Eleanor did not stay at home—she decided to go with her husband as a result of a sermon preached by Bernard—insisting upon taking part in the Crusade because she was the feudal leader of the knights in Aquitaine. Months of preparation followed, and on March 31, Easter Sunday, Louis started the march to the Holy Land, intending to meet the army of the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad in Constantinople. While a Crusade was meant to be uncomfortable, full of penance and hardship, Eleanor’s participation was marked by theatrics and luxury: she launched her own forces from Vezelay, the supposed location of Mary Magdalene’s tomb, to emphasize the role of women in the campaign, and not only did she bring her royal ladies-in-waiting and 300 non-noble vassals, she had a huge train of servants and baggage—and there is a rumor that she and her ladies dressed as Amazons, with one breast bare to dazzle the troops.
While the Crusade itself accomplished little, it meant a lot to Eleanor. She was able to travel, see new places and exotic cultures, and visit friendly foreign monarchs. The Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus threw a party for Louis and Eleanor; the Greek historian Nicetas Choniates compared her to Penthe-silea, the mythical queen of the Amazons, and it was his report that said she earned the epithet chrysopous (“golden-foot”) from the fringe of golden cloth that decorated her robe. After Constantinople, though, the Crusade began to go very badly. Food began to be scarce, and the Crusaders were harassed and ambushed by Turks almost every step of the way. They discovered that Conrad’s army had been almost annihilated by the Turks in Dorylaeum, and near Mount Cadmos an attack almost cost Louis his life, but they pushed on, hoping to reach Antioch and the court of Prince Raymond of Poitiers, Eleanor’s uncle. When they arrived, the army was without food or water, having had to drink the blood of their horses and even eat the flesh of horses and asses killed in the fighting. Eleanor’s baggage train had been pitched into a deep canyon, and they were without money, while the army was dressed in rags, starving and sick.
The rest at Prince Raymond’s court was exactly what Eleanor and Louis needed, and while they stayed there, she discovered a great friend in her uncle. John of Salisbury (a notorious gossip) reported in his Historia pontificalis that she and Prince Raymond were often together, speaking in “constant, almost continuous conversations” that left Louis out. Raymond was Eleanor’s father’s youngest brother, and like many of her line, was tall, handsome, athletic, aggressive, and very masculine—all things that Louis was not. Raymond was also only eight years older than Eleanor, which fed the rumors that she fell into an adulterous (and incestuous) affair. Despite their like-mindedness, it is quite probable that Raymond simply hoped for military aid to protect Antioch against the Turks and was doing all he could to get it and save his city. Eleanor, for her part, was learning about maritime conventions, which would later become the basis of admiralty law, and she brought those conventions to her own lands, to the island of Oleron, in 1160 and later to England as well. She also was learning how to create trade agreements with Constantinople and trading centers in the Mediterranean and the Holy Land. And so when the jealous Louis demanded to leave Antioch (without helping Raymond with his problems with the Turks) and go at once to Jerusalem, Eleanor balked— she wanted to stay with her uncle and help him fight—and Louis had her dragged out by force and made her come with him to Jerusalem.
Louis and the barely recovered Emperor Conrad, upon discovering that Jerusalem was not in immediate danger of attack, decided to attack the Muslim state of Damascus—ironically, the only Muslim state willing to be on good terms with Christians—and the Muslim leader called upon his allies to defend him. When Louis heard that a vast army was approaching, he wisely turned his own army back to Jerusalem, then decided to sail home. Eleanor is not mentioned in the chronicles of this period, but it was no doubt because of her quarrel with Louis that they took separate ships home. After an adventure of being shipwrecked and lost for several months, the disillusioned couple sought out the pope for an annulment in 1149, arguing that they were too closely related in blood (an issue of consanguinity) and that was why their union had displeased God and in 12 years only produced one daughter. Pope Eugenius III tried to reconcile the couple, even getting them to sleep in a specially prepared bed so that Eleanor would have sexual intercourse with Louis. Their second child—Alix of France—was the result, but, being a girl, she was useless for dynastic purposes, and the marriage was doomed.
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