Eleanor of Aquitaine: A LifeIn this beautifully written biography, Alison Weir paints a vibrant portrait of a truly exceptional woman and provides new insights into her intimate world. 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. 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. |
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... duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony covered a vast region in the southwest of what is now France, encompassing all the land between the River Loire in the north and the an Pyrenees in the south, and between the Rhône valley.
... duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony covered a vast region in the southwest of what is now France, encompassing all the land between the River Loire in the north and the an Pyrenees in the south, and between the Rhône valley.
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... duchy of Aquitaine, named “land of waters” after the great rivers that dissected it: the Garonne, the Charente, the Creuse, the Vienne, the Dordogne, and the Vézère. The duchy also incorporated the counties of Saintonge, Angoulême ...
... duchy of Aquitaine, named “land of waters” after the great rivers that dissected it: the Garonne, the Charente, the Creuse, the Vienne, the Dordogne, and the Vézère. The duchy also incorporated the counties of Saintonge, Angoulême ...
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... duchy was wealthy, thanks to its lucrative export trade in wine and salt, and it was a land in which the religious life flourished. Its rulers erected and endowed numerous fine churches and abbeys, notably the famous abbey at Cluny—“a ...
... duchy was wealthy, thanks to its lucrative export trade in wine and salt, and it was a land in which the religious life flourished. Its rulers erected and endowed numerous fine churches and abbeys, notably the famous abbey at Cluny—“a ...
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... duchy of Aquitaine. By the middle of the tenth century, Ebalus, Count of Poitou, a distant cousin of William of Orange, had emerged victorious.2 Eleanor “sprang from a noble race.”3 Ebalus's son, William III (called “Towhead”), a ...
... duchy of Aquitaine. By the middle of the tenth century, Ebalus, Count of Poitou, a distant cousin of William of Orange, had emerged victorious.2 Eleanor “sprang from a noble race.”3 Ebalus's son, William III (called “Towhead”), a ...
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... duchy's importance and power in western Europe. It was for a time sufficiently peaceful for its Duke to depart to fight the Moors in Spain. His victory at Babastro was still being celebrated in the chansons de geste of the twelfth ...
... duchy's importance and power in western Europe. It was for a time sufficiently peaceful for its Duke to depart to fight the Moors in Spain. His victory at Babastro was still being celebrated in the chansons de geste of the twelfth ...
Contents
To Jerusalem | |
A Righteous Annulment | |
A Happy Issue | |
All the Business of the Kingdom | |
Eleanor by the Grace of God Queen of England | |
Poor Prisoner | |
Shame Shame on a Conquered King | |
The Eagle Shall Rejoice in Her Third Nesting | |
The Admiration of Her Age | |
The Devil Is Loosed | |
The Staff of My Old Age | |
The Most Reverend Eleanor | |
The Brood of the Wicked Shall Not Thrive | |
The King Has Wrought a Miracle | |
Conjectures Which Grow Day by Day | |
The Holy Martyr | |
The Cubs Shall Awake | |
Beware of Your Wife and Sons | |
A Candle Goeth Out | |
Notes on the Chief Sources | |
Dedication | |
A Readers Guide | |
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Common terms and phrases
abbey Abbot Alys Angevin Anjou Archbishop army Arthur barons Berengaria Bernard Bishop Blois Brittany brother castle Cathedral charter Chinon Christmas chroniclers Church Count court crown crusade daughter death domains duchy Duke Eleanor of Aquitaine Emperor English excommunicated father FitzStephen Fontevrault France French Geoffrey Geoffrey’s Gervase of Canterbury Giraldus Cambrensis Guillaume le Maréchale heir Henry and Eleanor Henry’s honour household Hugh husband Ibid Jerusalem Joanna John of Salisbury John’s King Louis King’s kingdom knights L’Histoire de Guillaume London Longchamp Louis’s Lusignan marriage married Matilda mother Norman Normandy overlord palace Paris peace Philip Pipe Rolls Poitiers Poitou Pope Queen Eleanor Ralph of Coggeshall Ralph of Diceto Raoul Raymond reign remained Richard of Devizes Robert of Torigni Roger of Hoveden Roger of Wendover Rolls Series Rosamund Rouen royal sent sons Suger Theobald took Toulouse trans troubadours twelfth century vassals Walter Map wife William of Newburgh Winchester Young King