A guided tour in the footsteps of one of the most remarkable of all medieval women: once Queen of France, then Queen of England, mother of Richard the Lion-Hearted and subject of countless biographies. Poitiers was her town. Along the way visit the Cathedral of Poitiers, where so much history happened, the church of another fascinating Queen, Sainte Radegonde, Poitiers’ historical museum, and the Palace of the “Count-Dukes” of Aquitaine. With a winged dragon thrown in.
Introduction
We’ll call her Alienor, as the French called her, though in English she is known everywhere as Eleanor of Aquitaine. In all languages (she spoke French, and Occitan – the language of the Troubadours, and likely Poitevin, probably learned English, and possibly wrote Latin), this was a unique woman. So unique that only a Katharine Hepburn can play her in the movies and get away with it. Alienor was a willful woman who remade the medieval world: she changed the destiny of Aquitaine, her homeland, of France, where she was Queen first, and of England, where she was Queen second. Not to mention Poitiers. She was the last of an illustrious and glamorous dynasty which ruled one of the largest states in Europe, counting among her forbearers a Saint, several sinners and a singer. And she was possibly the only Queen to ever go on a crusade.
Alienor was born around 1122, somewhere near Poitiers. Her mother, Aenor de Chatellerault, died before she turned ten. Her father, the Count-Duke Guillaume X of Aquitaine, died in 1137 in Spain while on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Her only brother died young, and she became heiress to both the County of Poitou and the Duchy of Aquitaine, making her the richest marriage prize of her century. Her marriages reflected this status. Alienor married first in 1137 to France’s Prince Louis, who a week later became King Louis VII on the death of his father. He had been raised to be a monk, until his older brother passed away, and she had been raised in a lively, vivacious court full of song and dancing. They were not the perfect match. In 1147, Queen Alienor accompanied Louis to the Holy Land on the Second Crusade: neither the travel, the fighting, nor the relationship went well. Worse, after 15 years of marriage the Queen had produced two daughters, but no sons. The marriage was annulled in 1152, and shortly thereafter Alienor re-married, this time to Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. In short order in 1154 Henry became King Henry II of England, and the ex-Queen of France became Queen of England. The marriage and the reign were tumultuous, with fights and rebellions, but Alienor and Henry created a lasting dynasty. Their first, glamorous son was Richard the Lion-Hearted, their second the oft-ridiculed King “Lackland” John, who lost their continental lands but still managed to be the forebearer of many more English kings. Dozens of books have been written on Queen Alienor – possibly the most famous woman of the Middle Ages.
Poitiers was the hometown of this Queen of legend. While she also spent much time in Paris, London and other places, we know she was in Poitiers for many years: before her marriage in 1137, from 1152 through much of 1154 after her second marriage, 1159, 1170-1174, 1189-1196, and from 1199 to her death in 1204. In this walk you can follow the footsteps of Alienor through her Poitiers, one of the best ways to imagine what her famous life was like.
- Starting Point: Saint-Pierre Cathedral
- End Point: Church of Saint-Jean de Montierneuf
- Distance: 2.2 Miles
- Walking Time: One hour
- Estimated total time: Four hours (excluding a visit of the Musee Sainte-Croix)
Map: see at bottom of walk, or at link here
The Walk
The best place to begin following Eleanor/ Alienor’s footsteps is where she most changed the course of history: St Pierre Cathedral (map A and E). Twice. In 1137 she married prince Louis of France, in Bordeaux; the new spouses made their way to Poitiers a week later. Here at the cathedral, as they were being crowned Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine, the news arrived that King Louis VI had died: prince Louis went in one day from doubling the size of France to assuming the crown, as Louis VII. For the first time since the days of Clovis, some 600 years ago, the kingdom of France took on more or less the shape it has today. It lasted less than two decades. Here at the cathedral, in 1152, the newly divorced Eleanor took on a new husband, Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. Two years later, in 1154, Count Henry became Henry II, King of England, and now the English crown held nearly as much land in France as did the King of France. (for more on this episode, see “Where France was Created… and Torn Asunder”).
The Cathedral where these two Europe-altering scenes took place was where the Cathedral now stands, but it was an earlier building, about a century old at the time. In 1162, Eleanor and Henry started building a new cathedral. Standing in front of you is the outcome, which took more than two centuries to be achieved: a church built far more in the muscular style of the Anglo-Angevin cathedrals of England, and far less in that of the cathedrals of the Ile-de-France, a statement of dynastic power and of where Aquitaine’s new political links lay. It was in this cathedral, in 1422, in the midst of the Hundred Year’s War (a War whose origins lay back in Eleanor’s 1152 marriage here), that Charles VII was crowned King of France. Or King of Poitiers, as many said, since it was the English who controlled Paris and much of “his” kingdom.
Poitiers’ cathedral is an imposing sight: over 300 feet long, with the two side towers each over 100 feet tall. The broad, flat façade with its square flanking towers gives it a somewhat fortress-like appearance, perhaps not surprising given the chaos and fighting happening regionally in the centuries that its construction progressed. The lack of an apse, or exterior side chapels, contributes to the impression of heaviness. Once one passes through the main portal and under the tympanum with its depiction of the Last Judgement (a heavy theme itself), the interior is a different revelation. Long columns soar skyward in the nave, and the church appears as tall inside as any other in France. Two more elements, along with the light and height of the nave, are of particular interest inside the cathedral: the stained-glass windows and the counter-reformation era chapels of the transept. Most of the windows of the choir and the transepts preserve their stained glass of the 12th and 13th centuries. The end window, the Crucifixion Window contains the figures of Henry II and Eleanor, and was completed c.1165, making it one of the earliest stained-glass cathedral windows in France. Etienne Male, France’s great 20th century medieval art historian, called the Crucifixion Window at Poitiers “the finest stained-glass window in all of France”. In the transept, several of the chapels house art works from the many Catholic convents which sprang up in Poitiers in the early 1600s, at the height of the Counter-Reformation (see the story of these newcomers to Poitiers in “Counter-Reformation Poitiers,” and in our separate guided walk, “Reformed and Reconstructed Poitiers“), and which were closed subsequently by the French Revolution. On the south side, the baroque Altar of the Apostles comes from the Convent of the Jacobins (also known as the Dominicans): dating from 1670, it has Saint Dominic in its center, with next to him King Louis XIII, Queen Marie de Medici, King Henri IV, and Saint Ignatius. On the north side, the Bishop’s Chapel contains a spectacular red and black marble altar, from the 17th century, brought from the convent Church of the Carmelites.
Alienor and Henry’s cathedral here also had more distant predecessors. A first “cathedral” in Poitiers was dedicated to Saint Sixte, a 3rd Century Pope. It was built either in the late 3rd or early 4th Century, was certainly much smaller, and probably stood somewhat to the south, closer to where the Baptistery stands. The current site of the Cathedral had a roman temple on it at that time. Saint Hilaire, when he returned from exile to become Bishop of Poitiers in the mid-4th century, brought precious relics from Rome to either rededicate this early church or inaugurate a second one; those relics were two pieces of the jaw of Saint Peter, and hairs of the Apostle’s beard. From this time forward, the Cathedral was renamed in honor of Saint Peter (saint Pierre in French). Magnificent gold and jewel-incrusted reliquaries were given to the church to house Saint Peter’s relics by the Duke Guillaume VIII, and later by Jean, Duc de Berry. The Treasury of the Cathedral became accessible to the public in 1999, and has a presentation on the cult of relics, so important for much of Poitiers’ history.
In Alienor’s time the ecclesiastic complex here included two smaller and now-gone churches located between the Cathedral and the Baptistery, one named St Hilaire-entre-les-églises, on the spot where Saint Hilaire lived when he was Bishop of Poitiers, and Notre-Dame-entre-les-églises, which was first named St Martin-entre-les- églises, where Saint Martin reportedly lived before being installed by Hilaire at Ligugé (see “The First Monk” for the story of Saint Martin). Churches in this section of Poitiers were inescapable: no fewer than 18 can be counted in this small section of town. Two related ones a few hundred meters to the east of the cathedral must have figured highly in Alienor’s view of Poitiers: Sainte Radegonde church, and Sainte-Croix Abbey.
Sainte Radegonde was the best-known female figure in Poitiers’ history before the arrival of Alienor on the scene (for her story, see “From Thuringia with Love”). One can easily imagine her becoming a sort of role model for Alienor as she became older: the queen who left an undeserving king (in Paris no less), and was a lover of poetry. Leaving aside that Queen Radegonde, while of great renown, had a clear self-effacing side to her personality, an aspect of which no one would accuse Alienor. The Eglise Sainte-Radegonde (map B), located where the saint’s tomb was placed, then just outside the city wall as required by prevailing roman custom, was destroyed by the invasions of the Saracens and later the Vikings, and again in the great fire of 1083. The church was rebuilt multiple times, and today’s church has aspects of several different centuries: parts date from the 11th century (the apse and the crypt, and part of the tower), the 13th (the main nave) the 14th (the vaulting), and the 15th (the main doorway).
The entrance tower-porch is unusual, though the same feature can be found as well here at the church of Saint-Porchaire, near the Palace. Inside the church, descend the narrow stone stairs to the crypt: here lies the tomb of Sainte-Radegonde. The Tomb of Sainte-Radegonde is visibly ancient, though not original, dating from the late 10th or early 11th century: it was not unusual for coffins of renowned saints to be progressively entombed in richer and richer tombs, in part to encourage pilgrims to donate. During the sack of Poitiers by protestant troops in 1562, the remains of the saint were reportedly burnt and scattered, though some ashes were, again reportedly, rescued and are in the coffin. Nearby are tombs of two more female saints who were Radegonde’s contemporaries: Saint Agnès, who became the first Abbess of the first female monastery in France, after Radegonde declined the honor, and Sainte Disciole, one of their favorite disciples. Interestingly, there is no sign of the Tomb of another famous figure buried here: Pippin, King of Aquitaine and grandson of Charlemagne (for this story, see “The Missing Emperor”). Also in the church is another famous monument, moved here from Radegonde’s Abbey in 1792 after the Abbey was sold off in the Revolution. This small monument, the print of a foot, is called the Pas-de-Dieu, or “footstep of Jesus”. Reportedly Jesus appeared to Sainte Radegonde in her final days to announce that her earthly deliverance was at hand, and after the vision Radegonde found the print of his foot where she had seen him stand.
Until after World War I, Sainte Radegonde in Poitiers was the great pilgrimage church of the region. Guidebooks from the early 1900s describe how candles and lamps were kept burning constantly at the Saint’s tomb, her feast-day (August 13) was an event of great importance, and throughout the month of August people would come from miles around to perform their devotions there. During Easter Week, again the crowds would be particularly large, this time with great attention to the Pas-de-Dieu.
Sellers of votive candles at the entrance of the church achieved their own renown, and were photographed into the 1950s. They had their chairs here, and in their baskets one could find hearts of wax (for young women looking to be married), and arms, legs and heads of wax (for those praying for recovery of sick or infirm loved ones). One purchased the wax emblem, went to Radegonde’s tomb, lit a votive candle, and put the wax emblem on the tomb, and circled the tomb three times saying our fathers. A lot of excitement for someone who died over 1400 years ago.
As you exit, note take a minute the note the enclosed rectangular area between the church doors and the steps to the street. This Parvis de Sainte Radegonde was where ecclesiastic courts held their trials, on matters falling into the jurisdiction of the parish. The cathedral once had a much larger one than here. On either side of the Parvis stood a sculpture of a Lion of Judah, a symbol of justice, and the legal cases were held “inter Leones.”
Note the (rather quiet-looking) nightclub across the street from the church, La Grand’ Goule. This name evokes the history of Poitiers’ favorite monster, one that used to “threaten” insufficiently disciplined nuns at the abbey established by Radegonde, which is our next stop (to learn more, read “La Grand’ Goule & other Notorious Abbey Tales”). The “monster” is sufficiently popular as to rate an explanatory panel in the church itself.
Turn left along the Rue des Carolus, along which Radegonde’s body was carried in state after her death in 589 AD, from her Abbey to her resting place – which was then called Sainte-Marie-hors-les-Murs, before the church was renamed in her honor. The Rue des Carolus runs along the trace of the old Gallo-Roman wall of Limonum, and over the wall on your right as you walk would have been the grounds of the Abbey of Sainte-Croix (The Abbey of the Holy Cross). The first monastery for women in France, founded by a queen, even its first rebels were princesses; it served as the prison of an Empress and its abbesses all belonged to the nobility (See the fuller story of the Abbey in the tale “From Thuringia with Love”). One can imagine many parallels going through Alienor’s mind when her footsteps took her here. Unlike Radegonde’s church, however, traces of her famous Abbey have been largely erased. Today you come out on the Boulevard, almost opposite the Pont Neuf across the Clain (map C). The old Ste Croix Abbey once included the whole space between the Baptistery St Jean and the Pont Neuf, the Rue des Carolus and the Rue St Simplicien, further along the Clain. The drawing reproduced below gives one a sense of the size of the establishment.
Walk up the Rue Jean-Jaures, which cut the grounds of the Abbey in two when the street was created in the 19th century. You pass the Rue Sainte-Croix to your right, where the entrance to the Abbey ground were before the 1789 French Revolution. The splendid Abbey, as with all churches and religious buildings, was nationalized at the time of the Revolution, and sold at auction. The community has continued in different locations, and since 1965 the nuns of Sainte-Croix have their worship in the village of Saint-Benoit, some five miles south of Poitiers. The relocated Abbey maintains several relics from the days of their founder, including the fragment of the True Cross, preserved in an 11th century byzantine reliquary, the 6th century oak “desk” where Radegonde herself reportedly read her Bible, and a 6th century bronze cross. The nuns launched a fund-raising drive in 2019 to build a separate oratory for the relics.
To your left, as you approach the Baptistery, is a “new Sainte-Croix,” in this case the Sainte-Croix Museum (map D). The Museum was opened in 1974, housed in a somewhat forbidding-looking concrete and glass structure, but with excellent historical collections. This is where many of the fragments of art and decorative sculpture from Gallo-Roman Limonum have wound up, along with several excellent examples of Romanesque art. A personal favorite, which typifies the best of the occasional whimsy in which Romanesque sculptors indulged, is the sculpted capital of “Discord,” two elderly men tugging at each other’s beards. This sculpted capital was originally from the church of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand. There are also more modern works, including by sculptors Rodin and Camille Claudel.
After your museum visit, walk back across the Rue Jaures, past the Baptistery and back to the Cathedral where we started (map A and E). From here, walk back up the Rue de la Cathedrale, as Eleanor would have done after both her crowning as Queen of France and her fateful marriage to Henry II. Along the way, on the right at #76, she would have passed the entrance to the House of the Knights Templar, for whom Poitiers had a disaster in the future (see “The Doom of the Templars”), but who in Eleanor’s time were at the peak of their glory. You are walking along the key artery of Eleanor’s Poitiers, linking the Cathedral with the Palace of the Count/Dukes of Aquitaine. As you reach the top of the Rue de la Cathedrale, today you in front of you the shops of the Rue de Marché-Notre-Dame: there were no buildings here in the 12th century, and you would have come straight on to the Palace, which would have been visible most of your way up the street. Today you have to wind your way to your left for half a block to come to the back side of the Palace, on Rue des Cordeliers, then another right onto the Rue Gambetta to come to the front.
The Palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine, known formally as The Palais de Justice, is impressive, though it is but a shadow of its former glorious self (map F). Built on what was first the site of a Palace of the Roman Governors, or Pro-Consuls, then of a Royal Palace for Wisigothic, Merovingian and Carolingian Rulers, the Ducal Palace stands on the high point of the plateau overlooking the River Boivre. Here in the Palace Eleanor would have spent much of her childhood (it is not clear where she was born), most of this with tutors, especially after her mother and brother died in 1130. Here she had dinners and lodged with King Louis VII in 1137 as the new Queen of France. Her wedding night in 1152 with Henry Plantagenet, soon to be King Henry II of England, was spent here. In 1159 Eleanor attended a meeting of King Henry’s Council here at the Palace: in attendance among others were Malcolm IV, King of Scotland, and Thomas Beckett. The headiest times for her at the Palace though came during her stay at Poitiers, as semi-estranged Queen of England but entrusted with the administration of her old province of Aquitaine, from 1168 to 1773. This was the period that came to be known as “the courts of love,” with visiting troubadours, ballads and glittering celebrations (see “The Court of the Troubadours”). These were also the golden days of the “Langue D’Oc,” or Provencal, which was the language of the court at Poitiers, and of the troubadours – within another century, as Aquitaine came under northern control, the old language of Provencal would largely fade out and give way to the French spoken at the court of the Kings in Paris. The Palace was also likely the place where the great Queen died, in 1204, reportedly after hearing the news of her son John’s loss of the key Norman fortress of Chateau-Gaillard to the forces of French King Philippe-Auguste, signaling the end of Plantagenet and English control over Normandy – at least for another two centuries.
Alienor’s Ducal Palace had a long history. The Roman Governors built the first palace here (although the earliest palace, in the 3rd century, may have been on today’s Rue Carnot, just south of here. The Wisigoth Kings lodged in the old Roman palace, or what was left of it in the 5th century. It was rebuilt at least twice under the Carolingians, once in the time of Charlemagne, and once by his son and Emperor Louis “the Debonnaire”, who spent time in Poitiers. The first Counts of Poitou lived here as their control over Aquitaine became hereditary in the 9th century, and the Palace was rebuilt – after the great fire of 1018 — with great splendor by Duke William V, “the Great.” This medieval palace was a fortress, surrounded by now-gone water-filled moats which separated it from the rest of the city. Alienor reconstructed the Great Hall of the Palace beginning in 1192. This Great Hall, or Hall of Justice or “Hall of Lost Steps,” is for the most part the one which you can visit today, and one can imagine Queen Alienor entertaining her retainers and visiting nobility here in her final years. If not the largest, it was certainly among the largest of the aristocratic and royal halls from this time. After the English burnt much of the Palace in 1346, the Duc de Berry rebuilt parts of it later in the 14th century, including adding the grand chimney at the end of the Great Hall. The external wall of the more late-Gothic/ Renaissance style one can see from the Rue des Cordeliers, overlooking the old Roman Wall, was built by the Duc de Berry’s architect, Guy de Dammartin. The moats around the Palace began to be filled in by this time, emphasizing its residential role over its former defensive one.
On the southwest side of the Palace is the dungeon, called La Tour Maubergeon, which has its own interesting history. This tower was built by Guillaume VII, Alienor’s grandfather, who is best known as “Guillaume le Troubadour,” or “William the Troubadour.” This William had an active love life: he married Philippa of Toulouse, heiress to the enormous county of Toulouse, which enabled him to claim a near-doubling of Aquitaine’s boundaries. He later met a lady by the name of Amauberge de l’Isle Bouchard, the wife of one of his vassals, the Viscount of Chatellereault. This lady was apparently already known at the time by the nickname “Dangereuse,” which she proved to be for many of those involved. Duke William decided (apparently with her cooperation) that he was going to kidnap the lady Amauberge and make her his mistress. He installed her in his Palace at Poitiers, building for her a new tower in 1104 which has since carried her name, “La Maubergeonne.” A papal legate who tried to convince the Duke that this was a bad idea was sent packing, and a broken-hearted Philippa susbequently retired to an Abbey she had helped found north of Poitiers, The Abbey of Fontevrault. William then arranged the marriage of his eldest son and heir, who would become Duke Guillaume IX of Aquitaine, with one of Amauberge’s daughters, Aenor of Chatellerault. From that marriage, which took place in about 1122, would come no less an offspring than Alienor herself (the name Alienor, as some have it, was in this case designating “the other Aenor,” to distinguish her from her mother). Interestingly, when it came time Alienor would choose not to be buried in the Abbey of Montierneuf in Poitiers — the intended sepulture of her dynasty and where her father was buried. She chose instead to be buried at her grandmother’s Philippa’s – the forsaken one — Abbey at Fontevrault, alongside her second husband, King Henry II, and their son Richard the Lion-Hearted.
From the Palace, head north along the Rue du Palais. In Alienor’s time, this street on summer days would have been thronged with pilgrims. Pilgrimage was big business in the 12th century. Tens of thousands set out to fulfill vows, do penance, seek cures, or just to feel themselves closer to God and his saints. The most popular destination was Compostela, as Jerusalem had been reconquered by Islamic armies, and Rome was a bit far. One prominent pilgrim which Alienor would have seen departing from here was her own father, Duke Guillaume X, in 1137. He died on the pilgrimage, and was buried in the Cathedral of Saint James at Compostela. Pilgrims dressed in a long, coarse, robe, a broad-brimmed hat and carried a staff. They carried their wealth on their person, to pay for food, accommodation, and pilgrim badges, and to make offerings at shrines, making them susceptible to thieves. The Templars were one of the orders dedicated to trying to protect pilgrims. Many of the pilgrims on the road here would have followed the street we just climbed, down to the tomb of Sainte Radegonde. Many more would have been headed about a mile south of the Palace, along the Rue Carnot where most of the inns and hotels for travelers could be found, to the Church and Tomb of Saint Hilaire, with many then headed much farther south, to Compostela. The road through Poitiers was one of the most frequented roads to Compostela, and The Pilgrim’s Guide, written in the 12th century, strongly recommended Saint Hilaire’s Tomb as a stop along the way.
Turn right onto the old Rue de la Regratterie, your first right (map G). This street was originally the continuation of the Roman Decumani, the main east-west road through Gallo-Roman Limonum, which starts along the Grand’ Rue. Most of the houses along this street still date from the 14th through the 18th century, and is very much typical of the timeless atmosphere of Poitiers. The Rue de la Regratterie will bring you out in front of the great church of Notre-Dame-la-Grande. This church is known today as one of the best examples of Romanesque architecture, especially for the sculpted front which you now face. While most of the church was built in the 11th century, the remarkable sculptures on the façade of Notre-Dame were commissioned during Eleanor’s reign. She would have often seen the stone masons and sculptors at work, and the façade taking shape.
Walk along the front of the covered Marché Notre-Dame, and continue another 200 meters along the Rue de la Tete Noire (named after an old restaurant), and left on the Rue des Flageolles to the Place de la Liberté (map H). No, the Statue of Liberty in front of you here was not there in Eleanor’s day – it was installed in 1903, clearly intending to make visitors from New York feel at home in Poitiers. The Place here was created under Eleanor, who gave the authorization for a new outdoor market to be here. This was known as the Marché-Neuf, and the square was for a long time the Place du Marché-Neuf. In between being Alienor’s market and home to Liberty, it was where the Guillotine was installed during the French Revolution. Citizens of Poitiers who renamed the Guillotine’s home for Liberty followed much the same impulse as their Parisian colleagues, who renamed the square where the Guillotine did its work in Paris the “Place de la Concorde.”
From the northwest side of the Place de la Liberté, head north along the very old Rue de la Chaine, and its continuation the Rue Jean-Bouchet. At #36 on the Rue Jean-Bouchet (map I) is the one civil building left from Alienor’s time, dating from the 12th century. It is an extremely rare example of civil Romanesque architecture. This 5-6 minute walk brings you to the Place Montierneuf. To your right is the short path bringing you to the House of Alienor’s Fathers: the Abbey Church of Montierneuf.
Montierneuf (map J) does not look particularly grand today (though it is standing, which is more than one can say for many of the Abbeys which stood in Alienor’s time): the approach street is hemmed in by houses along both sides; the church is much narrower than it was originally; and the rebuilt front is fairly nondescript. The apse remains original, and lovely when seen from behind the church. Yet in Alienor’s time it was a grand place, with aspirations to much future grandeur… aspirations that came to an end with Alienor. Until the mid-11th Century, the increasingly powerful Counts of Poitou/ Dukes of Aquitaine had been buried in various spots, including the old Carolingian Abbey of Saint-Cyprien (long gone). Alienor’s great-grandfather, Guillaume VIII, had a plan to change this. He had a new Abbey built (the name Montierneuf derives from the Poitevin “Moutier-Neuf,” or “New Monastery.”) along the Clain, associated with the powerful Order of Cluny, to serve as burial ground or him and his descendants – a fitting mausoleum for (arguably) the most powerful family in France at the time. Guillaume was duly buried there in 1086, and joined there in 1129 by Guillaume IX, “the Troubadour,” Alienor’s grandfather. Surely the young Alienor was brought here many times, to see the glorious tombs of her ancestors and where, in principle, future members of the family would be laid to rest.
The future did not quite work out as planned for Montierneuf. Alienor’s father, Guillaume X, died while on pilgrimage and was buried in the great church of Saint James at Compostella, not at Montierneuf. And Guillaume X left no sons to carry the line into future generations, only his daughter Alienor. Interestingly, though Alienor died at Poitiers, she did not choose to be buried at Montierneuf with her grandfather. Instead she chose to be buried some 50 miles to the north, at the Abbey of Fontevrault, burial place of her grandmother and Fontevrault founder Philippa of Toulouse, who had been deserted by her husband Guillaume IX.
Finish this walk by turning towards the river. As you see the Boulevard Chasseigne in front of you along the Clain, you are seeing yet another of Alienor’s contributions to Poitiers. Poitiers, then Limonum, was first defended by fortified walls in the late stages of Roman occupation, in the late 3rd century. But these walls left out the entire eastern slope of the plateau, along with much of the southern end as well, and became obsolete by the time of the Dukes of Aquitaine. Yet it was not until the years of the last member of their dynasty, Alienor, that Poitiers received a new defensive perimeter. And what a set of walls she built. From 1137 to 1146, her years as Queen of France, the longest set of fortified walls in France took shape. Six and a half kilometers long, with somewhere between 60 and 80 towers and turrets, the new defenses this time encompassed the entire plateau. A few remnants remain, though the walls of Poitiers have been largely torn down in the last two centuries, as they have in most cities. From where you are standing, it is easy to imagine the ramparts, however, for the Boulevards along the Clain follow the line of the walls. The defenses were complemented by two dams along the Boivre, which flooded the zone to the east of the plateau and created marshes which would add to the city’s protection.
