Book Review: Eleanor of Aquitaine

This week, we look not at an author but at the historiography of a famous figure, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Eleanor of Aquitaine has inspired the spilling of much ink since her lifetime, so we'll just hit the modern highlights, here. Traditional views of her as a passionate queen growing up in a troubadour's court and holding husbands in her thrall can be found in popular histories by Marion Meade and Alison Weir. These are both fine books if you are looking for a coherent story of Eleanor's life, with the historical controversies and contradictions smoothed over in the interest of a strong narrative.

You can also find fictionalized versions of Eleanor in a variety of books, such as: "The Book of Eleanor" by Pamela Kaufman and "Beloved Enemy: The Passions of Eleanor of Aquitaine" by Ellen Jones. Most notable is Sharon Kay Penman's "When Christ and His Saints Slept", which is about Stephen I's conflict with Eleanor's mother-in-law, Matilda, but which also has large sections about Eleanor and her romance with Henry, in particular. Penman toes a middle course between the stories about Eleanor's alleged slutty conduct and what we actually know about her.

This approach, however, can result in some inaccuracies. If you are looking for something a bit more scholarly, try D.D. Owen's "Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of Legend". Also out are the articles derived from a recent conference at Bristol University in the UK called "The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine". This remarkable conference attempted to separate the historical Eleanor from the legendary one and discovered that we actually know very little about the historical Eleanor and entirely too much about the legendary one. Eleanor was such a scandalous figure that her legend crowds out what she really did as the Duchess of Aquitaine, the Queen of France and the Queen of England. We don't know if she had any role in the troubadour culture of her father's court, as legend ascribes. We don't know if she took any lovers outside of her marriage, let alone scandalous ones like the reputed liaison with her uncle, Raymond of Antioch.

In the process, however, the conference articles uncovered an entire world of Occitan (southern French) culture that we do know and can study. If you are interested in Eleanor's childhood milieu, you should find this book a useful read.