I don’t remember learning about the 12th century at school. And that’s odd because our sensibly sequential history syllabus began with the Romans at the beginning of what we now call Year 7. It then, at the end of Year 9, arrived at 1760, which was where the O level syllabus began. So Eleanor and her tribe must have been in there somewhere. I suspect that either the politics were so complicated that they skated over it or, it was just too involved for me to get my pubescent head round so my brain simply wiped it. Either way, all I knew about Eleanor was some outdated nonsense about “fighting the infidel” and a few vague impressions courtesy of Katherine Hepburn in 1968 film The Lion in Winter.
Then I heard Alison Weir talking about Eleanor on the radio. And I was intrigued. I have read Weir before but not this biography, published in 2008, It is, apparently. her personal best seller.
Eleanor was extraordinary. She lived to be 82, married twice (Louis VII of France and Henry II of England) and probably had other liaisons. She bore ten children and there is an assumption of miscarriages and stillbirths in the gaps. She also travelled extensively including a desperately uncomfortable crusade to the middle East. It is hard to imagine her physical stamina in an era without modern medical care or transport.
What is now western France was a patchwork of provinces eagerly coveted both by France and England so there was constant war between factions – often between brothers and other close relations. Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, often had to deal with her own children fighting. She became a skilled and pragmatic politician. Once her second husband (who imprisoned her for supporting his enemies) was dead and their son Richard acceded to the English throne, the elderly Eleanor ruled England with commonsense and skill while he was absent crusading for several years.
I also learned a lot about Thomas Becket with whom Henry II famously quarrelled. And, as so often in this book, Weir debunks many myths. Becket had been Henry’s chancellor and close friend for several years long before Canterbury loomed. He didn’t want the job and was, almost unbelievably in 2026, ordained as a priest only the day before he was installed as Archbishop. After that he became an ascetic – a colourful character and never a man to do things by halves. Thereafter he was a thorn in Henry’s side, as we all know.
Bishoprics were political posts and it was all pretty corrupt. It would be easy to assume, given their behaviour, that they were a bunch of exploitative, cynical unbelievers but, no. The superstitions which had by then firmly attached themselves to Christianity were very strong in almost everyone. There was a widespread and deep-seated fear of hell fire so they were constantly seeking absolution for appalling crimes (such as Henry’s murder of Becket). Moreover they were all terrified of excommunication – a punishment issued so readily there was a sense of The Red Queen and “off with his head” to it.
Meanwhile marriage in ruling circles was, of course, simply political. However, I was amused and surprised to read how easily dynastic marriages were ended in the 12th century – usually on grounds of consanguinity. Well, yes, these people were almost always related to each other at distant cousin level. That seems to have been routinely ignored at the time of the wedding and conveniently foregrounded when the marriage was no longer required.
It all meant, of course, that women and female children were simply pawns in male manoeuvres. But Eleanor was feisty and very much her own woman at a time when for a woman to mange her own life was almost unthinkable. You might almost describe her as an early (the first?) feminist.
This is a wonderfully well researched book. Using contemporary chronicles, Weir has managed to document where Eleanor was and what she was doing for almost every year of her life. Where there are gaps because she isn’t mentioned in accounts, Weir says so and speculates about probabilities.
It’s detailed, thorough and convincing – and best of all, written accessibly without academic fussiness. It isn’t just about Eleanor either. It is a compressive account of government in the 12th century. And it has begun to plug a gap in my education.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: Emma by Jane Austen
