Walter Of Aquitaine

Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine was one of the leading personalities of the Middle Ages and also one of the most controversial. She was beautiful, intelligent and wilful, and in her lifetime there were rumours about her that were not without substance. She had been reared in a relaxed and licentious court where the arts of the troubadours flourished, and was even said to have presided over the fabled Courts of Love. Eleanor married in turn Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, and was the mother of Richard the Lionheart and King John. She lived to be 82, but it was only in old age that she triumphed over the adversities and tragedies of her earlier years and became virtual ruler of England. Eleanor has exerted a fascination over writers and biographers for 800 years, but the prevailing myths and legends that attach to her name still tend to obscure the truth. By careful research, Alison Weir has produced a vivid biography with a fresh and provocative perspective on this extraordinary woman.

Eleanor's patrilineal descent, from a lineage already prestigious enough to have produced an empress in the eleventh century, gave her the lordship of Aquitaine. But marriage re-emphasized her sex which, in the medieval scheme of gender-power relations relegated her to the position of Lady in relation to her Lordly husbands. In this collection, essays provide a context for Eleanor's life and further an evolving understanding of Eleanor's multifaceted career. A valuable collection on the greatest heiress of the medieval period.