Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend

by D. D. R. Owen

Overview

This fascinating new biography tells the story of one of the most influential figures of the twelfth century, Eleanor of Aquitaine, successively queen of France and of England. In tracing her life story Professor Owen reassesses her political importance during the reigns of her husband Henry II and her sons, Richard the Lionheart and John, and aims to separate the true historical Eleanor from the Eleanor of legend.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780631201014
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	05/01/1996
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	7.87(w) x 9.84(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

D. D. R. Owen is the author of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend, published by Wiley.

Table of Contents

List of Plates.

Map of Plantagenet and French Dominions.

The Family of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

1. Lineage.

2. Life.

3. Legend.

4. Literature.

5. Portrait of a Queen.

Chronology.

Abbreviations.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Roy Owen's intimate knowledge of medieval literature and his discrimination in using it enable him to look at Eleanor of Aquitaine both through the legends that built up around her life and through medieval epic and romance .... A stimulating and challenging book that depicts Eleanor sympathetically as a credible person." Marjorie Chibnall, Emeritus Fellow, Clare College, Cambridge

"D. D. R. Owen, well-known for his translations from Cretien de Troyes, has written a fine addition to the already substantial shelf of Eleanor of Aquitaine biography. He has something brand new and convincing to argue: that Eleanor's personality must have been shaped by the literary milieu in which she grew up, and that legends about her, in turn, shaped some of the literary traditions that developed alongside and after her career. This biography is as much about the literary response, medieval and modern, to the facts of Eleanor's life as it is a record of the facts themselves." Medium Aevum

"This is a fascinating and scholarly examination of how history and romance have become interwoven in Eleanor of Aquitaine. Recommended for academic and large public libraries." Library Journal

"Eleanor of Aquitaine is the stuff of which rather too much history has been made. It is therefore a relief to read D. D. R. Owen's new and well-judged assessment of this fascinating and enigmatic figure. This biography succeeds where so many others have failed precisely because of its honesty and its refusal to compromise with the evidence." Historian

From the Publisher

Eleanor has remained a staple of storytellers for 800 years, yet according to Owen (Univ. of St. Andrews), too often the legends that grew up around her name were taken as history. This is true even of modern histories such as Amy Kelly's Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings (1950). Part biography and part literary study, Owen's book attempts to separate the historical personage from the figure of legend and romance. It argues that Eleanor was the model for Guenevere in the great Arthurian romances of her time. While insisting on treating as history only those facts supported by the historical record, Owen's work does speculate on what the courtly romances tell us of Eleanor's character. Though not a full biography, this is a fascinating and scholarly examination of how history and romance have become interwoven in Eleanor of Aquitaine. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.-- Bruce R. Schueneman, Texas A&I Univ. Lib., Kingsville

Library Journal