Wise advisers, owners of their destinies: Adela of Blois and Urraca Fernández. A comparative study
Abstract
We draw a comparative study between two of the most important women of the 11th and 12th centuries: Adela, Countess of Blois, and the Infanta de León Urraca Fernández. Both for their origins, as for their education and role as advisers to powerful men, were judged favorably by contemporary chronicles. The epic, however, created a distorted image of Urraca Fernández because of King Sancho´s death in Zamora, while Adela's involvement in dark family plots was silenced. We have used historical sources and recent historiography. All of this leads us to conclude that the balance played in Adela's favor, due to her friendship with some of the most prominent men in the Church, and Urraca partly lost that battle, despite her connection with San Isidoro de León and Infantazgo monasteries.