Eleanor of Aquitaine

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, times and influence of Eleanor of Aquitaine (c1122-1204) who was one of the most powerful women in Twelfth Century Europe, possibly in the entire Middle Ages. She inherited land from the Loire down to the Pyrenees, about a third of modern France. She married first the King of France, Louis VII, joining him on the Second Crusade. She became stronger still after their marriage was annulled, as her next husband, Henry Plantagenet became Henry II of England. Two of their sons, Richard and John, became kings and she ruled for them when they were abroad. By her death in her eighties, Eleanor had children and grandchildren in power across western Europe. This led to competing claims of inheritance and, for much of the next 250 years, the Plantagenet and French kings battled over Eleanor’s land.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Lindy Grant No other episodes
  Professor of Medieval History at the University of Reading
• Nicholas Vincent 2 episodes
  Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia
• Julie Barrau No other episodes
  University Lecturer in British Medieval History at the University of Cambridge

Reading list

• The Plantagenet Empire, 1154-1224
  Martin Aurell (Routledge, 2007) Google Books →
• The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries
  Marcus Bull and Catherine Leglu (eds.) (Boydell Press, 2005) Google Books →
• King John: New Interpretations
  S. D. Church (ed.) (Boydell Press, 1999) Google Books →
• Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe
  Anne Duggan (ed.) (Boydell Press, 1997) Google Books →
• The Angevin Empire
  John Gillingham (Bloomsbury Academic, 2000) Google Books →
• Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm
  Susan M. Johns (Manchester University Press, 2003) Google Books →
• Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings
  Amy Kelly (Harvard University Press, 1950) Google Books →
• Status, Authority and Regional Power: Aquitaine and France, 9th to 12th Centuries
  Jane Martindale (Ashgate, 1997) Google Books →
• Richard Coeur de Lion in History and Myth
  Janet L. Nelson (ed.) (King's College Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 1992) Google Books →
• The Historia Pontificalis of John of Salisbury
  John of Salisbury (trans. Marjorie Chibnall) (Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1956)
• Eleanor of Aquitaine
  Ralph V. Turner (Yale University Press, 2009) Google Books →
• A Brief History of Britain 1066-1485
  Nicholas Vincent (Robinson, 2011) Google Books →
• Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady
  Bonnie Wheeler and John C. Parsons (eds.) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) Google Books →

Related episodes

• Margaret of Anjou
  
  24 May, 2018 940 History of Europe
• Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
  
  21 Nov, 2019 900 History
• Mary, Queen of Scots
  
  2 Jul, 2020 940 History of Europe
• Marguerite de Navarre
  
  23 Nov, 2023 840 French and related literatures
• The Siege of Orléans
  
  24 May, 2007 940 History of Europe
• The Battle of Lincoln 1217
  
  4 May, 2017 940 History of Europe
• Marie Antoinette
  
  9 Apr, 2020 940 History of Europe
• The Anarchy
  
  1 Nov, 2012 940 History of Europe
• St Hilda
  
  5 Apr, 2007 270 History of Christianity
• William Cecil
  
  7 Mar, 2019 940 History of Europe

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: b06yfhqk

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yfhqk

Auto-category: 940.1 (Medieval History)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, Eleanor of Aquitaine was the most powerful woman in 12th century Europe, possibly in the entire Middle Ages.