Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Beatrice A. Lees

Critical Essay by Beatrice A. Lees

SOURCE: “The Letters of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine to Pope Celestine III,” The English Historical Review, Vol. 21, No. LXXXI, January, 1906, pp. 78-93.

In the following essay, Lees examines three letters traditionally believed to have been written by Eleanor to persuade the Pope to aid Richard the Lionheart. She finds that, instead, they were most probably rhetorical exercises by Peter of Blois.

Of all the perils which beset the unwary historian none is more insidious than the rhetorical exercise masquerading in the guise of an historical letter; it deceives only the more effectually because it was written with no thought of deception, and is often close enough to fact and accurate enough in form to mislead all but the most minute and laborious of critics. The present article is an attempt to follow up the suggestion of M. Charles Bémont that the three letters from Eleanor of Aquitaine to...
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