RJay asked Sharon Kay Penman:

Would you be able to recommend any 'good' biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine? There are so many out there - I thought I'd ask my 'expert' on Eleanor who she might recommend. Thanks!

Sharon Kay Penman RJay, it is so frustrating, but the definitive biography of Eleanor remains elusive, unlike her husband and favorite son; Dr Warren's Henry II is the go-to biography for him and John Gillingham's Richard I is the classic study of Lionheart. I always recommend a collection of essays, titled Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady, edited by Bonnie Wheeler; one of the essays corrects the widely accepted date of Eleanor's birth from 1122 to 1124. Marion Meade and Amy Kelly have authored two beautifully written biographies of Eleanor; they almost read like novels. But they were published a number of years ago and in subsequent years, research repudiated the "traditional" view of the Courts of Love, which they both followed. So if you read them today, you will enjoy them enormously, but you might want to skip the chapters about the so-called Courts of Love! The American historian Ralph V Turner has written one of the most recent biographies of Eleanor. Alison Weir's biography is serviceable, but does contain some surprising small errors and one whopper. So when people ask me about it, I recommend it, but with reservations. There are a few other books about Eleanor, but these are the first ones to come to mind. I like to imagine Henry and Eleanor in some celestial afterlife and she casually points out that she has far more biographers than he does; he is not amused.

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