EPILOGUE
IN 1494 CHARLES VIII of France invaded Italy. This has frequently been claimed as the origin of ‘modern warfare’1 because Charles carried mobile cannons that allowed him to achieve stunning success quite rapidly. Yet the basis for Charles’s invasion was his inheritance of the Angevin claim to Naples – the legacy of Charles of Anjou, which had cursed the Angevins for two centuries and now embroiled the French king. Though this might have given sufficient legitimacy to Charles’s claim, he went further and also wrapped his enterprise in the mantle of a great Crusade against the Turks;2 our old friend the Crusading ideal puts in another appearance, and although there would never actually be another Crusade, this ideal provided inspiration for characters as diverse as Henry VIII of England and François I of France throughout the 16th century.
So the Angevins have never been forgotten. The castles of Angers, Saumur, Chinon, Langeais and Loches, among many others, still maintain enough of their medieval form to remind us of all three lines of Angevin rulers, from Fulk Nerra to Charles of Anjou to King René. In England, Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionheart and John are well remembered in fact as well as fantasy, and the institutions perfected during their reigns are still with us for better (Magna Carta) or worse (bureaucracy and paperwork). The Angevins are perhaps most fondly remembered in Provence, where ‘le bon roi René’ and ‘Good Queen Jeanne’ presided over a golden age, even if there is some confusion over which Queen Jeanne is meant.
Naples retains the best and most impressive material remains of the Angevins: the Castel Nuovo or Maschio Angioino, the tombs in Santa Chiara and San Giovanni Carbonara, the frescoes in the Incoronata and the painting of Louis of Toulouse and Robert the Wise in the Capodimonte Museum. At the opposite extreme, Hungary has almost nothing left to commemorate the Angevins, since their tombs in Székesfehérvár were destroyed, although their gifts to Zara remain. Poland, although Angevin for such a short time, fares better and at least has the shrine to Jadwiga in Wawel cathedral.
These were their main territories, but all their other claims mean the Angevins crop up in other places, as with Charles of Anjou’s statue in the Capitoline Museum in Rome and King René’s coat of arms appearing in terracotta on the Pazzi palace in Florence, or indeed as the coat of arms of New College, Cambridge, which was re-established by Margaret of Anjou, who used her father’s arms. In Germany bitterness about the execution of Conradin remained throughout the 19th century and is still remembered today.
The Angevin Empire even has echoes in the present, and it has been suggested that the Channel Islands form the last vestige of the Angevin Empire. More astonishingly, in 2012 the city of Angers somewhat facetiously claimed the British Crown Jewels as reparations for the harm done to the Plantagenets, though unsurprisingly without success.
What is most fascinating about the Angevins is their utter ubiquity: every important development of the Middle Ages, every important person and practically every realm encountered them in some way. Even if they did not succeed in becoming ‘lords of the greatest part of the world’, as was said of Charles of Anjou, making their acquaintance forms an introduction to the entire world of the Middle Ages, and I hope the time spent in their company has been enjoyable.
NOTES
Chapter 1
1.Norgate, Kate. England under the Angevin Kings, vol. 1, p98.
2.Norgate, vol. 1, pp27–28.
3.Dunbabin, Jean. France in the Making 843–1180, pp7–9.
4.James, Edward. Origins of France, p75.
5.Southern, R.W. The Making of the Middle Ages, p86.
6.Comnena, Anna, The Alexiad, Book XIII, chapter VIII.
7.Dunbabin, France in the Making, pp3–5.
8.Dunbabin, France in the Making, pp22–23.
9.Potter, David ed. France in the Later Middle Ages, p113.
10.Marchegay, Paul and Salmon, André, eds. Chroniques d’Anjou. Vol. 1, Gesta Consulum Andegavorum et Dominorum Ambaziensium. This will hereafter be known as the Gesta in the text without individual references.
11.Halphen, Louis. Le Comté d’Anjou au XIe Siècle, pVI. Fulk Réchin wrote his account in c1096.
12.Bachrach, Bernard. State-building in Medieval France: Studies in Early Angevin History, p3.
13.Bachrach, State-building, p4.
14.Norgate, vol. 1, pp126–32.
15.Bachrach, State-building, p3.
16.Bachrach, Bernard. Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul 987–1040, p5.
17.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p24.
18.Gesta, p74; also Norgate p114.
19.William of Malmesbury, p130. Norgate also refers to this confusion, vol. 1, p114.
20.Dante, Paradiso, canto VIII, lines 82–3 and 139–48, pp75, 79.
21.Bachrach, State-building, p8 (in footnote).
22.Norgate, vol. 1, p140.
23.Hallam, Elizabeth M. The Plantagenet Chronicles, pp22–24.
24.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p 248.
25.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p175.
26.Southern, p82.
27.Halphen, pp210–12.
28.Norgate, vol. 1, pp147–48.
29.Halphen, p34.
30.Halphen, p68.
31.Halphen, p30.
32.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p185.
33.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p187.
34.Halphen, p130.
35.Norgate vol. 1, p155.
36.Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, p252.
37.Runciman, History of the Crusades, vol. 1, pp29–30.
38.Hallam, The Plantagenet Chronicles, p28.
39.Norgate, vol. 1, p168.
40.Halphen, p33.
41.Norgate, vol. 1, p166.
42.Halphen, p62, footnote 3.
43.Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, p76.
44.Halphen, pp62–63.
45.Salies, p46.
46.Norgate, vol. 1, p152.
47.Norgate, vol. 1, pp165–66, footnote.
48.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p132.
49.Michaud, pp60–61.
50.Salies, notes CXXXI and CXXXII.
51.Salies, p1.
52.Norgate, vol. 1, pp150–51.
53.Southern, pp81–86.
Chapter 2
1.Norgate, vol. 1, p170.
2.Norgate, vol. 1, pp174–75.
3.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p176.
4.Halphen, pp70–71.
5.Halphen, pp69–75.
6.Plantagenet Chronicles, p33.
7.Halphen, p56.
8.Plantagenet Chronicles, p33.
9.Norgate, vol. 1, p170 quoting Malmesbury.
10.Malmesbury, pp8–9,
11.Norgate, vol. 1, p171.
12.Malmesbury, p11.
13.Plantagenet Chronicles, p30.
14.Oman, Castles, p7.
15.Barker, Juliet and Barber, Malcolm, Tournaments, p15.
16.Douglas, David. The Norman Achievement, pp34–35.
17.Douglas, The Norman Achievement, p40.
18.Douglas, The Norman Achievement, p41.
19.Douglas, The Norman Achievement, pp53–55.
20.Douglas, The Norman Achievement, pp57–58.
21.Douglas, David. William the Conqueror, p228.
22.Plantagenet Chronicles, p33.
23.Marchegay, Paul and Salmon, André, eds. Chroniques d’Anjou. Vol. 1, Fragmentum Historiae Andegavensis, auctore Fulcone Rechin, p379.
24.Norgate, vol. 1, p216.
25.Halphen, p139.
26.Halphen, p144.
27.Halphen p150.
28.Malmesbury, p12.
29.Norgate, vol. 1, p229.
30.Malmesbury, p31.
31.Norgate, vol. 1, p229.
32.Plantagenet Chronicles, p36.
33.Plantagenet Chronicles, p37.
34.Malmesbury, p30.
35.Plantagenet Chronicles, p37.
36.Marchegay and Salmon, Chroniques d’Anjou, Fulk Réchin, pp375.
37.Halphen, p210.
38.Malme
sbury, p66, note 4.
39.Quoted in Warren, W.L., Henry II, p12.
40.Malmesbury, pp80–127.
41.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 1, p86.
42.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 1, p94.
43.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 1, pp108-09.
44.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 1, p179.
45.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 1, pp192, 216.
46.Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land, pp101-02.
47.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 1, p242.
Chapter 3
1.Plantagenet Chronicles, p37.
2.Malmesbury, p13.
3.Norgate, vol. 1, p233.
4.Gesta, p151.
5.Warren, Henry II, p10.
6.Poole, A.L. Domesday Book to Magna Carta, p125.
7.Poole, p128.
8.Roziére, Eugène de. Cartulaire de Saint Sépulcre, pp17–18.
9.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2 p24.
10.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p39.
11.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p388.
12.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p116.
13.Seward, Monks of War, pp16–21.
14.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, pp150–51.
15.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p144.
16.Martin, Therese. ‘The Art of a Reigning Queen as Dynastic Propaganda in Twelfth-century Spain’, Speculum vol. 80, p 1166.
17.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p153
18.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p154
19.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p155.
20.Martin, ‘The Art of a Reigning Queen’, p1164.
21.Quoted in Martin, ‘Art of a Reigning Queen’, p1164.
22.Cormack, Robin and Maria Vassilaki, eds. Byzantium: 330–1453, pp299, 446.
23.Clanchy, M.T. England and its Rulers 1066–1272: Foreign Lordship and National Identity, p30.
24.Gillingham, John. The Angevin Empire, p8. This phrase ‘tu felix [Austria] nube’ would become much more famously associated with the Habsburgs, and in that context is attributed to Matthias Corvinus, the successor of the Angevins in Hungary, who amassed a famous library and was so well read that he may easily have known about the previous 12th-century reference.
25.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p184.
26.Plant, p63.
27.Plantagenet Chronicles, pp46–48.
28.Marchegay, Paul and Salmon, André, eds. Chroniques d’Anjou, vol. 1, Historia Gaufredi Ducis Normannorum et Comitis Andegavorum, pp285–86.
29.Gillingham, John. Richard the Lionheart, p45.
30.Plantagenet Chronicles, p52.
31.Plantagenet Chronicles, pp53–54.
32.Plantagenet Chronicles, p47.
33.Warren, Henry II, p12, quoting Glanvill.
34.Warren, Henry II, p14.
35.Gillingham, The Angevin Empire, p14.
36.Norgate, vol. 1, p264.
37.Clanchy, p113.
38.Clanchy, p 116
39.Castor, Helen, She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, p89.
40.Warren, Henry II, pp26–28.
41.Stafford, Pauline. ‘The Portrayal of Royal Women in England, Mid-Tenth to Mid-Twelfth Centuries’, in Medieval Queenship, p158.
42.Painter, Sidney. William Marshall, pp7–8.
43.Warren, Henry II, p28.
44.Plantagenet Chronicles, p74.
45.Boyle, David. The Troubadour’s Song: The Capture and Ransom of Richard the Lionheart, p2.
46.Warren, Henry II, pp33–34.
47.Painter, p15.
48.Weir, Alison, Eleanor of Aquitaine, p8.
49.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p179.
50.Weir, pp11–12.
51.Gillingham, John. Richard I, p25.
52.Castor, She-Wolves, p135.
53.Weir, p32.
54.Weir, pp38, 43.
55.Tolhurst, Fiona. Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship, pp3–4.
56.Weir, p45.
57.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, pp111–12.
58.Weir, p52.
59.Weir, p54.
60.Weir, pp67–68.
61.Weir, pp68–69.
62.Martin, ‘Art of a Reigning Queen’, p1164.
63.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p210.
64.Weir, p74.
65.Plantagenet Chronicles, p78.
66.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p266.
67.Weir, pp87–88.
68.Warren, Henry II, p223.
69.Weir, pp88–89.
70.Warren, Henry II, p46.
71.Weir, p90.
72.Warren, Henry II, p45.
73.Warren, Henry II, pp51–52.
74.Warren, Henry II, p53.
Chapter 4
1.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p336.
2.Quoted in Clanchy, p111.
3.Clancy pp114–15.
4.All three quotes from Norgate, p409.
5.Plantagenet Chronicles, p84.
6.Norgate, vol. 1, p410 and p422, quoting Peter of Blois.
7.Clanchy, p114.
8.Norgate, vol. 1, p411.
9.Warren, Henry II, pp207–8.
10.Henderson, Ernest F, trans and ed. Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, p22.
11.Clanchy, pp77–79.
12.Clanchy, pp80–82.
13.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p31.
14.Harper-Bill, Christopher and Vincent, Nicholas, eds. Henry II: New Interpretations, p320.
15.Warren, Henry II, pp629–30.
16.Warren, Henry II, p234.
17.Warren, Henry II, p235.
18.Warren, Henry II, p232.
19.Warren, Henry II, p65.
20.Warren, Henry II, p65.
21.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p28.
22.Warren, Henry II, p72.
23.Gillingham, Richard I, p38.
24.Weir, circa p154.
25.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, pp29–30.
26.Weir, p149.
27.Plantagenet Chronicles, pp108–9.
28.Kibler, William W. ed. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Patron and Politician, p69.
29.Plantagenet Chronicles, p116.
30.Warren, Henry II, p112.
31.Warren, Henry II, p113.
32.Barker and Barber, Tournaments, p23.
33.Malmesbury, p31.
34.Painter, p41.
35.Painter, pp20–21.
36.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p118.
37.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p118.
38.Painter, p24.
39.Painter, pp39–40.
40.Painter, p27.
41.Painter, pp31–49.
42.Warren, Henry II, p117.
43.Gillingham, Richard I, p43.
44.Warren, Henry II, p135.
45.Dante, Inferno, canto XXVIII, lines 118–142, p263.
46.Warren, Henry II, p119.
47.Baldwin, John. The Government of Philip Augustus, p6.
48.Weir, p179.
49.Warren, Henry II, p601, note, quoting Roger of Howden.
50.Plantagenet Chronicles, pp101–2.
51.Weir, p172.
52.Weir, p172. [and Thomas Deloney/Delaney download, also quoted in Plant Chronicles, p105]
53.Weir, p225.
54.Rigord, La vie de Philippe II Auguste, p23.
55.Baldwin, John W., The Government of Philip Augustus, p3.
56.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p29.
57.Plantagenet Chronicles, p57.
58.Dunbabin, France in the Making, p348.
59.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p90.
60.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p91.
61.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p93.
62.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, pp96–98.
63.Warren, King John, p36.
64.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p100.
65.Warren, Henry II, p596.
66.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p101.
67.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p102.
68.Gillingh
am, Richard the Lionheart, p104.
69.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p107.
70.Gillingham, Richard I, p84.
71.Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide, p77.
72.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, pp272–73.
73.Gillingham, Richard I, p27.
74.Weir, p176.
75.Mayer, Hans Eberhard. ‘Studies in the History of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem’, pp169–70.
76.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, p295.
77.Holt, The Age of the Crusades, p47.
78.Holt, The Age of the Crusades, pp48–49.
79.Holt, The Age of the Crusades, pp51–52.
80.Staines, David trans. The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain, p264 (v581–646).
81.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, pp359–65.
82.Holt, The Age of the Crusades, pp54–56.
83.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, pp370–71.
84.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2, pp373–75.
85.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p111.
86.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p120.
87.Warren, Henry II, p622.
88.Norgate, vol. 2., p261.
89.Norgate, vol. 2, p267.
90.Boyle, p65.
91.Gillingham, Richard I, p100.
Chapter 5
1.Gillingham, Richard I, p9.
2.Gillingham, Richard I, p8.
3.Gillingham, Richard I, p6.
4.Gillingham, Richard I, p105.
5.Gillingham, Richard I, p109.
6.Gillingham, Richard I, p108, noting that the CD is available: Music for the Lionhearted King. Music to Mark the 800th Anniversary of the Coronation of Richard I of England, Gothic Voices dir. Christopher Page, Hyperion CDA66336, 1989.
7.Boyle, p45.
8.Gillingham, Richard I, p109.
9.Benham, JEM. ‘Philip Augustus and the Angevin Empire: The Scandinavian Connection’, Mediaeval Scandinavia, pp37–42.
10.Benham, pp49–50.
11.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p133.
12.Runciman, Crusades, vol. 3, p13.
13.Boccaccio, Giovanni, trans. GH McWilliam. The Decameron, Day 1, story 5, p48.
14.Norgate, Richard the Lionheart, p124.
15.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, pp152–53.
16.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p159.
17.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, p160.
18.Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, pp161–62.
Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500 Page 54