Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
by Alison Weir
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alison WeirEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-04-03
ISBN: 0345434870
Number of pages: 441
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
Book Review: A highly readbale account of a Beautiful, wilful, strong, intelligent and passionate woman
Summary: 5 Stars
Eleanor of Aquitaine was the queen of Louis VII of France and later Henry II of England. she was the mother of two English kings, Richard the Lionheart and John. France and England fought for many years over her vast French estates.
Eleanor was one of the most fable women of the Middle Ages and also one of the more controversial.
Beautiful, wilful, strong, intelligent, passionate and a famed lover. Much scandal was attached to her name, much of it with more than a little substance.
She seems to have had more than a few paramours while married to both kings, including Geoffrey of Anjou, father to her second husband, Henry II of England, while she was still married to Louis VI of France.
She was a great patron of troubadour poetry, inspiring some great and passionately expressed ballads.
she lived to be 82 but it was only towards the end of her life that she overcame the adversities and tragedies of her earlier years and became the de facto ruler of England.
The nuns of Fontrevault recorded in their necrology a glowing but conventional tribute to their late patroness, who had been a paragon among women and 'illuminated the world with the brilliance of her royal progeny, She graced the nobility of her birth with the honesty of her life, enriched it with her royal excellence, and adorned it with the flowers of her virtues, and her renown fr unmatched goodness she surpassed almost all the queens of the world'.
Sadly it was often the scandals associated with her youth, and not the wisdom of her stewardship of England during the reign of her sons that is remembered. Yet many ballads and stories have been attached to her name in the 800 years following her passing.
this was written in all sincerity because they knew her in her venerable old age.
We learn much of the role of women in Medieval nobility. In Eleanor's day, women were supposed to be chaste both inside and outside marriage, virginity and chastity being highly prized states. When it came to fornication women were usually apportioned the blame because they were descendants of Eve who had tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden. Promiscuity and brought great shame upon a women, including fines, social ostracism, and even in the case of royal and aristocratic women, execution. Women who engaged in sexual activity prior to marriage devalued themselves on the marriage market as no one wanted to 'buy' what they regarded as 'soiled goods'.
Such archaic and narrow minded views of women have for the most part withered away in Western society today but remain the order in Islamic societies.
Incarcerated and restricted during the reign of her husband Henry II, she played a powerful role under Richard and John, exhorting the Pope to see that Richard was freed while being held prisoner by the Duke of Austria and opposing the destructive power of Bishop William Longchamp of Ely. during Richard's reign, while Prince John acted as regent, while Richard was away on the crusades.
We learn oft he crusades, one of which Eleanor herself went on with Henry II, not long after their marriage, causing much scandal along the way, and engaging in conflict with her king, due to the scandals around her activities, while witnessing the great events of the crusade across Europe and the battles fought between the Crusaders and Muslims in the Holy Land.
I don't think that this book was at all dull or 'text booky'.
On the contrary it teaches the reader a great deal about the life and times of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and her husbands and children, while reading smoothly and interestedly like a novel. It marvelously brings the life of Eleanor to vividity, and the times she lived in to life, exploring a wide range of emotions, feelings, colours an sounds, while always making clear what is fact and what is unknown, legend or myth.
The author does not hesitate from strongly expressing her own opinions but on the other hand is honest about the grey areas where there is indeed no clear answer.
A difficult thing to do for a non fiction history, but one that clearly marks one
It is filled with many interesting facts and legends, which the author is clear to distinguish.
For example the author refutes the myth that Eleanor had Henry II's mistress Rosamund Clifford, and also does not give credence to Eleanor having presided over the fabled Courts of Love.
She also refutes the rumours that Richard I was a homosexual.
This narrative is highly readable, an account of a fascinating and strong-willed women and queen.
Summary of Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
Renowned in her time for being the most beautiful woman in Europe, the wife of two kings and mother of three, Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the great heroines of the Middle Ages. At a time when women were regarded as little more than chattel, Eleanor managed to defy convention as she exercised power in the political sphere and crucial influence over her husbands and sons. In this beautifully written biography, Alison Weir paints a vibrant portrait of this truly exceptional woman, and provides new insights into her intimate world. Eleanor of Aquitaine lived a long life of many contrasts, of splendor and desolation, power and peril, and in this stunning narrative, Weir captures the woman? and the queen?in all her glory. With astonishing historic detail, mesmerizing pageantry, and irresistible accounts of royal scandal and intrigue, she recreates not only a remarkable personality but a magnificent past era.Combining the pace and descriptive quality of a novel with the authority of a textbook, Alison Weir's study of the revered and reviled Eleanor of Aquitaine should be valuable to anyone with an interest in medieval European history. Wife of Louis VII of France and subsequently of Henry II of England, and mother of Richard "the Lion-Hearted," Eleanor played a prominent part in the politics of the 12th century. The author of a number of other books on the medieval period (Life of Elizabeth I, The Children of Henry VIII), Weir brings all the color and ever-present dangers of Eleanor's world to life, filling the text with absorbing background detail and revelatory contemporary anecdotes. She is concerned throughout to make critical analysis of the primary sources, the later myths about Eleanor, and other modern biographies. This results in a fresh and thoughtful perspective on the energetic life of a determined and ambitious woman living with the sexism, excesses, and violence of a society in which the word of a single man could condemn thousands to death. Eleanor of Aquitaine is a vivacious but scholarly book with extensive notes and references, giving an objective and rich account of the staunch Eleanor, her feuding family and her complex and unstable world. --Karen Tiley, Amazon.co.uk
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