Dimensions
130 x 200 x 30mm
Eleanor of Aquitaine was the only person ever to sit on the thrones of both France and England. In this account of the turbulent adventures of the extraordinary mother of Richard the Lionheart and King John, author Douglas Boyd takes us into the heart and mind of the woman who changed the shape of Europe for 300 years by marrying Henry of Anjou, to make him England's Henry II. Eleanor was a European with a continent wide vision and a peculiarly `modern' woman who rejected the subordinate female role decreed by the Church. Brought up in the comfort= and culture-loving Mediterranean civilisation of southern France, she also refused to be a consenting victim of ethnic cleansing. In this biography, using French, Old French, Latin and Occitan sources, Boyd lays bare as never before Eleanor's relationships and vividly brings to life the world she knew.