It is surprising how much has been written about Eleanor, as we know so very little about her. Her creation of the “Court of Love” is for many scholars her greatest invention, even though there is little to no evidence that she actually created anything of the sort. Even in writing the present biography, it has not always been possible to stay solely with the facts: some speculation, rumor, and gossip must be invoked in order for the reader to understand not only how she lived, but also how she was perceived. Her myth is a rich mixture of traditions—and, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, she remains a mysterious and enigmatic riddle.
The ingredients of the Eleanor legend can be seen in the concerns of her time: the constantly tilting political balance between France and England, the growing cult of the Virgin Mary in the church, and the resurgence of Celtic literature and mythological figures all used Eleanor as a foundation for their growth, and she in turn used them as well to augment her prestige and achieve her own goals. Eleanor was first queen of France, and then queen of England, helping England rise in power and strength: to portray her in myth as an evil queen who had gone over to the enemy gave the French a wonderful personage to blame for their troubles. It may be surprising to claim Eleanor as a religious symbol, but when her poets elevated her to the pedestal that women stand on in courtly literature and poetry, she became an ideal: woman as earthly mother, with children of her own, and as a mother to her country, but she also became a spiritual mother, connected to the cult of the Virgin Mary, the intermediary between God and men. Eleanor also became representative of the rebirth of the feminine myth seen in Celtic tales, especially the ancient myth of Melusine, a fairy queen who helped her husband, Raimondin, build his country and his fortune. Melusine was well known from Scotland to the south of France, a half-human fairy princess who married a king and had many strong but strangely gifted children. She would disappear for weeks at a time, but her absences would correspond to the arrival of a new church or castle to add to Raimondin’s wealth. In legend, as in history, we have a woman who was the source for a nobleman’s chance to become rich and powerful. With her fairy ancestry, Eleanor was easily accepted as a woman who offered a different, alternate world through her love of troubadours, music, and courtly literature, especially the idea of a round table where all men were equal—a social group based on confidence and esteem instead of on aggression and strength—and a place where women were free to choose their lovers and offer their bodies as they willed, instead of being seen as chattels.
As of this date, we do not have a final academic or professional biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, probably because so little factual evidence survives— even in her own time, chroniclers had to speculate about her life and motivations, and later writers frequently took negative gossip as fact, and thus many of the nasty rumors that arose during her life became “history” after her death—but nevertheless, Eleanor marks a turning point in the history of European civilization. Despite the valid historiographical need to separate fact from fiction, it must be admitted that much of her attraction to readers stems not from her life, but from her magnificent legend.
World History
