Reading Notes: England under the Angevin Kings by Kate Norgate
I. The Foundations of Angevin Power (843–1060)
The Angevin house emerged from the political chaos following the 843 Treaty of Verdun, which divided the Carolingian empire. Anjou itself was a wedge-shaped territory hemmed between the Loire to the south and the Loir, Sarthe, and Mayenne rivers to the north, taking its name from the Gallic Andes or Andegavi and centered on the black-slate rock of Juliomagus, the Roman settlement that became Angers.
Early Origins and the Marchland Tradition
The earliest Angevin history is poorly documented. A legendary ancestry traces the line to Tortulf the Forester, a Breton-border huntsman who entered royal service under Charles the Bald and was granted land at the “Nid-de-Merle” (Blackbird’s Nest). His son Ingelger married Adelidis, niece of the archbishop of Tours, gaining lands at Amboise. The reliability of this tradition is heavily contested, as Norgate demonstrates. The name Fulk first appears in a charter of April 886, suggesting that Geoffrey Greygown could not have been born before 870. Fulk the Red consolidated the Angevin march through the 911 Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, which granted Hrolf the Ganger formal investiture of Normandy, and through his marriage to Roscilla of Loches, acquiring the strategic township of Loches in southern Touraine.
The “Golden Age” of Fulk the Good (941–960)
Fulk the Good inherited Anjou as a child, his territory reduced by the treachery of his grandfather’s ally Lambert. His reign of roughly twenty years was marked by unbroken peace and near-silence in the chronicles. He held a canonry at the church of Saint-Martin at Châteauneuf near Tours and reportedly declined a clerical role only reluctantly. A famous legend held that Fulk carried Christ in the guise of a leper, receiving a prophecy that his descendants to the ninth generation would extend their power to the ends of the earth.
Geoffrey Greygown and the Expansionist Turn (c. 960–987)
Geoffrey Greygown transformed Angevin policy from consolidation to expansion. He intervened in Brittany, capturing the warlike Bishop Guerech of Nantes and extorting homage, and pushed southward into Poitou, defeating William Fierabras at Les Roches and taking Loudun. Hugh Capet, on becoming king in 987, granted Geoffrey overlordship of Maine, though the grant was largely nominal as the Cenomannian counts acknowledged no superior. Geoffrey died in July 987 at the siege of Marson, only weeks after Hugh’s coronation.
Fulk Nerra: The Black Count (987–1040)
Fulk the Black, count for 53 years, was the most formidable figure of his age. He earned the epithet “Nerra” or “Black” for reasons now obscure, and was later called “Palmerius” and “Hierosolymitanus” for his pilgrimages. His victory at the Battle of Conquereux in 987 against Conan of Rennes destroyed the power of the Breton house, and he annexed Nantes, reuniting territory lost since Lambert’s treason in 843. He constructed a chain of fortresses across Touraine — Montreuil, Passavant, Maulévrier, Loudun, Mirebeau, Sainte-Maure, Loches, Montrichard, and Montrésor — bisecting the Blois lands. He married his ward Elizabeth of Vendôme and had her burned alive in 1000 on charges of infidelity, an act followed by a devastating fire in Angers that contemporaries interpreted as divine judgment.
Fulk made three documented pilgrimages to Jerusalem (1003, c. 1014–1015, 1034–1035, and a final journey in 1040 on which he died at Metz on 21 June). He founded the abbey of Beaulieu on the Indre and St Nicolas d’Angers. The Battle of Pontlevoy on 6 July 1016 marked his decisive triumph over Odo II of Blois, though only with the aid of Herbert of Maine’s cavalry. By his death, Anjou had grown into a power second only to Normandy, and his son Geoffrey Martel crushed Aquitaine, won Tours and Le Mans, and won the surname “Martel” (“the Hammer”).
II. The Norman Era under Henry I (1100–1135)
The Confessor’s Prophecy and the “New England”
Norgate opens her main narrative with the dying prophecy of Eadward the Confessor, who foretold that England would see the end of her sorrows when the “green tree” of the West-Saxon royal line, felled by the Norman invasion, was regrafted. Henry I’s marriage to Eadgyth, a princess of the old English royal line, fulfilled this vision symbolically. Henry’s coronation charter of 1100, issued within weeks of William Rufus’s death in the New Forest, promised to abolish his brother’s unjust governance, restore church freedom, end the sale of church offices, and restore the laws of Eadward the Confessor as amended by William the Conqueror.
The Treaty of Alton and the 1106 Settlement
Robert of Normandy’s 1101 invasion ended peacefully at the Treaty of Alton, mediated by Archbishop Anselm. Robert renounced his English claim in exchange for an annual pension, while Henry surrendered all his Norman possessions except Domfront. Henry’s systematic suppression of the barons — fining Ivo of Grantmesnil and besieging Robert of Bellême at Bridgenorth in 1102 — was followed by his crossing to Normandy. The investiture controversy with Anselm, active on the continent for 25 years, was settled in 1107 with a compromise: Henry renounced ceremonial investiture but kept effective influence over elections, while bishops did homage for their temporalities. The Battle of Tinchebray on Michaelmas Eve 1106, at which Robert of Normandy was captured, established Normandy as a dependency of England and reversed the relationship of 1066.
Administrative Innovation
Henry I and his justiciar Roger of Salisbury built a unified administrative apparatus that drew every branch of public business and every class of society into connection with the Crown. The Curia Regis absorbed the judicial functions of the Witenagemot, while the Exchequer, meeting twice yearly around the chequered table, settled accounts with sheriffs and reviewed the entire fiscal system. The surviving 1130 Pipe Roll, compiled annually by the treasurer, contains over a thousand entries revealing social and material conditions. Roger of Salisbury rose from the humblest beginnings — encountered by Henry as a poor priest rushing through mass — to become the model of a trained administrator, surrounded by “new men” who formed a separate caste from the feudal nobility.
Town Life and Economic Revival
The vale of Gloucester was described as “an earthly paradise,” with vines producing wine nearly equal to Gaul. The 1130 Pipe Roll records payments for entrance to offices, marriages of heiresses, and Jewish usurers seeking royal help to recover debts from Christians. Bishop Roger of Salisbury built a castle at Old Sarum, and Henry of Blois enriched the see of Winchester. London grew with markets on Cheapside and at the Steelyard, while Oxford under the D’Oillys developed as a regional center with sixteen churches and chapels, including S. Frideswide’s priory of Augustinian canons.
III. The Anarchy under Stephen (1135–1154)
The Collapse of Order
Henry I’s death on the night of 1 December 1135 ended the direct male line of the Conqueror. The Gesta Stephani recorded that within three weeks men raided the forests, then turned their arms against each other. Stephen of Boulogne, Henry’s nephew, seized the treasury at Winchester, was crowned at Westminster, and crossed the Channel from Wissant in a storm that men took as an omen. Robert of Gloucester, the late king’s natural son, became the Empress Matilda’s chief military champion after transferring his allegiance to her.
The seven years after Matilda’s September 1139 landing at Arundel saw the total disintegration of Henry I’s administrative system. Feudal barons built private castles — by one reckoning, 1,115 unlicensed “adulterine” castles were erected. The English Church, under papal legate and Bishop of Winchester Henry of Blois, became the only functioning institution. The Cistercians, directed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, sent Henry Murdac to oppose Stephen’s candidate for the archbishopric of York.
The Battle of Lincoln (2 February 1141)
On Sexagesima Sunday, 2 February 1141, the rival hosts met on the marshy meadows outside Lincoln. Robert of Gloucester arranged the Disinherited in the vanguard, Chester’s men in a second infantry line, and Welsh auxiliaries on the flanks. Stephen deployed Alan of Richmond and William of Ypres with cavalry and a third infantry line around the royal standard. The Disinherited scattered Stephen’s cavalry almost immediately, and a stone struck Stephen’s head, knocking him unconscious. He was seized by William of Kahaines and surrendered to Robert of Gloucester, who presented him to Matilda at Gloucester. Matilda was soon recognized as Lady of England and Normandy at the April council at Winchester, but her arrogant governance — confiscating lands, seizing church property, extorting money from London burghers — provoked a rapid reversal.
The Rout of Winchester and Oxford’s Fall
The construction of Wolvesey Castle by Bishop Henry in 1138 transformed Winchester’s politics. After a six-month standoff, Robert of Gloucester was captured at Stockbridge by William of Ypres’s Flemings on 14 September 1141. The subsequent prisoner exchange saw Stephen freed and Robert ransomed. By Christmas 1142, Stephen had trapped Matilda inside Oxford Castle after a three-month siege. On a winter night, with deep snow on the ground and the river frozen solid, Matilda and four companions in white robes rappelled down the castle wall, slipped through Stephen’s encampment undetected, and fled to Abingdon and then Wallingford. The Angevin cause rapidly collapsed. Robert of Gloucester died in November 1147, and Matilda withdrew to Normandy in early 1148.
IV. The Accession of Henry II (1149–1157)
Henry Fitz-Empress and the English Settlement
Henry Fitz-Empress was born at Le Mans on 5 March 1133, the symbolic union of Angevin and Norman ambitions. His mixed heritage — Norman, Flemish, Scottish, and West-Saxon through his mother; Angevin and Cenomannian through his father — made him a man without a single national identity. Knighted by King David of Scotland at Carlisle in 1149, he crossed to England in January 1150 and won the allegiance of the barons at Wallingford. The Treaty of Wallingford in November 1153 established him as Stephen’s heir, and the December 1154 coronation at Westminster, following Stephen’s death, marked what contemporaries called a new dawn after nineteen winters of anarchy.
Administrative Restoration
Henry inherited a kingdom in administrative collapse, with the 1156 Pipe Roll showing revenue at barely a third of 1130 levels. His first great innovation was the scutage of 1156, assessed initially only on ecclesiastical estates to avoid the constitutional crisis of taxing church lands. The Assize of Clarendon in February 1166 systematized criminal procedure through sworn inquest juries of presentment, with itinerant justices replacing the older system of occasional perambulations. The 1170 inquest into sheriffs removed most local magnates, replacing them with exchequer officials. The 1181 Assize of Arms revived the ancient fyrd, binding every free layman to bear arms at the king’s command.
V. The Becket Controversy (1162–1170)
The Transformation of the Chancellor
On his return to England, Henry forced his chancellor Thomas Becket to accept election as Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket resigned the great seal and transformed his life with startling intensity — feeding 100 “poor prebendaries” daily, washing the feet of thirteen beggars, scourging himself, and studying Scripture under Herbert of Bosham. The conflict erupted over the “sheriff’s aid” at the July 1163 Woodstock council, where Becket resisted Henry’s revival of the Danegeld. At the January 1164 Council of Clarendon, Becket was tricked by alleged papal envoys into accepting the sixteen Constitutions of Clarendon, which asserted royal jurisdiction over criminous clerks and appeals to Rome.
Flight and Exile
The October 1164 Council of Northampton saw Becket convicted of contempt for failing to account for 30,000 marks from his time as chancellor. On 2 November 1164, he fled to France, landing at Sandwich the next day. The pope condemned the Constitutions of Clarendon, and Henry responded on Christmas Day 1166 by confiscating all Canterbury property. Becket’s excommunications from Vézelay in 1166, including William of Tracy and Richard Fitz-Urse, escalated the crisis. The 1169 Montmirail meeting ended badly when Becket’s qualification “Saving God’s honour and my order” reignited the king’s fury.
Murder and Its Aftermath
The crisis came to a head after Henry’s 1170 coronation of the young Prince Henry at Westminster by the archbishop of York — an act that violated Canterbury’s exclusive right. At Bures, Henry’s angry words — “What a parcel of fools and dastards have I nurtured in my house, that none of them can be found to avenge me of this one upstart clerk!” — were taken as license by four knights: Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, Reginald Fitz-Urse, and Richard le Breton. On 29 December 1170, they murdered Becket at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral. Henry’s subsequent public penance at Becket’s tomb in July 1174, walking barefoot and being scourged by monks, marked the symbolic end of the controversy.
VI. The Great Rebellion (1173–1174)
The murder of Becket did not bring peace. By spring 1173, Henry’s sons — Henry the Young King, Richard, and Geoffrey — together with Queen Eleanor, had fled to the court of Louis VII. The feudal baronage of Normandy, Anjou, and England rose in revolt. The rebellion was essentially feudal, concentrated among the territorial magnates, while the royal demesne remained largely loyal.
The young King Henry’s grant of Northumberland to the King of Scots, the count of Chester’s defiance, and the Flemish count Philip’s threatened invasion created a coordinated threat. Robert of Leicester landed in England in September 1173, but was defeated and captured at the Battle of Fornham on 17 October 1173 by the royalist forces under Richard de Lucy and Humfrey de Bohun. Henry crossed from Normandy in July 1173, gathered treasure at Northampton, and returned so swiftly his absence was undetected. The capture of William the Lion at Alnwick on 17 July 1174 — by a force of only 400 English knights under Bernard de Balliol — broke the rebellion’s back. The Treaty of Falaise in October 1174 required William the Lion to perform homage for Scotland itself and surrender Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Berwick, Jedburgh, and Stirling.
VII. Henry II’s Zenith and the Crisis of the Young King (1175–1183)
Judicial Reform and Itinerant Justices
In the seven years after the rebellion, Henry instituted sweeping reforms. The 1176 Assize of Northampton expanded the Clarendon provisions, introducing the assize of mort d’ancester and strengthening itinerant justice circuits. The 1178 Curia Regis reform created a committee of five officers to hear all complaints, giving rise to the Court of King’s Bench. Ralf de Glanville, sheriff of Lancashire, became chief justiciar in 1179 and held the office until Henry’s death, managing the entire legal and judicial administration.
The Dispute over Aquitaine and the Young King’s Death
The Young King Henry, crowned in 1170, demanded a genuine share of his father’s inheritance. He fled to the French court in 1173, but the rebellion’s collapse forced his submission. In 1182, backed by Eleanor and the troubadour Bertrand de Born, he again demanded rule, with backing from Aquitanian barons led by the count of Angoulême. Richard held the duchy with his father’s support, but Bertrand’s sirventes stirred the Young King to sacrilege — stripping the shrine of Saint Martial at Limoges, plundering Grandmont, and stealing the sword Durandal from Rocamadour. Dying at Martel on 11 June 1183, the Young King was buried first at Le Mans (against Henry’s wishes for Rouen) and then reburied at Rouen.
VIII. Henry II’s Final Years (1184–1189)
The Loss of Aquitaine and the Triumph of Philip Augustus
Henry’s attempt to redistribute his territories — giving Aquitaine to John and the Angevin heartland to Richard — collapsed when Richard refused. The 1187 defeat of the crusaders at Tiberias and the fall of Jerusalem in October 1187 led Henry and Philip both to take the cross, but their rivalry resumed. By 1188, Richard was secretly allied with Philip, performing homage to him at Bonmoulins in November 1188. Henry’s attempted relief of Les Andelys failed in July 1189 when the French pontoon bridge collapsed, and his own Welsh auxiliaries were driven off. He fled to Mortain and then to Anjou, abandoned Château-Gaillard, and surrendered to Philip at Colombières on 4 July 1189.
Death and Burial
Learning from the list of traitors that John’s name was first, Henry turned his face to the wall. He died on 6 July 1189 and was buried at Fontevraud. Richard, arriving alone and betraying no emotion, stood long at the bier, where, by some accounts, blood flowed from his father’s nostrils — a token of parricide.
IX. The Reign of Richard I (1189–1199)
The Settlement of Succession
Richard’s succession was unchallenged after John’s treason. Invested with Normandy at Rouen on 20 July 1189 by Archbishop Walter, he was crowned at Westminster on 3 September 1189 in the most splendid coronation England had seen. At the Pipewell council on 15 September, he filled vacant sees — William Fitz-Nigel to London, William Longchamp to Ely and the chancellorship, Hubert Walter to Salisbury, and Geoffrey (his illegitimate half-brother) to York. He sold offices to fund the Third Crusade, including the sheriffdom of Hampshire to the bishop-elect of Winchester.
The Great Council of Regicides and Crisis in England
While Richard was abroad, William Longchamp served as chief justiciar and chancellor, but faced opposition from Hugh of Durham, Prince John, and the barons. Archbishop Geoffrey of York’s return in autumn 1191 led to his arrest at Dover, igniting a crisis. The barons and bishops, led by John, convened at St. Paul’s, deposed Longchamp, and established a commune in London. Longchamp fled and was replaced by Archbishop Walter of Rouen. Richard’s capture by Leopold of Austria in December 1192 and imprisonment by Emperor Henry VI led to John’s attempted coup, which was suppressed by the justiciars.
The Ransom and Final Years
Richard’s ransom was fixed at 150,000 marks, the liberation of Isaac of Cyprus, and the betrothal of Eleanor of Brittany to Leopold’s son. The English contribution was raised through unprecedented taxation: a feudal aid of 20 shillings per knight’s fee, a fourth of all lay and clerical revenues, and the entire wool crop of the Cistercians. Released on 4 February 1194, Richard returned via Sandwich on 13 March, was re-crowned at Winchester, and left for Normandy on 12 May 1194, never to return. The French war dominated his remaining years, marked by the construction of Château-Gaillard on the rock of Andely and the Treaty of Le Goulet with Philip.
Death at Châlus
While besieging Châlus in the Limousin in March 1199 for a supposed treasure, Richard was struck in the left shoulder by a crossbow bolt. The arrowhead broke off in his flesh, and botched attempts to extract it led to mortification. He died on 6 April 1199, forgiving the bowman who had slain him, and was buried at Fontevraud — fulfilling the prophecy that he would be “shrouded among the shrouded women.” His heart was enshrined at Rouen.
X. The Fall of the Angevins under King John (1199–1206)
The Continental Disaster
The Treaty of Le Goulet in May 1200 secured John’s French inheritance, but his seizure of Isabella of Angoulême — the betrothed bride of Hugh de Lusignan — provoked a Poitevin appeal to Philip Augustus. The French court condemned John by default for his misdoings, and in 1202 Philip invaded Normandy. John, in one of the great military failures of the Middle Ages, failed to relieve Château-Gaillard and wandered aimlessly while Philip methodically conquered Normandy. The capture of Arthur of Brittany at Mirebeau on 1 August 1202 and his subsequent mysterious death in captivity — most likely murdered at John’s command — turned the Breton lords and Angevin barons against him.
The Loss of Normandy and the Loire
Château-Gaillard fell on 6 March 1204 after a brutal assault in which the squire Bogis discovered an unguarded window. Within months, Falaise, Caen, Rouen, and the rest of Normandy submitted to Philip. By midsummer 1205, Philip had overrun Anjou, Touraine, and Poitou, leaving only Niort and La Rochelle still holding out for John. The death of Eleanor of Aquitaine on 1 April 1204 removed the last legal impediment to the forfeiture. John’s two attempts to recover his continental possessions — a heavily taxed but countermanded expedition in 1204 and a personally led campaign in 1205 that ended in his stealthy withdrawal — proved futile.
The Constitutional Crisis
In England, Hubert Walter’s death in July 1205 triggered a crisis over the Canterbury succession. John’s remark — “Now for the first time am I truly king of England!” — presaged the coming reckoning. By 1206, when John returned permanently to England, the new nation he had inherited was quietly grown strong, and the day of reckoning was at hand. The “silent growth and elevation of the English people” was the real work of the Angevin reigns, and the new patriotism stirred by writers like Layamon of Ernley, whose 30,000-line Brut in English — written between John’s coronation and his 1206 return — would soon demand recognition in the Great Charter.