- Hardcover: 376 pages
- Publisher: The History Press Ltd; 1st Edition edition (12 Feb 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0750932899
- ISBN-13: 978-0750932899
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 4.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 979,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
In this biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the most exciting women in European medieval history, Boyd takes the reader to the heart of this extraordinary woman. He reveals her as a peculiarly "modern" character - she rejects as a liberated woman the subordinate role decreed by the Chruch and Salic law; she refused to be a consenting victim of ethnic cleansing; and she promotes her vision of a continent wide dynasty - and sets her into the context of southern French civilization, with its love of comforts and pleasures in life. The book not only recreates the turbulent life of this woman, but takes the reader into the world she knew - her friendships, the food she ate, the clothes she wore, the sounds, sights and smells around her.
From the Author
Previous biographies of Eleanor have presented her as a shadowy, unscrupulous French duchess on the make. This is because medieval historians relied until recently on the misogynistic celibate chroniclers, who relished unsubstantiated sexual scandal as a way of diminishing a powerful woman.
My study of new sources, including contemporary troubadour poetry written in Occitan – Eleanor’s first language – reveals a very different person. In the first place, she wasn’t French. Secondly, she was effectively the queen of her own Mediterranean people before marrying Louis VII and England’s Henry I.
Why did she go on the Second Crusade? Why did she have eleven children? Why did she risk everything to rebel against Henry and pay the price of fifteen years’ deprivation of liberty? What happened when her son Richard the Lionheart died? These and many other questions are answered for the first time. And in the process, one of English history’s great dilemmas is resolved: Henry’s appointment of his chancellor Becket as archbishop of Canterbury and Becket’s murder.
Why do I call her the April Queen? You have to read the book to find out!
My study of new sources, including contemporary troubadour poetry written in Occitan – Eleanor’s first language – reveals a very different person. In the first place, she wasn’t French. Secondly, she was effectively the queen of her own Mediterranean people before marrying Louis VII and England’s Henry I.
Why did she go on the Second Crusade? Why did she have eleven children? Why did she risk everything to rebel against Henry and pay the price of fifteen years’ deprivation of liberty? What happened when her son Richard the Lionheart died? These and many other questions are answered for the first time. And in the process, one of English history’s great dilemmas is resolved: Henry’s appointment of his chancellor Becket as archbishop of Canterbury and Becket’s murder.
Why do I call her the April Queen? You have to read the book to find out!
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
For someone seeking a readable guide to the period and its dramatis personae I thoroughly recommend this book.
Not being an expert I cannot comment authoritatively on its accuracy but it appears well researched - it's certainly well written.
What's more, the author has the courage to suggest adventurous meta-strategies where he feels these are needed to explain enduring mysteries of the period.
My one criticism is that Eleanor consistently emerges as the virtuous Marian heroine, while her sons and husbands are the permanent bounders and cads of the piece. For all I know this may be true, but I wonder if, just possibly, in seeking to redress the various calumnies Eleanor has suffered over the last 800 years the author has gone a little too far the other way.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
What makes this book on Eleanor so good is rather than be defeated by the fact that we don't know what Eleanor looked like the author, who lives in the region, did a bit of detective work and found some stone heads and statues that could well be Eleanor and goes into detail about it at the end chapter.
I have taken away a star as he refers to her as the April Queen and says he wants to describe the world, (sights and smells), around Eleanor, but only does it in the first half of the book and not the second which I found disapointing.
I have taken away a star as he refers to her as the April Queen and says he wants to describe the world, (sights and smells), around Eleanor, but only does it in the first half of the book and not the second which I found disapointing.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
Better than Fiction
5 July 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a page-turner the equal of anything from Clancy or Grissom, proving once again that history is more fascinating than fiction. Boyd brings life to the historical figures and weaves a great story. One can hardly imagine that one woman could be both the Queen of France and the Queen of England, but here she is. Amazingly her influence is still being felt in Western culture. Great book!
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