Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France, Queen of England

Highly readable account of William Marshall's extraordinary life.

As a writer on the deep life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, this sits very high on my stack. It gives a good bit more thought to the biography and is a more up to date and scholarly than the ones that first brought my interest (Weir-the researcher, Kelly), yet it has the full scope. Highly recommended for devotees in search of the true Alienor.

Like many other readers have noted, the information is very good, but the book is so poorly written/edited, especially in the first chapters, that I was aghast. I don't understand how the publisher could let that happen. That said, Eleanor is a fascinating character, and this may be the only source available that attempts an even-handed analysis of her life and reign. For the amateur and professional historian, it is probably a must.

I really enjoy reading about Eleanor of Aquilaine, and read several books about this person in an interesting part of history. This book was generally well written.

Selected this book asa gift for my son-in-law, a Professor of Comparative Lit at LSU. He will be teaching a course of the troubadors in the Middle Englih period this winter. THis will help supplement his book, The Death of the Troubadors, and give more emphasis to the unique Eleanor of Acquitane. He aws pleased to receive it today as aChristmas gift.

Eleanore of Aquitaine was a topic our Humanities professor wanted us to research for a paper. This book was invaluable.

Very good book, strips away the myth and deals only with what the evidence suggests (a rare thing indeed in books about Eleanor). Great detail, however, the author has a terrible habit of repeating himself, which grated on me

My father was having a very difficult time finding this book in any store and two major bookstore chains told him until/unless it was reprinted he was out of luck. I went on line, immediately found it and received in time to give it to him for Christmas.

If you visit the bookshop in Fontevraud Abbey - where Eleanor is buried in the abbey church (not chapel) - you will find more books about her, both in English and in French, both biographies and novels, than just about anyone else. The vast majority of these have covers with fanciful portraits of the Queen: a blonde, a red head, a brunette, always beautiful of course even when she's wearing full armour. It's a pity that Professor Turner uses an equally fanciful portrait, taken from a 19th century window at Poitiers, as this book attempts to strip away all the nonsense that has developed and been written about Eleanor from the time she was still alive to the present day. This he does very successfully, removing much speculation although still not resisting the temptation to speculate himself from time to time and, while frowning on some of the silly psychological theories that have been used to explain the Plantagents in recent times, he still can't resist having a go with psychology to explain the unsatisfactory character of King John.Actually very little is really known about Eleanor so why is the book relatively long? This brings us to the first of two major faults: there is a great deal of repetition: if you think you've read what you've just read before then you probably have, in the last paragraph, the last page, the last chapter.... This certainly goes to explain why the book has been described above as tedious. For example we constantly read material such as , 'John, Elanor's youngest son, ....'; we are already quite aware who John was and don't need to be reminded; these constant adjectival phrases make tedious reading. The second fault is a common one with writers of history: an event is alluded to well before the narrative actually reaches that event, which can make confusing reading.Particularly interesting is the last chapter of the book where Professor Turner explains how various `black legends' have developed about Queen Eleanor, showing that they often have no foundation whatsoever or are based on various prejudices against women especially from church writers of the time. Professor Turner refers to Eleanor as been described as a murderess, adulteress etc; here in Fontevraud we love her: she has a garden and a cafe! You could even buy models of her tomb in the shops a while ago.

I recently found out that Eleanor was an ancestor of mine so I decided to read about her life and lifestyle so that I could know her a little better. This book is great. I looked at the other books concerning Eleanor but this one doesnt profess to know all about her but provides facts about what her life would have been like, and this was what I wanted. so thanks Ralph Turner as its a really interesting read. All facts and no fiction.

Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the greatest women who has ever lived, the wife of two kings who begat three kings of her own, boys whose savagery had them kill babies in their mothers' wombs, burn churches with women and children inside, rape and pillage and, in one scene, before the walls of holy Jerusalem, had 3,000 men and boys slaughtered by sword, careful not to strike the bones so as to preserve the sharpness of the swords, before having them disemboweled to recover swallowed jewels, the whole mess followed by mass incineration to recover whatever gold had escaped the evisceration. Eleanor's boys, encouraged by mummy dear, strove to overturn their father, Henry II (my favorite king), before falling on their knees, in tears, to beg his forgiveness when he outwitted them. Because Eleanor's first husband, Francis VII -- following the precepts of his church -- had relations with her only to procreate, he produced no male heirs. He thusly divorced Eleanor who immediately took up with the virile Henry II - a randy 19 to Eleanor's cougar 30 -- and produced 5 boys in rapid-fire succession: Arthur, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John. Francis VII finally had a boy, Philippe, who slept in the same bed with both Geoffrey and Richard, although at that epoch - in freezing castles -- men normally and chastely warmed each other (in a wonderful scene from Paul Strathern's equally wonderful book, THE MEDICI, Cosimo is in bed with his two sons, all three suffering together from gout). As Geoffrey and Richard are portrayed as handsome dudes in the fabulous film A LION IN WINTER, (and as I'm gay), I like to think of something warmer than disinterested companionship between Philippe, Geoffrey and Richard, especially as Philippe, in real life, mad with grief, threw himself into Geoffrey's grave when the lad died (I was going to say the `poor' lad, but as he was a mass murderer, rapist and j'en passé et des meilleurs - I'm also French -- the reader can come to his own conclusions). Henry was known to favor boys too but, as Eleanor said in A LION IN WINTER, What family doesn't have its ups and downs?Ralph V. Turner's ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE (Aquitaine where I happen to live) is a fine book, but I also highly appreciate Allison Weir's ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE. You'll find other wonderful books on Amazon concerning these incredible people, such as Reston's THE WARRIORS OF GOD, Boyle's BLONDEL'S SONG and McLynn's RICHARD & JOHN. My own wonderful books can also be found on Amazon under Michael Hone.

Reitero lo escrito en el anterior comentario sobre la falta de seguimiento de sus envios, los cuales, como en este caso, eran necesarios para un proyecto de tesis.

As a Professional historian the author is probably right in all the facts he writes about...but he deserves a special mention as an extremely boring writer !