Summary of Alison Weir's Eleanor Of Aquitaine

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Feudal Europe was a military society dominated by men. Christianity governed the lives of everyone in feudal Europe, and the Pope’s decrees were ultimate authority for all spiritual and moral matters. Women had little place in this society.
#2 Eleanor of Aquitaine was heiress to one of the richest domains in mediaeval Europe. In the twelfth century, the county of Poitou and the 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 Pyrenees in the south.
#3 The region of Aquitaine was rich in resources, and its people were diverse and rich. It was a land of small walled cities, fortified keeps, moated castles, and wealthy monasteries. However, its rulers could not extend their power into the feudal wilderness beyond Poitiers.
#4 Eleanor was the daughter of a noble race. She was the first of a number of strong-minded women in the ducal family tree. She married a man named William, who was the first of a number of strong-minded men in the ducal family tree.

Sujets

• Royalty

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 09 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669352709
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Alison Weir's Eleanor of Aquitaine
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14 Insights from Chapter 15 Insights from Chapter 16 Insights from Chapter 17 Insights from Chapter 18 Insights from Chapter 19 Insights from Chapter 20 Insights from Chapter 21 Insights from Chapter 22 Insights from Chapter 23
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Feudal Europe was a military society dominated by men. Christianity governed the lives of everyone in feudal Europe, and the Pope’s decrees were ultimate authority for all spiritual and moral matters. Women had little place in this society.

#2

Eleanor of Aquitaine was heiress to one of the richest domains in mediaeval Europe. In the twelfth century, the county of Poitou and the 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 Pyrenees in the south.

#3

The region of Aquitaine was rich in resources, and its people were diverse and rich. It was a land of small walled cities, fortified keeps, moated castles, and wealthy monasteries. However, its rulers could not extend their power into the feudal wilderness beyond Poitiers.

#4

Eleanor was the daughter of a noble race. She was the first of a number of strong-minded women in the ducal family tree. She married a man named William, who was the first of a number of strong-minded men in the ducal family tree.

#5

The courtly love precepts were first developed by the poets of the south, the troubadours, in the twelfth century. They deified women, and laid down codes of courtesy, chivalry, and gentlemanly conduct. These ideals were to be echoed in the lays of the trouvères of northern France.

#6

The ideals of courtly love were at odds with contemporary notions of courtship and marriage, and were taken very seriously in the southern French culture of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s descendants.

#7

The Duke of Toulouse, William IX, led an army of 100,000 crusaders to the East in 1096. He was shocked by the Turks at Heraclea, and returned home to write poems about the exotic delights of the eastern courts.

#8

The Order of Fontevrault was a religious community that was founded by Robert d’Arbrissel in 1100. It was a revolutionary arrangement for its time, as it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and was led by an abbess. It became very popular with aristocratic ladies who wanted to retire or temporarily retreat from the world.

#9

The Duke had a passionate affair with the wife of his vassal Aimery I de Rochefoucauld, Viscount of Châtellerault, named Dangerosa. When Philippa returned from a visit to Toulouse, she was shocked at what she found. She begged the papal legate to remonstrate with William, but it was useless.

#10

In 1127, William IX died, and his son, William X, inherited his domains. However, the ducal authority had been so weakened that it was difficult to govern. The Church was also torn by schism in 1130, with rival popes claiming the throne of St. Peter.

#11

Eleanor was raised in a feudal society, where women were treated as second class citizens. The Church Fathers, who followed St. Paul in preaching that a woman’s role was to learn in silence and be subject to her husband at home, supported this subjugation.

#12

Eleanor of Aquitaine was a notable exception to the rule that girls of good birth were not taught to read and write. She was taught to read in her native tongue, and she developed a taste for luxury and refinement.

#13

Eleanor was very beautiful, and she attracted the attention of men from an early age. She enjoyed dressing elegantly, and she became a leader of fashion. She loved jewellery, and she amassed a great many pieces during her life.

#14

Eleanor’s father, William X, wanted to provide his subjects with a male heir in 1136. He proposed marriage to Emma, daughter of Viscount Aymer of Limoges and widow of the Lord of Cognac. But Emma’s father’s friends and allies arranged for Count William of Angoulême to kidnap and marry Emma instead.

#15

The Duke made Eleanor a ward of Louis VI, King of France, with a view to her marrying his son and heir, Louis. He knew that Louis VI was the only man with the power, status, and authority to protect Eleanor’s inheritance and safeguard her interests.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

France, according to John of Salisbury, was the sweetest and most civilised nation. The House of Capet had ruled the country since 987, when the feudal lord Hugh Capet had been elected King after the death of Louis V, the last monarch of the Carolingian dynasty.

#2

The King had sent the Bishop of Chartres to ensure that the Duchess of Aquitaine was safe from predatory suitors. The Bishop was able to report that she had been staying in the Ombrière Palace under strong guard.

#3

On 18 June 1137, Louis VI and his escort left Paris for the south. The young King was carrying his father’s blessing and a gift of jewels for his bride. They crossed the Loire near Orléans and arrived in Limoges on 29 June.

#4

After the wedding, Louis and Eleanor went to Poitiers to celebrate. They were received in the city by a joyful populace, and were lodged in the Maubergeonne Tower. The celebrations culminated with their investiture as Count and Countess of Poitou in Poitiers Cathedral.

#5

Eleanor and Louis VI’s marriage was extremely lavish, and the people of Aquitaine and Poitou were sad to see their duchess depart. The presence of Frenchmen was resented by the fiercely independent indigenous population.

#6

The city of Paris was the capital of France, and there the King built a palace for his young bride, Eleanor. The palace was spartan and unwelcoming, and the young Queen may have found it so.

#7

The French Queen Eleanor was extremely conservative, and she tried to re-create the ambiance in which she had grown up. She was expected to be a decorative asset to her husband, the mother of his heirs, and the arbiter of good taste and modesty.

#8

Louis and Eleanor’s marriage was not a happy one from the start. They had very different backgrounds and interests, and were very unalike in temperament. Louis allowed himself to be governed too much by his feelings and ideals, and made many ill-judged decisions that rebounded on him with disastrous consequences.

#9

Louis’s marriage to Eleanor was not a happy one. He did not visit his wife’s bed very often, and she suffered a miscarriage during the first or second year of their marriage. He turned to his former teacher and father-in-law, Abbot Suger, for help in governing his realm.

#10

After the marriage, Eleanor’s influence over Louis was limited to the domestic sphere. She was not allowed to participate in the government, and her name did not appear on many of Louis’s charters.

#11

Eleanor made enemies very quickly. The French nobility were wary of her, and she did not care for their prejudice. She was also critical of Bernard of Clairvaux, who was one of the most influential and admired figures of the twelfth century.

#12

Eleanor was very beautiful, and she used that to her advantage. She flaunted her beauty, and it shocked Bernard. He compared her to the daughters of Belial, who were adorned but not beautiful.

#13

After Eleanor’s departure, the unrest in her domains had grown worse. The Poitevins in particular objected to French rule, and late in 1137 the citizens of Poitiers formally repudiated Louis’s authority and declared themselves a commune.
Insights from Chapter 3

#1

In 1141, Louis VII attempted to take Toulouse from its Count Alfonso Jordan. However, he was unsuccessful, and had to retreat to Poitiers. The King and Queen stayed in Poitou throughout the summer, with Eleanor’s sister Petronilla in attendance.

#2

In 1141, Archbishop Pierre de la Châtre was appointed to the archbishopric of Bourges. The canons of Bourges had put forward their own candidate, Pierre de la Châtre, a Clunaic monk, to fill the vacancy, but the King nominated instead the less suitable Carduc, his chancellor.