Eleanor Av AQUITAINE

Abt 1122 - 1203  (~ 81 years)

• Name	Eleanor Av AQUITAINE
  Birth	Abt 1122	Aquitaine
  Gender	Female
  Occupation	Dronning
  Residence	England
  Death	1 Apr 1203
  Notes	Hun ble skilt fra Ludvig VII 21. mars 1152 på grunn av utroskap, men giftet seg da straks igjen med Henrik II av England som også var hertug i Normandi. Eleanor OF AQUITAINE, also called ELEANOR OF GUYENNE, French ÉLÉONORE, or ALIÉNOR, D'AQUITAINE, or DE GUYENNE (b. c. 1122--d. April 1, 1204, Fontevrault, Anjou, Fr.), queen consort of both Louis VII of France (in 1137-52) and Henry II of England (in 1152-1204) and moth er of Richard I the Lion-Heart and John of England. She was perhaps the most powerful woman in 12th-century Europe. Eleanor was the daughter and heiress of William X, duke of Aquitaine and count of Poitiers, who possessed one of the largest domains in France--larger, in fact, than those held by the French king. Upon William's death in 1137 she inherited the Duc hy of Aquitaine and in July 1137 married the heir to the French throne, who succeeded his father, Louis VI, the following month. Eleanor became queen of France, a title she held for the next 15 years. Beautiful, capricious, and adored by Louis, El eanor exerted considerable influence over him, often goading him into undertaking perilous ventures. From 1147 to 1149 Eleanor accompanied Louis on the Second Crusade to protect the fragile Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, founded after the First Crusade only 50 years before, from Turkish assault. Eleanor's conduct during this expedition, especiall y at the court of her uncle Raymond of Poitiers at Antioch, aroused Louis's jealousy and marked the beginning of their estrangement. After their return to France and a short-lived reconciliation, their marriage was annulled in March 1152. Accordin g to feudal customs, Eleanor then regained possession of Aquitaine, and two months later she married the grandson of Henry I of England, Henry Plantagenet, count of Anjou and duke of Normandy. In 1154 he became, as Henry II, king of England, wit h the result that England, Normandy, and the west of France were united under his rule. Eleanor had only two daughters by Louis VII; to her new husband she bore five sons and three daughters. The sons were William, who died at the age of three; He nry; Richard, the Lion-Heart; Geoffrey, duke of Brittany; and John, surnamed Lackland until, having outlived all his brothers, he inherited, in 1199, the crown of England. The daughters were Matilda, who married Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony an d Bavaria; Eleanor, who married Alfonso VIII, king of Castile; and Joan, who married successively William II, king of Sicily, and Raymond VI, count of Toulouse. Eleanor would well have deserved to be named the "grandmother of Europe." During her childbearing years, she participated actively in the administration of the realm and even more actively in the management of her own domains. She was instrumental in turning the court of Poitiers, then frequented by the most famous trou badours of the time, into a centre of poetry and a model of courtly life and manners. She was the great patron of the two dominant poetic movements of the time: the courtly love tradition, conveyed in the romantic songs of the troubadours, and th e historical matière de Bretagne, or "legends of Britanny," which originated in Celtic traditions and in the Historia regum Britanniae, written by the chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth some time between 1135 and 1139. The revolt of her sons against her husband in 1173 put her cultural activities to a brutal end. Since Eleanor, 11 years her husband's senior, had long resented his infidelities, the revolt may have been instigated by her; in any case, she gave he r sons considerable military support. The revolt failed, and Eleanor was captured while seeking refuge in the kingdom of her first husband, Louis VII. Her semi-imprisonment in England ended only with the death of Henry II in 1189. On her release , Eleanor played a greater political role than ever before. She actively prepared for Richard's coronation as king, was administrator of the realm during his crusade to the Holy Land, and, after his capture by the Duke of Austria on Richard's retu rn from the east, collected his ransom and went in person to escort him to England. During Richard's absence, she succeeded in keeping his kingdom intact and in thwarting the intrigues of his brother John Lackland and Philip II Augustus, kin g of France, against him. In 1199 Richard died without leaving an heir to the throne, and John was crowned king. Eleanor, nearly 80 years old, fearing the disintegration of the Plantagenet domain, crossed the Pyrenees in 1200 in order to fetch her granddaughter Blanche fro m the court of Castile and marry her to the son of the French king. By this marriage she hoped to insure peace between the Plantagenets of England and the Capetian kings of France. In the same year she helped to defend Anjou and Aquitaine agains t her grandson Arthur of Brittany, thus securing John's French possessions. In 1202 John was again in her debt for holding Mirebeau against Arthur, until John, coming to her relief, was able to take him prisoner. John's only victories on the Conti nent, therefore, were due to Eleanor. She died in 1204 at the monastery at Fontevrault, Anjou, where she had retired after the campaign at Mirebeau. Her contribution to England extended beyond her own lifetime; after the loss of Normandy (1204), it was her own ancestral lands and no t the old Norman territories that remained loyal to England. She has been misjudged by many French historians who have noted only her youthful frivolity, ignoring the tenacity, political wisdom, and energy that characterized the years of her matur ity. "She was beautiful and just, imposing and modest, humble and elegant"; and, as the nuns of Fontevrault wrote in their necrology: a queen "who surpassed almost all the queens of the world." BIBLIOGRAPHY. Amy Kelly, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings (1950), is a major work with complete notes and a good bibliography and sources. H.G. Richardson, "The Letters and Charters of Eleanor of Aquitaine," English Historical Review, 74:193-213 (1959) , adds some unpublished sources to those gathered by Amy Kelly. Régine Pernoud, Aliénor d'Aquitaine (1965), gives more attention to the personality and politics of Eleanor herself, independently from the history of her two husbands. Eleanor of Aquitaine (c. 1122-1204), queen consort of France (1137-1152) and queen consort of England (1154-1204), born in France. She inherited the duchy of Aquitaine from her father in 1137, the same year in which she was married to Louis VI I of France. She accompanied her husband on the Second Crusade to the Holy Land, where it was rumoured that she committed adultery. The scandal, and the fact that she had not given the king a male heir, resulted in an annulment of their marriag e in 1152 under the pretext of blood kinship between her and the king. Later that year, Eleanor married and gave her possessions to Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, who in 1154 became Henry II, king of England. In 1170, the queen induced her hus band to invest their son Richard the Lion-Heart with her personal dominions of Gascony, Aquitaine, and Poitou. When Richard and his brothers rebelled against their father in 1173, Eleanor, already alienated from the king because of his unfaithfuln ess, supported her sons. Consequently, she was placed in confinement until 1185. After her release, she secured the succession of her son Richard, who had become heir apparent at the death in 1183 of his eldest brother. From the death of King Henr y II in 1189 until Richard's return from the Third Crusade in 1194, Eleanor ruled as regent. During this time, she foiled the attempt of her son John in 1193 to conspire with France against the new king. After the return of Richard, she arrange d a reconciliation between the two brothers. Eleanor continued to be prominent in public affairs until she retired to the abbey in Fontevrault, France, where she died on April 1, 1204.1 1"Eleanor of Aquitaine," Microsoft(r) Encarta(r) 99 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
  Person ID	I7601	Valdres Slekt
  Last Modified	20 Nov 2007

  
  

  Family 1	Henrik II,   b. 5 Mar 1133, Le MAN, Frankrike d. 1189 (Age 55 years)
  Marriage	1154
  Children	1. Henrik LØVEN,   b. England   2. Rikard LØVHJERTE,   b. 8 Sep 1157, Oxford, England d. 6 Apr 1199 (Age 41 years) + 3. Johan Uten LAND,   b. 1167, England d. 1216 (Age 49 years)
  Family ID	F7089	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	20 Nov 2007

  
  

  Family 2	Ludvig VII Den YNGRE,   b. Abt 1120, Paris, Frankrike d. Yes, date unknown
  Marriage	1137
  Divorce	Yes, date unknown
  Divorced	21 Mar 1152	Skilt
  	Divorced
  Family ID	F3396	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	20 Nov 2007