#richard angevin

[vox-anglosphere]

King Richard I met with his knights here to launch the Third Crusade

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

The Robin Hood stories have a lot to answer for because Richard the Lionheart is really one of the most useless kings in English history who achieved nothing during his short reign except lose a crusade, get taken hostage, leave his empire in the care of his useless brother who lost most of it, then died stupidly trying to take back what his useless brother lost, but because of those stories he became regarded as the absolute best, most noble king we've ever had, so revered we put up a statue of him outside parliament even though he saw England as nothing more than a source of money, spent almost no time here, and is buried in France.

[hopefulshipper]

[illustratus]

The Battle of Taillebourg, 21 July 1242 by Eugène Delacroix

[angevinyaoiz]

Hic leo noster (This our lion)

1172 / 1189

[wonder-worker]

"Henry the Young King, Philip of Alsace and Richard I face the disapproval of Walter Map and share another characteristic as well: they were among the first representatives of the emerging idea of a chivalrous model of kingship. Henry the Young King was the first example of a knight-king and Philip of Alsace was his mentor, while Richard himself cultivated his knightly legend with great success.

As noted by Martin Aurell, the chivalrous identity exhibited by Henry II’s sons represented a political assertion exalting characteristics of ideal kingship that were different from those developed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, an assertion that became material in the revolts against Henry II. The contrast between the courtly ideal of kingship and the chivalric model is underlined in the words of Walter Map. In De Nugis, the description of Henry the Young King’s revolt launches an explicit accusation at the evil advisers of Henry the Young King who exhorted him to raise followers against his father in Burgundy and Aquitaine, and among the French, Bretons, and Angevin. In reality, the ranks of Henry the Young King’s supporters included a large number of Anglo-Norman lords and subjects of Plantagenet authority whose public image was strongly influenced by chivalric ideology, such as Bertrand de Born and the cousins Robert III de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, and Robert II de Beaumont, Count of Meulan. Between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the French nobility adopted the ethic of chivalry as part of its identity, particularly in Normandy where noble families used it to stress their social eminence and origins. During Henry the Young King’s revolt, the chivalric identity became a political one.

Through the ideal of the knight-king, the men who gathered around Henry the Young King and Richard I promoted the survival of, or return to, a system of aristocratic government in opposition to the autocratic model of twelfth-century kingship. This political activity was conducted on many levels within the factional struggles taking place inside the Plantagenet court. John Gillingham has noted that there might have been a Norman or French faction opposed to an English one, a division that did exist in other European courts concerned with the political activity of the Plantagenet kings in the twelfth century. Some members of the French faction, such as Robert III de Beaumont the Earl of Leicester, were the same men who claimed a chivalrous identity and supported the revolts against Henry II. Therefore, the Plantagenet court appears to have been divided between French/Knights supporting Henry II’s sons and English/ Loyalists faithful to Henry II: the image of the knight-king was a political manifesto held up in opposition to Henry II."

-Fabrizio De Falco, Authors, Factions, and Courts in Angevin England: A Literature of Personal Ambition (12th–13th Century)

[baublecoded]

THIS IS HOW HENRY II CAN STILL WIN

[britneyshakespeare]

You know the Riverside Shakespeare 1973 was not a comfortable book to read sitting on your lap or lying down in bed but the RSC Complete Works Second Edition 2022 is noticeably worse. The difference in size isn't very significant; the RSC uses a different kind of paper but I'm not sure it's even thinner (they're both very thin, somewhat see-through paper) (not because they're cheap, but because it's more practical, considering these are unwieldy tomes exceeding 2000 pages). But since the RSC doesn't have double-column text on the pages like most Complete Works do, the extra margin space given requires somewhat more pages for the text. I'm not gonna check exactly (these are searchable though), but if the Riverside is about 2000 pages, then the RSC is about 2500. You'd think I had managed enough comfort with the Riverside over the years that the adjustment wouldn't be that terrible. No, it's terrible.

[oldcurrencyexchange]

Irish Coin Daily: Silver Farthing of John de Curcy, Lord of Ulster, (Second 'Anonymous' Coinage)

Date: c. 1195  John De Courcy, Lord of Ulster, Farthing, anonymous issue, Downpatrick Mint. Description: John de Courcy, (1177-1205), Farthing, Anonymous ‘St Patrick’ issue (c.1185-c.1205), Cross Potent with Crescents coinage, Farthing, Downpatrick mint. Weight: 0.32g References: Allen dies [this specimen not listed] Withers [not listed] SCBI Ulster 336, same obv. die; S 6227; DF 47 Edge…

[whencyclopedia]

King John of England

King John of England (aka John Lackland) ruled from 1199 to 1216 CE and he has gone down in history as one of the very worst of English kings, both for his character and his failures. He lost the Angevin-Plantagenet lands in France and so crippled England financially that the barons rebelled and forced him to sign the Magna Carta charter of liberties in 1215 CE.

The son of Henry II of England (r. 1154-1189 CE) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (c. 1122-1204 CE), John succeeded his elder brother Richard I of England (r. 1189-1199 CE) as king. The celebrated Magna Carta that he was obliged to sign limited royal power and emphasised the primacy of the law over all, including the monarchy. Another name frequently associated with the king is Robin Hood, the legendary outlaw who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but there is little historical evidence of such a figure and, if he did exist, that he ever troubled John. Following his death while fleeing a French invasion force, King John was succeeded by his young son Henry III of England (r. 1216-1272 CE)

Early Life

John was born on 24 December 1167 CE at Oxford, the youngest of four sons born to King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Given no particular inheritance of note, he was nicknamed 'LackLand' meaning he had no lands, although his father did pack him off to Ireland in 1185 CE with the title Lord of Ireland. John, acting as viceroy, managed to upset both the English and Irish during his brief stay, and he was back in England after only four months in the job.

Continue reading...

[racefortheironthrone]

You’ve mentioned before the Robin Hood being set during the reign of Richard I didn’t happen for several hundred years after the first Robin Hood stories were written down. Do you know why the picked this specific time period?

My argument would be that its there to create a socially acceptable face of rebellion - Robin Hood is initially an anti-establishment figure who rejects royal pardons, but later on, he's a rebel who's loyal to Richard the rightful king and fights against King John (because he's taken the fall for the failure and tyranny of the Angevin Empire), who's been de-legtimized as an evil king.

Thus it becomes acceptable for Robin Hood to rebel against a false king as long as he's doing so in the name of the rightful king.

[ardenrosegarden]

Reverse Unpopular Opinion: Constance of Brittany

Another one of the topics I could honestly gush about for hours <3

I always love falling into a rabbit hole that is a gap in knowledge and for many years since Hillion's 1985 article on Constance's political strategies, we really haven't heard much on her. Then, after the turn of the 21st century we've seen what feels like an explosion of interest both in Constance and her surrounding context that is 12th century Brittany. Part of the draw is living in a time where new research on her genuinely feels novel and interesting.

And, as a person, I think Constance is genuinely interesting! Her father was essentially removed from power and she was brought up in the court of the guy who did it so she could eventually marry his son, and she had shifted power in the duchy to her favor by the time she was 25. She chose the threat of a lifetime in prison over letting Richard I have custody of her son, when she suspected she didn't have long to live, she started construction of an abbey in hopes of asking God's protection for Arthur, and she chose to be buried in Nantes, perhaps as a move to "mark it" as Breton rather than Angevin territory. But she also often cooperated and collaborated with her in-laws, so we're given a really complicated image of her views and political philosophy which is fun to parse through.

Looking through both positive and negative accounts of her, I see a consistent picture of someone who went through quite a bit of personal hardships but was also smart, tenacious, and ambitious. Her lifetime was unfortunately during a blip in the historical record where we don't get day-to-day accounts of what the duke/duchess did and said, but it's still very fun to see people use creative methods with analyses and materials we do have to figure out who she was and why she did the things she did.

Chédeville and Tonnerre describe her as "discreet but firm", which feels more and more true the more I read about her ❤︎

Reverse Unpopular Opinion Meme, send me a topic and I have to be nice about it

[hopefulshipper]

[edwardseymour]

Top 5 Angevins?

put “top 5” anything in my ask and i will answer ok go

john, fuck OFF about it i don't want to hear SHIT from ANYONE. that man was hysterical. asked the duke of austria to raise richard's ransom price and threatened to convert to islam. lost the crown jewels in the wash. best king we ever had.

geoffrey. i genuinely think that man was evil, there was something deeply rotten within him. the way he handled brittany was incredibly cunty, however.

joan of sicily, richard's favourite sister. love that period where she, her mother (eleanor of aquitaine) and berengaria of navarre effectively went on crusade with richard. we nearly had her as co-ruler of jerusalem and it nearly got richard excommunicated iirc.

henry the young king. succession wants what he has.

richard i comes last because even though i mentioned him with his sister i literally sat here staring at this trying to do the maths trying to work out who i had forgotten for several seconds before remembering mummy's favourite war criminal...

[angevinyaoiz]

Me when I need to spend all day in the meeting that could have been a Messenger vs Me when I can take off my shirt and play with my swords while sniffing the change in the air for the rival army's shift in direction

(Always thinking about the 1190s wars era...)

[wonder-worker]

"Scholars have re-evaluated the patronage role of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Examining surviving works from the Plantagenet court, specific evidence of their commissioning is limited. Especially in the case of literary production in Anglo-Norman, Karen Broadhurst has shown that, of the various texts generally held up as part of the cultural production patronised by Henry II, only two were unequivocally commissioned by him: Wace’s Roman de Rou (1160–1170) and Benoît de Saint Maure’s Chronique des Ducs de Normandie (1170–1180), while the other texts can instead be seen as indicating authors’ presumptions about the king’s interests. As far as Eleanor is concerned, there is no evidence directly linking her to systematic advocacy of literature in French, and her influence on the writing of courtly romances cannot be demonstrated. Further developing Karen Broadhurst’s studies on French literature, John Gillingham has reviewed historians’ enthusiastic view of Henry II’s interest in history. Of the various historical works in Latin, the only text that seems to have been directly commissioned by Henry II turns out to be De Majoratu et Senescalcia Franciae, composed in 1158 by Hugh de Claye. Moreover, during the reign of Henry II, many authors—including Richard fitzNigel, Peter of Blois, John of Marmoutier, Gerald of Wales, and Robert of Torigni—proposed historical works to the court but received little atten tion from the king. Gillingham’s analysis recognises that the production of historical works was the expression of the court’s tastes rather than indicating the influence of royal patronage.

A survey of direct patronage by Henry II confirms the king’s inclination for realpolitik as also applied in the field of literary production. The historiographical works commissioned by Henry II were written in the f irst period of his reign, while he was consolidating the bases of his authority over the vast space he was to rule. The works of Wace and Benoit recount the story of the Anglo-Norman kingdom, justifying why an Angevin such as Henry II would have been crowned king. The choice of Anglo-Norman as the language in which to compose these texts was well suited to pursuing this aim in that it enabled the texts to reach an audience of Anglo-Norman nobility directly rather than remaining solely within ecclesiastical circles. The history written by Hugh de Claye recounts how the king of France Louis VI supposedly gave the Counts of Anjou the title of Seneschal of France, reinforcing the Angevin position in Maine and Normandy before Henry II’s expedition to Brittany.

As noted by Ian Short, although the English king and queen cannot be demonstrated to have directly influenced production as patrons through texts dedicated to them, they can still be seen to have exerted influence if we consider the movement of literati who became involved with their courts. To evaluate the motivations of this flock of authors, we must keep in mind that the texts scholars have held up to argue that Henry II’s court was complementary to the king often date from 1170 onwards as well, and as such they are subsequent to the consolidation of his reign and the beginning of conflict with his sons. For royal courtiers, proclaiming the authority of the king of England was another way to assert their own roles. Each author’s principal concern was his own position just as the king’s main concern was his royal authority, and this explains why their works, although not commissioned by the king, did find a favourable reception. Martin Aurell has provided a comprehensive overview of the cultural production of Henry II’s court as a literary transposition of the policies pursued by the English king, showing that the courtiers who theo rised about royal power in England were the same men who participated in the administrative machine of the kingdom and created the specific Angevin courtly culture and its legitimising narratives. The construction of the political ethic of kingdom administration and the construction of the related ideology was thus carried out by the same men and in the same period, starting from 1170 when Henry II’s rule was first contested and then reinforced by his victories."

-Fabrizio De Falco, Authors, Factions, and Courts in Angevin England: A Literature of Personal Ambition (12th–13th Century)