Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings

For over half a century, readers have turned to Amy Kelly's book for an exciting look at a broad swath of European history. From 1137 through her death in 1204, Eleanor was a principal player on the stage of history. She was married to two kings -- the mediocre Louis VII and the hot-tempered Henry II -- and mother to two other kings -- Richard the Lion-Hearted and King John the chicken-hearted. She had travelled to Constantinople, Jerusalem, Germany, and all around England and France. Among the characters that pass through this history are St Bernard of Clairvaux, the Abbot Segur, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus, Saladin, King Philip Augustus of France, Thomas Becket, Popes Celestine III and Innocent III, and hundreds of nobles, knights, clerics, and others. This history is a pageant, but one played for keeps. Excommunications and interdicts were bandied about as frequently as harsh words; and every fight had an ecclesiastical dimension. Is your wife getting long in the tooth? Just get the clergy to declare that the marriage should be annulled because of consanguinity (which consanguinity was of course known by the kings who married their cousins). Just as he is about to wed Ingeborg of Denmark, Philip Augustus has second thoughts; and the outraged Dane betook herself to a nunnery and began a years-long letter-writing campaign that finally got the attention of Innocent III. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, the Normans held both England and a large part of France. The Capetian kings vainly tried to take pieces of France back from the Angevin kings Henry II and Richard, but only under John Lackland (appropriately named) did they begin to have any measure of success. Where was Eleanor in all this? To her 83rd year, she was a player. Although the chronicles tended to follow the kings, Eleanor was never far away. While Richard was being held for ransom in Germany, it was she who held the country together while John vainly attempted to forge an alliance with the enemy of his dynasty. Although Kelly's work is scholarly, she keeps her sources in unobtrusive endnotes that do not interrupt the flow of the text. If you want to read a history that is a real page-turner, I heartily recommend this book. One of the main things I learned from the book is that Richard the Lion-Hearted was not the great hero of the English as he has been portrayed. For one thing, he bankrupted the country twice, first with his crusade and then with his ransome, and he didn't even speak a word of English. And he preferred to spend his time in Normandy.

This is a scholarly work that does not attempt to cater to the pop-culture-obsessed masses. If you are looking for a book that is simple and easy-to-read, this one is not for you. Kelly takes an in-depth look at the life of one of the most fascinating people of all time, and she writes for people who already know something about the period. This book was written well before the recent trend towards revisionist and dumbed-down history, and the serious reader is better off for it.

Ms. Kelly's biography of Eleanor is one of the most engaging examples of historical fiction that I have ever read, and as a result, I've re-read this book three times. Ms. Kelly clearly identifies her primary sources and is frank about issues in Eleanor's life that are disputed. She also writes, when appropriate, with a sense of irony that is probably lost on less perceptive readers -- and thus the inappropriate references to "self-righteous" style (an unfortunate misnomer common to those unfamiliar with English in our age of sloppy thinking and writing since the reader probably means "over-wrought" style, which is used in cases where Ms. Kelly is conveying some idea of the weightiness and pomp that are perceptible at courtly occasions. How anyone could be "horrified" by this book is beyond me since that word is more appropriate to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-type of movie than a fine biography based on scholarship. I think that that particular reader's judgement tells us more about his/her state of mind than it does about this book. Ms. Kelly does us all a great favor by relating something about the huge constellation of important characters who constituted the Renaissance of the 12th Century and who played a role in Eleanor's life. After all, she moved in the most elevated circles of one of the most intriguing eras in history. To those who find it baffling that Ms. Kelly relates information about such key figures as Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbe Suger, Abelard and Heloise, Kings Louis, Philip, Henry, Richard, and John, and that she conveys something about the vast difference in outlook between the "heretical" inhabitants of the langue d'oc versus their couterparts in Paris, I can only ask: why read at all? This was one of the most active periods of philosophical development in the Middle Ages, and Ms. Kelly's discussion of the theological arguments between the nominalists and realists is essential. Perhaps a bit of brushing up on history and philosophy is necessary for some people, and I always have on hand the family trees of the various royal families. How sad that the disgorgement of our public schools seems to have created a demand for dumbing down and stripping out of the very things that go into re-creating the spirit of Eleanor's time. One cannot read a book about this period without having some previous knowledge of history. Otherwise, Ms. Kelly would have had to supply long digressions of instructional material that would have interrupted the story line. In other words, one cannot have a perfect vacuum between one's ears when reading beyond the world of today's political slogans and sport scores.

How depressing that my fellow reviewers can't appreciate the elegance and sophistication of Kelly's writing. A beautiful and fascinating insight into one of history's most remarkable women, and gee, if you have to use the dictionary once in a while, all the better.

While somewhat dated in language and style, this is an extremely well researched and engaging biography of one of History's most interesting and influential women. As a definitely "historical" biography it covers in scholarly detail the multiple political and religious characters involved with Eleanor and, by association, the causes they espoused. This is not, then, a work for romance readers seeking the mythic chivalry and trappings found in popular works (though the richly detailed descriptions of the age and its nuances present just as compelling a story). This is rather a book for those interested in a comprehensive, historical biography of easily the most fascinating of all Medieval women, and a perceptive glimpse into the forces which surronded her world.