The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Duke Henry of Anjou in 1152 brought much of south-western France into a shared relationship with the lands of the kings of England, and until 1453 the King of England was also Duke of Aquitaine. Was Gascony, as it was also called, part of a proto-English empire, the first of England's overseas possessions, or were the English and their kings as remote as their French counterparts? Aquitaine had been a Roman province, and its language was a mix of tongues, its history in the Middle Ages was as much about creeping French authority as English rule. Studying this part of medieval Europe allows us to understand the formation of its medieval peoples and territories. We will try to do so by using the life and career of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) as a case study for themes around noble power and female authority, the crusade and pilgrimage, and regional rule.
Eleanor of Aquitaine was, in her long career, an heiress, duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, queen of France and queen of England. It is a career which seems unmatched in the Middle Ages, but whilst her own undoubted strength of character is significant we will also examine the changing historical context - which both allowed and redirected opportunities for women. What indeed was the nature of female power, and how exceptional was Eleanor?
In the case of Eleanor that power seems to have been grounded in changing ideas about rulership, and about the claims of regions in the face of the growing power of kings. Eleanor’s background as an heiress to the duchy of Aquitaine, and her upbringing at the ducal court made her a representative of a cultural and linguistic divide, the court at Poitiers a centre of artistic patronage and a literature of courtly love. Her role as a putative patron and inspiration for poetry is significant. Eleanor also seems to have exercised sexual power and her life story featured the birth of children, alleged adultery, divorce and remarriage, and finally widowhood and a degree of independence. Once again these experiences need to be fitted into our understanding of medieval gender roles and religious attitudes to and understanding of female sexuality. For these reasons her life attracted a good deal of contemporary and critical comment, especially from monkish writers, and this moral gaze has to a degree continued until modern times. The public history of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the ways in which her life has been understood in successive centuries is a final theme of interest, whether the reading of her offered by Katherine Hepburn in the film The Lion in Winter (1968) or as a feminist heroine.
During the course of the 12th century other women aside from Eleanor exercised political power, Urraca in Leon-Castile, Matilda the Empress in England, Petronilla in Aragon and Constance in Sicily. In an influential study the French historian, Georges Duby, argued that the 12th century marked an important transformation in the experience of women. We will conclude by looking at the way in which this question has been approached since the publication of Women of the Twelfth Century in English in 1998 (Dames du XIIe siècle, Gallimard 1995).
