Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500

by Jeffrey Anderson

That not my lowliest comrade in campaign

  Should pine thus, had I gold to set him free;

  To none of them would I reproachful be –

  Yet – I am prisoner here!

  ….

  And they, my knights of Anjou and Touraine –

  Well know they, who now sit at home at ease,

  That I, their lord, in far-off Allemaine

  Am captive. They should help to my release;

  But now their swords are sheathed, and rust in peace,

  While I am prisoner here33

  It cannot help but delight us that Richard embraced his heritage as the grandson of troubadours by composing songs himself. This is of particular interest since the late 12th century was a key moment in western music when polyphony began to supersede plain Gregorian chant, although this was condemned by conservatives such as John of Salisbury as ‘the wanton and effeminate sound produced by caressing, chiming and intertwining melodies, a veritable harmony of sirens’.34 The Angevin empire facilitated travel between diverse regions and we have already seen that troubadours such as Bertrand de Born were in England. Limoges in the heart of Richard’s duchy of Aquitaine was the most famous centre of 12th-century music, and its library still contains early religious music and troubadour lyrics. Richard loved the new music, and when the clerks of his royal chapel were singing in the choir, he would urge them with his hand and tell them to sing louder.35 Even on his Crusade Richard indulged his passion for music: during one of his meetings with Saladin’s brother al-Adil, Richard asked if al-Adil could arrange for him to hear Arabic singing, so a woman was brought in who played on the guitar and sang, to Richard’s delight.36

  These stories make Richard’s character come to life as vividly as his father’s. There are many records of his direct speech that leap off the page and let us hear how he spoke. We know Richard’s favourite oath, ‘By god’s legs [or feet]’ as reported by William Marshal (a less blasphemous echo of Fulk Nerra’s ‘By God’s souls’). The legendary Angevin rage shared by Henry, Richard and John was also complemented in Henry and Richard by a capacity for fun (and isn’t it interesting that the humourless John was the only Angevin failure?). Gerald of Wales says Richard mocked the supposed Angevin descent from the fairy Melusine by saying that no one should be surprised if he lacked all human feeling since he was descended from the devil. When Fulk of Neuilly presumed to give him a sermon about his three ‘wicked daughters’ (pride, avarice and sensuality), Richard responded that he would marry them off respectively to the Templars, Cistercians and Benedictines.37

  The Battle for Normandy and Richard’s ‘Unromantic’ Death

  On Richard’s return from captivity, he immediately began a whirlwind of activity to recapture lost possessions and protect his domains. Most famously, he constructed Chateau Gaillard, whose ruins above the Seine at Les Andelys are one of Richard’s most enduring monuments. Despite being a ruin, Chateau Gaillard gives us the most complete idea of what Richard viewed as the perfect castle, because it was built all at once in the incredibly short time of two years. As we have seen, Geoffrey Plantagenet and Henry II were master castle-takers, and in the 12th century professional engineers with extensive siege trains were able to take most castles. Chateau Gaillard was meant to redress the balance. It incorporated all the innovations from the castles of the Crusader States, which were the most advanced of the time, and its elliptical keep and interconnecting outworks were meant to counter 12th-century advances in siegecraft by removing any ‘dead areas’ where enemies could mine the walls or launch projectiles.

  The massive castle and attendant outworks and fortifications were built at a cost of around £11,500, which was a huge expense when compared with the £7,000 Richard spent on all his other castles throughout his entire reign, or the £8,250 spent on Dover castle between 1164 and 1214.38 To accomplish this, Richard brought the full force of his formidable character to bear on the workmen. William of Newburgh reports that the king was so committed to the project that ‘if an angel had come down out of the sky to bid him stay his hand, he would have got no answer but a curse’.39

  Richard’s statements about the castle demonstrate his pride in it. The name Chateau Gaillard means ‘saucy castle’, showing Richard was very well aware how offensive – in both senses of the word – it would be to Philip, and this jesting nickname quickly became the name it was known by.40 Richard also claimed that the design of the castle was so perfect that he could have held it against an assault even if its walls were made of butter.41 Did this massive investment in time and money pay off? Chateau Gaillard was intended as a forward base for Richard’s aggression against Philip Augustus, but this potential was never explored because Richard died shortly after it was completed, though the castle would have its day a few years later in John’s desperate fight to defend Normandy from Philip.

  Richard’s death, as with everything about him, is a good story though a tragic one. Richard was campaigning against rebellious vassals in Aquitaine and besieging the castle of Chalus-Chabrol. His forces were far superior to those of the defenders and the castle’s fall was inevitable. A lone archer on the battlements, defending himself from the arrows of Richard’s army with a frying pan, continued to shoot at Richard’s men in defiance. Richard, romantic hero to the last, stepped out from behind his shield to applaud the courage of the defender and was promptly shot in the shoulder. He tore the arrow out and said nothing to his men, but the wound festered and he was dead within days.

  The anticlimactic death of such a famous hero has troubled many even now. The indefatigable historian John Gillingham responds to the criticism that Richard’s death in a ‘meaningless’ siege of a minor castle was unworthy of a legendary hero by arguing that suppressing rebellion and maintaining the integrity of the Angevin Empire was the most important task Richard faced, rather than a meaningless nuisance. Richard died performing the very essence of his role as an Angevin king, protecting the unity of his domains.42 This is correct, but Gillingham misses or ignores the point: Richard was a hero-king and Crusader, described by his chroniclers as invincible and invulnerable, and to die from an infected wound inflicted during a minor siege is a sorry end to the legend. The fact that he was dispatched by an arrow fired by a mere foot soldier is deeply unsatisfying.

  It is a tribute to Richard that legend tries to finish the tale in a fitting way. In Roger of Howden’s version of the story, the archer is named Bertrand du Gurdon, and after the castle falls all the defenders are slaughtered except for Bertrand, who was brought before Richard as he lay on his deathbed. Richard asks what wrong he has done to Bertrand that he should kill him (obviously Richard thinks besieging the castle and swearing to hang the garrison doesn’t count). Bertrand replies, ‘With your own hand you killed my father and two brothers, and you intended to kill me. Take your revenge in any way you like. Now that I have seen you on your deathbed I shall gladly endure any torment you may devise.’ Chivalrous to the end, Richard forgives Bertrand and orders him to be released, and although in some versions of the story he leaves peacefully, others report that Mercadier, Richard’s faithful mercenary captain, tracked him down and flayed him alive as punishment for his crime against a hero.43

  Contemporaries were besotted with Richard, and not just in Europe. Joinville, the chronicler of Louis IX’s Crusade, noted that even fifty years after Richard’s death Muslim women in the Holy Land would tell their crying children, ‘Hush, or King Richard will get you.’44 Modern historians have not always been as complimentary, and from the 19th century it has been common to criticize Richard as a poor administrator who neglected England, and his Crusading glory is tarnished by his failure to recapture Jerusalem. For generations what was considered his worst offence by British historians was that he spent only six months of his ten-year reign in England. Even considering his two years on Crusade and year in captivity, this seems rather low (Henry II spent a similarly small proportion of his reign in England, but he reigned for thirty-five years so the differen
ce doesn’t seem so stark). Of course Richard viewed England as only part of his realm, and it is this that was his gravest offence for British historians writing in a nationalist tradition. Equally, Richard was traditionally ignored by French historians as a foreign king, despite the fact that he ruled a large part of France.

  Richard, strangely, also suffers because of John. Though in almost every respect Richard is compared favourably to John (and may gain too much from the comparison), the fact that John lost the Angevin Empire so quickly demeans Richard’s efforts to defend it. John’s failure makes Richard’s work on the continent seem pointless. The absorption of the Angevin Empire by France seems inevitable and Richard’s time wasted, but this isn’t true, and if John had been a better ruler and the Empire had lasted another generation or more, Richard’s groundwork might have been better appreciated.

  Richard’s death on 6 April 1999 (at a house still standing in Chinon, if one believes the plaque on the building) precipitated a crisis in the succession, since John was the last legitimate son of Henry II, but Arthur, son of John’s deceased elder brother Geoffrey Duke of Brittany, had an equally good or better claim to the throne. Later in the 13th century the laws of primogeniture were settled in the form in which they remain today, namely that the line of succession always passes through the elder line, and the son of an elder brother inherits before a younger brother. In 1199, however, especially when the kingdom was under such extreme threat from Philip Augustus, there was no reason to prefer a youth to an adult who had already held, albeit in an undistinguished manner, important responsibilities. Furthermore, this only concerned the English throne and the rights to Normandy and Anjou. Aquitaine still belonged to Eleanor, and her presence undoubtedly provided substantial support for John. Despite the challenges he faced, there was no reason to believe that John’s fight to preserve the Angevin Empire was unwinnable, yet within five years John had lost most of his Empire, including Anjou itself.

  CHAPTER 6 – THE FALL OF EMPIRES

  IN 1200 THE STRUGGLE between the Angevins and Capetians entered its final phase, ending with the unravelling of the Angevin Empire, but the 13th century also witnessed other phenomenal changes including the collapse of other empires. The specific disintegrations that most concern us are three. In 1204, Philip Augustus completed the conquest of Normandy and the Angevin Empire collapsed swiftly afterwards. In that same year, Constantinople was captured, seemingly ending the Byzantine Empire – and by extension marking the final end of the Roman Empire – but astonishingly this defeat came at the hands of a Christian army mustered for the Fourth Crusade, which turned against the greatest Christian city in the world. Finally, the Holy Roman Empire, so revitalized by the successes of Frederick Barbarossa, reached a new peak under Emperor Frederick II, but within a generation this edifice too was virtually destroyed. Even more shockingly, the forces opposing the Holy Roman Empire were again Crusaders summoned by the pope, and they were led by an Angevin. Although that tale will be told more fully in the next chapter, the origins of that conflict can be set out here.

  First, we must return to the Angevin Empire, and John, the last king of England to be called ‘Angevin’. John’s reign is completely defined by his loss of the Angevin continental domains. Everything proceeds from this: his entire reign was spent raising money to pay first for the unsuccessful defence of Normandy and Anjou and then to raise forces to regain them. He had no other concerns, from the moment of his accession when Philip Augustus began operations against Normandy, to his final assault on France, which led to the battle of Bouvines on 27 July 1214. The failure at Bouvines proved so deadly a blow that the barons’ revolt followed swiftly on and John was forced to agree to the limitations to his power enshrined in Magna Carta, but even worse was a French invasion of England that ended with John’s death as a fugitive in his own realm. John’s reign was certainly eventful, but as with Henry II and Richard, since he will be more familiar to English readers I will focus specifically on his relationship with the Angevin Empire.

  John is one of the most recognizable English monarchs for several reasons: he was the only English king to bear that name; he assumed his place in legend as the chief of the villains opposed by Robin Hood; and he is notorious as one of the worst kings ever, even if the reasons for this are hazy. His terrible reputation began in his own lifetime, and he was comprehensively defamed by the St Albans chroniclers Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris, who blackened his name whenever possible. Matthew Paris sums it up by repeating a contemporary’s famous verdict, ‘Foul as it is, Hell itself is defiled by the foulness of John’.1

  Yet modern historians have adopted another view. John’s star rose considerably in the 20th century when he was praised for administrative innovation and hailed as the first bureaucrat-king presiding over a modern state. Either implicitly or explicitly, this praise for John is always to some degree in opposition to Richard as the mindless Crusader knight, brilliant at warfare but useless otherwise, off having adventures and neglecting his kingdom. Richard and John are inextricably linked because both concentrated almost entirely on the struggle against Philip Augustus to preserve the Angevin Empire, and praise for one becomes criticism of the other. On the face of it there should be no discussion, because Richard successfully defended the Empire even though he spent years outside the kingdom on Crusade and in captivity, whereas John lost it within a few years. Nevertheless the point has been made that Richard’s extraordinary demands on his subjects to raise money for a Crusade and then pay his ransom left them bankrupt, and there were no resources remaining for John to use in the defence of the realm.

  John’s life was turbulent from start to finish. He was born in 1167, and his brothers had already been given responsibility for various parts of the Angevin Empire while he was still a child. He would have been aware of the great revolt of his brothers in 1173–74 without having any possibility of playing a role, and by the time he was old enough to be given any responsibility his brothers were well established in their various domains. John was Henry II’s favourite because he was the youngest, and although it was inadvertent, John caused Henry’s downfall when Henry’s attempt to redistribute his lands to include John prompted Richard’s final, successful rebellion against his father. John’s disastrous attempt to become lord of Ireland in 1185 is one of the main proofs of his ineptitude, and it does demonstrate all the character flaws that would later blight his reign – arrogance, indecision and tactlessness. The fact that John was eighteen at the time might be some excuse, but in response it is always observed that Richard became Duke of Aquitaine – much larger and possibly even more turbulent than Ireland – from the age of fifteen and Philip Augustus took the throne at fifteen. John’s behaviour in the last revolt against his father also tells considerably against him, as does his treachery when Richard was on Crusade.

  A Disputed Succession

  When Richard died, John acted swiftly. Richard – somewhat surprisingly, given their history – had finally designated John as his heir, but although influential, this was not decisive because their nephew Arthur had an equally good claim. John rode immediately to Chinon to seize the Angevin treasury. This is worth remembering, because later in his reign it is consistently John’s indolence and inability to take decisive action that is blamed for his failures. Equally vital to John’s success at this point was the fact that in the absence of any legitimate children of Richard’s, Aquitaine immediately reverted back to his mother Eleanor. She swiftly did homage to Philip Augustus to confirm her rights, then passed the duchy to John and made a tour of Aquitaine and Poitou to secure it in his name. A huge portion of the Angevin Empire was now firmly claimed for John, including Anjou itself. John almost immediately left Anjou because he needed to be accepted as duke of Normandy and crowned as king of England, which seemed vital, but here lay the seeds of his downfall.2

  Although John had made the first move, the succession was still in the balance. Arthur’s mother, Constance of Brittany, asked Philip August
us to take her son into his protection and she also summoned Breton troops to help secure the throne for Arthur. They seized Angers, and in the Angevin capital on Easter Sunday (18 April) a group of barons from Anjou, Maine and Touraine accepted Arthur as their lord, claiming that this was justified by their established customs. The critical fortresses of Chinon and Saumur had been surrendered to John so he still had a base from which to make a recovery, but this immediate defection of Anjou to Arthur shows that John’s position was much more precarious than it first seemed.

  Interestingly, after being such a thorn in the side of Richard, the Lusignan family (Hugh, Ralph and Geoffrey) became strong supporters of John and harassed Poitou and Anjou on his behalf.3 John went to Le Mans but the garrison refused to allow him entry, and he narrowly escaped being captured as Philip Augustus’s troops marched on the city. The seismic shift in political alignment is demonstrated by the Angevin heartland immediately abandoning John, and although John would continue to assert his rights to Anjou until 1214, in 1199 the history of Anjou and the Angevins had already begun to move decisively away from the dynasty in England.

  In the debates about the relative rights of John and Arthur, we are fortunate again that William Marshal, as one of the chief barons, was a key figure in deciding the succession. Naturally William remembered the moment he learned of Richard’s death vividly, and his discussion with Hubert Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury:

  It was late at night, and the Marshal was going to bed. He dressed immediately, and went to the priory of Notre Dame-du-Pre, on the other side of the river, where the archbishop was staying. The archbishop, seeing the late hour of the visit, guessed its cause. ‘The king is dead,’ he cried. ‘What hope remains to us now? There is none, for, after him, I can see no successor able to defend the kingdom. The French will overrun us, and there will be no one to resist them.’