{"id":17477,"date":"2022-08-23T11:05:29","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T09:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=213334"},"modified":"2022-08-23T11:37:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T09:37:09","slug":"my-history-hero-sarah-smith-chooses-eleanor-of-aquitaine-c1122-1204","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/my-history-hero-sarah-smith-chooses-eleanor-of-aquitaine-c1122-1204\/","title":{"rendered":"My history hero: Sarah Smith chooses Eleanor of Aquitaine (c1122\u20131204)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By jonathanwilkes\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 23 August 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Eleanor of Aquitaine: in profile<\/h4>\n
Eleanor of Aquitaine was queen of France (1137\u201352) as Louis VII\u2019s wife, and queen of England (1154\u201389) as wife of Henry II<\/a>. She bore 10 children, among them two future English kings, Richard I<\/a> and John<\/a>. After participating in an unsuccessful revolt against her second husband, she was imprisoned for 16 years but lived to the age of about 82. She is buried at Fontevraud Abbey in the Loire Valley, France.<\/p>\n
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When did you first hear about Eleanor?<\/h3>\n
On an episode of In Our Time<\/em> on BBC Radio 4 a few years ago. I\u2019m a medieval history fan so she piqued my interest. I then read a series of historical novels about her by Elizabeth Chadwick, in which Eleanor is described as \u201cthe most powerful woman in the Middle Ages\u201d.<\/p>\n
What kind of person was she?<\/h3>\n
A strong personality, Eleanor was both a queen and a duchess (of Aquitaine) in her own right. She must also have been astonishingly resilient to have commanded the respect she did, and to survive some 16 years\u2019 imprisonment. Lastly, she was purportedly a great beauty.<\/p>\n
Read more | Eleanor of Aquitaine: the medieval queen who took on Europe\u2019s most powerful men<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
What made her a hero?<\/h3>\n
Eleanor was a remarkable woman in so many ways: married to two kings in turn, she served as queen of both France and England, and gave birth to two future kings. What\u2019s more, she was somehow able to ensure that the most important people in Europe \u2013 monarchs, popes and aristocrats \u2013 dealt with her, a woman, on equal terms, which was practically unheard of at that time.<\/p>\n
She was rather cruelly subjected to a myriad of rumours about her sex life \u2013 including claims of incest, adultery and dressing up as a man \u2013 which has always been the easiest way to slander women who dare to put themselves in the public arena. Yet she did not allow any of this to deflect from her sense of purpose. Eleanor\u00a0was also remarkable for the longevity of her career, continuing to wield power into her later years. She must have had the most incredible self-belief to achieve all that she did \u2013 though she presumably believed that she was directed by God.<\/p>\n
On the podcast | Sara Cockerill and Dan Jones explore the life story of the remarkable medieval queen\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<hr\/><h3>Is there anything you don\u2019t admire about Eleanor?<\/h3>\n<p>She made a dreadful mistake in backing her son, the younger Henry, against her own husband, <a href=\""https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/period\/medieval\/king-henry-ii-muslim-monarch-england-convert-islam\/"\">Henry II<\/a>, in the failed revolt of 1173\u201374. That was a serious lapse in judgment.<\/p>\n<h3>Can you see any parallels between her life and yours?<\/h3>\n<p>Not really \u2013 we live in such different ages \u2013 though there have been times when I\u2019ve drawn inspiration from her resilience.<\/p>\n<h3>Does she deserve to be better known on this side of the English Channel?<\/h3>\n<p>Absolutely. I studied medieval history at university, and she was not on the syllabus in any shape or form.<\/p>\n<h3>What would you ask Eleanor if you could meet her?<\/h3>\n<p>Where her belief came from that women could and should be treated as equals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sarah Smith is a BBC journalist currently working the North America editor of BBC News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>This content first appeared in the February 2022 issue of <a href=\""https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/bbc-history-magazine\/"\">BBC History Magazine<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<section class=\""highlight\"><div class=\""highlight__content\" editor-content=\"\"> <p><strong>Discover more history heroes, our monthy series in which popular figures from the present tell us about who inspired them from the past<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul><li><strong><a href=\""https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/tag\/my-history-hero\/"\">Explore our history heroes<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul><p> <\/p><\/div> <\/section><p>\u00a0<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By jonathanwilkes Published: Tuesday, 23 August 2022 at 12:00 am Eleanor of Aquitaine: in profile Eleanor of Aquitaine was queen of France (1137\u201352) as Louis VII\u2019s wife, and queen of England (1154\u201389) as wife of Henry II. She bore 10 children, among them two future English kings, Richard I and John. After participating in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":17478,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/08\/my-history-hero-sarah-smith-chooses-eleanor-of-aquitaine-c1122-1204.jpg",1757,1171,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/08\/my-history-hero-sarah-smith-chooses-eleanor-of-aquitaine-c1122-1204-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/08\/my-history-hero-sarah-smith-chooses-eleanor-of-aquitaine-c1122-1204-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/08\/my-history-hero-sarah-smith-chooses-eleanor-of-aquitaine-c1122-1204-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/08\/my-history-hero-sarah-smith-chooses-eleanor-of-aquitaine-c1122-1204-1024x682.jpg",800,533,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/08\/my-history-hero-sarah-smith-chooses-eleanor-of-aquitaine-c1122-1204-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/08\/my-history-hero-sarah-smith-chooses-eleanor-of-aquitaine-c1122-1204.jpg",1757,1171,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By jonathanwilkes Published: Tuesday, 23 August 2022 at 12:00 am Eleanor of Aquitaine: in profile Eleanor of Aquitaine was queen of France (1137\u201352) as Louis VII\u2019s wife, and queen of England (1154\u201389) as wife of Henry II. She bore 10 children, among them two future English kings, Richard I and John. After participating in an…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/17477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}