“Grief is not very different from illness: in the impetus of its fire it does not recognise lords, it does not fear colleagues, it does not respect or spare anyone, not even itself." This is one of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s most famous quotes, who was one of the most influential women in France and England during the Middle Ages. She was born in 1122, in Poitiers, Bordeaux, France, but some historians think she was born in Nieul-sur-l’Autise. Her mother was Aenor de Châtellerault, and her father was William the Tenth, Duke of Aquitaine. She grew up in Poitou, France, and had a lavish education. She was adept in math, history, and astrology, but also learned to do household chores, such as sewing and embroidery. She also learned how to play the …show more content…
harp, sing, dance, and learn to play games such as backgammon and chess. At about age 13, Eleanor’s father died, leaving his wealth and power to her.
Eleanor became Duchess of Aquitaine, making her one of the most sought after women in Europe, at the time. When Eleanor was about 15, in 1137, she met King Louis VII of France. They married soon after, on July 25, 1137, in the Cathedral of Saint-Andrè, in Bordeaux, France. They were married by the Archbishop of Bordeaux. After Eleanor married Louis, they were immediately named the Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine, giving Eleanor more power and recognition than she had ever received before. As a wedding gift, Eleanor gave Louis a crystal vase, which is the only surviving artifact that belonged to Eleanor. Soon after the two had married, Louis VI, the father of Louis VII, died of dysentery. This made Louis VII the new king of France, and Eleanor the new queen of …show more content…
France. During her lifetime, Eleanor of Aquitaine helped lead the Second Crusade. Eleanor and her ladies-in-waiting were the biggest female figures taking part in the crusade. In the end, the crusade did not achieve much because Louis VII was a weak military commander, and did not make informed choices when directing his troops. After the Second Crusade, Louis and Eleanor divorced. Soon after, Eleanor met Henry, Duke of Normandy, who was also the future king of England. Eleanor and Henry married on May 18th, 1152. On October 25th, 1154, Henry became King of England, and Eleanor became Queen of England; both were crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury on December 19th, 1154. During their marriage, they had eight children, William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor, and Joan. In March of 1173, Eleanor was captured, because she was thought to have been committing treason. Society thought Eleanor was trying to help her son, Henry the Younger, to seize the English throne from King Henry, Eleanor’s husband. Henry the Younger fled to Paris, and then to Poitiers, where Eleanor was living at the time. He requested the help of his mother, Eleanor, who granted her aid to her son. Eleanor encouraged politicians and other powerful figures to rise up and help her and her son. In the spring of 1173, Eleanor left Poitiers, and for a while, her location was unknown. King Henry, her husband, announced her arrest, but not publicly until 1174. Eleanor was then captured and taken to England, and historians think she was held in Sarum Castle or Winchester Castle. Eleanor was imprisoned in mid 1174, and became estranged with her children. While Eleanor was imprisoned, Henry was seeing another woman, Rosamund Clifford. Before Eleanor’s capture, King Henry was thinking about divorcing Eleanor to marry Rosamund. Rosamund died in 1176, three years after Eleanor’s imprisonment. Some historians think that Henry acted this way to provoke Eleanor, and to hint that he wanted a divorce. Also, rumors circulated that Eleanor had poisoned Rosamund, or kidnapped and murdered her with the assistance of an old woman. While Eleanor was being held captive, Henry the Younger caught dysentery. Realizing that he was dying, Henry the Younger begged King Henry II for his mother’s release. King Henry II sent Thomas of Earley, Archdeacon of Wells, to tell Eleanor that her son was ill and was going to die. Henry died on June 11th, 1183. Eleanor was released from prison in late 1183, but was still technically in government custody. She was released completely in 1189. Eleanor’s husband, King Henry II of England, died on July 6th, 1189.
Eleanor’s son, Richard I, was the heir of the English throne. He died on April 6th 1199, in Châlus, France, leaving Eleanor’s son, John, to rule England. Eleanor spent the last years of her life in Fontevraud, Bordeaux, France, where she resided until her death. She fell ill in the summer of 1199, but recovered later that year. In 1201, she fell ill again, but became a nun in Fontevraud. Eleanor died at the age of 82 or 83 in 1204 in Fontevraud, and is buried at Fontevraud Abbey next to her husband, King Henry II, and son, Richard I. By the time she passed away, she had outlived all of her children except Eleanor and
John. Eleanor of Aquitaine has had a significant effect on pop culture and history. There are several movies, books, and plays about her, depicting her life as a whole and her effect on Europe. In the 1968 film, The Lion in Winter, Eleanor is portrayed by Katherine Hepburn. In the 2010 film, Robin Hood, Eleanor is played by Eileen Atkins, and in the 1923 silent film, Becket, Eleanor is played by Mary Clare. In conclusion, she still has a very large presence in the world today. Without her, history would be much different. She still has a presence in television and dramas, and was one of the most influential women in Europe during her lifetime. She is considered one of the most influential women in the Middle Ages because she married two of the most important men of that time period, and was very powerful in politics. Without Eleanor of Aquitaine, history would be very different, and the world would not be the same as it is today.
The article "“Whoever We Are, Loss Finds us and Defines Us”, by Anna Quindlen, invokes the necessary emotions needed to understand an agree with the notions stated about death and grief. Yes, Anna Quindlen succeeded in proving her position by her use of emotion, credibility as an accomplished writer, experiences with death and grief and her writing style. Some people live with grief for the rest of their lives, such as Anna Quindlen and some of her examples, while others can overcome the fight. Effectively using all three elements in this article, Quindlen started her engine, shifted this article into gear and ultimately won the race.
While Eleanor was married to King Louis VII, Louis and Eleanor joined the second crusade and met up with Eleanor’s handsome uncle Raymond (Au, p.1). Louis began to notice Eleanor growing closer to Raymond (Au, p.1), so he forced her to go along with him to capture the Holy Land in Jerusalem, fearing an eventual love affair (Au, p.1). After the failed trip to Jerusalem, the pair went back to France, where Eleanor fell out of love with her husband. Even though the pope forbade them from dissolving the marriage (Goodman, 2013, p.3), she still found a way to divorce Louis, announcing that her marriage couldn’t be legal in God’s eyes since they were cousins (Au, p.1). Their marriage was annulled, and all of Eleanor’s property was then returned to her following medieval custom (Au, p.1). Hildegard of Bingen was the complete opposite in terms of how she went about achieving her goals, holding a religious authority’s opinion in the highest respect. Since Hildegard was especially concerned about sharing her visions because she lived in a period when the Church was torn apart by heresy, she didn’t want to do anything to label herself as a heretic (Hildegard of Bingen, 2015, p.1). With the permission of the abbot of St. Disibod, Hildegard began to write her vision down (Ferrante, 2014, p.1). Before she published it, it was approved by a papal commission named by Pope Eugene III, at the instigation of her archbishop, Henry of Mainz (Ferrante, 2014, p.1), and with support of Bernard of Clairvaux, who she had written to for advice (Delahoyde, Hildegard of Bingen, p.1). Eleanor always had her eye on the future, and didn’t allow her bad marriage with Louis to hold her back from further political influence. Just 2 months after she
together in sympathetic union, to share a common grief” (William Alden Smith). In the days
Marie Antoinette was born on November 2, 1755 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, and in a rich family. She was one of the fifteen children of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa. She was the youngest daughter but second youngest child among those fifteen children. She lacked of education, so her handwriting was not easy to understand. Instead of liberal art lessons, she had more interested in entertainment lessons, so she was educated on dance, music, manners, and appearance. With these entertainment lessons, she learnt them better than liberal art lessons. She also learnt three languages included Italian, French, and German, and history of Austria and France. But at the age of ten, she still had trouble in reading, writing, and speaking.
Sadly, life is a terminal illness, and dying is a natural part of life. Deits pulls no punches as he introduces the topic of grief with the reminder that life’s not fair. This is a concept that most of us come to understand early in life, but when we’re confronted by great loss directly, this lesson is easily forgotten. Deits compassionately acknowledges that grief hurts and that to deny the pain is to postpone the inevitable. He continues that loss and grief can be big or small and that the period of mourning afterward can be an unknowable factor early on. This early assessment of grief reminded me of Prochaska and DiClemente’s stages of change, and how the process of change generally follows a specific path.
Eleanor was the eldest of three offspring of William X, the Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers (also one of the first Troubadours poets) and Eleanor Chatelleraul de Rochefourcaulb. As a child, Eleanor was educated in subjects girls were not supposed to learn. For example, she learned how to read and was educated in Latin, and she learned to ride a horse at a very young age. Her only brother died as a child, thus making Eleanor their father's heir. When Eleanor was 15 years old, William died and Eleanor became the Duchess of Aquitaine. She married Louis VII, the future king of France , a few months later.
Like many other women of her time Eleanor came from a long line of noble and royal blood. Her lineage can be traced back to the earliest kings of both England and France.(follow link to take a look at Eleanor’s very long family tree http://www.my-ged.com/db/page/scokin/12251) Her father William X was the son of France’s first troubadour, William IX and Eleanor’s early life was saturated with culture and learning. The court of her father and grandfather was thought to be the main culture center of the time. At age 15, with her father’s passing, Eleanor became the sole heiress and ruler of the largest duchy in France – Aquitane. Eleanor was then betrothed to Louis VII of France in order to unite their vast territories. In fifteen years however, Eleanor’s marriage and queenship were over. The pope on the pretext of close kinship ties annulled her unhappy marriage to Louis. At age 30 Eleanor had given up her throne and her daughters and returned to Aquitane to rule. Within a few years Eleanor was married to Henry Plantengent, the Duke of Normandy and ruler of the second most powerful duchy in France (second to her own Aquitane). In 1154 Henry was crowned King of England and Eleanor was now Queen of England, duchess of Aquitane and duchess of Normandy. Eleanor and Henry had eight children together, including Richard the Lionheart and John. In 1173, afte...
Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve (Huffman, 2012, p.183), it is a melancholy ordeal, but a necessary one (Johnson, 2007). In the following: the five stages of grief, the symptoms of grief, coping with grief, and unusual customs of mourning with particular emphasis on mourning at its most extravagant, during the Victorian era, will all be discussed in this essay (Smith, 2014).
The two poems, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”, by Dylan Thomas and, “Because I Could Not Wait for Death”, by Emily Dickinson, we find two distinct treatments on the same theme, death. Although they both represent death, they also represent it as something other than death. Death brings about a variety of different feelings, because no two people feel the same way or believe the same thing. The fact that our faith is unknown makes the notion of death a common topic, as writers can make sense of their own feelings and emotions and in the process hope to make readers make sense of theirs too. Both Dickinson and Thomas are two well known and revered poets for their eloquent capture of these emotions. The poems both explore death and the
Jehanne Romee, later known as Joan of Arc, was born in January of 1412 in France. According to Yeatts, a prominent historical author, Joan was born to a well-to-do peasant farmer, Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romee (5). Joan and her four siblings received a devout Catholic upbringing. Joan received no formal education and could barely read or write.
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Everyone copes with grief in his or her own ways. Tracy K. Smith, the poet laureate of the United States and
Saint Catherine was born in Siena, Italy on March 25, 1347. She was one of twenty-five children, and she had a twin but she died when she was just an infant. Her father, Giacomo di Benincasa, was a cloth dyer and her mother, Lapa Piagenti, was the daughter of a poet. Catherine grew up being a very happy child. It is reported that when she was around 6, she she had a vision of God. When she was 7, she vowed to give her whole life to God.
England's most talented and well know poet and dramatist was born on April 23, 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon, located in the cetre of England. His father, John, was a glove-maker and wool dealer involved with money lending. His mother Mary Arden was the daughter of a Farmer. William was the third out of eight children whom all died young. His father became Mayor in 1568, after serving on the town council for many years.
Anger can be an anchor, allowing momentary structure to the nothingness of loss. The anger becomes a bridge, a connection to the deceased loved one. This connection made from anger feels better than nothing. According to Kübler-Ross, "When the first stage of denial cannot be maintained any longer, it is replaced by feelings of anger, rage, envy, and resentment'" (43). Anger can be seen subtly throughout Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “In Memoriam A. H. H.” For example, Canto 83 portrays the culminating anger that the speaker is battling over the loss of his friend. The speaker writes, “For this alone on Death I wreak / The wrath that garners in my heart; / He put our lives so far apart / We cannot hear each other speak” (1525- 1528). Within these lines the speaker is conveying his opinion that he has somehow been wronged by the death of his friend. He wants vengeance against death because he can no longer communicate with his dead friend. This anger is anchoring the speaker by allowing him to focus on something other than his grief over the loss of his