Ambitions Realized and Thwarted (1150-1250) - European Ambitions and Their Limits - England: Law, Order, and Rebellion

18 important questions on Ambitions Realized and Thwarted (1150-1250) - European Ambitions and Their Limits - England: Law, Order, and Rebellion

How is English King Henry II seen when we're talking about that period? How did he begin his rule?

  • In his day, English King Henry II (r.1154-1189) was the most powerful ruler in Europe.
  • Arriving on the English throne after a long and anarchic civil war (1135-1154) between the forces of two female descendants of William the Conqueror, he began his rule by destroying or confiscating the private castles that English barons and high churchmen had built during the war to declare their political independence.

What was the power of Henry II like in the British Isles?

  • The princes of Wales swore him homage and fealty, the rulers of Ireland were forced to submit to him, and the king of Scotland was his vassal.
  • In short, Henry exercised sometimes more, sometimes less power over a realm stretching from Ireland to the Pyrenees.
  • For his Continental possessions, he was vassal of the king of France.

How did Henry increase his power in England?

Henry increased his power in England by extending the reach of royal justice.
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How did Henry establish a stronger royal justice? Where was this recorded?

  • The Norman kings under William the Conqueror and his heirs added royal rights over landholding disputes.
  • Henry II built on these institutions, regularizing, expanding, and systematizing them.
  • The Assize of Clarendon in 1166 recorded this.
  • Henry aimed to apply a common law regarding chief crimes - a law applicable throughout England.

What did Henry introduce about property ownership?

  • Henry introduced new mechanisms to resolve the sort of cases that are today termed "civil," requiring all hearing about property ownership to be authorized by a royal writ.
  • Unlike his reforms of criminal law, this requirement affected only free men and women - a minority.

What are the Receipt Rolls and Pipe Rolls?

  • The exchequer, as the financial bureau of England was called, recorded all the fines paid for judgments and the sums collected for writs.
  • The amounts, entered on parchment leaves sewn together and stored as rolls, became the Receipt Rolls and Pipe Rolls, the first of many such records of the English monarchy and an indication that writing had become a tool of institutionalized royal rule in England. 

What was the most important outcome of this expanded legal system?

  • The most important outcome of this expanded legal system was the enhancement of royal power and prestige.
  • The king of England touched nearly every man and woman in the realm. 

Where did most petty crimes end up?

  • Most petty crimes did not end up in royal courts but rather in more local ones under the jurisdiction of a manorial lord - whether a baron, knight, bishop, or monastery.
  • These lords could punish tenants and charged fines, so it is no surprise that they held on tenaciously to their judicial prerogatives. 

Where were clerics tried? What did Henry insist?

  • While peasants came before a local court for a pretty crime, clerics were always tried in Church courts, even if their crimes were major.
  • Any layperson accused of murder was tried in a royal court; homicidal clerics were brought before Church courts, which could be counted on to hand down a mild punishment.
  • No churchman wanted to submit to the jurisdiction of Henry II's courts. But Henry insisted - and not only on that point, but also on the king's right to have ultimate jurisdiction over Church appointments and property disputes.

What did Henry eventually do to Thomas Becket?

  • King and archbishop remained at loggerheads for six years, until Henry's henchmen murdered Thomas, unintentionally turning him into a marthyr.
  • Although Henry's role in the murder remained ambiguous, public outcry forced him to do public penance for the deed.

Who were Henry II's sons?

Richard I the Lion-Heart (r.1189-1199) and John (r.1199-1216) were his sons.

How did Richard go about his imperial reach? What did he do? How did things end for him?

  • Richard was rarely in England, since half of France was his to subdue.
  • Responding to Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem, Richard went on the abortive Third Crusade (1189-1192), capturing Cyprus on the way and arranging a three-year truce with Saladin before rushing home to reclaim territory from his brother John and the French king, Philip II (r.1180-1223).
  • But his haste did him no good; he was captured by the duke of Austria and released only upon payment of a huge ransom, painfully squeezed out of the English people.

Who ascended the throne after Richard died?

When Richard died in battle in 1199, John ascended to the throne.

What did Philip II do to John?

In 1204, the king of France, Philip II, claimed that John had defied his overlordship; as a consequence, Philip confiscated John's northern French territories in a quick military victory.

How did the battle between John and the French king end?

Although John masterminded a broad coalition of German and Flemish armies led by Emperor Otto IV of Brunswick, he was soundly defeated by the French king at the battle of Bouvines in 1214.

How did the barons respond to the defeat in 1214?

  • The barons - supported by many members of the gentry and the towns - organized, rebelled, and called the king to account.
  • At Runnymede, just south of London, in June 1215, the barons forced John to affix his seal to the charter of baronial liberties called Magna Carta, or "Great Chapter."

For what was the Magna Carta intended?

  • Magna Carta was intended to define the "customary" obligations and rights of the English elite and to forbid the king from changing them without consulting his barons.
  • Beyond this, it maintained that all free men in England had certain rights that the king was obliged to uphold.
  • The charter protected women's rights far more feebly, but it did ensure that noble widows were to have their inheritance "at once" and that they could not be forced to remarry.

Why was the Magna Carta radical?

  • Magna Carta was in substance a conservative document, but in its very existence, it was new and radical, for it made the king subordinate to written provisions.
  • It was not quite a "constitution," but it did imply that the king was subject to the law. Magna Carta thwarted the ambitions of royal government in England and helped create the foundations of a constitutional state.

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