Excellent source support (many of them French--as the text is translated from the French) for a difficult set of historical -- actual or fictional or apocryphal -- figures. The twelfth century doesn't have that many sources anyway, let alone those for women. The other plus, besides having the fresco of Eleanor of Aquitaine on the cover from the Chapel of Sainte-Radegone at Chinon, France, is how
Duby combines a readable narrative with background of the influence and importance of the women selected: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mary Magdalen, Abbess Heloise, Iseult, Juette of Huy and Soredamors and Fenic .