King Stephen's Reign, 1135-54

This volume fits into what has become a series on the reigns of the Norman and Angevin kings published by the Boydell Press. There are ten papers here, originally delivered at a conference held in Liverpool in 2005. The collection as a whole is a strong one, and most of the papers in it will provide essential reading for undergraduates and researchers. The articles proper are preceded by an introduction by Marjorie Chibnall, which provides an interpretative framework. The first half of the book is concerned with the politics of the reign. Judith Green assesses Henry I's responsibility for the civil war by taking a ‘necessarily speculative’ look at the arrangements he made for the succession, and how these evolved as the king reacted to, or tried to pre-empt, events until he was finally caught out by his own sudden death. Next, Graeme White looks at ‘royal income and regional trends’, using the pipe roll of Michaelmas 1130 and one from each of the decades of Henry II's reign to attempt to establish what happened to the royal finances during Stephen's reign. David Crouch, in one of the highlights of the volume, investigates the broad northern French political picture, and demonstrates how the shifting policy aims of the French kings first helped and then hindered Stephen as king. Indeed, ‘policy’ is a loaded word here, for among Crouch's conclusions is an assertion that Louis VII and Stephen were not, in fact, capable of making policy and that as a result ‘they could not be great kings’ (although Louis or his advisers are nonetheless permitted a ‘definite end game’ with regard to his ambitions in the Seine valley). In another highlight, Edmund King looks at ‘A week in politics: Oxford, late July 1141’, and examines the state of the Empress's party in the aftermath of her flight from London. He does this by a close examination of the relevant charter and chronicle evidence, noting in particular the change in Matilda's status from ‘heres’ to ‘successor’—‘she transmits title; it is her son, not herself, who is the heir’. His discussion touches often on Geoffrey of Mandeville, who appears here as an intelligent and foresighted man, determined to cover as many eventualities as possible in the hard-bargaining that followed the Empress's humiliation in 1141. Finally, in this section, Paul Dalton examines the nature of homage and friendship during Stephen's reign. He explores the limits that men such as Henry of Blois or Earl Robert of Gloucester might place on their loyalty, and explores how and when those conditions might be broken, thus allowing Henry or Robert to change sides without a loss of honour. He ends with a survey of occasions when secret plans were leaked to the enemy and how the acquisition of such intelligence affected the events of the reign

Archaeology · Assertion · Political science · Politics · Reign · Spanish Civil War · White (mutation · Classics · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History