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Eleonor of Aquitaine, also called Eleanor Of Guyenne (Gascony), French Éléonore, or Aliénor, D'aquitaine, or De Guyenne, Queen Consort of both Louis VII of France (in 1137-52) and Henry II of England (in 1152-1204) and mother of Richard I the Lion-Heart and John of England. She was perhaps the most powerful woman in 12th-century Europe. Eleanor was the daughter and heiress of William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers (Poitou), who possessed one of the largest domains in France-larger, in fact, than those held by the French king. Upon William's death in 1137 she inherited the Duchy of Aquitaine and in July 1137 married the heir to the French throne, who succeeded his father, Louis VI, the following month. Eleanor became Queen of France, a title she held for the next 15 years. Beautiful, capricious, and adored by Louis, Eleanor exerted considerable influence over him, often goading him into undertaking perilous ventures. From 1147 to 1149 Eleanor accompanied Louis on the Second Crusade to protect the fragile Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded after the First Crusade only 50 years before, from Turkish assault. Eleanor's conduct during this expedition, especially at the court of her uncle Raymond of Poitiers at Antioch, aroused Louis's jealousy and marked the beginning of their estrangement. After their return to France and a short-lived reconciliation, their marriage was annulled in March 1152. According to feudal customs, Eleanor then regained possession of Aquitaine, and two months later she married the grandson of Henry I of England, Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. In 1154 he became, as Henry II, King of England, with the result that England, Normandy, and the west of France were united under his rule. Eleanor had only two daughters by Louis VII; to her new husband she bore five sons and three daughters. The sons were William, who died at the age of three; Henry; Richard, the Lion-Heart; Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany; and John, surnamed Lackland until, having outlived all his brothers, he inherited, in 1199, the crown of England. The daughters were Matilda, who married Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria; Eleanor, who married Alfonso VIII, King of Castile; and Joan, who married successively William II, King of Sicily, and Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. Eleanor would well have deserved to be named the -grandmother of Europe. During her childbearing years, she participated actively in the administration of the realm and even more actively in the management of her own domains. She was instrumental in turning the court of Poitiers, then frequented by the most famous troubadours of the time, into a centre of poetry and a model of courtly life and manners. She was the great patron of the two dominant poetic movements of the time: the courtly love tradition, conveyed in the romantic songs of the troubadours, and the historical matière de Bretagne, or “legends of Britanny,” which originated in Celtic traditions and in the Historia regum Britanniae, written by the chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth some time between 1135 and 1139. The revolt of her sons against her husband in 1173 put her cultural activities to a brutal end. Since Eleanor, 11 years her husband's senior, had long resented his infidelities, the revolt may have been instigated by her; in any case, she gave her sons considerable military support. The revolt failed, and Eleanor was captured while seeking refuge in the kingdom of her first husband, Louis VII. Her semi-imprisonment in England ended only with the death of Henry II in 1189. On her release, Eleanor played a greater political role than ever before. She actively prepared for Richard's coronation as king, was administrator of the realm during his crusade to the Holy Land, and, after his capture by the Duke of Austria on Richard's return from the east, collected his ransom and went in person to escort him to England. During Richard's absence, she succeeded in keeping his kingdom intact and in thwarting the intrigues of his brother John Lackland and Philip II Augustus, king of France, against him. In 1199 Richard died without leaving an heir to the throne, and John was crowned king. Eleanor, nearly 80 years old, fearing the disintegration of the Plantagenet domain, crossed the Pyrenees in 1200 in order to fetch her granddaughter Blanche from the court of Castile and marry her to the son of the French king. By this marriage she hoped to insure peace between the Plantagenets of England and the Capetian kings of France. In the same year she helped to defend Anjou and Aquitaine against her grandson Arthur of Brittany, thus securing John's French possessions. In 1202 John was again in her debt for holding Mirebeau against Arthur, until John, coming to her relief, was able to take him prisoner. John's only victories on the Continent, therefore, were due to Eleanor. She died in 1204 at the monastery at Fontevrault, Anjou, where she had retired after the campaign at Mirebeau. Her contribution to England extended beyond her own lifetime; after the loss of Normandy (1204), it was her own ancestral lands and not the old Norman territories that remained loyal to England. She has been misjudged by many French historians who have noted only her youthful frivolity, ignoring the tenacity, political wisdom, and energy that characterized the years of her maturity. “She was beautiful and just, imposing and modest, humble and elegant”; and, as the nuns of Fontevrault wrote in their necrology: a queen "who surpassed almost all the queens of the world." http://en.wikipedia.org Another version: Eleanor of Aquitaine (Bordeaux, France,c. 1124 - March 31, 1204 in Fontevrault, Anjou) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Europe during the Middle Ages. She was Queen consort of both France and England in her lifetime. Early Life The oldest of three children, her father was William X, Duke of Aquitaine, and her mother was Aenor de Châtellerault, the daughter of Aimeric I, Vicomte of Chatellerault. William's and Ænor's marriage had been arranged by his father, William IX of Aquitaine the Troubador, and her mother, Dangereuse, William IX's long-time mistress. Eleanor was named after her mother and called Aliénor, which means other Aenor in the langue d'oc (Occitan language), but it became Eléanor in the northern Langue d'oïl and in English. She was raised in one of Europe's most cultured courts, the birthplace of courtly love. She was highly educated for a woman of the time, and knew how to read, how to speak Latin, was well versed in music and literature, and enjoyed riding, hawking, and hunting. She became heiress to Aquitaine, the largest and richest of the provinces that would become modern France, when her brother, William Aigret, died as a baby. Marriage to Louis VII of France William X died on Good Friday, 1137 while on a pilgrimage to Spain. Eleanor was young, probably around the age of 15 and now Duchess of Aquitaine, and the most eligible heiress in Europe. As these were the days when kidnapping an heiress was seen as a viable option for attaining title, William wrote a will on the very day he died, instructing that his daughter marry Louis VII of France. The marriage, on July 22, 1137, brought to France the area from the river Loire to the Pyrenees: most of what is today the southwest of France. However, there was a catch: the land would remain independent of France, and Eleanor's oldest son would be both King of France and Duke of Aquitaine. Thus, her holdings would not be merged with France until the next generation. She gave him a wedding present that is still in existence, a rock crystal vase on display at the Louvre. Something of a free spirit, Eleanor was not much liked by the staid northerners (particularly, according to sources, her mother-in-law, Adélaide de Maurienne), who thought her flighty and a bad influence. Her conduct was repeatedly criticized by Church elders (particularly Bernard of Clairvaux and Abbot Suger) as indecorous. The King, on the other hand, was madly in love with his beautiful and worldly wife, and granted her every whim, even though her behavior baffled and vexed him to no end. Crusade Though Louis was a pious man he soon came into violent conflict with Pope Innocent II. The archbishopric of Bourges became vacant, and the king supported as candidate the chancellor Cadurc, against the pope's nominee Pierre de la Chatre, swearing upon relics that so long as he lived Pierre should never enter Bourges. This brought the interdict upon the king's lands. Louis became involved in a war with Theobald II of Champagne, by permitting Raoul I of Vermandois and seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife, Theobald's niece, and to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, Eleanor's sister. Eleanor urged Louis to support her sister's illegitimate marriage to Raoul of Vermandois. Champagne also sided with the pope in the dispute over Bourges. The war lasted two years (1142-44) and ended with the occupation of Champagne by the royal army. Louis was personally involved in the assault and burning of the town of Vitry. More than a thousand people who had sought refuge in the church, died in the flames. Overcome with guilt, Louis declared on Christmas Day 1145 at Bourges his intention of going on a crusade. On Easter 1146 both Eleanor and Louis took up the cross during a sermon preached by Bernard of Clairvaux. She was followed by some of her royal ladies in waiting as well as 300 non-noble vassals. She insisted on taking part in the Crusades as the feudal leader of the soldiers from her duchy. The story that she and her ladies dressed as Amazons is disputed by serious historians. However, her testimonial launch of the Second Crusade from Vézelay, the rumored location of Mary Magdalene's burial, dramatically emphasized the role of women in the campaign. The Crusade itself was something of a disaster. Louis was a weak and ineffectual military leader with no concept of maintaining troop discipline or morale, or of making informed and logical tactical decisions. The French army was betrayed by Manuel I Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor, who feared that their aims would jeopardize the tenuous safety of his empire. A particularly poor decision to camp one night in a lush valley surrounded by tall peaks in hostile territory led to an attack by the Turks, who slaughtered as many as 7000 Crusaders. As this decision was made by Eleanor's vassal, Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou (with whom it was rumored that she had an affair), many believed that it was her directive. This did nothing for her popularity in Christendom. Eleanor's reputation was further sullied by her supposed affair with her uncle Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch. Divorce from Louis Even before the Crusade, Eleanor and Louis were becoming estranged. The city of Antioch had been annexed by Bohemond of Hauteville in the First Crusade, and it was now ruled by her flamboyant uncle, Raymond of Antioch (rumored to be her lover), who had gained the principality by marrying its reigning Princess, Constance of Antioch. Clearly, Eleanor supported his desire to re-capture the nearby County of Edessa, the cause of the Crusade. Louis was directed by the Church to visit Jerusalem instead. When Eleanor declared her intention to stand with Raymond and the Aquitaine forces, Louis had her brought out by force. His long march to Jerusalem and back north debilitated his army, but her imprisonment disheartened her knights, and the divided Crusade armies could not overcome the Muslim forces. For reasons unknown, likely the Germans' insistence on conquest, the Crusade leaders targeted Damascus, an ally until the attack. Failing in this attempt, they retired to Jerusalem, and then home. When they passed through Rome on the way to Paris, Pope Eugene III tried to reconcile Eleanor and Louis. Eleanor conceived their second daughter, Alix of France (their first was Marie), but there was no saving the marriage. In 1152; it was annulled on the grounds of consanguinity. Her estates reverted to her and were no longer part of the French royal properties. However, while in the eastern Mediterranean Eleanor learned about maritime conventions developing there: the beginnings of what would become admiralty law. She introduced those conventions in her own lands, for instance on the island of Oleron in 1160, and later into England as well. She was also instrumental in developing trade agreements with Constantinople and ports of trade in the Holy Lands. Marriage to Henry II of England On May 18, 1152, six weeks after her annullment, Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. She was about 11 years older than he, and related to him in the same degree as she had been to Louis. One of Eleanor's rumored lovers was Henry's own father, Geoffrey of Anjou, who, not surprisingly, advised him not to get involved with her. Over the next 13 years, she bore Henry five sons and three daughters: William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor, and Joan. Despite her reputation in later historical accounts, Eleanor was incensed by Henry's philandering; their son, William, and Henry's bastard son, Geoffrey, were born months apart. Henry fathered other bastard children throughout most of their marriage. Some time between 1168 and 1170, she instigated a separation, deciding to establish a new court in her own territory of Poitou. In Poitiers, she reached the height of her powers creating the Court of Love. A small fragment of her codes and practices was written by Andreas Capellanus. Henry concentrated on controlling his increasingly-large empire, badgering Eleanor's subjects in attempts to control her patrimony of Aquitaine and her court at Poitiers. Straining all bounds of civility, Henry had Archbishop Thomas Becket murdered at the altar of the church in 1170 (to be fair, there is debate as to if it truly was Henry's intent to be rid of his Archbishop once and for all). This aroused not only Eleanor's horror and contempt, but most of Europe's. Revolt and Imprisonment In 1173, aggrieved at his lack of power and egged on by his father's enemies, the younger Henry launched the Revolt of 1173-1174, joined by Richard and Geoffrey, and supported by several powerful English barons, as well as Louis VII and William I of Scotland. When Eleanor tried to join them, she was intercepted. Henry, who put down the rebellion, imprisoned her for the next 15 years, much of the time in various locations in England. About four miles from Shrewsbury and close by Haughmond Abbey is "Queen Eleanor's Bower," the remains of a triangular castle which is believed to have been one of her prisons. Henry lost his great love, Rosamund Clifford, in 1176. He had met her in 1166 and begun the liaison in 1173, supposedly contemplating divorce from Eleanor. When Rosamund died, rumours spread that Eleanor had poisoned her, but there is no evidence to support this. In 1183, Henry the Young tried again. In debt and refused control of Normandy, he tried to ambush his father at Limoges. He was joined by troops sent by his brother Geoffrey and Philip II of France. Henry's troops besieged the town, forcing his son to flee. Henry the Young wandered aimlessly through Aquitaine until he caught dysentery and died. The rebellion petered out. Later Life Upon Henry's death in 1189, Eleanor helped her son Richard I to the throne, and he released her from prison. She ruled England as regent while Richard went off on the Third Crusade. She personally negotiated his ransom by going to Germany. She survived him and lived long enough to see her youngest son John on the throne. Eleanor died in 1204 and was entombed in Fontevraud Abbey near her husband Henry and son Richard. Her tomb effigy shows her reading a Bible. She was the patroness of such literary figures as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-More, and Chrétien de Troyes. In Historical Fiction Eleanor and Henry are the main characters in the play The Lion in Winter, by James Goldman, which was made into a film starring Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn, and remade for television in 2003 with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close. The depiction of her in the film Becket is totally inaccurate. She appears briefly in the BBC production Ivanhoe portrayed by Sian Phillips. She is also a major character in Thomas B. Costain's Below the Salt, and the subject of E. L. Konigsburg's children's book A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. Her life is chronicled in three books by Sharon Kay Penman "When Christ and His Saints Slept", "Time and Chance", and "The Devil's Brood". The novel The Book of Eleanor by Pamela Kaufman tells the story of Eleanor's life from her own point of view. She is also included In Wiliam Shakespeare's King John with a different spelling of her name. Encyclopædia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite.
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