The Reign of King Stephen

The Reign of King Stephen PDF Author: David Crouch
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317892976
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
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.

The Reign of King Stephen

The Reign of King Stephen PDF Author: David Crouch
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317892976
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The Reign of King Stephen

The Reign of King Stephen PDF Author: David Crouch
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138148857
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
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.

King Stephen

King Stephen PDF Author: Edmund King
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300170106
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This compelling new biography provides the most authoritative picture yet of King Stephen, whose reign (1135-1154), with its "nineteen long winters" of civil war, made his name synonymous with failed leadership. After years of work on the sources, Edmund King shows with rare clarity the strengths and weaknesses of the monarch. Keeping Stephen at the forefront of his account, the author also chronicles the activities of key family members and associates whose loyal support sustained Stephen's kingship. In 1135 the popular Stephen was elected king against the claims of the empress Matilda and her sons. But by 1153, Stephen had lost control over Normandy and other important regions, England had lost prestige, and the weakened king was forced to cede his family's right to succession. A rich narrative covering the drama of a tumultuous reign, this book focuses well-deserved attention on a king who lost control of his destiny.

Stephen (Penguin Monarchs)

Stephen (Penguin Monarchs) PDF Author: Carl Watkins
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0141989874
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Known as 'the anarchy', the reign of Stephen (1135-1141) saw England plunged into a civil war that illuminated the fatal flaw in the powerful Norman monarchy, that without clear rules ordering succession, conflict between members of William the Conqueror's family were inevitable. But there was another problem, too: Stephen himself. With the nobility of England and Normandy anxious about the prospect of a world without the tough love of the old king Henry I, Stephen styled himself a political panacea, promising strength without oppression. As external threats and internal resistance to his rule accumulated, it was a promise he was unable to keep. Unable to transcend his flawed claim to the throne, and to make the transition from nobleman to king, Stephen's actions betrayed uneasiness in his role, his royal voice never quite ringing true. The resulting violence that spread throughout England was not, or not only, the work of bloodthirsty men on the make. As Watkins shows in this resonant new portrait, it arose because great men struggled to navigate a new and turbulent kind of politics that arose when the king was in eclipse.

Stephen and Matilda's Civil War

Stephen and Matilda's Civil War PDF Author: Matthew Lewis
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526718359
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The story of the twelfth-century rivalry for the throne between the daughter and the nephew of Henry I—a battle that tore England apart for over a decade. The Anarchy was the first civil war in post-Conquest England, enduring throughout the reign of King Stephen between 1135 and 1154. It ultimately brought about the end of the Norman dynasty and the birth of the mighty Plantagenet kings. When Henry I died having lost his only legitimate son in a shipwreck, his barons had sworn to recognize his daughter Matilda, widow of the Holy Roman Emperor, as his heir, and remarried her to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. But when she was slow to move to England upon her father’s death, Henry’s favorite nephew, Stephen of Blois, rushed to have himself crowned, much as Henry himself had done on the death of his brother William Rufus. Supported by his brother Henry, Bishop of Winchester, Stephen made a promising start, but Matilda would not give up her birthright and tried to hold the English barons to their oaths. The result was more than a decade of civil war that saw England split apart. Empress Matilda is often remembered as aloof and high-handed, Stephen as ineffective and indecisive. By following both sides of the dispute and seeking to understand their actions and motivations, Matthew Lewis aims to reach a more rounded understanding of this crucial period of English history—and ask to what extent there really was anarchy.

The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign

The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign PDF Author: Edmund King
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 019159072X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
The reign of King Stephen (1135-54) is famous as a period of weak government, as Stephen and his rival the Empress Matilda contended for power. This is a study of medieval kingship at its most vulnerable. It also shows how individuals and institutions enabled the monarchy to survive. A contemporary chronicler described the reign as "nineteen long winters in which Christ and his saints were asleep". Historians today refer to it simply as 'the Anarchy'. The weakness of government was the result of a disputed succession. Stephen lost control over Normandy, the Welsh marches, and much of the North. Contemporaries noted as signs of weakness the tyranny of the lords of castles, and the break-down of coinage. Stephen remained king for his lifetime, but leading churchmen and laymen negotiated a settlement whereby the crown passed to the Empress's son the future Henry II. This volume by leading scholars gives an original and up-to-date analysis of these major themes, and explains how the English monarchy was able to survive the Anarchy of King Stephen's reign.

Stephen and Matilda

Stephen and Matilda PDF Author: Jim Bradbury
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752471929
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Civil war and the battle for the English Crown dominated the reign of King Stephen, and this popular account is the only complete account of the complex and fascinating military situation. The war is examined in detail throughout the various campaigns, battles and sieges of the period, including the two major battles at the Standard and Lincoln, showing that Stephen always held more ground than his opponents and was mostly on the offensive. The nature of the warfare and the reasons for its outcome are examined, along with comment on the strategy, tactics, technology in arms and armour, and the important improvements in fortifications. Full use has been made of the numerous detailed chronicle sources which give some indication of the horrors of twelfth-century war, the depredations which affected the ordinary people of the land, and the atrocities which sometimes accompanied it. Full of colourful characters - the likeable king, the domineering Matlida, the young and vital Henry of Anjou (later Henry II), his intelligent and effective father Geoffrey Count of Anjou, the powerful barons from Geoffrey de Mandeville to Ranulf of Chester - and illustrated with photographs, maps and manuscript illustrations, this is a fascinating story of rivalry for the English throne which throws new light on a much-neglected aspect of Stephen's reign.

The Accession of Henry II in England

The Accession of Henry II in England PDF Author: Emilie Amt
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 9780851153483
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Detailed examination of the steps by which Henry II negotiated peace and established the authority of his government.

William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the Kings of England

William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the Kings of England PDF Author: William (of Malmesbury)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 604

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Book Description


King Stephen

King Stephen PDF Author: Donald Matthew
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9781852852726
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
The reign of King Stephen (1135-54) has usually been seen as uniquely disasterous in the history of the medieval England -- a counrty riven by a civil war between Stephen and his first cousin, the Empress Matilda, and by an anarchy during which overmighty barons laid waste the country and 'Christ and his saints slept'. Donald Matthew challenges this picture. By questioning such melodramatic assumptions, and by looking clearly at what can and cannot be known about Stephen, he brings new light to both the king and his reign. He shows that much of what has been written about Stephen has been based on the selective use of the testimony of hostile witnesses, and has been shot through by wishful thinking or by the political or historical prejudices of the day. King Stephen is an important, well-written and timely reinterpretation of the crisis of Norman government.