Eleanor of Aquitaine A Biography Author:Marion Meade A insightful portrait of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the legendary woman who became the key political figure of the twelfth century. at the age of fifteen, she inherited one-quarter of modern-day France. But since she lived at a time when women as individuals had no rights and were thought unfit to rule, her land as well as her person were delegated t... more »o the custody of men. Her whole life, thereafter, became a struggle for the independence and political power which circumstances had denied her.
Eleanor became the wife of King Louis VII of France and later of King Henry II of England, as well as the mother of one of Western civilization's great heroes, Richard Coeur de Leon, and also one of the great villains, King John.