Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine, the daughter of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, was the greatest heiress of the twelfth century and one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages.

Upon her father’s death in 1137 she inherited the duchy of Aquitaine and as a Duchess her lands ran from Poitou to the Pyrenees. In July 1137 she married the heir to the French throne, who was crowned as Louis VII one month after their wedding. Louis divorced her because she had only produced two daughters by the time she was thirty. After the divorce Eleanor regained possession of Aquitaine, and two months later she married the grandson of Henry I of England, Henry Plantagenet, count of Anjou and duke of Normandy. Two years after their marriage he became as Henry II (r. 1154-1189), king of England, with the result that England, Normandy, and the west of France were united under his rule.

Eleanor and Henry had three daughters and five sons. Her sons rebelled against Henry II in 1173 and she provided them with considerable military support, probably because of her husband’s infidelities. The rebellion was broken and she was semi-imprisonment until the death of Henry II in 1189.

The estimate of her wealth is probably minimalistic, put at £10,000 on her death in 1204, which was about 0.9% of net national income at the time. In 2010 she would be worth about £9.9bn.