Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine Genealogy

Record modified: 2002-01-14
This is my direct ancestor 28 generations back.

é Count William of Aquitaine
é Count William of Aquitaineê
ê ë Phillipa of Toulouse
Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine ê
ê é Aimery de Rouchefoucauld
ë Eleanore de Chastelleraut ê
ë Dangereuse de l'Isle-Bouchard

Born: 1121-00-00 Chateau du Belin, Bordeaux France
Died: 1204-03-31 Mirabell Castle, Maine-et-Loire France
Marriages:
1. 1152-05-18 King Henry II Plantagenet
Children of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and King Henry Plantagenet:
*King John "Lackland" Plantagenet b. 1166-12-24
*Eleanor Plantagenet

Notes:

This page says:

"also called ELEANOR OF GUYENNE, French âELâEONORE, OR ALIâENOR,
D'AQUITAINE, OR DEGUYENNE, queen consort of both Louis VII of France (in 1137-52)
and Henry II of England (in 1152-1204) and mother of Richard I the Lion-Heart and John
of England. She was perhaps the most powerful woman in 12th-century Europe.

"She died in 1204 at the monastery at Fontevrault, Anjou, where she had retired after the
campaign at Mirebeau. Her contribution to England extended beyond her own lifetime;
after the loss of Normandy (1204), it was her own ancestral lands and not the old Norman
territories that remained loyal to England. She has been misjudged by many French
historians who have noted only her youthful frivolity, ignoring the tenacity, political
wisdom, and energy that characterized the years of her maturity. "She was beautiful and
just, imposing and modest, humble and elegant"; and, as the nuns of Fontevrault wrote in
their necrology: a queen "who surpassed almost all the queens of the world."ELEANOR
OF AQUITAINE (1122-1204) was one of the most important rulers of Medieval Europe.

Many noblewomen in the Middle Ages were well-educated. but Eleanor had the chance
to use her education at a time when European politics was dominated by men.

When she was just fifteen, Eleanor's father died, and she inherited Aquitaine. the largest
kingdom in France. That same year she married King Louis VII and became Queen of
France. Although still a teenager, Eleanor was an impressive figure--beautiful, very
well-educated, and fearlessly independent.
When Louis went off on the Crusades, she went with him, traveling thousands of miles,
much of it through hostile lands.

But Eleanor and Louis had no male heir, and tensions developed between them. The
Pope granted them a divorce when Eleanor was twenty-nine. Within months. Eleanor
married Henry Plantagent, her ex-husband's main rival. Two years later Henry became
King of England--and Eleanor was a queen again.

However, Henry soon fell in love with another woman, and Eleanor left England to set
up her own court in Aquitaine, which she still ruled. Troubadours from all over France
flocked to her palace at Poitiers, where Eleanor acted as patron of the arts. Many of the
ideas of chivalry that we associate with the Middle Ages were developed in Eleanor's
court..

Hinds Site: Genealogy of Ken Hinds -- page 4705
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