I’m on a mission: 889 years of biographies. This mission didn’t start out with such a long ranging span of years, from 1122 to 2011 (or maybe 2012 depending on how fast I read.) It started in October 2009 with the purchase of Alison Weir’s biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine at Left Bank Books, a small book store in a nineteenth century bank building in Maine. Poor Eleanor collected dust on the shelf until January of 2011 when my New Year’s resolution kicked in. I vowed not to buy any new books in 2011 until I had read all of the books sitting on my shelves unread. When I finished the biography I wanted more, more history, more larger than life characters. I stuck to my resolution, probably the first one I ever stuck too, and started hunting for the next biography while working my way through my bookshelves. I wanted an excellent biography of Isabella I of Castile, conqueror of Moors, expeller of Jews, supporter of Columbus.
On a cold early March day I successfully completed my resolution! At last I could buy new books!! Isabella was at the top of my most wanted list. But then I started thinking. Instead of skipping forward three hundred years I should read biographies of people that cover the years between these two renowned women. I needed to find biographies from 1204 to 1451. Immediately Blanche of Castile jumped to mind; she had been mentioned in her grandmother Eleanor’s biography and Weir made her sound very interesting. So, back to the internet I went.
Blanche was the granddaughter of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the daughter of the King and Queen of Castile, the niece of the next two English Kings and the Dowager Holy Roman Empress, sister to the Queen of Portugal. As the wife of King Louis VIII of France she reigned as Queen consort then ruled for her underage son on her husband’s death. That little prince grew up to be Louis the IX, A.K.A. St Louis. That said, the hunt for a biography of Blanche frustrated me for hours. At long last I found the work of Regine Pernoud, a French medieval scholar who spent decades primarily focused on Joan of Arc. A used bookstore in Massachusetts offered the book for sale via Amazon marketplace. This same seller had a copy of Weir’s Isabella of France, Queen to Edward II, the first English King to ever be impeached by Parliament (he was a big homo that openly favored his lover over his wife too.) Now I had almost filled in the time gap between Eleanor and Isabella. And I had a new idea. Each person I read about had to descend from Eleanor. So far everyone on my list met that requirement.
The next addition to my biographies list I discovered in one of my favorite places in the City, Housing Works Bookshop and Café. The used bookstore sells donated books to raise money for people living with HIV and Aids. The store occupies the ground floor of a classic Soho cast iron building with fifteen-foot ceilings and twelve-foot windows. The coffee is good and the quiche is excellent. With coffee in hand I met Joanna I Queen of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem as introduced by Nancy Goldstone. A quick skim of the family tree chart for Joanna verified that she met the two requirements: she descended from Eleanor and she filled in a gap in the time line. That same day I found another unexpected gem, a fifty year-old biography of King John of England by W. L. Warren. Now technically I didn’t need him. Eleanor and her granddaughter Blanche overlapped, leaving no hole in the time line. But I couldn’t resist. I took Joanna and John home that day.
Three and a half months into this project I have read five biographies covering 260 years. Below is the list so far:
OK so here is where this mission stands right now. I have read:
Weir, Alison. Eleanor of Aquitaine, 1999 (1122-1204)
Warren, W.L. King John, 1961 (1166-1216)
Pernoud, Regine. Blanche of Castile, 1972 (1188-1252)
Weir, Alison. Queen Isabella, 2005 (1295-1358)
Goldstone, Nancy. The Lady Queen, 2009 (1326-1382)
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