As the heiress of the House of Poitiers , which controlled much of southwestern France, she was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages. Shortly afterwards, Eleanor's father-in-law died and her husband became king, making her queen consort.
An initial request in for an annulment of the marriage on grounds of consanguinity [ 5 ] was rejected by Pope Eugene III. In the same year, Eleanor married Henry, Duke of Normandy. The couple had five sons and three daughters, but eventually became estranged. Henry imprisoned Eleanor for supporting the revolt against him by their sons Young Henry , Richard and Geoffrey.
She was not released until , when her husband died and their third son, Richard I, ascended the throne. As queen dowager , Eleanor acted as regent during Richard's long absences from England and France. On Richard's death in , she successfully campaigned for his younger brother John to succeed him. After continuing turmoil between the French and English kings and the successive loss of the lands she and Henry II had once ruled over, she died in and was buried in Fontevraud Abbey in France.
Eleanor's life can be considered as consisting of five distinct phases. Her early life extending to adolescence β , marriage to Louis VII and Queen of France β , marriage to Henry II and Queen of England β , imprisonment to Henry's death β and as a widow until her death β There is a scarcity of primary sources on Eleanor's life. There are very few surviving records from Aquitaine and she is barely mentioned in records of the French court, [ 11 ] and appears to have been actively erased from memory.
While some were relatively neutral, Map and Gerald were largely satirical polemic, while Niger's criticisms are mainly directed at Henry II rather than Eleanor. Among the chroniclers are also clerical sources, including Gervase of Canterbury c. The latter were mainly influenced by their revulsion at the murder of Thomas Becket Although Richard of Devizes admired Eleanor's perseverance in supporting her son Richard, all of them expressed negative views about women in power and hinted at some darker attributes that eventually led to a "Black Legend" that became associated with her.
