A glimpse of History: the Middle Ages

I ventured to stay with my decision to re-educate myself with "History without Fiction" before continuing with Sharon Kay Penman's writings. It was a good choice. Remember the battles I was tired of reading about and the silliness I appropriated with these? It took a short reading of Weir's Preface to "Eleanor of Aquitaine" to set me right on this; her explanation of the political arena in the Middle Ages explained it all.

Still, even as I began "Eleanor", I was pulled to continue with Penman's 2nd in her trilogy, "Falls the Shadow". It took reading Weir's Prologue of "Eleanor" to definitively stay my hand.

Prologue: 18 May 1152

In the Romanesque cathedral of Poiters a man and a woman stood before the high altar, exchanging wedding vows. It was a simple ceremony. The young man, aged 19, was stocky, with red hair, and restless with pent-up energy, knowing he was doing a daring thing. The woman, 11 years his senior and with long auburn locks, was exceptionally beautiful, very sophisticated, and a willing accomplice in this furtive ceremony.

Few would have guessed, from the lack of pomp and splendour, that the marriage of this couple was to change the face of Europe. Yet the bridegroom was Henry, later called Pantagenet, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, who had already established a reputation as one of the most formidable princes in Europe. Not only did he hold strategically important domains in what is now France, but he was also the heir to his mother Matilda's claim to the kingdom of England - a claim that few doubted he would prosecute successfully.

Now Henry of Anjou was about to extend his territories even farther, by marriage to one of the greatest heiresses of the Middle Ages. The woman who stood beside him was Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitou in her own right, and former Queen of France. Not only did she own most of the land between the Loire and the Pyrenees, but she was also renowned for her loveliness. In every way, she was a great prize for an aspiring ruler.

However, it was as well that Henry of Anjou was a young man of strong character, since his bride was also headstrong and wilful. Nor had she reached the age of 30 without acquiring a reputation for scandalous behaviour. Rumours of her affairs and unconventional conduct, both in France and abroad during the Second Crusade, were notorious throughout Christendom. Her marriage to Louis VII of France had recently been annulled, ostensibly on the grounds of consanguinity, but in reality because Eleanor had failed to produce a male heir. In those days, this would have been regarded as entirely the woman's fault, although Eleanor would have had good grounds for disagreeing with that. The evidence suggests, moreover, that it was she, not Loius, who had been the prime mover in the dissolution of their marriage.

Henry of Anjou was prepared to overlook the shady details of his bride's past so long as he could secure her desirable person and, more important, her great inheritance. In marrying her, hastily and without any display of appropriate ceremonial, the young Duke was aware that both he and his bride were defying their common overlord, King Loius of France himself, for neither had sought permission for their union, as was customary. Nor would it have been forthcoming had they done so, since even the saintly Loius would have forseen the consequences of such a marriage. Through it, and Henry's subsequent accession to the English throne in 1154, was founded the vast Angevin empire, which would stretch from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. Such an empire would pose a deadly threat to the much smaller kingdom of France.

But when Loius VII found out about the marriage, it was too late: the pattern of western European diplomacy and warfare had been set for the next four centuries.

This is Eleanor's story.

Oh my word!

But no more words. The rest you'll have to do yourselves.