The Reign of King Stephen: 1135-1154

by Crouch; David

• ISBN13: 9780582226579
• ISBN10: 0582226570
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2000-01-24
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

At last: an authoritative, up to date account of the troubled reign of King Stephen, by a leading scholar of the Anglo-Norman world. David Crouch covers every aspect of the period - the king and the empress, the aristocracy, the Church, government and the nation at large. He also looks at the wider dimensions of the story, in Scotland, Wales, Normandy and elsewhere. The result (weaving its discussions around a vigorous narrative core) is a a work of major scholarship. A must for specialist and amateur medievalists alike.

Author Biography

David Grouch is Professor of History at University College, Scarborough.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Genealogical Table	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
Abbreviations	xiii
Introduction: Feudalism, Anarchy, the Baron de Montesquieu and Bishop Stubbs	1	(8)
PART ONE: THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR: STEPHEN AS COUNT AND KING, 1113--1139	9	(96)
The Count of Mortain	11	(19)
The Anglo-Norman realm	14	(3)
Stephen and King Henry of England	17	(7)
Count Stephen and the Succession to England	24	(6)
Succession	30	(20)
December 1135	30	(5)
From Westminster to Oxford: Christmas 1135 to Easter 1136	35	(7)
The Easter court of March 1136	42	(8)
Wales and Normandy	50	(22)
Wales and the March	54	(5)
Normandy	59	(9)
The growth of faction, December 1137	68	(4)
The Summer of Rebellions, 1138	72	(12)
The lions escape the arena	74	(10)
Radicalism and Conspiracy	84	(21)
The creation of new earls	84	(6)
Bishop Henry of Winchester and the new regime	90	(3)
The fall of Roger of Salisbury	93	(4)
King Stephen's reputation in 1139	97	(8)
PART TWO: THE CIVIL WAR, 1139--1147	105	(126)
Civil War in England	107	(14)
The formation of the empress's party in England	110	(4)
Containment	114	(6)
Appendix - Bungay, the Beaumonts and the Bigods	120	(1)
The Ideology of Civil War	121	(12)
The debate between the parties	121	(4)
The ideology of the `tenurial crisis'	125	(2)
The ideology of kinship and `patriarchal' politics	127	(6)
Lincoln	133	(13)
Stalemate and peace talks, 1140	133	(2)
Public order and the battle of Lincoln, February 1141	135	(8)
Appendix I - The dating of Regesta iii, no. 178	143	(1)
Appendix II - Encore le chateau de `Galclint'	144	(2)
Lords and Order	146	(22)
Kings, aristocracies and order in England and Normandy	147	(6)
Honors, affinities and regional power	153	(2)
The consequences of political insecurity and the political order	155	(5)
Lions and jackals	160	(6)
Appendix - The `affinity' in the twelfth century	166	(2)
The Failure of the Empress	168	(21)
From Lincoln to London	168	(11)
The release of King Stephen	179	(10)
The Failure of King Stephen	189	(24)
The loss of Normandy, 1141--44	190	(9)
The recapture of Oxford (December 1142)	199	(5)
Neutralism, misjudgement and stalemate (1143)	204	(9)
The End of the Civil War	213	(18)
Earl Robert and the fight for Gloucester, 1144--47	213	(9)
Stephen, his new men and his earls, 1142--47	222	(3)
King Stephen and Earl Ranulf of Chester, 1144--47	225	(6)
PART THREE: SETTLING THE KINGDOM, 1147--1154	231	(62)
War, Peace and the Magnates, 1147--1152	233	(22)
The treaties of 1148--49	234	(5)
The departure of the empress and the cause of Duke Henry, 1148--50	239	(6)
Stephen, Count Eustace and the Church	245	(2)
The fight for Normandy, 1150--52	247	(6)
Appendix - The Date of the Chester-Leicester Conventio	253	(2)
The Solution	255	(38)
The campaign of 1153	262	(8)
The peace settlement of 1153	270	(10)
Duke Henry in Normandy	280	(5)
The end of the reign	285	(4)
Appendix I - The date of the Worcester campaigns, 1150--51	289	(1)
Appendix II - What happened at Siston, 1138--53	290	(3)
PART FOUR: THE IMPACT OF STEPHEN'S REIGN	293	(50)
The Church	295	(25)
Did Stephen have a policy towards the Church?	296	(2)
The significance of the Oxford charter of 1136	298	(2)
Elections and appointments	300	(6)
Church courts	306	(2)
Stephen and the papacy	308	(3)
Monasticism and society	311	(3)
The spirituality of the King and queen	314	(6)
The Nation	320	(20)
England and its empire	321	(4)
Earls and governors	325	(2)
Stephen's exchequer	327	(2)
The coinage	329	(2)
The forest	331	(2)
Taxation and tenseries	333	(3)
Royal justice	336	(4)
Conclusion	340	(3)
Select Bibliography	343	(11)
Printed primary sources	343	(4)
Secondary works	347	(7)
Maps	354	(2)
Genealogical Table	356	(1)
Index	357