The stillness of the sepulchral space where the tomb of Eleanor of Aquitaine is preserved, located in the royal abbey of Our Lady of Fontevrault, contrasts with the intense activity of the queen throughout her long life. Daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine, William X, and Eleanor of Châtellerault, Eleanor was the protagonist of the most remarkable events of an era that consolidated the instructions of the European kingdoms of Western Christendom.

Her death, on April 1, 1204, at the approximate age of 82, took place four years after returning from the Iberian Peninsula where she had gone to choose among her granddaughters, the infantas of Castile (daughters of her daughter Leonor and Alfonso VIII), the one who would become the wife of the future French monarch Louis VIII, the infanta Blanca. This fact exemplifies the special fortitude of a woman of advanced age embarked on a long journey.

It is not easy to separate the woman from her legend, even for those who dedicate themselves to the historical task, given that the abundant testimonies preserved about the character drew from the first moment in the 13th century, a picture that was far from neutral. Stories, chronicles or ballads after her death show, among other legends, a queen who broke the molds and feminine clichés of the Middle Ages by falling in love, for example, with the Sultan of Egypt Saladin, committing adultery with her uncle Raymond in Antioch. All this reflects that, from the very beginning, summary judgments were made about a liberal and independent woman, transmitting subjective opinions about her character that have been perpetuated almost to the present day. And also fed by the lines of French classics such as Jules Michelet, Charles Petit-Dutaillis or Joseph Calmette, who called her "fierce and violent", "cheerful and sensual" or "southern adventurer".

Leonor belonged to the Aquitaine ducal lineage, among which her grandfather, the controversial William IX the Troubadour, one of the most influential men of his time in the promotion of courtly love, stood out. After the death of her father, Duke William X, during his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, she became heiress to one of the most important territorial areas of the continent and wife of the usufructuary of the throne of France, the future Louis VII, in one of the most strategic diplomatic operations of the time (1137). The marriage project with the Capet ended up failing and after her trip to the Holy Land during the Second Crusade a separation was consummated that counted on a contrary papal opinion (1151).

Barely a year later, the duchess arranged a new marriage with the Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, Henry Plantagenet, ten years her junior. Little did she imagine that the Norman would become king of England (1153) and that she would be crowned at Westminster, bringing with her an important progeny, giving birth to three girls and five boys that ensured dynastic continuity.

Chivalry and courtesy shaped the behavioral models of an era led by a mainly military aristocracy in a warrior society. Building an ethic for the whole of that society was part of the raison d'être of the Church, which promoted a model of life that refined conduct on and off the battlefield. William IX, the Queen's paternal grandfather, is linked to the impulse of the genre of courtly love and the troubadour forms of Occitan lyric poetry. The fin'amors or "fine love", the axis of the courtly spirit, presupposed a desire to love full of obstacles that made those who aspired to it virtuous in the face of satisfactory waiting, generating the most beautiful verses of "vassal" admiration for the beloved woman.

Likewise, Leonor is attributed a leading role in the extension of these literary traditions of the Midi in northern France, through her first marriage, and in Normandy and England, through her second. Some authors have even related certain compositions to the figure and experiences of a woman labeled early on with an "unattainable beauty" and with an "independent and indomitable" character. A good example of this is the Treatise De Amore by Andrew the Chaplain (c. 1150-1220) or songs and historical tales that are supposed to have been composed by scholars, troubadours and erudites around his court of Poitiers, as a center for the promotion of the arts; thesis the latter questioned, given that creativity in literature, also counting on the development of the Arthurian cycle, is part of a great continental change of mentalities and spirits. But be that as it may, the collective traditions will continue to identify his disturbing and controversial figure with a historical and literary legend that he could even surpass.

Around 1165 Benoît de Saint-Maure, in the Roman de Troie or Poem of Troy, identified Eleanor of Aquitaine with: "she who has in herself so much beauty, she who also possesses much nobility, glory and courage, virtue, sense and honor, goodness, moderation and purity, generosity and probity, she whose merits erase the misdeeds of all the other ladies, she in whom prudence abounds, she who, wherever she goes in the whole world, has no equal. Mighty lady, wife of a mighty king".

This royal strength contrasted with the weakness of a marriage after the entrance on the scene of Rosamunda Cliffort (1165), the beautiful mistress of Henry. The legend will attribute to Leonor the murder of Rosamunda, according to the ballad Fair Rosamond.

The historiography points out that the jealousy of an already mature Leonor before Rosamunda, provoked a matrimonial confrontation and the rebellion of three of her sons against their father (1173). But far from detonating a family conflict, which was captured in the well-known film written by James Goldman and today converted into a classic of the seventh art(The lion in winter, 1968), the insurrection manifested the conflicts of interests and the governmental problems of two great political powers under the command of the same king, but separated by the English Channel: the emerging Norman England and the feudal Occitan Aquitaine. During the conflict, a Eleanor dressed in male attire was arrested by her husband's troops and taken to the castle of Chinon, where she was initially arrested and then transferred to the castle of Salisbury, until the death of the king that took place in 1189.

The feudal governmental complexity of the continental territories in the hands of his sons and future heirs lit the fuse of a powder keg that also splashed a king of France interested in undermining the power of the Plantagenet, mainly installed in the British Isle. His sons Henry the Younger (the first-born), Godfrey and Richard came into conflict with their father, perhaps advised by a rebuffed mother (1173). This is reflected in the news of contemporary chroniclers such as the English Ralph of Diceto, Gervase of Canterbury, William of Newburgh or Roger of Howden, who do not hesitate to make the queen the "soul of the rebellion". The letter addressed to Eleanor by the Archbishop of Rouen, Rotrou, who reminds her of the unity of a sacramental bond to avoid the ruin of territories at war, was of no use: "Therefore we all, in a unanimous complaint and lamentation, deplore that you, such a prudent woman, have separated from your husband [...]. Worse still, and this is even more contrary to the rules, you allow your children, the progeny of your lord king, to rebel against their father, as the prophet precisely says: "I have nourished and brought up children, but they have rebelled against me" [Isaiah I, 2].

The death of her eldest son (1183) and of her husband six years later marked the beginning of a new era, as Richard became the Plantagenet heir; a monarchy beset by his new political rival, Philip II Augustus of France (1180-1223). The Capet did not cease to fracture and conquer a large part of the territorial puzzle dependent on the Angevins and Eleanor, retired to the abbey of Fontevrault, still had to intervene politically when her son the Lionheart died to support the coronation of her son John without Land (1199), who would begin a complex reign.

Inhumed in the holy place of Fontevrault, where her second husband and her son Richard were laid to rest, her tomb presents a recumbent sculpture in polychrome stone, personally commissioned to be placed in the nave of the church. Her head, girded with a royal crown, sample a serene face and her hands hold an open book that denotes the character of a pious woman meditating before a psalter or a courtly romance? It would not be unreasonable to think that the copy she holds is a poetic text and an example of "courtly love", a literary genre that was intimately linked to the queen, since the cultivation of the arts and letters were part of the ducal courtly environment of Poitiers where she grew up. However, the pious models of her time incline us to think that it is rather a religious book.

William the Marshal (c. 1145-1219): a man with a sense of loyalty to a dynasty

The Historie de Guillaume le Maréchal, written in Anglo-Norman in the second third of the 13th century, tells us the exciting life of a man with a similar projection in the historical-literary field of the Hispanic Cid. Nephew of Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, William is documented from very early in his life serving Eleanor in France in the face of the revolt of Godfrey of Lusignan (1168). His courage and defense of the queen on that occasion, even after being wounded and taken prisoner, earned him a special closeness with the Aquitanian who even paid his ransom. In time he would become master of chivalry and mentor of his son Henry the Younger until his death (1183). From then on he went on to serve his father, King Henry II, also until the end of his days (1189) and later his new sovereigns, Richard the Lionheart, John the Landless and Henry III; even in spite of the rivalries and intricate confrontations with them. In fact, he would become one of the signatories of the Magna Carta, on the side of a weak King John (1215).

A versatile and intelligent man on the political chessboard, it is striking that he was in charge of freeing the queen from her English captivity and that Richard brought him fame and influence by procuring his marriage to Isabella de Clare, Countess of Striguil and Pembroke, becoming one of the most prominent and wealthy barons of the court. Buried in the Temple Church in London, where his tomb is preserved, his family commissioned the account of a long and rich career in the service of one of the most important medieval dynasties.

The queen's environment: Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis

The Louvre Museum preserves a vase of rock crystal known as the "vase of Leonor" with the following registration: "This vase was offered to King Louis by his wife Leonor. Mitadolus had given it to his grandfather. The king offered it to me, Suger, and I to the saints". Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis, was the chief advisor to Louis VI and his son, Louis VII, the first husband of Eleanor. After being in charge of leading him from the Parisian court to the wedding in Bordeaux with the Aquitaine woman in 1137, he became the royal couple's supporter, a confidence that he even showed by initially opposing the initiative to embark on the Crusade to the Holy Land (1146) and their subsequent separation, according to the correspondence with the monarch during his trip to Overseas France. Main promoter of the prestige of the Capeta monarchy, he gave intellectual instructions to a political project that finally matured in the time of Philip II Augustus, turning his abbey built in the new Gothic style into the cultural lung of a sovereignty that guarded the sovereign symbols in its temple, since they were consecrated and crowned in Reims.

The exceptional piece of rock crystal came to the French abbey from the ducal treasury of Aquitaine, having been acquired by Eleanor's grandfather, William IX the Troubadour, during his reconquest campaigns against the Almoravids in the Iberian Peninsula at the beginning of the 12th century.

Fresco of Sainte-Radegonde

Head and body of a lineage

The fresco in the chapel of Sainte-Radegonde (Chinon) shows us, in all probability, the royal retinue on horseback on the way to the English confinement of Salisbury, presided over by Henry II and followed by an equine mounted by Eleanor and perhaps led by her daughter Joan. The cortege is closed by her son Richard the Lionheart, who receives a falcon or an eagle from his mother, the latter symbol of power. Whether or not it is the representation of the retinue on its way to the humiliating imprisonment, it places us before a leading figure. Surrounded by her children, the queen occupies the center of the scene because, although she rides behind her husband, she focuses the viewer's attention by being turned back towards her son Richard, who receives the baton of power. She thus conveys a character director and protector of her lineage symbolized by the eagle, which the prophecies of the time identify with the duchess.

c. 1120-1022. He was probably born in the town of Belin, near Poitiers, capital of the Duchy of Aquitaine, where he received an exquisite cultural Education .

1137, April. Death of his father, Duke William X, during a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the cathedral where he is buried.

1137, July. Marriage to Louis, son of Louis VI of France, in the cathedral of St. Andrew of Bordeaux and coronation as kings at Christmas, after the death of the Capet monarch.

1147. She embarked on the Second Crusade with her husband Louis VII. She stayed in Constantinople, where they were received by Emperor Manuel Comnenus.

Some chroniclers highlight Leonor's "suspicious" relationship with her uncle Raymond in Antioch, which some transform into adultery.

1152. Three years after her return from overseas, she married Henry, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, after her divorce from the French king. In 1153 they became kings of England.

1173. Rebellion against Henry II by three of his sons: Henry, Richard and Godfrey, encouraged by their mother, which led to his confinement in Chinon and then in Salisbury, until the death of the king in 1189.

1180. Philip II Augustus begins his reign, a Capet monarch who will direct his political force to the incorporation of the continental territories under the dominion of the king of England, Richard the Lionheart from 1189.

1191. Richard joins the business of the Third Crusade and Eleanor is left in charge as regent.

1199. Death of Richard and enthronement of John without Land. French initiative and political strength gradually eroded the feudal Plantagenet hegemony on the continent.

1200. Leonor's trip to Castile, to the court of her son-in-law Alfonso VIII.

1204. Death of the queen and burial in the abbey of Our Lady of Fontevrault.

Martin Aurell, L'Empire des Plantagenets, 1154-1224, Paris, 2003.

Georges Duby, Guillermo el Mariscal, Madrid, 1997 (orig. 1984).

Jean Flori, Eleanor of Aquitaine. La reina rebelde, Barcelona, 2005.

Régine Pernoud, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Barcelona, 2009 (orig. 1966).