snaggletoothie of the Loyal Opposition: A Wake Up Call: Ben Stein

WHAT I'M READING

Eleanor of Aquitaine

By Marion Meade

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“. . . She was the wife of King Louis VII of France and King Henry II of England, as well as the mother of one of Western civilization’s great heroes, Richard Coeur de Lion, and also of one of the great villains, King John. . . . Bishop William Stubbs wrote, ‘Few women have had less justice done them in history than Eleanor.’ That she has been judged a bitch, harlot, adulteress, and monster is not surprising for she was one of those rare women who refused altogether to be bound by the rules of proper behavior for her sex: she did as she pleased, though not without agonizing personal struggle.

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“The stage on which she moved encompassed the Crusades, the new Gothic architecture, the struggle between Church and State, the songs of the troubadour, the idea of courtly love, and the burgeoning of a feminist movement. No one can overlook the stellar personalities of her century: Thomas Becket; Saint Bernard; Peter Abelard; William Marshall; and the troubadour poets, of whom her grandfather William was the first.”