anything could happen

Notes: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Alison Weir

It’s probably not a good idea to approach a book of medieval history with high entertainment expectations. Life in twelfth-century Europe? A grim, relentless grind of war, disease, famine (or food so bad famine’s almost preferable) and unquestioning obedience to God, king, overlord, husband—even for the Queen of England and duchess of what constitutes most of modern-day France.

So my attitude going into Eleanor of Aquitaine—dread, fortified by strong coffee—was just about right. And wouldn’t you know? The book turned out to be kind of a page-turner. Though textually dense, it’s under 400 pages (sans notes and sources) and pretty good about relating the known facts about a medieval woman circumventing some pretty formidable cultural obstacles to shape the history of the continent in a nice, tight narrative.

Alison Weir didn’t have a lot of direct source material to work with. At that time, queens mattered for 1) their dowries, 2) their dynastic connections, and 3) their baby yields (Eleanor had nine children who survived infancy), and her name appeared on documents only when she was acting as regent for her invasion-happy husband, Richard II. So Weir primarily relies on contemporary accounts by sometimes-petty, often gossipy, intermittently reliable monks and priests—the only literate members of this society. She’s left to do some speculation and creative storytelling, which works for me. I’d just as soon not read the minutiae of military campaigns and royal rulings.

Medieval history isn’t really my thing; I’m more of an early American gal. And while 18th century America may be another country, the things it cares about—individual liberty and self determination, reason, natural rights, etc.—are more or less the same things Westerners care about now. Twelfth century Europe, on the other hand, is another planet, a berserk intermediate zone between hell and purgatory with scant regard for human life and nothing resembling our current conception of justice. (It’s easy to see why this period is a favorite of fantasy and sci-fi writers.) Its ruling classes, including Eleanor’s two husbands and various crowned sons (and occasionally, her) vacillate between unchecked abuse of power—murder, plunder, ruinous taxation—and the donning of hair shirts. This was the age of the Crusades, and Eleanor was famous for accompanying her first husband, Louis VII to the Holy Land. A lot of the West’s current hypocrisies and hysterias concerning Muslims started here (remember when George W. inserted “crusade” into a post-9/11 speech?). And then, as now, the conflict is as rooted in limited land and resources as much as a surfeit of religious feeling.

This was my second run at this book. I set Eleanor aside after some 40 pages a couple years ago because … who knows, the siren song of some message board or crime novel or sitcom? So once again, score! for book challenges.

Three down, 27 to go.