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Eleanor of Aquitaine (Bordeaux, France,c. 1124 – March 31, 1204 in Fontevrault, Anjou) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Europe during the Middle Ages. She was Queen consort of both France and England in her lifetime. She is well known for her involvement in the Second Crusade.

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The oldest of three children, her father was William X, Duke of Aquitaine, and her mother was Aenor de Châtellerault, the daughter of Aimeric I, Vicomte of Chatellerault. William's and Ænor's marriage had been arranged by his father, William IX of Aquitaine the Troubador, and her mother, Dangereuse, William IX's long-time mistress. Eleanor was named after her mother and called .

She was raised in one of Europe's most cultured courts, the birthplace of courtly love. She was highly educated for a woman of the time, and knew how to read, how to speak Latin, was well versed in music and literature, and enjoyed riding, hawking, and hunting. She became heiress to Aquitaine, the largest and richest of the provinces that would become modern France, when her brother, William Aigret, died as a baby. She had only one other sibling, a younger sister named Petronilla.

William X died on Good Friday, 1137 while on a pilgrimage to Spain. Eleanor, about the age of 15, became the Duchess of Aquitaine, and thus the most eligible heiress in Europe. As these were the days when kidnapping an heiress was seen as a viable option for attaining title, William wrote a will on the very day he died, instructing that she marry Louis VII of France. The marriage, on July 22, 1137, brought to France the area from the river Loire to the Pyrenees: most of what is today the southwest of France. However, there was a catch: the land would remain independent of France, and Eleanor's oldest son would be both King of France and Duke of Aquitaine. Thus, her holdings would not be merged with France until the next generation. She gave Louis a wedding present that is still in existence, a rock crystal vase on display at the Louvre.

Something of a free spirit, Eleanor was not popular with the staid northerners (particularly, according to sources, Louis's mother, Adélaide de Maurienne), who thought her flighty and a bad influence. Her conduct was repeatedly criticized by Church elders (particularly Bernard of Clairvaux and Abbot Suger) as indecorous. The King, however, was madly in love with his beautiful and worldly bride, and granted her every whim, even though her behavior baffled and vexed him to no end.

Though Louis was a pious man he soon came into violent conflict with Pope Innocent II. The archbishopric of Bourges became vacant, and the king supported as candidate the chancellor Cadurc, against the pope's nominee Pierre de la Chatre, swearing upon relics that so long as he lived Pierre should never enter Bourges. This brought the interdict upon the king's lands.

Louis became involved in a war with Theobald II of Champagne, by permitting Raoul I of Vermandois and seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife, Theobald's niece, and to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, Eleanor's sister. Eleanor urged Louis to support her sister's illegitimate marriage to Raoul of Vermandois. Champagne also sided with the pope in the dispute over Bourges. The war lasted two years (1142–44) and ended with the occupation of Champagne by the royal army. Louis was personally involved in the assault and burning of the town of Vitry. More than a thousand people who had sought refuge in the church died in the flames. Overcome with guilt, Louis declared on Christmas Day 1145 at Bourges his intention of going on a crusade.

On Easter 1146 both Eleanor and Louis took up the cross during a sermon preached by Bernard of Clairvaux. She was followed by some of her royal ladies in waiting as well as 300 non-noble vassals. She insisted on taking part in the Crusades as the feudal leader of the soldiers from her duchy. The story that she and her ladies dressed as Amazons is disputed by serious historians. However, her testimonial launch of the Second Crusade from Vézelay, the rumored location of Mary Magdalene's burial, dramatically emphasized the role of women in the campaign.

The Crusade itself was something of a disaster. Louis was a weak and ineffectual military leader with no concept of maintaining troop discipline or morale, or of making informed and logical tactical decisions. The French army was betrayed by Manuel I Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor, who feared that their aims would jeopardize the tenuous safety of his empire. A particularly poor decision to camp one night in a lush valley surrounded by tall peaks in hostile territory led to an attack by the Turks, who slaughtered as many as 7000 Crusaders. As this decision was made by Eleanor's vassal, Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou (with whom it was rumored that she had an affair), many believed that it was her directive. This did nothing for her popularity in Christendom. Eleanor's reputation was further sullied by her supposed affair with her uncle Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch.

Even before the Crusade, Eleanor and Louis were becoming estranged. The city of Antioch had been annexed by Bohemond of Hauteville in the First Crusade, and it was now ruled by her flamboyant uncle, Raymond of Antioch (rumored to be her lover), who had gained the principality by marrying its reigning Princess, Constance of Antioch. Clearly, Eleanor supported his desire to re-capture the nearby County of Edessa, the cause of the Crusade. Louis was directed by the Church to visit Jerusalem instead. When Eleanor declared her intention to stand with Raymond and the Aquitaine forces, Louis had her brought out by force. His long march to Jerusalem and back north debilitated his army, but her imprisonment disheartened her knights, and the divided Crusade armies could not overcome the Muslim forces. For reasons unknown, likely the Germans' insistence on conquest, the Crusade leaders targeted Damascus, an ally until the attack. Failing in this attempt, they retired to Jerusalem, and then home.

When they passed through Rome on the way to Paris, Pope Eugene III tried to reconcile Eleanor and Louis. Eleanor conceived their second daughter, Alix of France (their first was Marie), but there was no saving the marriage. In 1152; it was annulled on the grounds of consanguinity. Her estates reverted to her and were no longer part of the French royal properties.

However, while in the eastern Mediterranean Eleanor learned about maritime conventions developing there: the beginnings of what would become admiralty law. She introduced those conventions in her own lands, for instance on the island of Oleron in 1160, and later into England as well. She was also instrumental in developing trade agreements with Constantinople and ports of trade in the Holy Lands.

On May 18, 1152, six weeks after her annullment, Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. She was about 11 years older than he, and related to him in the same degree as she had been to Louis. One of Eleanor's rumored lovers was Henry's own father, Geoffrey of Anjou, who, not surprisingly, advised him not to get involved with her. Over the next 13 years, she bore Henry five sons and three daughters: William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor, and Joan.

Despite her reputation in later historical accounts, Eleanor was incensed by Henry's philandering; their son, William, and Henry's illegitimate son, Geoffrey, were born months apart. Henry fathered other illegitimate children throughout most of their marriage.

Some time between 1168 and 1170, she instigated a separation, deciding to establish a new court in her own territory of Poitou. In Poitiers, she reached the of her powers creating the Court of Love. A small fragment of her codes and practices was written by Andreas Capellanus.

Henry concentrated on controlling his increasingly-large empire, badgering Eleanor's subjects in attempts to control her patrimony of Aquitaine and her court at Poitiers. Straining all bounds of civility, Henry had Archbishop Thomas Becket murdered at the altar of the church in 1170 (though there is considerable debate as to whether it was truly Henry's intent to be permanently rid of his archbishop). This aroused not only Eleanor's horror and contempt, but most of Europe's.

In 1173, aggrieved at his lack of power and egged on by his father's enemies, the younger Henry launched the Revolt of 1173-1174, joined by Richard and Geoffrey, and supported by several powerful English barons, as well as Louis VII and William I of Scotland. When Eleanor tried to join them, she was intercepted. Henry, who put down the rebellion, imprisoned her for the next 15 years, much of the time in various locations in England. During her imprisonment, Eleanor had become more and more distant with her sons, especially Richard (who had always been her favorite). She did not get the chance to see her sons very often during her imprisonment, though she was released for special occasions such as Christmas. About four miles from Shrewsbury and close by Haughmond Abbey is "Queen Eleanor's Bower," the remains of a triangular castle which is believed to have been one of her prisons.

Henry lost his great love, Rosamund Clifford, in 1176. He had met her in 1166 and begun the liaison in 1173, supposedly contemplating divorce from Eleanor. When Rosamund died, rumours spread that Eleanor had poisoned her, but there is no evidence to support this.

In 1183, Henry the Young tried again. In debt and refused control of Normandy, he tried to ambush his father at Limoges. He was joined by troops sent by his brother Geoffrey and Philip II of France. Henry's troops besieged the town, forcing his son to flee. Henry the Young wandered aimlessly through Aquitaine until he caught dysentery and died. The rebellion petered out.

Upon Henry's death in 1189, Eleanor helped her son Richard I to the throne, and he released her from prison. She ruled England as regent while Richard went off on the Third Crusade. She personally negotiated his ransom by going to Germany. She survived him and lived long enough to see her youngest son John on the throne.

Eleanor died in 1204 and was entombed in Fontevraud Abbey near her husband Henry and son Richard. Her tomb effigy shows her reading a Bible. She was the patroness of such literary figures as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-More, and Chrétien de Troyes.

, by James Goldman, which was made into a film starring Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn, and remade for television in 2003 with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close. The depiction of her in the play and film contains historical inaccuracies, as acknowledged by the author, Jean Anouilh.

Eleanor appears briefly in the BBC production of by Pamela Kaufman tells the story of Eleanor's life from her own point of view. "Queen Elinor" appears in William Shakespeare's