Page "Eleanor of Aquitaine" Paragraph 7

By all accounts, Eleanor's father ensured that she had the best possible education.

Although her native tongue was Poitevin, she was taught to read and speak Latin, was well versed in music and literature, and schooled in riding, hawking, and hunting.

Eleanor was extroverted, lively, intelligent, and strong willed.

In the spring of 1130, when Eleanor was six, her four-year-old brother William Aigret and their mother died at the castle of Talmont, on Aquitaine's Atlantic coast.

Eleanor became the heir presumptive to her father's domains.

The Duchy of Aquitaine was the largest and richest province of France ; Poitou ( where Eleanor spent most of her childhood ) and Aquitaine together were almost one-third the size of modern France.

Eleanor had only one other legitimate sibling, a younger sister named Aelith but always called Petronilla.

Her half brothers, William and Joscelin, were acknowledged by William X as his sons, but not as his heirs.

Later, during the first four years of Henry II's reign, all three siblings joined Eleanor's royal household.