Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir (1999)

I, Melachi ibn Amillar, being of unsound mind and body, did read Alison Weir's biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of King Henry II and mother of Kings Richard and John, finishing it in June 2020. This took a while, as it is rather long, but more particularly because the cast is quite extensive and they often have very similar names, suggesting some Equity card system would be useful for French dukes and the like, as each paragraph needs to be read slowly to get them straight. The author follows the sources so closely she starts to think like them: unless she is being tongue in cheek when she writes, for example "the fact was that Geoffrey [of Brittany] was dangerous, slippery, treacherous and grasping" (p. 207). No  insight into Eleanor as the feminine aspect of medieval life will be found here. Most of the book is a gruesome rendition of leaders resembling mafia barons, avenging perceived slights. In fact, I am not convinced anyone really knows much about Eleanor other than on which date she happened to be somewhere, and not always even that, either. Nevertheless, this is a thorough account of the bloodletting around her.