Rosamond is believed to have been the daughter of Walter de Clifford of the family of Fitz-Ponce. She is said to have been Henry’s mistress secretly for several years but was openly acknowledged by him only when he imprisoned his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, as a punishment for encouraging...
, the territories, extending in the latter part of the 12th century from Scotland to the Pyrenees, that were ruled by the English kingHenry II and his immediate successors, Richard I and John; they were called the Angevin kings because Henry’s father was count of Anjou. Henry acquired most...
At news of this, Louis VII of France, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, and a great number of knights, moved by the exhortations of St. Bernard, enlisted under the cross (Assembly of Vezelay, March 31, 1146). The Abbot of Clairvaux became the apostle of the crusade and conceived the idea ...
Benoît de Sainte-Maure(flourished 12th century, Sainte-Maure?, near Poitiers, France) was the author of the Old French poemRoman de Troie. Benoît’s poem, consisting of about 30,000 octosyllabic couplets, was probably written about 1160 and was dedicated to Eleanor of Aquitaine. A traves...
The Rou was commissioned by Henry II of England, who sometime before 1169 secured for Wace a canonry at Bayeux in northwestern France. The Brut may have been dedicated to Henry’s queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Written in octosyllabic verse, it is a romanticized paraphrase of Geoffrey of Monm...
Henry The Young King Henry The Young King(born February 28, 1155, London—died June 11, 1183, Martel, Quercy, France) was the second son of King Henry II of England by Eleanor of Aquitaine; he was regarded, after the death of his elder brother, William, in 1156, as his father’s ...
After Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry Plantagenet (later Henry II of England) in 1152, Agenais became the possession of the English kings; it later reverted to the personal possession of the French crown (1249), but the English king Edward I recovered it by the Treaty of Amiens (1279)....
William IX(born Oct. 22, 1071—died Feb. 10, 1127, Poitiers, Fr.) was amedievaltroubadour,countofPoitiersanddukeofAquitaineand ofGascony(1086–1127), son of William VIII and grandfather of the famousEleanor of Aquitaine. William IX spent most of his life in warfare, including leading an uns...
(1152) annulled the marriage ofLouis VIIandEleanor of Aquitaine, who later married Henry Plantagenet (Henry II) and gave almost all of southwestern France to the English crown. Beaugency was an important bridge crossing of the Loire, and the town’s restored 13th-century 26-span bridge is ...
Blanche was the daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor, who was the daughter of Henry II of England. Her grandmotherEleanor of Aquitaine, queen of England, traveled to Spain to take the 11-year-old Blanche to France, where a marriage treaty was concluded withLouis, the young son ...