SOURCE: “Music in the Life and Times of Eleanor of Aquitaine” in Eleanor of Aquitaine: Patron and Politician, edited by William W. Kibler, University of Texas Press, 1976, pp. 61-80.

In the following essay, Baltzer details the contribution of Eleanor and her family to the history of music, particularly of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

It is safe to say that, had Eleanor of Aquitaine not made a significant mark on twelfth-century politics and culture, the history of music in the Middle Ages would be very different from what it is. Both directly and indirectly, Eleanor and her family and their descendants, who eventually married into just about every royal house in Europe, profoundly affected the development of medieval music. They did this both as patrons and as practitioners of the art.

It is hardly necessary to mention that Eleanor's grandfather William, the ninth duke of Aquitaine and seventh...