The splendour of John’s court may have fallen short of those of the early modern French kings at Versailles or his own Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian successors, but he presided over an impressive establishment. He had an extraordinary hunting establishment, with scores of men; dozens of highly trained birds of prey; hundreds of hunting dogs; and a large network of hunting lodges, parks, and forests. His court boasted a luxurious material culture, with rich stores of gold and silver plate, hundreds of pieces of jewellery studded with gems, and exotic and costly textiles. Though some aspects of court culture left fewer traces in the surviving records, enough survives to show the patronage of art and music, entertainment and spectacle, and books and learning. John also sponsored chivalric practices such as heraldry, and though he was a notable sexual predator, the influence of new ideas about love and romance was not entirely absent from his court. Despite John’s reputation for impiety, he carried out the religious activities expected of a king, and religion was an integral part of court life. The royal records reveal the ongoing efforts to provide the court with good and often expensive food and wine throughout the year, and John was particularly admired for his generous distribution of robes, food, and drink at his feasts. A significant portion of the court’s time was spent on the road, but this too was an important cultural site for court life and display, particularly in formal processions and royal entries, in which peacock hats, lavish decoration on horses, and lances gilded with gold might make an appearance. The constant itineration of the court meant that there was no one great palace on which John lavished resources, but he still invested heavily in his castles, palaces, and hunting lodges, and on the landscapes around them. Court culture was already highly developed in the early thirteenth century and surviving sources from other realms show this was true not only of the Plantagenet dynasty....
