Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122 - 31 March 1204)

Daughter and heir to the Duke of Aquitaine, in 1137 she married King Louis VII with whom she had two daughters. The absence of a male heir and dissension between the spouses led to the dissolution of the marriage in 1152. Eleanor immediately re-married Henry Plantagenet, giving him Aquitaine. Henry was already Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy (1144) and soon became King of England (1154). Queen Eleanor was renowned for the brilliance of her court which received troubadours and writers who dedicated their works to her. She took part in the conflicts that set Young Henry and Richard the Lion Heart against their father, Henry II, who exiled her and made her a prisoner in England (1174-1179). Richard, who became king in 1189, re-established his mother in her prerogatives, and gave her the regency during the crusade and during his captivity (1190-1194). Eleanor then played an important political role by organising the resistance against the King of France. On the death of Richard (1199), Eleanor gave her support to her last son, John Lackland, against the party of Arthur of Brittany, heir to her other son Geoffrey (who died 1186). Finally she attempted a rapprochement with France by the marriage of her granddaughter, Blanche of Castille, with the son of Philip Augustus, the future Louis VIII (1199-1200). She died shortly after the capture of Château-Gaillard by the French in her abbey of Fontevraud where she was buried (1204).

Bibliography :

- Georges Duby. - Dames du XIIe s., I, Héloïse, Aliénor et quelques autres. - Paris : Gallimard, 1995.
- Jean Favier. - Dictionnaire de la France médiévale. - Paris : Fayard, 1993.
- Régine Pernoud. - Alénor d'Aquitaine. - Paris : Albin-Michel, 1965.