v20_0765 - AQUITAINE - DUCHÉ D'AQUITAINE - ALIÉNOR Denier

AQUITAINE - DUCHY OF AQUITAINE - ELEANOR

(1189-1204)

Aliénor is the daughter of the last Duke of Aquitaine and Poitou; she was born around 1122. In 1137, when she was only fifteen years old, she married Louis of France, the future Louis VII, and brought as a dowry Guyenne, Gascony, Saintonge and Poitou. In 1152 Louis VII had his marriage annulled at the Council of Beaugency, and Eleanor remarried less than six weeks later to Henri de Plantagenêt, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, who became King of England in 1154 under the name of Henri II. She lived in Aquitaine and formed a court. After trying to make her sons revolt against their father, Henry II had her interned in a convent in Salisbury; she did not leave until 1189, at the time of the accession of her son Richard Coeur de Lion. She assumed the government when Richard left for the Third Crusade. On his return, she retired to the Abbey of Fontevrault where she died in 1204. Her recumbent figure is still preserved in this abbey..