Eleanor of Aquitaine 1122-1204
(c) Mark Beaulieu 2002-2009, San Diego.

Somewhere in the middle of reading Michael Chrichton's book, Timeline, set in the 1300's, it was clear this could not become an important epic movie. Sadly it was a substory told in a "Westworld" back lot. In Ridley Scott's movie, the Gladiator, an epic of survivorship, Russell Crowe resisted director Scott about saying his famous long line about vengeance, because he felt his character was about family, love, and honor. To graduate storytelling that expresses noble Roman values takes, well, a good story. If Crichton's quantum time machine landed two hundred years earlier at near the same place in France, we would have one of the greatest medieval epic mysteries. For hiding in the 12th century is a woman whose forceful invention of romantic values clashed with, and obliterated the Dark ages of brutality. This is the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Eleanor's life was nothing less than any Hollywood producer could imagine, yet no one has tried to capture. Fighting friends as fiercely as foes in the Second Crusade, she discovers the arts of romance. As an amorous creature all of her life from teenager to elder woman, she uses these arts to take the thrown of France and the thrown of England. So forceful her romantic personna projects itself, she is imprisoned by both husbands. First she is jailed by her French King for what would have been the winning battle strategy in the Middle East. Then at the height of her powers while running her master court of love in Poitier, she is impouned by her English King for fifteen years. Yet she outlives them all and with her children establish a unified reign of Europe.

Born in France, though not a saint, Eleanor's life exceeds the drama of Joan of Arc. Although Eleanor is the template for Joan, the inspiration of the Templar knight for the Crusade, Eleanor had a far more lasting spiritual and social effect on civilization. The new version of King Arthur's tales has for the first time the voluptous sought-after Guenivere, a character based on Eleanor. She was audacious, brazen and an erotic creature. The very shape of love is her story, from desire and intrigue, to eros, to motherhood, to matriarchal power. What we should know of her is no more, as the rulings of King and Church foreclosed on the stories of her persona. Yet it is clear that even though Eleanor provides the bloodlines for the Queens Elizabeths to come, her greater contribution was how we think of romance. Her pursuit and teaching of personally chosen love, forever changed Western civilized values.

Eleanor's demise was brought on by her extreme accomplishments and her large following. Cardinals and kings declared her heretic, destroyed her writing, her culture, her civil inventions. Her professed behaviors of love and "courting" were reverted to sin and marriages chosen by others. Personal honor in knights was to go back to subservients of the state. One's spiritual views of any romantic order were to be replaced by the issues and Holy orders of the church. Her beliefs and laws in her courts, that women had the same rights of property as man, that women should be valued in love, that women were not property and were declared mistakes and expunged upon her death. In spite of her official heresy, her concepts of romance, chivalry, equality, and popular troubadour music prevailed through more common folk traditions. Official decree and record did a very good job at wiping out her official record. Eventually the Roman Church murdered all of Eleanor's secular Templarsin the great Inquistion shortly after she died.

The real challenge of Eleanor's gret story is to recover her story and get right the conditions of her time. Biographers and playwrights have written tediously of the kings and bishops surrounding her. Any reader of Eleanor knows how silly is the Lion in Winter. It continues to vilify and trivialized her contribution. The total of her life, though royal and advantaged, was a battle against royalty and advantage as she was moved by the power of the heart. She defied the bounds of marriage while showing the advantages of true love, famil management,, and civil fareness. France and England were the same country to her and by the time she outlived her husband Kings Eleanor's universal belief in family had her children and grandchildren ultimately rule every major country in Europe. A rather triumphant ending to a turblent life. Winston Churchill said of Eleanor's history:

"Tiresome investigators have undermined this excellent tale, but it certainly should find its place in any history worthy of the name."

Eleanor lived in a way different from what you or I have ever been told. Imagining Eleanor of Aquitaine brings forth the legacy of a woman, her family and the boldest qualities of the human race.

Mark Beaulieu
San Diego