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Eleanor of Aquitaine, as It Was Said: Truth and Tales about the Medieval Queen

Online ISBN:
9780226825847
Print ISBN:
9780226825830
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

Eleanor of Aquitaine, as It Was Said: Truth and Tales about the Medieval Queen

Karen Sullivan
Karen Sullivan
Bard College
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Published online:
18 January 2024
Published in print:
18 August 2023
Online ISBN:
9780226825847
Print ISBN:
9780226825830
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

Eleanor of Aquitaine is at once one of the most famous figures of medieval history and one of the most misunderstood. As wife of Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, mother of King Richard the Lionheart and King John, and de facto ruler of her sons’ lands during much of their reigns, she was clearly someone to be reckoned with. Yet to the chagrin of modern scholars, she was of interest to her contemporaries less in terms of her political activity than in terms of her moral character. Because she wielded her power not in public assemblies but in private conferences with her husbands, her sons, or even (it was alleged) her lovers, the issue was not so much what she was observed to have done by those who witnessed her behavior but what she was imagined to have done by those who grasped her character. The fantastical tales that were told about her—that she attempted to elope with a Muslim; that she presided over Courts of Love; or that she was a demon—were attempts on their part to fathom what kind of woman she was and what she was capable of. If we wish to know Eleanor as she truly was, this book contends, we will come closest to achieving that goal by recognizing that the historical queen was always already defined in people’s minds by the legendary queen, even during her lifetime, and that she herself necessarily operated in reference to that persona.

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