ABSTRACT
The Second Crusade (1145–49) was a pivotal event in the formation of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s reputation. It was during the crusade that her marriage to Louis VII, king of France, reached crisis point, and she was accused of the most outrageous behaviour. The most notorious incident involving Eleanor on the crusade was her alleged incestuous affair with her uncle, Raymond, prince of Antioch. This charge was levelled against her by a contemporary, the English writer John of Salisbury, and subsequently developed by other chroniclers. 1 However, many aspects of the legend of Eleanor’s scandalous behaviour on crusade derive less from contemporary accusations than from misinterpretations by later historians. Influenced by Eleanor’s existing bad reputation, they were predisposed to believe the worst of her. She also neatly fitted the stereotype of the scandalous queen (which she shared with the likes of Isabella, “the She-wolf of France”). Indeed, later medieval legend condemned her as the murderer of Rosamund Clifford, her rival for the affections of her second husband Henry II, and even of having an affair with Saladin. Later, a combination of misogyny and Victorian morality condemned her as a woman who stepped beyond the bounds of seemly female behaviour. Even today, Eleanor is frequently treated in a stereotypically “female” manner; a recent biography informs us that she and her ladies would have enjoyed their stay in Constantinople for the opportunities it afforded them to go shopping. 2 This paper is concerned with just one of the tales about Eleanor; namely the claim that during the crusade she and her ladies dressed up as Penthesilea and the Amazons.
