen consort of Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559 and then regent of France, and three of her sons became kings of France. But her whole life falls after 1500, in the Renaissance and the age of the Wars of Religion, not in the Middle Ages. Including her in a survey of medieval queens would mislead readers about when the medieval period ended. The same test applies to every queen in this article: each one lived and ruled within the medieval period, roughly 500 to 1500, and Catherine de Medici, powerful as she was, does not pass it.

FAQ

Who were the most powerful queens of the Middle Ages?

The most powerful medieval queens include Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella I of Castile, Margaret I of Denmark, Empress Matilda, Blanche of Castile, Tamar of Georgia, Urraca of Leon, Margaret of Anjou, Emma of Normandy, and Matilda of Flanders. Each held documented political power as a ruler, a regent, or an influential consort, and together they cover England, France, Spain, Scandinavia, and Georgia.

What is the difference between a queen regnant and a queen consort?

A queen regnant rules a kingdom in her own right, inheriting the crown herself, as Isabella I of Castile and Tamar of Georgia did. A queen consort is queen because she is married to a king, as Eleanor of Aquitaine was in France and then in England. A queen regent governs while the king is a child or away, as Blanche of Castile did for her son Louis IX.

Was Eleanor of Aquitaine a queen of both France and England?

Yes. Eleanor of Aquitaine was queen consort of France from 1137 to 1152 as the wife of Louis VII, and queen consort of England from 1154 to 1189 as the wife of Henry II. She was the only woman ever to be queen of both France and England, and she also ruled Aquitaine as duchess in her own right.

Who was the first queen of England?

Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror, was the first consort in England to be crowned and formally recognized as queen. She was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 11 May 1068. Earlier English kings had wives, but Matilda was the first to receive a coronation that gave her the formal status of queen.

Did any medieval queen rule in her own right?

Yes. Isabella I of Castile ruled Castile from 1474 to 1504, Tamar of Georgia ruled from 1184 to 1213, and Urraca of Leon ruled Leon and Castile from 1109 to 1126. Margaret I of Denmark ruled Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in practice, though she governed as regent rather than as a crowned queen in her own name.

What power did a medieval queen actually have?

A queen’s power came from her coronation, her dower lands and income, her household and court, her right to intercede with the king for mercy, and her role as regent or queen mother. Queens founded abbeys, paid for manuscripts, raised armies, signed treaties, and governed kingdoms. Their power was real but limited, because law and custom usually passed the crown to men.

Why is Catherine de Medici not counted as a medieval queen?

Catherine de Medici was born in 1519 and died in 1589, after the medieval period ended. She was queen consort of France from 1547 to 1559 and then regent, but she belongs to the Renaissance, not the Middle Ages. This survey only includes queens who lived and ruled within the medieval period, roughly 500 to 1500.

What was the Kalmar Union?

The Kalmar Union was created in 1397 by Margaret I of Denmark. It joined Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under a single monarch, with her adopted heir Erik of Pomerania crowned king of all three at Kalmar on 17 June 1397. The union lasted for more than a century, and the union of Denmark and Norway continued until 1814.

How did queens become queens in the Middle Ages?

Most queens became queens by marriage to a king. A smaller number inherited the throne themselves, as Isabella I of Castile, Tamar of Georgia, and Urraca of Leon did. Others governed as regents for a young son, as Blanche of Castile did, or as queen mothers working to place their sons on the throne, as Emma of Normandy did.

Where can I learn more about medieval queens?

The sources listed below are a good starting point, especially the Encyclopaedia Britannica entries for Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella I, Margaret I, and Blanche of Castile. The British Library holds the Encomium Emmae Reginae, the manuscript Emma of Normandy commissioned, and Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark holds the tomb of Margaret I.

Sources & references

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Eleanor of Aquitaine", https://www.britannica.com/question/Why-is-Eleanor-of-Aquitaine-important (born about 1122, daughter and heiress of William X of Aquitaine; inherited the duchy in 1137; queen consort of Louis VII of France 1137 to 1152 and of Henry II of England 1152 to 1204; mother of Richard I and John; perhaps the most powerful woman in twelfth century Europe).
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Isabella I", https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isabella-I-queen-of-Spain (born 22 April 1451, died 26 November 1504; queen of Castile 1474 to 1504 and of Aragon 1479 to 1504; married Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1469; completed the Reconquista, sponsored the voyage of Christopher Columbus, ordered the expulsion of Jews and Muslims, and empowered the Spanish Inquisition).
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Margaret I", https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-I (born 1353, died 28 October 1412; regent of Denmark from 1375, of Norway from 1380, and of Sweden from 1389; pursued dynastic policies that led to the Kalmar Union in 1397, uniting Denmark, Norway, and Sweden until 1523 and Denmark and Norway until 1814).
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Blanche of Castile", http://www.britannica.com/biography/Blanche-of-Castile-wife-of-Louis-VIII (born 1188, died 12 November 1252; wife of Louis VIII of France and mother of Louis IX; twice regent of France, 1226 to 1234 and 1248 to 1252; signed the Treaty of Paris in 1229).
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Catherine de' Medici", https://www.britannica.com/biography/Catherine-de-Medici (born 13 April 1519 in Florence, died 5 January 1589; queen consort of Henry II of France 1547 to 1559 and regent of France 1560 to 1574; three of her sons were kings of France).
• World History Encyclopedia, "Emma of Normandy", https://www.worldhistory.org/Emma_of_Normandy/ (wife of Aethelred II from 1002 to 1016 and of Cnut from 1017 to 1035; mother of Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor; commissioned the Encomium Emmae Reginae, written in 1041 or 1042; first English queen depicted in contemporary artwork; died 6 March 1052).
• World History Encyclopedia, "Tamar of Georgia", https://www.worldhistory.org/Queen_Tamar/ (queen of Georgia from 1184 to 1213; first female monarch of Georgia; presided over the Georgian Golden Age and its greatest territorial expansion; Rustaveli's The Knight in the Panther's Skin is read as an allegory of her reign; declared a saint by the Georgian Orthodox Church).
• Historic Royal Palaces, "Matilda of Flanders", https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/matilda-of-flanders/ (born about 1031; first consort in England to be crowned and formally recognized as queen; crowned at Westminster Abbey on 11 May 1068; regent of Normandy during William's absences; mother of two future kings).
• Encyclopedia.com, "Matilda of Flanders (c. 1031-1083)", https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/matilda-flanders-c-1031-1083 (married William of Normandy in 1051 or 1053; crowned queen of England in 1068; mother of William II and Henry I).
• Encyclopedia.com, "Urraca (c. 1079-1126)", https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/urraca-c-1079-1126 (recognized as queen of Leon-Castile in 1109; married Alfonso I of Aragon in 1109, annulled in 1114; died 8 March 1126; reigned longer than any other queen of a major western European kingdom during the High Middle Ages).
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, "Margaret of Anjou", via Luminarium, https://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/margaretanjou.htm (born 23 March 1430; married Henry VI on 23 April 1445; her active share in politics began after 1450; her son Edward was born 13 October 1453; died in 1482).
• History Extra, "Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I: a queen in a king's world", https://www.historyextra.com/membership/matilda-daughter-of-henry-i-a-queen-in-a-kings-world/ (born 1102; named heir by Henry I; barons swore to support her succession in 1126; declared Lady of England and Normandy in 1141 but driven from Westminster before coronation; her son became Henry II in 1154; died in 1167).
• Encyclopedia.com, "Margaret I of Denmark (1353-1412)", https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/margaret-i-denmark-1353-1412 (reigned as queen of Denmark 1387 to 1397, queen of Norway 1388 to 1405, regent of Sweden 1389 to 1412; summoned the Union of Kalmar in 1397).
• New World Encyclopedia, "Margaret I of Denmark", https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Margaret_I (died 28 October 1412; grave stands behind the high altar in Roskilde Cathedral).
• Columbia Encyclopedia via FactMonster, "Eleanor of Aquitaine", https://Www.Factmonster.com/encyclopedia/history/bios/uk-ireland/eleanor-of-aquitaine (accompanied Louis VII on the Second Crusade 1147 to 1149; bore Henry five sons and three daughters; held in confinement after the revolt of 1173; patron of Wace, Benoit de Sainte-Maure, and Chretien de Troyes; court at Poitiers noted for courtly love).