No other medieval woman has commanded such enduring interest and numerous biographies have been written about her. Certainly, her fame exceeded even that of her mother-in-law, Empress Matilda, and Eleanor became a legend in her own lifetime. Like Matilda, Eleanor’s fame was perhaps not entirely welcome and even to this day she retains a slightly unsavoury reputation. In her youth, Eleanor was portrayed as a selfish and domineering woman, who would become an adulteress, then a rebellious and disloyal wife and finally simply a woman who did not know her place and would not let go of the empire she had ruled for nearly fifty years. Eleanor’s long and active life defied attempts to classify her, so to the conservative chroniclers she was someone to be feared. Eleanor was a woman living in a man’s world and unlike many other queens of England, she excelled in it, to the chagrin of many of her contemporaries. Much of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s notoriety comes from her marriages and relationships with husbands and children.
