Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings (Harvard Paperbacks) - Softcover

Amy Ruth Kelly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674242548 ISBN 13: 9780674242548

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1991

Synopsis

The story of that amazingly influential and still somewhat mysterious woman, Eleanor of Aquitaine, has the dramatic interest of a novel. She was at the very center of the rich culture and clashing politics of the twelfth century. Richest marriage prize of the Middle Ages, she was Queen of France as the wife of Louis VII, and went with him on the exciting and disastrous Second Crusade. Inspiration of troubadours and trouvères, she played a large part in rendering fashionable the Courts of Love and in establishing the whole courtly tradition of medieval times. Divorced from Louis, she married Henry Plantagenet, who became Henry II of England. Her resources and resourcefulness helped Henry win his throne, she was involved in the conflict over Thomas Becket, and, after Henry’s death, she handled the affairs of the Angevin empire with a sagacity that brought her the trust and confidence of popes and kings and emperors.

Having been first a Capet and then a Plantagenet, Queen Eleanor was the central figure in the bitter rivalry between those houses for the control of their continental domains―a rivalry that excited the whole period: after Henry’s death, her sons, Richard Coeur-de-Lion and John “Lackland” (of Magna Carta fame), fiercely pursued the feud up to and even beyond the end of the century. But the dynastic struggle of the period was accompanied by other stirrings: the intellectual revolt, the struggle between church and state, the secularization of literature and other arts, the rise of the distinctive urban culture of the great cities. Eleanor was concerned with all the movements, closely connected with all the personages; and she knew every city from London and Paris to Byzantium, Jerusalem, and Rome.

Amy Kelly’s story of the queen’s long life―the first modern biography―brings together more authentic information about her than has ever been assembled before and reveals in Eleanor a greatness of vision, an intelligence, and a political sagacity that have been missed by those who have dwelt on her caprice and frivolity. It also brings to life the whole period in whose every aspect Eleanor and her four kings were so intimately and influentially involved. Miss Kelly tells Eleanor’s absorbing story as it has long waited to be told―with verve and style and a sense of the quality of life in those times, and yet with a scrupulous care for the historic facts.

About this title

Review:

Was there ever a ruler, man or woman, quite as fascinating as Eleanor of Aquitaine? The ruler of France's largest kingdom from the age of 15, Eleanor (1122- 1204) was renowned for beauty, intelligence, and the thoughtful application of power. Her marriage to her second husband, Henry Plantagenet of Normandy, brought her to the English throne; the birth of their sons John Lackland and Richard I Lionheart forever changed the face of medieval European history. Always at the center of her world, Eleanor remains a fascinating figure even today, and Amy Kelly captures the whirlwind of her life in this entrancing biography.

From the Back Cover:

This account of Queen Eleanor and her century is offered as a study of individuals who set their stamp upon the events of their time, rather than as a study of developing systems of politics, economics, or jurisprudence.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0674242548
• ISBN 13: 9780674242548
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 448