The Age of Chivalry

In 12th-century France, a philosopher named Peter Abelard wrote love letters to his most brilliant student, Héloïse, secretly married her, and was castrated by her uncle's hired men for the transgression. Their correspondence — written from monasteries decades later — is among the most extraordinary love letters in any language. Courtly love was the era's aesthetic. The reality was considerably more violent.

Meanwhile, Eleanor of Aquitaine divorced the King of France, married the King of England, went on crusade, raised sons who became kings, and spent ten years imprisoned in a tower by her husband. She outlived most of them. This is the world of troubadours and tournaments, crusades and cathedrals — romantic in aspiration, brutal in execution.