~ Power of a Woman ~

Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine.

~

 The feminine spirit soars as Eleanor of Aquitaine,

toughest of medieval women,

recalls her trials and triumphs through eighty hard years

Eleanor of Aquitaine prevailed in an "iron, bearded world" as she tells it in her memoir, Power of a Woman. Eleanor's long life was a fight to build and sustain feminine power and influence in an era controlled by the male-dominated Church and royal courts.

Power of a Woman captures Eleanor's thoughts in her voice, recalling exploits that carried her through the peaks and troughs of eighty turbulent years.

While she dictates, Eleanor lives her roles again: duchess of Aquitaine, queen of France, warring courtier, patron of troubadours, crusader, queen and regent of England, empire builder, femme fatale and the subject of romantic verse; mother of too many sons, founder of her Court of Ladies, instigator and arbiter of family strife, scorned wife, banished exile, regent of England again, ransom collector, peacemaker, matchmaker, and perpetual negotiator. At eighty-one, this magnificent lady "retires", in part to dictate the royal progress of her life.

"Language is a woman’s weapon, her siege engine that knocks down male walls"

Power of a Woman...  Eleanor's book, in a nutshell!

Eleanor brings her astonishing odyssey to life in "Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine," her memoir of marriages to two warring kings, Louis VII of France, then Henry II of England. My book's title in Czech says it well: A Queen to Two Kings.

Eleanor recalls wars, her crusade, intrigues and ruthless diplomacy while confessing her loves, her hopes for her children and their fates. Here was a woman who bartered with God! "God Almighty, let me die before You gather in another child, or the child of a child, of mine! I would prefer to relinquish this old body quietly, but be warned! If I must be borne hence cursing Christ, as Henry was, I shall."

Eleanor spent a long life struggling to assert her will against kings (her two husbands and two sons), popes and emperors while carving out space for the feminine in history. Dry wit marks Eleanor's tale of her Court of Ladies and her mystique as the femme fatale of her day.

Portrait of Eleanor of Aquitaine Copyright Duncan Long, 2007.

"O, the indignity of being a woman at war!"

Q: Why did I write Eleanor's memoirs?

A: Because she deserved it!

There's the real answer to that question. But I muffed my chance to give it when a woman asked at a reading, "Why? Why write Eleanor's life as her memoirs? Wasn't it harder than straight biography?"

"Yes," it was harder. But how wonderful if we had inherited Eleanor's memoirs, letting us touch her rebellious spirit first hand.

I wrote her memoirs to learn what she stood for, for what made her tick. I believed in her right to challenge the status quo, putting the dominant male hierarchies of Church and State on notice: "Here I stand!" I believed in her right to intuit the mindset of alpha males so well that she asserted herself among them, moved beyond them, attempted to move women forward, shaped roles for herself, and, at least in part, moved armies and ruled an empire.

That’s why Power of a Woman turned out as it did, channeling Eleanor. She needed a hearing. It's the 'Why' of her life that matters. It's the 'Why' that motivated her life, her astonishing being. In a treacherous world she believed in herself, setting a model for assertiveness, not only in our past, her present, but for women in our present, too.

Image: Cover, the Czech language edition, Královna dvou králu (A Queen to Two Kings) © 2010

  "Kings have lain me, but no man can claim me"

Around 1152, an unknown stonemason carved Eleanor of Aquitaine's face with that of her second husband, the future King Henry II of England (Top of page, right). Eleanor was thirty. Artist Duncan Long used this bust as his model, transforming stone into flesh to illustrate Eleanor's face for the cover of Power of a Woman...  A contemporary description gave us her eye color. The Cloisters in New York houses the original sculpture, which once decorated a capital in the Church of Notre Dame du Bourg, Le Langon, in Lower Poitou. Stone by stone, the building and its bust were dismantled and moved from France to The Cloisters in Manhattan under the direction of James Rorimer. This is the only three-dimensional likeness of Eleanor to come down to us. Robert Fripp commissioned the cover portrait of Eleanor for his book, Power of a Woman...  For all other uses, Duncan Long owns Copyright.

"I do not speak as an old dame reclaiming her lost glory. I have wisdom enough to let the past pass by. ... I say this to you now, not from the folly of vanities past, but as the earthly embodiment, long ago, of that essence which is     the power of a woman.” / Chapter 15