Book Review: Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life by Alison Weir

Introduction

Eleanor of Aquitaine plays a supporting role throughout so much historiography that it seems surprising Alison Weir's Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life would stand apart as one of the few scholarly biographies in publication. The woman best known for being queen to two kings — Louis VII of France and Henry II of England — comes alive on the pages of Weir's book. Weir admits in a preface that primary sources on Eleanor's life are scarce, alerting readers that filling more than 450 pages may require slight embellishments, or at least some padding.

At the same time, the 12th century was a period during which courtly chroniclers kept surprisingly meticulous records and logs. Genealogies of the Tudors are relatively straightforward to research partly for this reason, which is why Weir is able to cull information from numerous sources. Unfortunately, most of the sources available refer only indirectly to Eleanor. The lack of information about the mother of Richard the Lion-Hearted is due in large part to patriarchal bias — the belief that women's lives, perspectives, and political positions are far less important than those of their male counterparts. Thus, most of the primary sources Weir uses are about Eleanor's husbands. Nevertheless, Eleanor of Aquitaine is a superbly well-researched and meticulous historical biography about one of medieval Europe's most important female figures.

Prologue and First Impressions

Following the preface is an interesting prologue dated 18 May, 1152: the fateful day when Henry of Anjou wed Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine. Somewhat contradicting her statement in the preface that sources do not discuss Eleanor's appearance, in the prologue Weir claims that the heiress and former Queen of France was known for her striking beauty and long auburn hair. Eleanor was also known for her "unconventional," even "scandalous" behavior, and for her inability to produce a male heir for King Louis VII (Weir, Prologue, Kindle Edition, n.p.).

Women were brutally blamed for their inability to give birth to boys, stigmatized, and deemed unfit partners for a man of high standing. As such, Eleanor's first marriage to King Louis VII was annulled and she was then free to marry Henry of Anjou, who would become the King of England. Eleanor is introduced as being business-minded, forward-thinking, and willing to do whatever it took to overcome the formidable barriers inherent in a patriarchal society.

Structure, Tone, and Core Arguments

Weir presents the substance of the text in 22 individual chapters that follow a standard chronological format, starting with a contextual analysis of feudal Europe and the social, economic, and political systems into which Eleanor was born. The core arguments Weir makes throughout the text relate both to Eleanor's own strong personality and to her historical and cultural context. The details about Eleanor's healthy sexual appetite, as well as the appetites of her lovers, humanize figures that might otherwise come across as one-dimensional names in a history book.

In Weir's hands, the life of Eleanor is gripping, and Eleanor of Aquitaine reads almost like historical fiction at times. For the most part, however, Weir maintains a scholarly and detached tone, presenting material as a historian would: detailing the leading figures in the narrative, their motives, and the social and cultural norms that constrained human behavior.

Conclusion

Weir tells Eleanor's story deftly and with as much academic precision as is possible, making this book a necessary complement to other historical biographies of women, to other histories of medieval Europe, and to historical biography more broadly.