Lindy Grant, Eleanor of Aquitaine: Woman, Queen and Legend. London: Reaktion Books, 2025, 224 pp., color ill., 2 maps, four family trees.

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1124–1204) is one of the best known medieval noble ladies, having been highly influential in the promotion of courtly culture and having been instrumental in the merging of France and England through her marriage with the English King Henry II after she had divorced from the French King Louis VII. Her sons, Richard I and John, were similarly famous. Moreover, Eleanor was the eldest child of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, the famous first troubadour. There are countless studies on this outstanding female figure, most recently by Karen Sullivan (Eleanor of Aquitaine, as It Was Said, 2023), and she is very well represented on many websites, such as Wikipedia, reddit, or Literary Encyclopedia. Her contemporaries admired and despised her; she was the object of numerous scandals, whether true or not, and so it is no wonder that her posterity until today has focused much on this extraordinary individual from the twelfth century.