Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings. by Kelly, Amy. [Eleanor of Aquitaine, 1122-1200]

Harvard UP ['Fourteenth Printing, 1971']. HP15. Soft Cover. 427 p., 11 b/w illus., map, index; 23.5 cm. "This account of Queen Eleanor and her century is offered as a study of individuals who set their stamp upon the events of their time... The materials used are in general 'contemporary' sources (those of the twelfth century, expanded by a decade or two at either end)... The twelfth century affords especially rich materials for such study. Persons representing important aspects of experience flourished in numbers... The time is marked by many stirrings-- the intellectual revolt, the turn from Romanesque to Gothic, the impulse to crusade, the struggle between church and state, the rise of vernacular literature... The urban culture of the great cities is distinctive. Queen Eleanor knew all the personages; she was concerned with all the movements, to many of which she contributed notably; and she knew every city... Her story, which runs through the last three quarters of the century, provides a 'plot' almost as compact as that of a novel, for she was the center of the feud between the Capets and the Plantagenets that agitated the whole period and culminated in the collapse of the Angevin empire. Without historical distortion or any attempt to fictionize, her history brings the diverse elements together and into relation." Academic paperback; blindstamp; VG. Stock#23710.