Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior by Catherine Hanley

Book Review

Empress Matilda: power-hungry, haughty, arrogant, stubborn … or so we were once told. Modern lines of thought have now questioned this, however, and in her new book Matilda:Empress, Queen, Warrior Catherine Hanley gives us a fresh perspective on this fascinating character, providing a much-needed in-depth look at the life of Matilda, heir to the English throne, and the events that unfolded as a result of her being named as such.

The book opens with Matilda’s epitaph: ‘Great by birth, greater by marriage, greatest in her offspring. Here lies the daughter, wife and mother of Henry.’ Hanley then sets the tone for the rest of the book as she takes a gendered approach and rightly points out that memorialising Matilda in a way such as this defines her by the men that surrounded her – her father, her husband, her son – and is rather disappointing for a woman such as she, who accomplished a great deal in her own right. Yet, sadly, it is also rather unsurprising.  

The truth is that during this time women were defined by the men around them, though perhaps not solely. There were ideals and expectations for femininity and women (as there were for masculinity and men) and they did not include making your own mark on the world independent of the men around you. In fact, Hanley links this with the very crux of the issue surrounding Matilda.

Hanley makes an excellent point when she says that, on paper, there should not have been any issue regarding Matilda’s succession: she was of royal blood, the only legitimate child of the previous king, she was well-educated and had leadership experience and, perhaps most importantly, she had been named heir to the Crown by the king and the leading nobility had sworn oaths of fealty to her. If Matilda had been male, there would have been no question at all about her right to rule. However, she was not. And one of the primary concerns was that she was seeking to rule in her own right. There had been no precedent for this in England and, due to Matilda’s gender, it was deemed improper for her to actively pursue this for herself. As Hanley puts it, ‘it was impossible at the time not to view her situation through the lens of gender; she was not a person but a woman, and thus her ambitions became both unusual and unacceptable’.

Furthermore, Matilda went as far as to wage war in her pursuit to rule. And she was very much involved in the planning of her campaign, but this was a masculine ideal. Hanley noted that while it’s true women often took on more masculine roles in this period, it was only ever considered acceptable at this time when it was done on behalf of a man – a mother acting as queen regent, for example, or a wife overseeing the rule of her husband’s lands while he was away. As a result of this Matilda became condemned for her decisiveness in her campaign, her wartime leadership abilities and her authoritative manner – the very qualities she would have been praised for had she been a man.

This book therefore raises some interesting issues regarding gender and women in medieval England; however, at the same time it provides a much-needed biography of an often-overlooked person from our history, yet one who had a staggering impact upon it.

The book is generally chronological in structure, beginning with Matilda as a child and being sent away at the age of eight to marry the much older future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. Hanley considers how hard this must have been for the young girl, but how very well she adapted to her new surroundings and later thrived in them. In fact, Hanley does a wonderful job throughout the book of really personalising the people she is writing about and making you think about how their situations affected them and their actions. This can be a hard thing to do with history. It can be easy to forget these were real people. Instead, Hanley makes us think how scary it must have been for an eight-year-old girl to be uprooted to a new country and culture and married to a stranger. Yes, this was common practice for medieval nobility, but it would nonetheless have been daunting. There are countless moments like this throughout the book where Hanley pauses to consider what a person may have been thinking or feeling, or contextualises the situation to help you understand their motivations better. The history she writes is more than an account of names, places and dates; it is brought to life. Furthermore, she breaks down complex issues (such as the Investiture Contest) and explains them clearly and concisely. This approach makes the book easy to follow for the casual reader, but it is also informative and original enough in its content and arguments for those with a more specialist interest. It strikes a perfect balance.

'Medieval England countenanced the reign of several underage boys and at least one lunatic – to say nothing of various men who were alleged to have been murderers, rapists, or both – but never of a woman.' 

The narrative progresses throughout the next couple of chapters to discuss key events such as the disaster of the White Ship, Henry I’s succession dilemma, Emperor Henry’s death and Matilda’s return to court and, of course, his eventual naming of her as heir to the English throne and the oaths the barons swore to uphold this, including Stephen of Blois, future Stephen I.

Stephen’s usurpation of Matilda’s throne is covered in its own chapter. Hanley points out that a lot of this was luck on Stephen’s part: he was geographically closer than Matilda, meaning news of the king’s death reached him first, and he was also at a location where the shortest possible crossing of the Channel could be made, again granting him the benefits of additional time. It is possible that Stephen arrived in England as soon as one week after the king’s death.

Once news eventually reached Matilda she failed to make a swift departure to England, as Stephen had. Hanley looks at the significance of this and questions the reasons for it. She makes the fascinating conclusion that she was very likely with child at this point – possibly eight to twelve weeks. This is another instance where Hanley really breathes life back into these long-forgotten figures, for she discusses that if this were the case Matilda would have been in her first trimester – a peak time for sickness. A sea journey simply may have been too much for her to bear. With a frustrating inability to travel for the most female of reasons, Matilda’s gender had hindered her once more.

Later chapters continue to proceed broadly chronologically, deviating from time to time to discuss significant individuals (such as Robert of Gloucester, Geoffrey of Anjou and, of course, the future Henry II) and matters of importance concerning them. The events of 1141 are so numerous that Hanley devotes two chapters to it, dividing it by the initial good fortune Matilda’s campaign took in this year (the Siege of Lincoln Castle and Stephen’s capture), to the spiralling downturn it ultimately took. Hanley does an excellent job of telling a complex tale in an easy to follow yet informative manner.

The final two chapters (there are ten in total) look at Matilda’s son Henry, the peace discussions and Matilda’s later years as queen mother. The ultimate agreement that Matilda’s son would become king is an interesting one, and another fine example of Hanley personalising the people she is discussing. She considers how Matilda must have felt at Henry being ‘adopted’ by Stephen in order to be named his heir. While it made a degree of sense due to the legalities (as Stephen had a son, by rights the Crown should have passed to him, but if the king named Henry in his own right then this would have undermined Stephen’s own claim), Hanley emphasises how much of a blow this must have felt like to Matilda. Henry was her son. His claim was through her blood. Yet he was being publically portrayed as Stephen’s son. It was, as Hanley puts it, as if ‘Matilda was written out of her own story’.

In all, this is a fascinating and little-discussed period of history. Matilda was a remarkable woman – intelligent, regal and full of determination and strength of character. Hanley’s well-researched, superbly written biography of her is both sympathetic to Matilda, yet also notes her shortcomings and failures. The gendered approach she takes when considering certain aspects of her story feels both natural and necessary. Matilda’s gender simply was a factor in her story. And what a story it was. 

***

Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior is available to purchase now. Click here to purchase a copy directly from the publisher's website.

Format: Hardback 

ISBN: 9780300227253

Imprint:Yale University Press 

Dimensions: 296 pages: 235 x 156mm 

Illustrations: 21 b-w illus.

Book Extract: Medieval Bodies by Jack Hartnell

Medieval Bodies: Life Death and Art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell

ISBN: 978-1781256794

Available now in hardcover and ebook format: https://goo.gl/Zn5eJa

What was it like to live, thrive, suffer and die a thousand years ago? Jack Hartnell (@j_hartnell), Lecturer in Art History at the University of East Anglia, is here to tell us in this stunning new book from Wellcome Collection, an imprint of Profile Books. Medieval Bodies has been lovingly researched, thoughtfully laid out and beautifully presented in this impressive volume, which contains full-colour illustrations throughout that are both charming and gruesome in equal measure. 

'This is the body in its very broadest sense, a jumping-off point for exploring all kinds of aspects of medieval life.'

Jack Hartnell has structured this wide-ranging topic as many medieval medical authors themselves did: through using the body's own form with a 'head to heel' approach. Proceeding down the body, piece by piece, chapter by chapter, Hartnell brings these bodies to life and uses them to explore a great many aspects of the medieval world they inhabited. From the headless Blemmyae with their face upon their chest, the 'tooth worm' believed to be responsible for dental pain, and medical diagrams of the skeleton, to the 'cheeky' game of La Main Chaude, wandering wombs, and world explorers. Medieval bodies, it turns out, are an utter delight. Who knew? Take a look and see for yourself how much of a joy they are and this book is to read in the following extract from pages 261–263 of the chapter Feet.

Book Extract

By the middle of 1493 the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III's left foot had turned almost completely black. His doctors had begun to worry some weeks earlier, when it first started slowly shifting from a healthy pink towards a shade of darkened blue. The late medieval compendia to which they might have turned for guidance spent little time on this final extremity of the body, only really discussing what to do in the case of surface issues such as boils, blisters or swellings. So in the absence of further advice the doctors were left to think instinctively. Some declared Friedrich was lacking humoral warmth and should be prescribed fiery medicaments to remedy the situation. Others insisted that the malady was down to the Emperor's near-constant consumption of melons, in which he apparently took excessive pleasure. Either way, something had to be done. A coterie of medics were assembled from far and wide to converge on the Autrian city of Linz, where the emperor was attempting to  convalesce and shake the creeping blackening of his limb. Friedrich's son, the future Emperor Maximilian, sent his Portuguese physician, Matteo Lupi. The monarch's brother-in-law, Duke Albrecht IV of Bayern-München, sent the Jewish surgeon Hans Seyff to Friedrich's bedside. And they were joined there by four more German physicians who had been summoned: Heinrich von Cologne, Heinz Pflaundorfer von Landshut, Erhard von Graz and Friedrich von Olmutz. After mulling over the Emperor, the learned group decided reluctantly that his worsening foot neccessitated medieval medicine's last resort: amputation.

What followed cannot have been pleasant. While some anaesthetic would probably have been made available to Friedrich – numbing plants and opiates, hemlock, poppy or meadowsweet, applied to a sponge or burned for inhalation – the repertoire of pain relief in the Middle Ages was minimal and not particularly effective. As the five physicians steadied the patient, Seyff and another surgeon, Larius von Passau, cut through the leg above the affected area, severing skin and soft flesh with sharp knives before sawing through what remained in order to remove the foot. They then applied powders to staunch the bleeding and bandages to keep the wound as clean as possible. One hopes for the patient's sake that the procedure was at least quick. It is hard to believe he underwent it with quite the grace shown in an image of the operation preserved in a manuscript in Vienna. Friedrich appears blank-faced and in a mood of drooping calm, sitting relaxed and stretched wide in Christ-like repose as the surgeons work away at the coal-black foot. The attending physicians are shown behind him daintily supporting his arms, although they were far more likely to have been pinning the struggling Emperor down as the saw's teeth worked its way through skin and muscle to the bone.

We know an unusual amount about this foot amputation because of an account written after the fact by the surgeon Seyff himself. Why exactly he felt compelled to put pen to paper is unclear. Perhaps it was the immense pressure of operating on an emperor in the presence of his personal doctors, as well as various lords, knights and barons of the court who, he anxiously notes, were also keenly observing. Perhaps the surgical narrative was intended as some sort of personal insurance for Seyff against his patient's yo-yoing condition: the operation to remove the foot went exactly as planned (success), but Friedrich still died some weeks later (failure). Or perhaps the account was designed to immortalise Seyff's encounter with the most revered body in the land. The personage of an emperor, like all other medieval rulers, was more impressive than any other in society. It was the head of the towering Body Politic, fed with distinct humoral diets and venerated after death even when split into different pieces in different places. But more than that, the blackened foot Seyff found himself holding was one of the emperor's most pivotal parts, a vital point of contact between the sovereign and his people.

Book Giveaway and Guest Post by Gareth Russell: ‘Gasping for comprehension’: The Plantagenet monarchy’s treatment of the Jews

I am delighted to welcome Gareth Russell to The Medieval World today as he makes his fifth stop on a virtual book tour for the newly released A History of the English Monarchy. 

In addition to a wonderful guest post by Gareth, MadeGlobal have several copies of  the book to give away! To be entered into a draw to win, leave a comment at the end of this post with your email address (so that you can be contacted), or email me directly at themedievalworld@hotmail.co.uk. Entries close on Friday 4 September, so be quick!

‘Gasping for comprehension’: The Plantagenet monarchy’s treatment of the Jews

By Gareth Russell

While writing my latest book A History of the English Monarchy: From Boadicea to Elizabeth I, there were very few stories that affected me more than the Diaspora under Edward I. Between 1290 and 1656 there were no Jews in England – or, at least, none who could admit to it. In November 1290, Edward I had the entire Jewish community expelled from England in an event known as the Diaspora. Prior to this, Jews had no civil rights in thirteenth-century England; only Christians had rights in relation to their ruler. As a result, Anglo-Jewry existed as a unique legal class that was offered protection by the Sovereign but not by the letter of the law.

Unfortunately, royal protection was not always efficacious. Anti-Semitic riots had erupted during the festivities for Richard the Lionheart’s coronation in 1189 and King Richard was severely criticised by the clergy for allowing Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity during the violence to return to their old religion. When Richard went on Crusade, the absence of their kingly protector left the Jews particularly vulnerable and massacres of local Jewish communities occurred at Stamford, Bury St Edmunds and Lynn. The Jewish community in Lincoln were granted sanctuary in the royal castle, but during the celebrations for Passover their co-religionists in York were not so lucky. They were surrounded in Clifford’s Tower by a baying mob who demanded that they either convert to Christianity or perish. Imitating the actions of the Jewish martyrs at the fortress of Masada in the first century AD, the Jews of York chose mass suicide over falling into the hands of their enemies. Those few who did not were butchered within minutes of leaving their place of shelter.

Clifford's Tower, York, 2014.

There were some medieval English Christians who objected to the persecution of the Jews. The Bishop of Lincoln criticised Simon de Montfort’s cruelty towards them during the reign of Henry III by reminding him that the Jews ‘are a wandering people [...] they are fugitives from their proper home, that is Jerusalem, they wander through uncertain stopping places and flee from fear of death’. But the majority of medieval Christians believed sympathy to be wasted on the non-believer. In 1234, Pope Gregory IX argued that there was strong theological justification for discriminating against the Jews, because the Gospel according to Saint John made it quite clear that the Jews were forever stained with the blood of Christ. Despite the fact that the Jewish community made up less than a quarter of a percent of the overall English population in the thirteenth century, anti-Semitism was widespread, as were stories of Jews participating in human sacrifice or the kidnapping and murder of Christian martyr-children. Christians, so it was claimed, were the real victims and it was their way of life that was being threatened.

In contrast to this consensus of clerical and popular paranoia, the English royal family struggled to define their policy towards the Jews on both a personal and political level. Queens were likely to be particularly familiar with high-ranking English Jews due to a levy known as the queens-gold, a tax that had originally been created by Henry I to supplement the income of his second wife, Adeliza of Louvain. It meant that an extra ten percent was added to any fine owed to the Crown by a Christian over the value of ten marks, as well as on any tax paid by the Jews.

However, in a climate of hatred, considerable popularity could be won by any sovereign who took a stand against the Jewish community. Shortly after his coronation, Edward I decreed that all Jews should be removed from any estates that had been granted to the Queen Mother in her widowhood. Eleanor of Provence had apparently made this request herself, since she did not want any contact with sin imperilling the salvation of her soul. This led to the eviction of Jewish communities in Marlborough, Gloucester, Worcester, Andover, Bath, Guildford and Cambridge. Later in the same year, Edward implemented that Statute of the Jewry, which forbade Christians to live near Jews, implemented a special new tax on every Jew above the age of twelve, restricted where Jews were allowed to live and, amongst other provisions, declared that when in public every Jew over the age of seven had to wear a yellow badge, known as the tabula, measuring six inches by three. In 1287 all Jews were expelled from English territory in Gascony and on 18 July 1290, the policy was extended to England. In the midst of the wedding celebrations for his daughter Mary, who was marrying the Duke of Brabant, King Edward issued a decree banishing all the Jews from his kingdom. They were given just over three months to pack up their lives and leave in time for the Feast of All Saints, which falls on the first day of November.

Persecution of Jewish people was an ongoing feature of medieval life

Some of those in the elite who had maintained relatively friendly relations with the Jews, like the King’s younger brother Edmund, his wife Queen Eleanor of Castile and the Archbishop of York, tried their best to secure safe passage out of England for their former associates. Desperate to prevent a triumphalist pogrom against the émigrés, Archbishop John le Romeyn of York threatened any Christian caught in his diocese molesting or harming the Jews as they left with excommunication. Prince Edmund managed to obtain a special license for a Jewish gentleman called Aaron fil Vives to sell his houses and rents in London, Canterbury and Oxford to Christians and Queen Eleanor begged Edward to grant Hagin fil Deulecresse, the Jewish Archpresbyter, a similar permit. He did so on the grounds that Hagin was ‘the Jew of his dearest consort Eleanor’.

The majority of English Jews were not so lucky. As one ship carrying the exiles sailed up the Thames, the captain claimed that his ship had run aground on a sandbank. To lighten the load as the vessel was re-floated, the Jewish passengers were allowed off to stretch their legs on the bank. Once they had disembarked, the captain and crew sailed away, leaving them to drown in the incoming tide. Those who survived the Diaspora of 1290 were scattered to the wind and Anglo-Jewish settlers were found in Amiens, Paris, Spain, northern Italy, Germany, and even as far afield as Cairo. A London scribe reflected that they had become ‘a fugitive people exiled from England for all time, always a wretched people to wander anywhere in the world’.

Reflecting on the importance of History is easy, but its applicability is an altogether more fraught concept. The expulsion of the Jews in 1290, with all the cruelty it showcased and the misery it entailed, certainly has an even more sinister appearance in light of the Holocaust of the twentieth century. That the Nazi Holocaust had nothing to do with Christian teaching should be obvious to all but the most zealous and disingenuous of Christianity’s critics. What happened in the 1940s was the result of a totalitarian political ideology and a perverted interpretation of evolutionary science. However, simply because Christianity’s fundamental teachings are the antithesis of the horrors found in Auschwitz does not mean that it is automatically innocent of nurturing the long-term European anti-Semitism that helped make Auschwitz or its sister camps possible.

For centuries, the Christian faith taught that Jews were not only inferior to Christians but also harmful – a tumour in the body politics. This was not a view unique to Catholicism. The diatribes of Martin Luther and the pogroms carried out by Russian peasants show that Protestantism and the Orthodox churches were just as capable of vicious hatred against Judaism. Jews were admittedly treated badly under the pagan Roman Empire and their religion was mocked, but so too were many other peoples of the empire, none of whom endured bitter persecution once the Roman Empire had vanished. Anti-Semitism as we know it was encouraged and hideously magnified by medieval Christianity and it is impossible to escape reaching that conclusion when examining the fate of the Jewish community in thirteenth-century England.

Medieval Christianity was an extraordinarily beautiful thing. It moulded some of the noblest minds in European history. Its capacity to move the faithful towards acts of courage, charity and compassion, the haunting beauty of its music, its art, the brilliant and subtle complexities of its theology, the men and women who sacrificed everything to live by its teachings, its cathedrals, built by thousands of hands over the course of generations, are proof of the devotion it inspired and the wonders it was capable of. In a violent age, it tried to promote values like chivalry, mercy and honour. It preached strongly against rape and canonised dozens of young women who had been its victims. And yet, it condoned and even celebrated the persecution of the Jews. In 1943, even as the Nazi Holocaust gathered its dread momentum, the historian Joshua Trachtenburg wrote that ‘the most vivid impression to be gained from a reading of medieval allusions to the Jews is of a hatred so vast and abysmal, so intense that it leaves one gasping for comprehension’. Perhaps, in the end, the Diaspora’s greatest lesson is not just of what was wrong with the thirteenth century or medieval religion, but a reminder, if ever one was needed, of man’s inhumanity to man, how readily he can justify it and the tragedies of the past.

                  ____________________________________________________

Thank you for an interesting post, Gareth! 

Here's a description of the book from the publisher:

In A History of the English Monarchy, historian Gareth Russell traces the story of the English monarchy and the interactions between popular belief, religious faith and brutal political reality that helped shape the extraordinary journey of one of history’s most important institutions.

From the birth of the nation to the dazzling court of Elizabeth I, A History of the English Monarchy charts the fascinating path of the English monarchy from the uprising of ‘Warrior Queen’ Boadicea in AD60 through each king and queen up to the ‘Golden Age’ of Elizabeth I. Russell offers a fresh take on a fascinating subject as old as the nation itself. Legends, tales and, above all, hard facts tell an incredible story… a history of the English Monarchy.

ISBN: 978-84-943721-2-4        Pages: 322

Follow the rest of the book tour!

About the author:

Gareth Russell is an historian and writer from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He studied Modern History at the University of Oxford and completed a postgraduate in medieval history at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is the author of two novels and three non-fiction books, including his most recent book, A History of the English Monarchy: From Boadicea to Elizabeth I. He is currently writing a biography of Queen Catherine Howard.

Be sure to take a look at Gareth's wonderful blog too, Confessions of a Ci-Devant  

Remember that if you'd like to win your own copy of the book leave a comment below with your email. Good luck!

Guest Post by Kathryn Warner: Edward II's Rustic Pursuits

As a part of the blog tour for her newly published book Edward II: The Unconventional King, I am delighted to welcome to The Medieval World historian Kathryn Warner, with a guest post on Edward II's Rustic Pursuits.




There were certain outdoor pursuits which most royal and noble men of the Middle Ages enjoyed: jousting, hunting and hawking.  Participation in these activities was conventional and expected for men of a certain rank, but one king, however, preferred much more unusual hobbies.  He was Edward II.

"From his youth he devoted himself in private to the art of rowing and driving carts, of digging ditches and thatching houses, as was commonly said, and also with his companions at night to various works of ingenuity and skill, and to other pointless trivial occupations unsuitable for the son of a king," commented the Lanercost chronicler disapprovingly.  Edward II also loved building walls, swimming, rowing, hedging, working with wrought iron and shoeing horses, and not only did he enjoy such hobbies, he showed talent for them: the Scalacronica, a chronicle written by the son of a knight who had known Edward well, called him "very skilful in what he delighted to employ his hands upon."

Most unusually for the fourteenth century, Edward II loved being around water, swimming and rowing.  In February 1303 before his accession, when he was eighteen, he had to pay four shillings in compensation to his Fool Robert Bussard or Buffard, because the two men went swimming together in the Thames at Windsor and Robert was injured in some way by "the trick the prince [of Wales] played on him in the water."  In the autumn of 1315, Edward II spent a congenial month in the Fens with "a great company of common people," swimming and rowing on various lakes and waterways.  To us this may sound like a healthy and relaxing holiday, but Edward's contemporaries were baffled and offended, and the Westminster chronicler talked of his "silly company of swimmers" and his "childish frivolities," and sarcastically declared that the king had gone to the Fens so that "he might refresh his soul with many waters."

In June 1314, Edward II humiliatingly lost the battle of Bannockburn to Robert Bruce, king of Scotland.  A member of Edward's own household, Robert de Newington, was arrested for stating that nobody could have expected the king to win the battle when he spent all his time idling, digging and thatching. A clerk in Edward's service who wrote the Vita Edwardi Secundi (Life of Edward II) also wrote despairingly "If only he had given to arms the labour that he expended on rustic pursuits, he would have raised England aloft; his name would have resounded through the land." The king's willingness to "give himself up always to improper works and occupations" was deemed important enough to be mentioned at his deposition of January 1327 as one of the reasons for his unsuitability to be king, not only because such occupations were considered incompatible with his royal dignity, but because they led him "to neglect the business of his kingdom."

Some extant entries in Edward II's household accounts also provide a glimpse into his love of spending time with his common subjects and watching or taking part in their activities. In November 1322 near Doncaster, he stood by a river to watch ten fishermen fishing, shortly afterwards went to the forge at Temple Hirst in Yorkshire to chat to his blacksmith John Cole, and in May 1326 invited a group of shipwrights to stay with him at Kenilworth Castle. In August 1326, the king joined in when a group of men were hired to make hedges and a ditch in the park of Kenilworth Castle, and some weeks earlier had bought drinks for a group of men hired to clean the ditches around Edward's London manor of Burgundy "in the king's presence." There are many other such entries. All fourteenth-century chroniclers who describe Edward II's appearance comment on his enormous strength: "he was one of the strongest men in his realm"; "handsome in body and great of strength"; "tall and strong, a fine figure of a handsome man" and so on. Edward revelled in his strength and in his excellent health and fitness; he loved the outdoors and demanding physical exercise; he was as far removed from the caricatured feeble court fop he is depicted as in Braveheart and much modern fiction as any man possibly could be. Were he alive in our century, he would no doubt be admired as a king with the common touch and as an excellent role model to encourage his increasingly sedentary subjects to take up some exercise. Sadly for Edward II, he was born in the wrong era, and his favourite activities attracted little but bewildered and horrified contempt.

                                               

To find out more about Edward II  have a look at Kathryn's new book; a biography of this much maligned king.

History has not been overly kind to Edward; having been subject to cutting criticism throughout his reign, he garnered a particularly poor reputation in the many years that followed. Today he is typically remembered for his inadequacy as a king, likely homosexuality, and of course that red hot poker. In The Unconventional King, Kathryn sets out to right some of these wrongs regarding his reputation, and the rumours that have surrounded him for centuries. She achieves this with great success; the unconventional king with the myths around him cleared, emerges as a man in his own right with a captivating life story.

The book is meticulously researched, and this shines through in every chapter. It proves to be a fascinating read and makes a refreshing change to read about this king's virtues, as well as his weaknesses as a ruler. 

The book is available for purchase now directly from Amberley Publishing, or at Amazon UK, Amazon US, The Book Depository, and The Guardian Bookshop.

ISBN: 9781445641201 

Format: Hardback; eBook.

Visit Kathryn's blog here: http://edwardthesecond.blogspot.co.uk

She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter

Book Review: Defending the City of God, by Sharan Newman

Defending the City of God: A Medieval Queen, The First Crusades, and the Quest for Peace in Jerusalem

By Sharan Newman

Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
ISBN: 978-1137278654
Format: Hardcover; eBook

After the reconquest of Jerusalem in 1099 AD, the surviving crusaders had two choices: either return to Europe, or create a home in the Holy Land. A large number chose to stay and forge a new life in one of the newly established Crusader States. This book, written by Sharan Newman, focuses on these people, and in particular, the lives of the children that they raised there.  

Newman has chosen Queen Melisende of Jerusalem to represent the children of the first crusaders who were born and raised in the East. The queen’s parents were:  Morfia, an Eastern Christian and member of the Armenian nobility; and Baldwin of Le Bourq, a French crusader who settled in the Holy Land and was given the title of Count of Edessa, before eventually being elected King of Jerusalem in 1118. Newman frequently emphasises this to the reader throughout the text. She also highlights the fact that Melisende was born and raised in the Holy Land; it’s a good point that provides a fresh perspective, and something that can easily be forgotten when historians write of the ‘Franks’ in the Crusader States.

The lives of Melisende and her sisters are the backbone of this book, and the queen’s lifespan c.1105-61 AD provides a natural time frame. The chapters progress roughly chronologically, with a few deviations when necessary. They are divided according to significant events in the Latin States, or personal ones related to the lives of Melisende and her sisters. They also touch upon the impact of these events on the lives of the local population during this period. As a result of this the narrative is unsurprisingly required to flit from place to place, or between events. Inevitably this does hinder the flow of the book somewhat, and can make it a little confusing at times. However, Newman holds things together well by writing very clearly, and makes a confusing subject for those new to it less so as a result.

Chapter One sets the scene with a discussion chiefly of the first crusaders and those who settled afterwards, and an outline of recent events in the area. I thought it was excellent that Newman pointed out that there had been countless wars in the region between many different peoples; the crusaders were just another overlord in a long succession. She writes: ‘To the shepherds, farmers, and their families life didn't change much. There was a time of tumult, punctuated by terror, then a new master who wanted the same taxes.’ This touches upon recent lines of thought, but a footnote or comment upon other works was rather missed. Nonetheless, it was very encouraging to see it discussed as it is important in understanding the dynamics of the newly formed Latin States. The second chapter spends a good proportion discussing Melisende’s mother, Morfia. Very little has been written of her before, so this well-researched section makes particularly interesting reading. The following few chapters proceed with a narrative of Baldwin II’s role in political events between the states, and the constant struggle at the time to defend their borders. Throughout, Newman comments upon the daily lives of people living in Jerusalem in particular, and how the continuous struggles impacted upon them.

From Chapter Ten onwards the focus of the narrative shifts from Melisende’s parents to the soon-to-be queen, and her sisters. The future arrangement for Baldwin and Morfia’s four daughters (Melisende, Hodierna, Alice, and Yvette) are discussed, and with this comes the decision of Fulk V of Anjou for Melisende’s husband. An insightful contextual background of Fulk is provided, along with an account of the lengthy marriage discussions between him and Baldwin II. Throughout the following few chapters Newman discusses key events connected to Alice, and the rebellion and subsequent murder of Hugh of Jaffa, and how this impacted upon the dynamics between Fulk and Melisende. She rightly places a constant emphasis upon Melisende’s right to rule; the royal bloodline was through her and not her husband.

During the final three chapters the text shifts focus once more, this time to relations between the queen and her firstborn son Baldwin (III). Fulk had died unexpectedly in a hunting accident leaving Melisende with two sons, both of whom were under the age deemed fit to rule (15). Upon Baldwin II’s death, Melisende, her husband Fulk, and their son Baldwin were all named joint heirs to the throne. Therefore when Fulk died, technically Melisende and Baldwin III were equal rulers in the eyes of the law; with Melisende acting foremost due to Baldwin being under age. Newman comes at this situation with a refreshing argument. She frequently stresses Melisende’s right to rule once more, and reasons that the later power struggle between the queen and her son was more to do with his lack of apparent military ability, and therefore a concern for her kingdom, than a desire to cling on to power. The latter is something that has been argued with vigour by Hans E. Mayer in his article ‘Studies in the History of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem’.  Newman makes good use of both charter evidence and the chronicles (particularly William of Tyre), to make a convincing counter-argument to Mayer.

Newman uses a good mixture of the limited available sources, including Islamic accounts of events in addition to the much used Latin/French and Greek ones. I found it a slight shame that the final chapter dealt with a period much longer than the rest (1150-61). In my opinion, this was the period in Melisende’s life that was most relevant to one of the central proposed themes of the book; the suggestion that Melisende’s actions were based upon a belief that her son was not yet ready to rule alone. In addition to this, Newman wrote that she believed negative portrayals of Melisende were a result of what has been written about her by historians, and not by her contemporaries. The negative qualities written about her have been largely based upon her actions during the period of the final chapter, and so it might have been more satisfying if Newman had spent more time addressing events such as the following in greater detail: the civil war in the Kingdom of Jerusalem; and the arguable side-lining of Baldwin III through her second son Amalric’s inclusion in the charters at this time, and his appointment as Count of Jaffa. Despite this the book is very thorough in its detail and is written in a casual manner that is easy to read. Newman frequently raises minor points that really paint a vivid picture of the time in the reader’s mind; little details that humanise the people she is writing about. For example, when commenting upon the fall of Edessa she reminds the reader that this was Melisende’s childhood home. Whilst some of these details are merely speculative, some do have a sound basis and they provide good food for thought.

Overall, this is a thoroughly researched and clearly written book, and a much-needed recent contribution to the secondary works on Queen Melisende of Jerusalem.  It provides a refreshing perspective on the internal and external troubles of the Latin States in the early twelfth century, by considering how these struggles impacted upon its residents. A general reader with an interest in this period would find the book extremely insightful.