ELEANOR'S return to Poitiers in 1171 marked the beginning of a comparatively peaceful period in her life. During part of this time, King Henry was in the North attempting to stave off the issuance of an Interdict. Finally, the better to protect himself against having any such document served on him personally, he fled to England and thence to Ireland. Eleanor was thus left to herself with leisure to develop her design for living -- the refinement and enrichment of social life. She had abundant material with which to work.

To begin with, she was surrounded by a score or so of boys and girls, heirs and heiresses of noble families, sent to enjoy the educational and matrimonial advantages at the court of their suzerains, the queen-duchess and the young duke, Richard. Then, in addition to the constant flux of ecclesiastics, nobles and suitors, there came others -- poets, singers, men of letters. Every man was welcome, whether jongleur or troubadour, clerk or layman, wandering scholar or mime, provided only that he was able to contribute to the company's pleasure.

Eleanor already had with her, as an assistant in shaping the manners and tastes of the younger generation, the gifted and charming Marie the Authoress. Now she hoped to secure the aid of another Marie. This was none other than her own daughter and eldest child, the wife of Henri the Liberal, Count of Champagne.

Eleanor had long wished to have a visit from her daughter, whom she had not seen for over fifteen years, while, for her part, Marie was equally anxious to see her mother. She had scarcely turned eight at the time of her parents' divorce. Yet she had continued to cherish an indelible impression of her young mother as a being altogether delightful. She had never forgotten the two happy years between Eleanor's return from the crusade and her divorce.

In this period they were much together, since Eleanor never seemed too busy to entertain her child. She would play and dance with her, sing songs, and tell her endless stories. In the ensuing years, Marie's tastes had reflected Eleanor's enthusiasm for music and literature. The girl had absorbed all the treasures of the past and all the creations of her own age. She had read Livy's charming History, knew pages of Horace by heart, loved Ovid Metamorphoses, and had devoured his Art of Love, which Eleanor had sent her. [...]  Above all, she delighted in listening to troubadour or jongleur sing the love lyrics of the South, or those composed in her own honor.

Eleanor had kept in touch with Marie during their separation by an exchange of letters and books. Among the books which Eleanor had sent her daughter was a copy of the stories of Marie the Authoress, or "Marie deFrance," as people were beginning to call her. When the queen wrote to Marie de Champagne requesting the pleasure of a visit, she held forth as an added inducement the prospect of meeting in person the writer whose stories Countess Marie had so much admired. Marie replied, expressing her delight at the thought of seeing her mother, and said that she would be able to come, since Count Henri was about to leave on a round of tournaments that would keep him from home for a number of months. She would bring with her, she added, some musicians, as well as two persons whose conversation she felt sure her mother would enjoy. One was her chaplain, Andreas, a scholar versed in theology, widely read in Latin authors, and above all devoted to the writings of Master Ovid. The other was the gifted poet, Chrétien deTroyes, who had lately written a story which Marie herself had suggested.

From Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings, pp. 166

A disappointed petitioner brings forward a case, through an advocate, involving the question whether love survives marriage. The countess, apply­ing her mind to the code, which says that marriage is no proper obstacle to lovers (Causa coniugii ab amore non est excusatio recta), and after grave deliberation with her ladies, creates a sensation in the court by expressing doubt whether love in the ideal sense can exist between spouses. This is so arresting a proposition that the observations of the countess are referred to the queen for corroboration, and all wait upon the opinion of this deeply experienced judge. The queen with dignity affirms that she cannot gainsay the Countess of Champagne, though she finds it admirable that a wife should find love and marriage consonant. Eleanor, Queen of France and then of England, had learned at fifty-two that, as another medieval lady put it, “Mortal love is but the licking of honey from thorns.”

Of course, they rationalize a conduct that has outburst the rigid feudal scheme for women; but disillusion speaks also in those noble ladies, who, though they divine some unattainable ideal value in life, know that actually they remain feudal property, mere part and parcel of their fiefs. It is plain that each and every one of the judgments in the queen’s court is an arrant feudal heresy. Taken together they undermine all the primary sanctions and are subversive of the social order. No proper king or baron, even at the risk of being reckoned a boor, ought to subscribe to a single one of them. And indeed, among the artists and innovators in the audience, a few of the higher clergy and certain barons survey the whole scene in order to report to absent kings what goes on in the queen’s palace in Poitiers.

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