About book Eleanor Of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen Of The Middle Ages (2014)
I agree with those who think Goodreads should offer half stars. My main problem with this pretty interesting book is what Seward gets wrong at the offset: the unaccountable blossoming of the south of France as a fountain of chivalry and appreciation of women. This is a standard attitude of Western historians who want to suppress anything good that might have come from mixing with Muslims. The Muslims had their Golden Age too, for centuries, but predominantly Catholic chroniclers would rather lump them into the "awful pagans" category along with Vikings, Arians (Christians) and Priscillians (Christians). Let's just ignore that Spain was a Muslim country for over 700 years, and gee whiz, it is right next door to the south of France. The kind of Islam practiced in Al Andalus is nothing like what we see today. Proof? They loved to read. They loved books.So if I start a book and see that stubborn frame of mind from the get go, I cannot help but ask myself what else is going to be slanted to the way the writer wants to see the world?I speak as an incredibly white, sun-burnable, raised-Christian Caucasian Muslim convert who does not accept anything written on paper without critical thought.
There are only three reasons I dislike reading history books and this one scored big on two out of three. History books are either 1) annoying because they are dreadfully written, turgid and unbearable, or 2)annoying because they remind me of so much that i feel I ought to know but don't, or 3)annoying because they shatter long-cherished illusions.Seward's biography of Eleanor, queen of a good chunk of modern France, wife of England's King Henry II and mother of both Richard the Lionheart and King John, passes the first test: easily readable, concise, flowing prose. The second test reminded me how my knowledge of my own country's history is sadly lacking and this period is almost totally informed by various Robin Hood movies, and as far as the third test.... Well: to find out that Richard Coeur de Lion, Knight, Hero, Crusader, Vanquisher of Saladin, Scourge of the Weaselly John was actually a homosexual Mummy's Boy. Suffice it to say, it was not my childhood vision of him.So by rights and by my own criteria, this book should have annoyed me intensely. Instead it educated, re-educated and entertained me. What more do you want from history?
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