What was eleanor of aquitaine famous for

Some regarded her as the Demon mother who had once, in a bath, assumed the shape of a dragon. Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the most powerful and interesting people of the Middle Ages. That she accomplished so much at a time when women usually had little standing power in society is amazing. The wife of two kings, she gave birth to three more.

How did eleanor of aquitaine died

Called the "grandmother of Europe" for all the royal lines she started or marriages she arranged, Eleanor was more than simply the power behind the throne. A duchess, or ruler, of the wealthy region of Aquitaine in southern France, Eleanor controlled a huge amount of land. She created a royal court at Poitiers, France, that sponsored such arts as music and poetry.

As queen she counseled her husbands and at times went to war against them. She was not the sort of woman to let fate control her. Instead, she gladly bid farewell to her ill-matched first husband, the king of France, and went head to head with her second husband, the fiery king of England. She helped raise armies for the Second Crusade —49 and went along herself, dressed for battle.

Eleanor lived a long and active life, traveling throughout Europe when it was more common for noblewomen to be hidden away in their castles. Though she lived in the twelfth century, she would also have fit in well in the twenty-first century. Eleanor was born in in either Bordeaux or Belin, in southern France. She was the granddaughter of William IX of Aquitaine — , a Crusader in the Holy Land during the First Crusade —99 , a religious war to free Jerusalem and the holy sites associated with Jesus from Islamic occupation.