Eleanor of Aquitaine, as It Was Said

Karen Sullivan is the Irma Brandeis Professor of Romance Culture and Literature at Bard College. She is the author of many books, including The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

• IntroductionI. The Heiress: Consent in MarriageThe King of FranceThe Demon WifeThe King of EnglandII. The Crusader: Infidelity, Marital and ReligiousThe Prince of AntiochThe Sultan of BabylonA Knight of PoitouIII. The Courtly Lady: Love and PatronageThe TroubadourThe Courts of LoveThe Knight ErrantIV. The Queen Mother: Authority, Maternal and SeigneurialThe Young KingRichard the LionheartKing JohnV. The Old Woman of Fontevraud: The Cloister and the WorldOutside the WallsLiving at the AbbeyDying ad SuccurrendumThe Tomb SculptureVI. The Lioness in Winter: Poetry, Theater, CinemaFair RosamundAlys of FranceConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

“Historians​ usually exclude gossip and rumor from their sources, or use them with caution. In her new book about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Karen Sullivan does the opposite. She looks at what friends, enemies, troubadours and chroniclers as late as the 16th century had to say, often relaying it with the phrase ut dicebatur, ‘as it was said’. . . . Moving between fact, rumor and outright fiction, Sullivan traces Eleanor’s reputation through five phases of her career: as heiress, crusader, patroness of poets, queen mother and aged affiliate of Fontevraud, the nunnery where she is buried.”