Eleanor of Aquitaine: queen and legend (review)

Abstract

Reviews 215 down. W e are introduced to German emperors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries before going back in time to be given potted summaries in turn of English and French history from the eleventh century on. The assumption seems to be that one can write a history of Europe by simply cobbling together a succession of different national histories. Thematic chapters on nobles and Crusaders, social and economic changes, and on intellectual and spiritual developments are more satisfying, although they are inevitably so brief that one worries whether students might simply rely on them to get through an exam. The author's emphasis is on giving the facts rather than in raising questions of methodology. The last section of the book, on the Late Middle Ages, is the least satisfactory, perhaps because it tries to cover too much ground in too short a space. The picture presented is a conventional one of dissolution of an established order. Litde thought seems to nave been given to understanding those forces shaping a new kind of culture infifteenth-centuryEurope, above all within an urban context. In a sense this is tbe consequence of adopting a very antiquated notion of 1500 as 'the end of the Middle Ages'. To continue with the myth of the period betwen 312 and 1500 as a single phase in European civUization is perhaps to invite an unsatisfactory conclusion. The book still takes five hundred pages to cover the ground the author has chosen. For those very general courses on medieval history such as might still be offered tofirstyear students, this book might provide some light for a complete novice. One would hope, however, that students would soon advance to more sophisticated reflections on historical processes. Constant M e w s Department of History Monash University Owen, D. D. R., Eleanor of Aquitaine: queen and legend, Oxford and Cambridge Mass., Blackwell, 1993; cloth; pp. x, 256; 15 plates, 1 map, 1 genealogical table; R.R.P. $69.95 [distibruted in Australia by Allen & Unwin]. Despite the abundance of books on this topical queen, Owen offers much to think about. The introduction raises the question of what Eleanor would have thought about her life and motivations, but dismisses the question on the possible grounds that were she alive today to tell, she would have forgotten! O w e n searches for the 'real' Eleanor, the woman, rather than the 216 Reviews politican. As a leading literary scholar, he wonders whether Eleanor was herself influenced by the literary culture with which later writers associated her. Chapter One represents a gentle attempt to suggest some elements of Eleanor's background that might have influenced her: the chansons de geste (Owen's special field), her paternal and maternal predecessors, the new stirrings of the 'Twelfth-century Renaissance', Arthurian stories and chivalry (again, Owen's specialty), and the clerical view of women. W e are reminded of the link between Queen Eleanor's effigy at Fontevrault and Robert of Arbrissel. However, there is no bint of anything particularly evocative of the sensations and context of a young girl at the time. As we move along through the public events that constitute all we know of Eleanor's life, she remains a shadow without clear substance. Even her 'peereless' (sic) beauty is banished, with a sweepingreferenceto rhetorical ekphrasis, So also is her 'affair' with Bernard de Ventadour (p. 41). Indeed, we know more about the unqueenly Heloise, who definitely could read and write Latin, whereas Eleanor only 'probably' could (p.37), who certainly has left letters (see p. 87 for Eleanor's 'false' letters), and who was non infima to look at, at least according to Abelard! Equally fruitless are Owen's attempts to link Eleanor with scholars of the time (p. 43). They are too 'puritanical' or 'gossipy' to be relied upon. Much of chapter Two, 'Life', is an interesting and informed retelling of Plantagenet and Capetian political history, with hints and allusions in regard to what Eleanor's part in them may have been, and from which we may imagine the Queen's thoughts and reactions. Even quotations of Eleanor's words come here from previous biographies; for example, ch. 2, nn...