Eleanor of Aquitaine (Penguin Classic Biography S.) - Softcover

Splendid in person, rank, and fortune, Queen of France - as the wife of Louis VII - and then of England, Eleanor of Aquitaine was worshipped by men, loved by her children, and idealised by the songs of the troubadours. Today her glamour, her patronage of the poets, and her throwing off of the ferocious constraints with which convention shackled women in the 12th century, are almost forgotten, as are her very real gifts as a politician and ruler. This book is an attempt to reconcile the paradoxes in the formal personality of this 'monstrous injurer of heaven and earth' who was clearly loved and admired by so many.

Desmond Seward is a highly-regarded historian of the late Middle Ages. He is the author of HENRY V AS WARLORD published in Classic Penguin Military History, THE MONKS OF WAR (Penguin), THE WARS OF THE ROSES and RICHARD III: ENGLAND'S BLACK LEGEND (Penguin).