Historical Outline and the Geography of ‘Anarchy’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver H. Creighton ◽  
Duncan W. Wright ◽  
Michael Fradley ◽  
Steven Trick
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Characteristic Feature ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
English Channel ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare ◽  
Historical Outline ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
English Society

This chapter covers two areas: it provides a sketch of English society and landscape in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, and presents a year-by-year chronology of Stephen’s reign. At the point of Stephen’s accession to the throne in 1135, the longer-term impacts of the Norman Conquest on English society and landscape were still being played out. Ethnicity and identity in the period were fluid, and so mid-twelfth-century England was a developing Anglo-Norman state rather that a subjugated dominion. While ‘the Anarchy’ of Stephens reign is frequently styled as a civil war, the conflict was unusually complex and protracted, and involved more than two opposing sides. The period saw persistent asymmetric warfare on the borderlands of Wales, a succession of incursions from Scotland and Angevin invasions from across the English Channel, while a struggle for control of Normandy dominated the wider strategic landscape. The most characteristic feature of conflict during the period was an unprecedented series of internal rebellions, led by disloyal, disenfranchised or marginalised magnates and underlain by regional grievances.

Angevin Dynasty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph V. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Central Government ◽  
English Channel ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
High Point ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
French Culture ◽  
Angevin Empire ◽  
Eleanor Of Aquitaine

The Angevin dynasty in England followed the Anglo-Norman kings, who had ruled since the Norman Conquest in 1066. Henry II, the first Angevin king (r. 1154–1189), was the son of Matilda, daughter and heir of Henry I, and her second husband, Geoffrey le Bel or Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou. Henry II was the first Plantagenet king of England, although he and his two sons, Richard I, the Lionhearted (r. 1189–1199), and John (r. 1199–1216) are often termed the Angevin dynasty. The term Plantagenet is usually limited to Edward I (r. 1272–1307) and his successors down to 1485. Henry II assumed the English crown after a civil war that followed the 1135 death of Henry I, who left his daughter, Matilda, as heir. Stephen of Blois, Henry I’s nephew, challenged her right and seized power. In 1139 she came to England to fight for her inheritance until her son Henry was old enough to take charge; and her husband, Geoffrey le Bel, Count of Anjou, invaded Normandy. Henry reached agreement in 1153 with King Stephen, who recognized him as his heir; and on Stephen’s death, Henry was crowned king. He was already Count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, and Duke of Normandy, conquered by his father. On Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, he became Duke of Aquitaine, extending Angevin control over all southwestern France. Henry’s collection of lands on both sides of the English Channel had no name, but they are often termed the “Angevin Empire.” His and his sons’ rule over their French lands was complicated by the French monarch’s position as their lord. French efforts to weaken and divide the Angevins’ continental lands dominated politics, and by the time of Philip II, France was a greater threat, as his power rose to equal Angevin power. Henry’s “empire” was in many ways simply an expansion of the Anglo-Norman realm. England continued to experience close ties to the continent, and to French culture and a strengthening of its central government. England and Normandy were the most strongly governed and the richest of all the Angevin rulers’ territories, and they needed its revenues for wars to maintain control their other possessions, resulting in innovations to strengthen royal money-raising. Fiscal demands on the baronage reached a high point with Richard Lionheart’s crusade and wars with the French king that continued under King John, when such policies led to rebellion and Magna Carta in 1215.

The Earl, the Kings, and the Chronicler

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Full Length ◽  
English History ◽  
Cultural Revival ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
History Of ◽  
William The Conqueror

This book is the first full length biography of Robert (c.1088 × 90–1147), grandson of William the Conqueror and eldest son of King Henry I of England (1100–35). He could not succeed his father because he was a bastard. Instead, as the earl of Gloucester, Robert helped change the course of English history by keeping alive the prospects for an Angevin succession through his leadership of its supporters in the civil war known as the Anarchy against his father’s successor, King Stephen (1135–54). The earl is one of the great figures of Anglo-Norman History (1066–1154). He was one of only three landed super-magnates of his day, a model post-Conquest great baron, Marcher lord, borough developer, and patron of the rising merchant class. His trans-Channel barony stretched from western Lower Normandy across England to South Wales. He was both product as well as agent of the contemporary cultural revival known as the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, bilingual, well educated, and a significant literary patron. In this last role, he is especially notable for commissioning the greatest English historian since Bede, William of Malmesbury, to produce a history of their times which justified the Empress Matilda’s claim to the English throne and Earl Robert’s support of it.

The English Navy in the Twelfth Century*

2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (575) ◽  
pp. 743-774
Author(s):  
Susan Raich Sequeira
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Trading Networks ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This article investigates the naval strategies of England’s post-Conquest kings, especially from c.1100–1189, a period for which modern scholarship has yet to recognise the existence of a royal navy. It demonstrates that post-Conquest kings deployed warships, summoned defensive fleets, and launched their own invasion navies throughout the long twelfth century. Previously unnoticed evidence for the maintenance of warships under Henry II is discussed and records of fleet recruitment are used to shed light on the systems behind naval levies. Given all this evidence, it can firmly be concluded that there was a navy at the disposal of England’s Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings. The origins of this navy are twofold. Firstly, twelfth-century tactics drew on Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Danish systems and precedents, suggesting the long continuity of post-Conquest naval activities rather than sudden naval innovation under any particular king. The ‘English navy’ therefore did not decline after the Norman Conquest, nor was it a new foundation of Richard I. Secondly, England’s twelfth-century rulers relied upon the maritime skills and co-operation of coastal and port inhabitants across the realm. These coastal denizens’ motivations for participation in royal navies reveal both the extent and the limitations of English royal power. Royal naval activities took place against the backdrop of a European north that was becoming ever more connected by sea routes. English navies were therefore a crucial component of territorial expansion and warfare across a realm situated in the midst of extensive pan-European trading networks.

Domesday Book and Anglo-Norman Governance

1975 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 175-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally P. J. Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
Domesday Book

Domesday Book stands accused of isolation and its historians stand convicted of isolated devotion to Domesday studies. The isolation is not entirely splendid. ‘An inestimable boon to a learned posterity but a vast administrative mistake’ was the brief verdict of Mr Richardson and Professor Sayles in their treatment of the governance of England from the Norman Conquest to Magna Carta. Reviewing recent Domesday studies Dr King judged that research ‘in so arid a climate’ has maintained the gap between Domesday Book and its use in eleventh-and twelfth-century government, and made ‘the inquiry into the resources of the tenants-in-chief look rather more lonely than before, and rather less necessary’.

The Twelfth-Century Civil War in Context: Assessment and Reassessment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver H. Creighton ◽  
Duncan W. Wright ◽  
Michael Fradley ◽  
Steven Trick
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Event Horizon ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Research Themes ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Distinct Event ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
Material Record

This final chapter presents a self-contained overview of what the material evidence tells us about the twelfth-century civil war and its consequences. Issues with dating archaeological evidence to the period in question mean that conclusions must be cautious, but it seems clear that the Anarchy is not obviously identifiable in the material record as a distinct ‘event horizon’. Archaeology has much more to offer us in terms of illuminating the conduct and psychology of Anglo-Norman warfare and in showing how lordly identity was being transformed through the period, and how it was expressed through castle-building and ecclesiastical patronage. Consideration of these research themes and others can help extricate studies of the twelfth-civil war from the ‘anarchy or not?’ debate. In conclusion: the mid-twelfth century is best regarded not as an age of anarchy but as an age of transition.

Royal Responsibility in Anglo-Norman Historical Writing

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily A. Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Perspective

It has long been established that the crisis of 1066 generated a florescence of historical writing in the first half of the twelfth century. This book presents a new perspective on previously unqueried matters: it investigates how historians’ individual motivations and assumptions produced changes in the kind of history written across the Conquest. It argues that responses to the Danish Conquest of 1016 and Norman Conquest of 1066 changed dramatically within two generations of the latter conquest. Repeated conquest could signal repeated failures and sin across the orders of society, yet early twelfth-century historians in England not only extract English kings and people from a history of failure, but also establish English kingship as a worthy office on a European scale. The book illuminates the consistent historical agendas of four historians: William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, John of Worcester, and Geffrei Gaimar. In their narratives of England’s eleventh-century history, these twelfth-century historians expanded their approach to historical explanation to include individual responsibility and accountability within a framework of providential history, making substantial departures from their sources. These historians share a view of royal responsibility independent both of their sources (primarily the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) and any political agenda that placed English and Norman allegiances in opposition. Although the accounts diverge widely in the interpretation of character, all four are concerned more with the effectiveness of England’s kings than with the legitimacy of their origins. Their new, shared view of royal responsibility represents a distinct phenomenon in England’s twelfth-century historiography.

The Structure and Articulation of Aristocratic Society in Anglo-Norman England

2019 ◽  
pp. 310-357
Author(s):  
Peter Coss
Keyword(s):  
Family Structure ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Anglo Norman

This chapter employs the Italian approach to feudalism where the feudo-vassalic relationship is one among many varieties of lord–client bond. It turns to the tenurial relationship and to the question of the honour. The perspective of the honour is complemented by Cortese’s concepts of zonal and multi-zonal aristocracy, aristocrazia intermedia, and minor aristocratic families. Warwickshire is taken as a case study revealing Anglo-Norman society as a dynamic one in which families appear and rise or fall. We examine religious benefaction, family structure and strategy, local lordship, and the protection of estates, before moving to tournaments and proto-chivalry. We pay close attention to the men described as milites, and to the survival of Englishmen as sub-tenants and the like. It was from the ensuing mix that the militaristic minor aristocracy of twelfth-century England sprang. Finally, the chapter examines the interlocking of public and seigniorial courts. Tension and uncertainty persisted, despite a new equilibrium being established after the massive shock of the Norman Conquest.

The Cult of St Edmund, King and Martyr in Medieval Ireland

2018 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
pp. 223-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Young
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
Medieval Ireland ◽  
The Middle Ages

St Edmund, king and martyr (an Anglo-Saxon king martyred by the Vikings in 869) was one of the most venerated English saints in Ireland from the 12th century. In Dublin, St Edmund had his own chapel in Christ Church Cathedral and a guild, while Athassel Priory in County Tipperary claimed to possess a miraculous image of the saint. In the late 14th century the coat of arms ascribed to St Edmund became the emblem of the king of England’s lordship of Ireland, and the name Edmund (or its Irish equivalent Éamon) was widespread in the country by the end of the Middle Ages. This article argues that the cult of St Edmund, the traditional patron saint of the English people, served to reassure the English of Ireland of their Englishness, and challenges the idea that St Edmund was introduced to Ireland as a heavenly patron of the Anglo-Norman conquest.

Abbas qui et scriptor?The Handwriting of Robert of Torigni and His Scribal Activity as Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel (1154–1186)

Traditio ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 45-86
Author(s):  
Benjamin Pohl
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Manuscript Production ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
First Time ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This article investigates a specific twelfth-century hand that occurs in a group of manuscripts connected to the Norman abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel and identifies it as the hand of Robert of Torigni, the famous Anglo-Norman historian who became abbot of that monastery in 1154. The manuscripts used as evidence all contain corrections and interlinear glosses in what I contend constitutes Robert's own hand, and have neither been studied comparatively nor had their relationships scrutinized. Indeed, scholarship to date has actually argued for different examples of handwriting altogether as belonging to Robert and has not inquired as to whether the glosses and annotations contained within the codices discussed here could be indicative of Robert's scribal activity in the scriptorium of Mont-Saint-Michel during the period of his abbacy (1154–86). This article, therefore, seeks to challenge the prevailing notions concerning Robert's characteristic handwriting, both in terms of its supposed shape and character, and with regard to the manuscripts in which it is thought to survive. This fundamental reassessment of previous scholarship will be achieved by combining, for the first time, a comprehensive paleographical analysis of the manuscripts with a discussion of their broader historical and institutional contexts. Furthermore, and perhaps more significantly, in identifying Robert's hand and the contexts in which it survives, this article aims to enhance our knowledge concerning the person behind the script. It will present new and important insights into Robert's activities as head of his monastic community, as well as into his methods as a monastic historian who, as will be shown, was intimately involved in the processes of manuscript production at Mont-Saint-Michel during the second half of the twelfth century. Ultimately, this article argues that Robert, despite being the author and intellectual architect of complex and influential historical works, had in fact very little training as a book scribe, which is evidenced by his handwriting.

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