A letter from Ingeborg of Denmark, queen of France (1203)
Sender
Ingeborg of Denmark, queen of FranceReceiver
Innocent III, popeTranslated letter:
To her spiritual father and lord, Innocent, supreme Pontiff by the grace of God, the least of his daughters Ingeburg, queen of France in name only, [offers] herself at his feet in all humility. In the spirit of humility and with a contrite soul I have frequently taken care to describe my miseries to your paternity, on my own and through my people. And since, converted in my tribulation, I assiduously bear the yoke — not just heavy but the heaviest possible — of the Lord, I shall rehearse to you, most holy Father, all my years in the bitterness of my soul in which I remain perpetually. Desiring to obtain the remedy of bitterness through you the vicar of Christ, I sustain my beloved, the fascicle of myrrh made for me between my breasts. You, indeed, by the grace of God, are the successor of Peter, the colleague of Paul, who little feared to cut Corinth by the sword of the spirit, the imitator of Phineas, the mountain placed on top of mountains to whom eyes are to be raised, the comfort of the oppressed, the refuge of the suffering. Wherefore I flee to you, most holy Father; would that it be given to me that I might embrace and wet with tears the feet of Elisha, pulling my hair, that we might express the anguish of my soul more forcefully by deed than by letters. Seize me, dear father, that I not be struck down, free me from those who hate me and pursue/persecute me gratuitously from the depths of the waters. My lord husband persecutes me, Philip the illustrious king of the French, who not only does not see me as his wife but, desiring to burden my youth with the solitude of prison, does not cease to provoke me with reproofs and calumnies through his satellites, so that, to my indigation, I might consent to him against the laws (jura) of matrimony and the law (legem) of Christ. He does not blush at all to provoke me through the heralds of Anti-Christ who, in the guise of piety deny its virtue. You should know, holy father, that in our prison I have no comfort and I suffer innumerable and unbearable harms; for no one dares to visit me there except some religious person to console me, nor can I hear the word of God from any mouth to restore my soul, nor do I have the means to make confession to any priest; rarely can I hear mass, never other offices/the hours. Moreover no person or messenger from my native land is permitted to come or to speak with me, with or without letters. My food is given sometimes very scantily; I daily have the bread of tribulation and the drink of anguish, nothing medicinal for the needs of human frailty. I can have no one to counsel me about the health of my body, or to do what would be good for me. I am not permitted to enter a bath; I can not be bled if I wish it; I fear from my appearance that serious infirmities will develop. There is no supply of clothes, not such as would be suitable to a queen. My misery culminates in the quite base people who converse with me by royal will never speaking good words to me but afflicting me with insulting and injurious speech, though I have heard and know that when they depart from me they are sympathetic. But they give me no consolation and compel me to remain always sad. I am closed in such a house and can not leave it. What more? I can not go through my miseries one by one, since those things are denied to me which should be denied to no Christian woman, and those things are done to me which should be done to no one, however abject. The letters which your holiness sent me I could not have. So afflicted by these and other similar things which I can not now describe to your Holiness that it oppresses me to live, not knowing what I should do, my eyes are turned to you, most holy Father, lest I perish. I speak especially not of the body but of the spirit. For since I die daily to preserve inviolate the laws of matrimony by your glory, how sweet, how joyful, how lovely it would be if the one corporal death came to me, miserable, desolate, repudiated and rejected by all, by which I might flee so many dangers of deaths! Truly, since I have anguish on all sides — for it is death to me if I act against God, if however I do not, I shall not escape the hands of the persecutors — I seek consolation from you who are the father of consolation. Signifying this to your Holiness which has already been suggested by me and my clerics, asking and protesting that if, compelled in feminine fragility by threats and terrors, I should propose anything against the laws of matrimony, that it not be prejudicial to the forenamed matrimony, and never accepted by you who are the prosecutor of extorted confession, but that you, benign Father, take care to absolve me from this misery with a strong hand and extended arm. So that if by chance my lord Philip, illustrious king of the French, deceived by devilish fraud attempts to act against me over the oftmentioned matrimony, your Paternity would see that I was placed where, restored to former freedom and my first relatives, I might freely declare my will in all things. And if, with faith or the sacrament intervening, I confessed that I had been led by fear to say what I said before, you would deign to free me from that obligation, by apostolic mercy. Act, holy Father, so that I feel your consolation and do not withdraw from me the justice which you show to all so that at the last judgment you may be worthy to receive a suitable reward from almighty God. Be well, holy father.Original letter:
Spirituali Patri ac domino suo, Innocentio, Dei gratia summo pontifici, filiarum ejus minima, Ingeburges, Franciae, nomine solo, regina, se ipsam ad pedes in omni humilitate. In spiritu humilitatis et in animo contrito saepissime vestrae piae paternitati miserias meas, tam per me quam per meos, explanare curavi, et quia conversa in aerumna mea jugum Domini, non grave sed gravissimum, assidue porto, adhuc, Pater sanctissime, recogitabo vobis omnes annos meos in amaritudine animae meae, in qua jugiter permanens dilectum meum, fasciculum myrrhae mihi factum, inter ubera commorantem sustineo, remedium amaritudinis, per vos Christi vicarium, desiderans obtinere. Vos siquidem per Dei gratiam estis successor Petri, collega Pauli, qui Corinthium gladio spiritus trucidare minime formidavit, Phinees imitator, mons in vertice montium positus, ad quem oculi levandi, tuitio oppressorum, refugium miserorum. Unde ad vos Patrem sanctissimum confugio, et utinam mihi datum fuisset desuper, ut pedes Elisei mihi compatientis amplecti valerem, lacrymis rigarem, capillis extergendo, angustiam animi mei expressius opere quam litterulis exponeremus. Eripite itaque me, Pater juste, ut non infigar, liberate me ab his qui oderunt me, et de profundis aquarum quae gratis persequuntur me. Persequitur me dominus maritus meus, Philippus, illustris rex Francorum, qui non solum me sicut uxorem non videt, sed solitudine carceris meam desiderans fastidire juventutem, opprobriis et calumniis per suos satellites me irritare non cessat, ad indignationem spiritus, ut ei contra matrimonii jura et legem Christi consentiam, per praeambulos Antichristi, qui, speciem pietatis habentes, virtutem ejus abnegant, me provocare nullatenus erubescit. Sciatis autem, Pater sancte, quod in nostro carcere nullum est mihi solatium, et innumeras et importabiles molestias patior; nec enim me audet aliquis ibi visitare, nisi aliqua religiosa persona, ad me consolandam accedere, nec de ore alicujus verbum Dei ad reficiendam animam meam possum audire, nec copiam habeo alicui sacerdoti confessionem meam faciendi; missam raro audire possum, alias horas, nunquam. Insuper nulla persona vel nuntius de terra nativitatis meae cum litteris, vel sine litteris, ad me venire vel mihi loqui permittitur; victus mihi aliquando arctus nimium ministratur; pane tribulationis et potu angustiae quotidie utor; nil medicinale, prout expedit fragilitati humanae, nec qui de salute corporis mihi consulat, vel faciat quod mihi prosit, possum habere. Balneum intrare non sinor; si volo minuere mihi sanguinem, facere non possum; et propterea timeo mihi de visu, et ne graves infirmitates mihi superveniant: vestimentorum copia non adest, nec talia sunt qualia deceret habere reginam. Accedit ad cumulum miseriae meae, quod illae personae admodum viles, quae mecum ex voluntate regia conversantur, nunquam bona mihi verba proponunt, sed contumeliosis sermonibus et injuriosis affligunt, de quibus etiam audivi et scio, quod, praeterquam a me recesserint, mihi compatiuntur, sed inde nihil mihi consolationis impendunt, sed tristem jugiter me compellunt remanere. In quadam domo sum clausa, nec inde possum exire. Quid plura? Miserias meas non possem per singula prosequi, quia ea mihi denegantur, quae nulli Christianae mulieri deberent denegari, et ea mihi fiunt, quae nulli fieri deberent, quantumcunque abjectae, personae. Litteras, quas sanctitas vestra mihi mandavit, habere non potui. His namque et similibus, quae vestrae ad praesens non valeo exponere sanctitati, ita quod taedeat me vivere afflicta, cum ignorem quid agere debeam, oculi mei ad vos sunt, Pater sanctissime, ne peream. Praeterea, dico non corpore, sed spiritu: cum enim quotidie morior per gloriam vestram, et propter jura matrimonii illibata servanda, quam dulcis, quam jucunda, quam suavis mihi miserae, mihi desolatae, mihi ab omnibus repudiatae et ejectae, unica mors corporalis adveniret, qua tot mortium discrimina aufugere possem. Verum, quoniam angustiae mihi sunt undique, quia si contra Deum agere mors mihi est, si autem non egero non effugiam manus persecutorum, a vobis, qui pater estis consolationis, consolationem peto. Hoc vestrae, ut jam per me et clericos meos insinuatum est, significans sanctitati, et rogans et protestans, quod, si minis ac terroribus compulsa, feminea fragilitate, contra jura matrimonii mihi aliquid proposuero, non sit in praejudicium praenominati matrimonii, et a vobis qui persecutor estis confessionis extortae, nequaquam recipiatur, sed in manu forti et brachio extento ab hac me curetis absolvere miseria, Pater benigne, ut, si forte dominus meus, Philippus, rex Francorum illustris, diabolica fraude deceptus, contra me super saepefato matrimonio denuo agere tentaverit, tali loco me procuret sisti vestra paternitas, in quo, pristinae libertati et primis parentibus restituta, libere meam possim in omnibus declarare voluntatem, et, si, fide interposita vel sacramento interveniente, hoc, quod praedixi, fuero timore intercedente confessa, ab illa obligatione, apostolicae miserationis obtentu, me liberare dignemini. Ita vero faciatis, Pater sancte, ut consolationem vestram, sententiam et justitiam quam omnibus exhibetis, mihi nullatenus subtrahatis, ut in extremo examine praemium condignum ab omnipotenti Deo recipere valeatis. Valeas, Pater sancte.Historical context:
Innocent III became pope in January 1198, bringing new energy and hope to Ingeborg and her supporters. He declared the king’s new marriage illegitimate and threatened that unless the king put his concubine aside and take back his legitimate wife while the pope considered the validity of his divorce, he would take serious measures. When Philip continued to ignore him he had his legate pronounce a sentence of interdict in January 1200, see his letter to her 3.11 (Epistolae 440.html). Eventually, the king agreed temporarily to the pope’s terms, received the queen and formally gave her his hand at St. Léger in Iveline, but refused to resume marital relations with her. Ingeborg was transferred to Etampes and her life was worse than before, as she laments in striking detail in this letter to the pope. She also warns him not to accept any statement she may be compelled by fear to make against her own interests, as Philip pressured her to ask for a divorce.