The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine

The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine PDF Author: J.F. Andrews
Publisher: History Press
ISBN: 9781803991214
Category : Europe
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An engaging account of the lives and careers of Eleanor of Aquitaine's daughters and daughters-in-law 'This engaging read illuminates the lives of a group of fascinating medieval royal women. Many of these figures ... are often only given brief mentions in histories of the period, yet here they come out of the shadow of the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine and get their own chance to shine.' - Elena Woodacre, Founder of the Royal Studies Network The lives of the sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine are the stuff of legend. Her daughters, however, are less well known, and the fascinating personalities of her daughters-in-law have been almost entirely overlooked, as have those of the daughters she bore Louis VII of France. The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine redresses this balance and showcases the lives, travels and careers of these ten very different women, who formed a great international network of political alliances that linked their parents, siblings, husbands and children all across Europe and the Holy Land. Some of these women found happiness; others endured lives of turmoil and conflict. Some of them were close; others never met. But two things linked them all: their connection to Eleanor and to the kingdoms over which she reigned - and their determination to exert authority on their own terms in a male-dominated world.

The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine

The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine PDF Author: J.F. Andrews
Publisher: History Press
ISBN: 9781803991214
Category : Europe
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An engaging account of the lives and careers of Eleanor of Aquitaine's daughters and daughters-in-law 'This engaging read illuminates the lives of a group of fascinating medieval royal women. Many of these figures ... are often only given brief mentions in histories of the period, yet here they come out of the shadow of the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine and get their own chance to shine.' - Elena Woodacre, Founder of the Royal Studies Network The lives of the sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine are the stuff of legend. Her daughters, however, are less well known, and the fascinating personalities of her daughters-in-law have been almost entirely overlooked, as have those of the daughters she bore Louis VII of France. The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine redresses this balance and showcases the lives, travels and careers of these ten very different women, who formed a great international network of political alliances that linked their parents, siblings, husbands and children all across Europe and the Holy Land. Some of these women found happiness; others endured lives of turmoil and conflict. Some of them were close; others never met. But two things linked them all: their connection to Eleanor and to the kingdoms over which she reigned - and their determination to exert authority on their own terms in a male-dominated world.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine PDF Author: Ann Kramer
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 9780792258957
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
A biography of medieval Europe's greatest queen, who was queen of both France and England.

Plantagenet Princesses

Plantagenet Princesses PDF Author: Douglas Boyd
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1526743116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
A look at the royal women of twelfth-century England—from the empowered to the imprisoned—and their roles in the ruling dynasty. Eleanor of Aquitaine and her second husband, Henry II, are commonly considered medieval figures, but their era was really the violent transition from the Dark Ages, when countries’ borders were defined with fire and sword. Henry grabbed the English throne thanks largely to Eleanor’s dowry, because she owned one third of France. But their less famous daughters also lived extraordinary lives. If princes fought for their succession to crowns, the princesses were traded—usually by their mothers—to strangers to gain political power without the usual accompanying bloodshed. Years before what would today be marriageable age, royal girls were dispatched to countries whose speech was unknown to them, and there became the property of unknown men—their duty the bearing of sons to continue a dynasty and daughters who would be traded in their turn. Some became literal prisoners of their spouses; others outwitted would-be rapists and the Church to seize the reins of power when their husbands died. Eleanor’s daughters Marie and Alix were abandoned in Paris when she divorced Louis VII of France. By Henry II, she bore Matilda, Aliénor, and Joanna. Between them, these extraordinary women and their daughters knew the extremes of power and pain. Joanna was imprisoned by William II of Sicily and treated worse by her brutal second husband in Toulouse. Eleanor may have been libeled as a whore, but Aliénor’s descendants include two saints, Louis of France and Fernando of Spain. And then there were the illegitimate daughters, whose lives read like novels. This fascinating volume tells their stories.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine PDF Author: Sara Cockerill
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445646188
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 602

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Book Description
'Impeccably researched and beautifully written, this book offers a fresh perspective on one of the most controversial queens in history. Not to be missed.' Tracey Borman

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine PDF Author: Marion Meade
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101173939
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
"Marion Meade has told the story of Eleanor, wild, devious, from a thoroughly historical but different point of view: a woman's point of view."—Allene Talmey, Vogue.

Plantagenet Princes

Plantagenet Princes PDF Author: Douglas Boyd
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1526743078
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
When Count Henry of Anjou and his formidable wife Eleanor of Aquitaine became king and queen of England, they amassed an empire stretching 1,000 miles from the Pyrenees to the Scottish border, including half of France. Henry’s grandmother Empress Mathilda of Germany had taught him that ruling is like falconry: show the hawk the reward, but take it away at the last moment, to keep the bird eager to please. To sons and vassals alike, Henry promised everything but gave nothing, keeping the three adult princes hating him and the other siblings all their lives. Plantagenet Princes traces the lives and infamous webs of mistrust and intrigue among them. What sons they were! Henry (b. 1155), ‘the Young king’ was entitled to succeed his father, yet was a rich playboy who died crippled by debt before his thirtieth birthday, after living the life of a robber baron. Richard (b. 1157), ‘the Lionheart’ was lord of his mother’s duchy of Aquitaine and became, thanks to her, England’s most popular king despite bankrupting the Empire twice in his disastrous 10-year reign. Geoffrey (b. 1158), count of Brittany, was the cleverest, but was trampled to death by horses aged 32 in a pointless mêlée at Paris, leaving his wife Constance to act as regent for their son Arthur in a long power struggle between Philip Augustus, king of France, and the Plantagenets. The runt of the litter, John (b. 1166) was nicknamed Lackland, since no inheritance was initially promised him. He proved the longest-lived by far, dying at the age of fifty after signing Magna Carta, losing the key duchy of Normandy and most of the other continental possessions – also murdering his nephew Arthur, imprisoning Arthur’s sister for life and waging war against his barons, continued by Henry III. The Plantagenet line continued with Richard of Cornwall, Edward I conquering Wales, gay Edward II, Edward III, Edward the Black Prince and Richard II, who died in prison while his usurper sat on the throne.

Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings

Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings PDF Author: Amy Kelly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674417445
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
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.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine PDF Author: Alison Weir
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 030783185X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 620

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Book Description
In 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.

The Daughters of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine

The Daughters of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine PDF Author: Colette Bowie
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN: 9782503549712
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The three daughters of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine all undertook exogamous marriages which cemented dynastic alliances and furthered the political and diplomatic ambitions of their parents and their spouses. It might be expected that the choices made by Matilda, Leonor, and Joanna with regard to religious patronage and dynastic commemoration would follow the customs and patterns of their marital families, yet in many cases these choices appear to have been strongly influenced by ties to their natal family. Their involvement in the burgeoning cult of Thomas Becket, their patronage of Fontevrault Abbey, the names they gave to their children, and the ways in which they were buried, suggests that all three women were able, to varying degrees, to transplant Angevin family customs to their marital lands. By examining the childhoods, marriages, and programmes of patronage and commemoration of Matilda, Leonor and Joanna, this monograph compares and contrasts the experiences of three high-profile twelfth-century royal women, and advances the hypothesis that there may have been stronger emotional ties within the Angevin dynasty than has previously been allowed for.

Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine

Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine PDF Author: Matthew Lewis
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445671573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
The powerful medieval couple who formed an empire beyond England, and whose children included Richard the Lionheart and King John.