Valentine’s Day, a commemoration of love and devotion and Hallmark and those little
candies with the misprinted messages on them.
What better way to celebrate than by turning back the clock to that shining beacon of true
love in an age of pragmatic marriage - a time of troubadours, of knights and chivalry!
Get ready for disappointment, friends.
[INTRO]
I’ll be honest, my first thought was to make a video about St. Valentine, but apparently
we know so little about him that we’re not even sure if he was a single guy, but his
name was Valentine and he’s a martyr now.
Instead, we’re looking at Eleanor of Aquitaine, mother of the court of love, where tribunals
of women would determine if lovely lovers were loving lovelyly.
Except none of that probably happened, it’s just the result of one author’s description
and Victorian misconception.
Oh Victorians, you sentimental repressed Phrynosomas.
But she is the first woman on this channel!
Conscience: Finally.
Thank you, conscience.
She was born in France, where evidently half of world history takes place, as the daughter
of Duke William X of, you guessed it, Aquitaine, who made young Eleanor the very model of a
modern major general: she had information vegetable, animal, and mineral, not to mention
arithmetic, constellations, sewing, spinning, singing, chess,, Latin, literature, riding,
hunting, and hawking to name a few.
But all that education came in handy because there was a duchy to run and William X was
gon’ give it to her.
And at Age 15-ish she became the most eligible bachelorette in Europe, and swiftly married
to Louis 7 of France, a man with a terrible sense of fashion.
But he quickly became King after his father kicked the bucket Oregon Trail-style, and
being a Queen wasn’t so bad.
To celebrate 10 years of a “meh” marriage, our lady of romance and her hubbie decided
to visit Asia Minor and kill some infidels, all in good sport, maybe try to reclaim Edessa
while they’re at it, and along the way stop and say hello to Eleanor’s uncle Raymond,
Prince of Antioch and inventor of the Holy Hand Grenade.
Eleanor actually led the vanguard, like a medieval Penthesilea,until the back of the
cavalcade, with Louis in it, got attacked, and suddenly she was the lady who brought
way too much baggage and have you heard the rumor about her and her uncle?
Pretty depraved…
I can’t say for sure what happened, I wasn’t there, but I can say that Eleanor and Raymond
were advocating taking back Edessa but it Louis’s way or the highway, and since highways
didn’t exist they were goin' to Jerusalem!
Which they did, and soon left because that Crusade was really not going so well for the Christians
The only thing they accomplished was giving Lisbon back to the Portuguese and why
couldn’t you just be Iberia?
But Eleanor picked up some tips and tricks for maritime law and eventually brought them
to England, so that’s something.
There was a little bump in the road home when they got attacked by the Byzantines and were
presumed dead for a couple months, which must have made things really awkward for whoever
was planning on being the next King of the Franks.
Eleanor and Louis’s marriage at this point was on the rocks, and she asked Pope Eugene
for an annulment, i.e. divorce that wasn’t technically divorce because the marriage never
happened in the first place, on the grounds that her husband was her third cousins and
incest is bad, right? but Eugene just gave them a bed and said “Here, have a son, that’ll
make things less complicated”.
But then she had a girl and Louis and the Pope realized that this marriage really wasn’t
happening and so Eleanor got her lands back and the chance to be her own woman again.
Just read what's on the bloody screen
One fine morning, as Eleanor is riding home to Poitiers, two lords a-leaping came jumping
out of the bushes, declaring that they were going to kidnap her so that they could marry
her and enter her into a loving and committed relationship that way they could take all
her lands legally… after... kidnapping her.
Wait…
She escaped, and promptly wrote to the Duke of Normandy asking for his hand in marriage,
that way other would-be suitors would back off, and since he hadn’t tried to kidnap her
That Duke was her slightly closer cousin, Henry 2.
Yes, that - no, no not that Henry 2, thank goodness they weren’t alive at the same time
In no time Henry 2 became King of England, because Eleanor was as good at forging political
marriages as she was at playing the harp and backgammon… and quoting all the crimes of Heliogabolus
You'll say a better major general has never sat-a-gee!
And together they had five sons and three daughters, though Eleanor definitely did most
of the heavy lifting.
She still visited France from time to time since she was still in charge of Aquitaine,
and it was this point in her life that she’s become known for -- when she nurtured the
ideas of chivalry and courtly love -- though again that court of love is probably a myth,
relationships require active communication and compromise, the concept of a soulmate
is a statistically unlikely one, happy V-day.
Speaking of relationships, her marriage with Henry 2 also wasn’t a very happy one, but
she did love her kids, so when little Henry the Younger staged a revolt in 1173, she hopped
on board to support the Young King.
Except the Young King never became king because Henry 2 suppressed that revolt faster than
you could say something witty.
Except he was kind of king because Henry 2 wanted him to be co-king so there wouldn’t
be any more civil wars and stuff… link to CGP Grey down below.
Unfortunately for Eleanor, she was thrown in the big house - specifically one of these
castles - but don’t worry because Young Henry got off scot free!
While Eleanor was imprisoned, Henry 2 found the true spirit of courtly love in the form
of Rosamund Clifford, his extra-marital liaison with whom he had such a better connection
so how about that, Eleanor?
Rosamund quickly met an untimely end.
Eventually Henry 2 bought the farm and England got a new king in the form of Richard the
first, known for having the heart of a lion and a lifetime ban from the zoo.
Since Richard had always been Eleanor’s favorite, he promptly released mother dearest
and let her run the country while he ran off to go on his own Crusade.
She also had to bail him out after he got captured.
In fact she outlived Richard and had more misadventures covering for her son John, which
I would love to cover in detail but oh look at the time.
Deciding she was finally too old for England’s ship, she retired as a nun in France and went
into that good night at the ripe old age of 82.