For the past century or so, scholars believed that Eleanor of Aquitaine brought "courtly love" to the upper classes of Western Europe during the twelfth century. Yet, by all counts, courtly love seems to be in contradiction with what the records reveal about Eleanor, her worldview and her understanding of herself. Attempts to reconcile or explain this disjunction have only clouded the image of the historic Eleanor, creating confusion, and fomenting unnecessary debate. Although Eleanor may have contributed to the flowering of court culture in the twelfth century by virtue of her stature and status, she was not affiliated with any "court of love" and did not create or spread the ethos of courtly love. In recent decades many scholars have agreed on this point, though there are still dissenters. As yet, no one has offered an explantion of when the legend of Eleanor and courtly love became a part of the historical consciousness, as Frank Chambers did with several of the other prominent Eleanor legends in 1941. This study will do just that: trace the appearance and absorption of the legend of Eleanor of Aquitaine's Court of Love at Poiters.

Despite the passing of eight centuries since her death, Eleanor of Aquitaine remains one of history's most enigmatic figures. She was arguably the most powerful, non-self-reigning queen in European history. The stories that surround her are convoluted mixtures of fact, rumor, and fiction. To some she has been a role model and an icon of women's achievement; to others she was the epitome of every malevolent aspect of womanhood. How did this shrewd politician come to be identified as the founder of the courtly love movement? How did an association which seems so far removed from what has been preserved and recorded about her become so widely accepted and perpetuated?

Since we are tracing the appearance and absorption of a legend into the historical record, a considerable historiographical examination and analysis must be a part of this project, as well as an examination of courtly love and its place in twelfth-century life. The focus will be on the years between 1169 and 1173, during which Eleanor was primarily on the Continent, a period when her activities were not as well documented as they were when she resided with Henry II, and when historians place her fictitious Court of Love at Poiters. The study begins with Eleanor's lifetime in the twelfth century with the chronicles, the most prevalent of the early forms of historical writing in Europe. It concludes in the current millenium. As much as the style and context of historical writing changed over that eight hundred year period, so have its goals. Recognizing those changes will be critical to understanding how Eleanor's legendary court of love at Poiters came into being.

Legends and stories can become grossly exaggerated when one scholar cites another's hypothesis as fact. Eleanor is purported to have held her own court at Poiters, independent of the quasi-imperial power of the Angevins, full of artists and poets and young women there to receive training in courtly etiquette. This picture of her as a philanthropic patroness of the arts, holding court and answering questions of love and etiquette, is not consistent with the historical record. It has been propagated through gaps in the historical record which were filled with hypothesis and later assumed to be correct, and through a modern misinterpretation of one particular text.