Henry I

by C. Warren Hollister; Edited and completed by Amanda Clark Frost

• ISBN13: 9780300088588
• ISBN10: 0300088582
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2001-06-10
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Henry I, son of William the Conqueror, ruled from 1100 to 1135, a time of fundamental change in the Anglo-Norman world. This long-awaited biography, written by one of the most distinguished medievalists of his generation, offers a major reassessment of Henry's character and reign. Challenging the dark and dated portrait of the king as brutal, greedy, and repressive, it argues instead that Henry's rule was based on reason and order. C. Warren Hollister points out that Henry laid the foundations for judicial and financial institutions usually attributed to his grandson, Henry II. Royal government was centralized and systematized, leading to firm, stable, and peaceful rule for his subjects in both England and Normandy. By mid-reign Henry I was the most powerful king in Western Europe, and with astute diplomacy, an intelligence network, and strategic marriages of his children (legitimate and illegitimate), he was able to undermine the various coalitions mounted against him. Henry strove throughout his reign to solidify the Anglo-Norman dynasty, and his marriage linked the Normans to the Old English line. Hollister vividly describes Henry's life and reign, places them against the political background of the time, and provides analytical studies of the king and his magnates, the royal administration, and relations between king and church. The resulting volume is one that will be welcomed by students and general readers alike.

Author Biography

C. Warren Hollister was professor of history, emeritus, at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Excerpts

Chapter One

SETTING AND SOURCES

Henry I, in the words of the old Chinese curse, lived in interesting times. The youngest son of William the Conqueror and his royal wife, Matilda of Flanders, Henry was born in England roughly two years after his father's victory at Hastings, at a time when the Norman grip on the English realm was still far from secure. By the time of his death in his later sixties, after a reign of some thirty-five years (1100-1135), the Anglo-Norman monarchy and aristocracy had become deeply rooted in England, while, in the larger framework of medieval civilization, the great intellectual and cultural process known as the twelfth-century renaissance had reached full blossom.

    Henry's lifetime thus witnessed fundamental changes in the Anglo-Norman world and, indeed, throughout Western Europe. Some of these changes were products of Henry's own governance; most were not. But Henry, whether by choice or necessity, adapted to them all. He left the Anglo-Norman government far better organized than he had found it, so much so that he has plausibly been credited with the building of an administrative "machine" of unprecedented effectiveness--the most sophisticated government in transalpine Europe since the days of the Roman Empire. He and his ministers reconstituted and tamed the itinerant royal court along rational lines, reformed the exchequer and treasury, introduced the systematic use of itinerant justices on a kingdomwide scale, developed royal patronage into a science, and presided over a long generation of peace and prosperity in England and, to a lesser but very significant degree, in Normandy. The prosperity of Henry's reign was propelled by a great wave of economic growth, resulting in an intensification of international trade--most notably the wool trade with Flanders--and in the expansion of towns and the proliferation of markets. Henry granted London its first charter of liberties (for a stiff but manageable price), and his wife, Queen Matilda II, gave the city its first "public convenience." Moreover, Henry sold or confirmed important privileges to the citizens of such burgeoning urban centers as Lincoln and Newcastle, York and Beverley. He and his associates founded numerous priories of the newly popular Augustinian order and substantial numbers of hospitals as well. He was a lavish benefactor of the venerable international congregation of Cluny and a vastly generous contributor to its mother church, and when he established his great monastic foundation at Reading he filled it with monks bound to the Cluniac rule. But he and members of his court also supported the establishment of Britain's earliest Cistercian abbeys: Waverley, Tintern, Fountains, and Rievaulx. Henry's reign was marked by unbroken peace and amity with the kings of Scots and relative stability along the Welsh frontiers, and it concluded with more than a decade of peace with France, ending two generations of intermittent warfare across the years following the Conquest.

    Among Henry's contemporaries were some of the foremost intellectual and spiritual luminaries of the twelfth-century renaissance, and he had dealings with several of them. During the early years of his reign he was a close associate, friend, and sometime antagonist of St Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, to whom he consigned the care of his family and kingdom during a royal absence overseas shortly before Anselm's death. He was also a friend of Suger of Saint-Denis and met secretly with him on more than one occasion to negotiate peace with Suger's lord, King Louis VI. Two pioneers in the emergence of Western science, Petrus Alfonsus and (probably) Adelard of Bath, worked for a time in Henry's service. He and his two successive queens, Matilda and Adeliza, engaged in correspondence with such notable figures as the poet-prelate Hildebert of Lavardin, the great canonist Ivo bishop of Chartres, Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, who came to England in 1130 with Henry's authorization, and St Bernard of Clairvaux who, in the company of Abbot Suger, Pope Innocent II, and others, visited Henry's court at Rouen in 1131.

    As Sir Richard Southern has cogently observed, the renaissance of the twelfth century was not limited to learning and the arts but extended as well to the realm of governance. In this sense, Henry I was both a child of the Norman Conquest and, in the context of the twelfth century, a renaissance prince. Not only did he consort with leading figures among the first and perhaps greatest generation of twelfth-century writers; he also absorbed and exemplified their passion for reason and order and applied it to the administration of his realm, to diplomacy, and even to military strategy and tactics. Henry was no philosopher, but contemporaries were struck by his openness to new ideas and his seemingly boundless curiosity, traits he shared with intellectuals of his era.

    Still another facet of the twelfth-century renaissance, as Sir Richard Southern aptly pointed out, was the writing of history, and this too was reflected in Henry's reign. His activities were recorded by an unprecedented number of historians and annalists, including some of the most talented writers since Bede. Foremost among them was William of Malmesbury (ca. 1095-ca. 1143), a gifted historical scholar and an omnivorous reader, impressively well versed in the literature of classical, patristic, and earlier medieval times as well as in the writings of his own contemporaries. Indeed, William may well have been the most learned man in twelfth-century Western Europe. A monk of the Benedictine community of Malmesbury, William was of mixed Anglo-Norman parentage. Although by no means a court historian or royal panegyrist, he was deeply sympathetic toward Henry I and enjoyed the patronage of Henry's curia through his contacts with the king's first wife, Queen Matilda II. The queen's financial support was generous but, as Malmesbury hinted, could have been more so toward English writers such as himself: "The disposition came upon the queen to reward all the foreigners she could, while keeping the others in suspense, sometimes with effectual promises but more often with empty ones." Despite William of Malmesbury's veiled complaint, the queen may well have contributed financially to his far-flung travels throughout England, reflected most directly in his Gesta pontificum Anglorum . This great work is a vividly descriptive history of the bishoprics and abbeys of England from the early Anglo-Saxon era to the time of its completion in 1125. It dwells on the lives of Anglo-Saxon saint-prelates, especially St Aldhelm, the learned, wonder-working abbot of seventh-century Malmesbury, but it also casts valuable light on the post-Conquest Church and, less directly, on the Norman kings.

    William of Malmesbury's wide reading, extensive travels, and keen interpretive talents contributed similarly to the writing of his best known work, the Gesta regum Anglorum , which he also completed in 1125. The Gesta regum , consciously patterned on Bede, relates the history of the English monarchy (with occasional intriguing digressions) from early Anglo-Saxon times to about 1120. These two parallel historical works, ecclesiastical and secular, provide a valuable portrait of Henry I's reign, enlivened by William's wit and his striking descriptive portrayals of places and persons (including Henry I himself) and deepened by his perceptive historical judgment.

    In his later years William of Malmesbury revised his two gesta several times, disclosing in his second thoughts the mellowing effect of age. Around 1140 he began the writing of his third and last major historical work, the Historia novella , in which he rushed through the final years of Henry I to dwell less hurriedly on the early years of Stephen's reign and, in particular, the deeds of King Henry's favorite bastard son and Malmesbury's hero, Robert earl of Gloucester. The Historia novella ends abruptly in 1142, halted presumably by its author's final illness. William of Malmesbury also wrote saints' lives, a history of Glastonbury abbey, and much else; but it is, above all, his three great historical works that illuminate most clearly the life and reign of Henry I.

    A second major historian of Henry's generation, Orderic Vitalis (1075-ca. 1142), admired the king no less than did William of Malmesbury. Like William, Orderic was a student of the classics (although he lacked William's deep erudition). Like William, too, he was of mixed, Anglo-French parentage. His mother was English; his father was a priest from Orleans who served as a chaplain to Roger of Montgomery, earl of Shrewsbury. Orderic's parents sent him from his Shropshire home as a child of ten to live out his remaining fifty-seven years at the distinguished abbey of Saint-Evroul in southern Normandy. As his life progressed, Orderic's perspective became increasingly Norman, but he retained his contacts with his native Shropshire and identified himself in his writings as an Englishman, "Ordricus angligena."

    Orderic did his historical apprenticeship during the first decade of the twelfth century as a continuer of William of Jumièges' Gesta normannorum ducum , a sweeping history of the Normans and their dukes from the founding of Normandy about 911 through the Norman Conquest and early settlement in England. Picking up the story, Orderic carried it into the early twelfth century. But by 1110/1115 he had taken up a far more arduous task, the writing of his magnum opus , the Historia ecclesiastica . This great rambling work, with its marvelous vignettes and fearlessly long digressions, occupies six volumes in its magisterial edition-translation by Dr Marjorie Chibnall. Orderic's Historia ecclesiastica , despite its title, is concerned with the Anglo-Norman monarchy and aristocracy no less than with the Church. Aptly described as the greatest social history of the Middle Ages, it provides what is by far our fullest, most detailed account of the life of Henry I. Orderic drew on numerous sources including his own notes of current events, many of which he must have gleaned from the visitors who were constantly drifting in and out of Saint-Evroul (in 1113 Henry I himself visited the abbey). Orderic derived some of his information from the writings of other historians, past and present, and he seems to have learned much from his occasional travels, which carried him to such places as the Ile de France, Flanders, Burgundy, and England. Like all historians, Orderic could lapse now and then into careless errors--as when, writing some years after the event and confusing his notes, he conflates Henry I's two crucial military expeditions into Normandy in 1105 and 1106 into a single campaign. But he is on the whole an honest and trustworthy guide to the history of his times. He continued writing his history, by stages, across the long generation from 1110/1115 until 1141, when the approach of death, along with the daunting tumults of King Stephen's anarchy and Geoffrey of Anjou's Norman campaigning, stilled his pen at last.

    Contemporary with the works of Malmesbury and Orderic are an impressive number of other historical sources bearing on Henry I and his era. The most complex of these sources, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , consists of a number of semi-independent year-by-year annals, in which the year and its events are often mismatched. Working over many generations at various monastic houses, the anonymous compilers of these texts appended their diverging versions to copies of a single original, dating from Alfred's reign, that ran from the Incarnation through to AD 891. Because some of these texts have perished, the relationships among the remainder can never be fully untangled. Fortunately for our purposes, by the time of Henry I's reign the extant manuscripts had dwindled to one, MS E, generally known as the Peterborough Chronicle. This manuscript is largely the product of a single scribe, who copied an earlier version of the chronicle through the year 1121 in one stretch and continued it at intervals from 1122 through 1131, after which it proceeds in other hands, sporadically and often carelessly, until the accession of Henry II. A preoccupation with events at Peterborough abbey in the annals of 1122-1131 identifies their author as a Peterborough monk, and internal evidence of a similar sort shows that the earlier manuscript that he copied (now lost) had been written at St Augustine's, Canterbury, for some years prior to 1062. But it is impossible to locate with certainty the author of the annals for the years 1062-1121. The suggestion that the manuscript continued to be compiled at Canterbury during these years seems unlikely not only because its author provides an incorrect date for Archbishop Anselm's death but also because of its silence on such matters as the investiture settlement (AD 1105-1107), Anselm's return from exile in 1106, and his consecration of an unprecedented number of prelates-elect in 1107 (the consecrations are mentioned but Anselm is not). It seems unlikely too that the year entries prior to the 1122 copy were compiled at Peterborough, for although the earlier annals include several pointed references to local Peterborough events, these were clearly interpolated by the 1122 copyist. But despite its multiple authorship, the portions of the E manuscript relating to Henry I do convey the impression of a relatively cohesive narrative running across the 1121-1122 break. Its tone is pessimistic throughout, reaching depths of despair when describing the reigns of William Rufus and Stephen but continuing intermittently during Henry I's reign to deplore the ravages of bad weather, high taxes, cattle plagues, and abusive royal officials. This pessimism was doubtless shared by many post-Conquest Anglo-Saxons throughout England and need not be identified with a single author or abbey.

    Despite the attention that the E text devotes to local events and natural disasters, its authors were also capable of a wider perspective. They express serious interest in the affairs of the Anglo-Norman realm and its neighbors and thereby provide valuable information on the domestic and international politics of the Norman kings. The E text is, for example, our earliest witness to the significant information that Helias count of Maine (d. 1110) had rendered fealty to Henry I and that in 1126 the empress Maud persuaded Henry to transfer his captive brother Robert Curthose from Roger of Salisbury's custody to that of her political ally, Robert earl of Gloucester. And notwithstanding its chronic complaints, the E text describes Henry I in retrospect as "a good man" who "made peace for man and beast."

    Another major chronicle of Saxon and Norman England was compiled during the Anglo-Norman period at Worcester Cathedral priory. Its authorship used to be attributed to the monk Florence of Worcester up to AD 1118 and to a fellow monk, John of Worcester, from 1118 to 1140. Although it is almost certain that John of Worcester wrote a large section of the chronicle preceding 1140, the authorship of the annals prior to 1118 is still disputed. That a Worcester monk named Florence contributed significantly to these annals is made clear by a notice in the annal for 1118 which reports his death and adds, "This chronicle of chronicles excels all others because of his deep knowledge and studious application." But other evidence raises serious doubts about the traditional interpretation. Orderic Vitalis, who visited Worcester at some uncertain date, reports John as saying that he himself undertook the chronicle at the request of Bishop Wulfstan, who died in l095. If so, then John would have written the entire chronicle, beginning it in his youth ante 1096 and completing it in 1140 as a person of unusual but not impossible longevity. Perhaps Florence served as John's assistant; perhaps, alternatively, Orderic erred. A further problem with the traditional assumption, however, is that no perceptible break in either the style or the manuscript tradition of the chronicle occurs with the annal for 1118. The likeliest solution to the riddle is that several Worcester monks, including Florence, contributed to the project up to 1118 and perhaps beyond. The earliest manuscript of the Worcester Chronicle , Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MS 157, is written in several hands; a single hand has entered numerous corrections and annotations from the beginning of the manuscript to AD 1124, and this same hand, very probably John of Worcester's, produced the text from 1128 to 1140. The evidence from the Corpus Christi manuscript suggests therefore that John of Worcester, as corrector-annotator of the earlier part and as author of the later part, is probably responsible for the whole of the chronicle in its present form. But in deference to the accolade to Florence in the annal for 1118, I will follow tradition and cite the chronicle as "FW."

    The Worcester Chronicle owes much to earlier writings, two in particular: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , and a "universal" chronicle running from the Creation to AD 1082 written by Marianus Scotus, a monk of Fulda who had migrated from Ireland. Like both these sources, the Worcester Chronicle is annalistic in format. It derives substantial amounts of information about pre-Conquest England from texts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that are now lost, and it is therefore a source of considerable value for students of early English history. But it differs from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle both in language (Latin rather than Old English) and in its high standards of chronological accuracy. For most of the Norman period it is a contemporary source of information, and it is an indispensable guide to the history of Henry I's reign. It supplies important and otherwise unknown details, for example, on Henry's decisive military campaign of 1102 against Robert of Bellême; it provides the only comprehensive account of the 1126 Christmas court at which the magnates and prelates of England swore their solemn oaths to support the empress Maud as Henry's successor; and it may perhaps have inspired Charles Dickens by reporting (and vividly illustrating in line drawings) three nightmares suffered by Henry I during a single restless night in 1130.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from HENRY I by C. Warren Hollister. Copyright © 2001 by The Estate of C. Warren Hollister. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.