This is a page of speculative deduction. Everything that Eleanor of Aquitaine wrote or said was plowed under by her royal husbands and the Catholic church. Most of her life is understood by the undeniable effects she had. Even the surviving historical comments largely undercut her achievements. Yet her achievements became manifest in society. She advocated a code of life - a romantic way of living, a personal spirituality, manners of honor, and a celebration of the living arts. She advocated quests in her subjects. Her interest in knowing, a personal definition of love, and investigations challenging religious interpretation upset the power of the Church and the rule of Kings. In summary, Eleanor's thought, the standards for her courts, and Templar knight code advocated development of a personal code, a sense of honor, trueness, and integrity.
Eleanor was a practicing Christian although her personal form of Catholicism was quite different from today. To picture1000 years ago Catholicism had no Immaculate Conception, Virgin Mary, nor "Mother Church". Priests married and clergy could practice a family life. There were many competing Christian sects. One very large sect dominant in Eleanor's Western region of France was Catharism, certainly a religion of her youth and a cause she would call upon to summon her army of devout Crusaders. The boundaries of her Catholic faith as Queen of France clashed against those of the King of France, the Papacy all dramatically played out in her actions in the Second Crusade.
Eleanor clearly saw injustice in male-determined social institutions. Her great power allowed her to right many of the wrongs within her realms. Catharic Christians sought to balance male and female forces. Its spiritual and sometimes erotic belief in balance overlapped her rule and sense for social order.
Look at this another way. It was historically inevitable that women would run lands when thousands of husbands, brothers and sons were lost forever to the First Crusade. Any half-sensitive ruler would see family continuity as a force of social stability. Eleanor granted land entitlements to women. Her rule of law generally recognized women as having equal weight as men. Family was both the basis of royal succession and also the basis for success in agrarian society. The productivity of land is the ultimate power to a monarch. Eleanor was no fool. She established the sanctity, honor and right of women as an economic necessity. By giving a woman noble empowerment it balanced the noble virtues of men. Overall her program was to restore the balance of men and women whenever possible. This was also a tenet of Catharism.Her sense of balance is also evident in the unique coed order of Fontervraud, which had many Abbey's throughout Europe.
Eleanor's sense of balance between men and woman was ironic as she personally was a principal leader of the 2nd Crusade. Most astonishing was her code that permitted a death-rendering person to have compassion. This is an almost unbelievable code considering that savage Vikings, rampaging Tartars and warrior Muslims terrified and invaded lands. Yet Eleanor cultivated and rewarded spiritual and honorable behavior. As a singular ruler she believed in the causes of love. For Eleanor, life was the heart. It was the essential element, stronger than the artificial bonds of forced marriage. She would be known for her courts that elevated the arts of love and social manner. There she expounded that divorce was often a necessity. She certainly lived it. At the courts she was able to evolve her central belief. Sadly nothing survives but a few occasional letters and a "book of love" which has been interpreted many ways.
Studying her life - love, purity, and essential heart were key parts of Eleanor's code. Real love in all its forms was the basis of life. One sense followed from her faith, another from her passion, another from her family way of life.
Eleanor was steeped in the great civilization that flowed from the East through Constantinople. She first heard it from her grandfather William in Crusade One. But she experienced it on own Crusade Two. She beheld Constantinople - the greatest city on Earth. There she was surrounded by the exotic Greek and Arabic way of life. The romantic customs, songs, letters, beauty oils, exotic dress, heartfelt gifts were a basis for civilized behavior. She was exposed to the "heretic" pre-Latin sources of Greek culture, philosophy and further alternate religious beliefs of the world at large.
All knightly crusaders carried the Cross of Jesus. But the dedicated Eleanorian Templars on Crusade, transcended their quest for the Holy Lands in the Crusade II. For they found the source and discovery of the "true faith" and this tested the bounds of the Established Church. The Eleanorian Templars exposed the origins of Christianity, Apostolic writings, and their humility and simplicity were at odds with the Roman Church. The opposing and stronger Catholic church practicing in Constantinople kept alive a deeper sense of human origin - Greek rationalist philosophy and mystic faith. The travelers to the Holy Lands also encountered the "enemy" with their far more advanced Arabic thought and cultivation of the arts. Profane harems housed women skilled in erotic. For many returning French Templars, the discovery of foreign ways and styles provided the basis for social changes of a Renaissance proportion.
Her most dramatic realization was the sanctity of women and the rituals of romance in the courts of love in Poitier. Eleanor's courts practiced testimonial court cases about love, and codified many of the romantic rituals such as writing love letters, gift giving, notably Valentine ceremony, engagement ring and its period of trial.
Purity was an important value to both Eleanor's survival and personal values. Impure and diseased water killed many around her and many family members: Her mother, brother, father, and her affectionate supporter Duke Geoffrey all died of water pox. Purity was the basis for her personal style of wine production.. Claret, the purified clear red wine was a result of Eleanor's direction resulting in the legacy of the great Bordeaux wines.
The essential heart of a person was always clear to Eleanor's almost clairvoyant empathic arts. Her emotions and parental judgments were clearly at play in defining the character of her son King Richard the Lionhearted. They are almost equally absent in her youngest John who was out of her reach while she was in prison. The detested King John seems to have learned the venal skills. Murder and lust, an inheritance from Henry that might well have turned out otherwise with Eleanor's care.