Jeanne de Dammartin ^{1 2}

   Other names for Jeanne were Jeanne Countess of Ponthieu and Joan of Dammartin.

  Research Notes:

From Wikipedia - Jeanne, Countess of Ponthieu :

Jeanne de Dammartin or Joan of Dammartin (c.1220[1] - d. Abbeville , March 16 , 1279 ) Queen consort of Castile and León (1252), suo jure Countess of Ponthieu (1251-1279) and Montreuil (1251-1279). She was the mother of Eleanor of Castile , Queen consort of King Edward I of England .

Family
Jeanne was the eldest daughter of Simon de Dammartin , Count of Ponthieu (1180- 21 September 1239) and his wife Marie de Ponthieu , Countess of Montreuil (17 April 1199- 1251). Her paternal grandparents were Alberic II, Count de Dammartin and Mahaut de Clermont, daughter of Renaud de Clermont, Count of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, and Clémence de Bar.[2] Her maternal grandparents were William IV of Ponthieu and Alys, Countess of the Vexin , daughter of Louis VII of France and Constance of Castile .

Henry III of England
After secret negotiations were undertaken in 1234, it was agreed that Jeanne would marry King Henry III of England . This marriage would have been politically unacceptable to the French, however, since Jeanne stood to inherit not only her mother's county of Ponthieu but also the county of Aumale that was vested in her father's family. Ponthieu bordered on the duchy of Normandy, and Aumale lay within Normandy itself. The French king Philip Augustus had seized Normandy from King John of England as recently as 1205, and Philip's heirs could not risk the English monarchy recovering any land in that area, since it might allow the Plantagenets to re-establish control in Normandy. As it happened, Jeanne's father Simon had become involved in a conspiracy of northern French noblemen against Philip Augustus and to win pardon from Philip's son Louis VIII , Simon-who had only daughters-was compelled to promise that he would marry neither of his two eldest daughters without the permission of the king of France. In 1235, the queen-regent of France, Blanche of Castile , invoked that promise on behalf of her son, King Louis IX , and threatened to deprive Simon of all his lands if Jeanne married Henry III. Henry therefore abandoned the project for his marriage to Jeanne and in January 1236 married Eleanor of Provence , the sister of Louis IX's wife.

Marriages and children
In November 1235, Blanche of Castile's nephew, King Ferdinand III of Castile , lost his wife, Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen , and Blanche's sister Berenguela of Castile , Ferdinand's mother, was concerned that her widowed son might involve himself in liaisons that were unsuited to his dignity as king. Berenguela determined to find her son another wife, and her sister Blanche suggested the young Jeanne de Dammartin, whose marriage to the king of Castile would keep her inheritance from falling into hostile hands. In October 1237, at the age of about seventeen, Jeanne married in Burgos , King Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon (1201-1252).

They had four sons and one daughter:
Ferdinand (1239-ca 1265)
Eleanor , married Edward I of England
Louis (1243-ca 1275)
Simon (1244), died young and buried in a monastery in Toledo
John (1245), died young and buried at the cathedral in Córdoba

Upon her mother's death in 1251, Jeanne succeeded to the titles of Countess of Ponthieu and Countess of Montreuil which she held in her own right.

After Ferdinand III died in 1252, Jeanne did not enjoy a cordial relationship with his heir, her stepson Alfonso X of Castile , with whom she quarreled over some of the lands and income she should have received as dowager queen of Castile. Sometime in 1253, she became the ally and supporter of another of her stepsons, Henry of Castile, who also felt Alfonso had not allowed him all the wealth their father had meant him to have. Jeanne unwisely attended secret meetings with Henry and his supporters, and it was rumored that she and Henry were lovers. This further strained her relations with Alfonso and in 1254, shortly before her daughter Eleanor was to marry Edward of England, Jeanne and her eldest son Ferdinand left Castile and returned to her native Ponthieu.

Sometime between May 1260 and 9 February 1261, Jeanne took a second husband, Jean de Nesle, Seigneur de Falvy et de La Hérelle (died 2 February 1292).[3] This marriage is sometimes said to have produced a daughter, Béatrice, but she was in fact a child of Jean de Nesle's first marriage. In 1263, Jeanne was recognized as countess of Aumale after the death of a childless Dammartin cousin. But her son Ferdinand died around 1265, leaving a young son known as John de Ponthieu.


During her marriage to Jean de Nesle, Jeanne ran up considerable debts and also appears to have allowed her rights as countess in Ponthieu to weaken. The death of her son Ferdinand made her next son, Louis, her heir in Ponthieu but around 1275 he, too, died, leaving two children. But according to inheritance customs in Picardy, where Ponthieu lay, Jeanne's young grandson John de Ponthieu could not succeed her there; her heir in Ponthieu automatically became her adult daughter Eleanor, who was married to the king of England. It does not appear that Jeanne was displeased at the prospect of having Ponthieu pass under English domination; from 1274 to 1278, in fact, she had her granddaughter Joan of England with her in Ponthieu, and appears to have treated the girl so indulgently that when she was returned to England her parents found that she was thoroughly spoiled.

That same indulgent nature appears to have made Jeanne inattentive to her duties as countess. When she died in March 1279, her daughter and son-in-law were thus confronted with Jeanne's vast debts, and to prevent the king of France from involving himself in the county's affairs, they had to pay the debts quickly by taking out loans from citizens in Ponthieu and from wealthy abbeys in France. They also had to deal with a lengthy legal struggle with Eleanor's nephew, John de Ponthieu, to whom Jeanne bequeathed a great deal of land in Ponthieu as well as important legal rights connected with those estates. The dispute was resolved when John de Ponthieu was recognized as Jeanne's successor in Aumale according to the inheritance customs that prevailed in Normandy, while Edward and Eleanor retained Ponthieu and John gave up all his claims there. By using English wealth, Edward and Eleanor restored stability to the administration and the finances of Ponthieu, and added considerably to the comital estate by purchasing large amounts of land there.

  Noted events in her life were:

• Countess of Ponthieu, 1251-1279.

• Countess of Montreuil, 1251-1279.

• Countess of Aumale, 1239-1278.

Jeanne married Fernando III of Castile King of Castile and Leon, son of Alfonso IX King of Léon and Berengaria of Castile, in Oct 1237 in Burgos, Castile, Spain. (Fernando III of Castile King of Castile and Leon was born on 5 Aug 1199 in Monastery of Valparaíso (Peleas de Arriba, Zamora), (Spain) and died on 30 May 1252 in Seville, Spain.)