If the subject of my paper derives from the desire to talk about the king whom Warren Hollister knew so well, its title derives from R.W. Southern's famous British Academy Raleigh Lecture, ‘The Place of Henry I in English History'. The lecture reappeared in his collection Medieval Humanism and Other Studies under the title ‘King Henry I’. The original title is the more appropriate, using the word ‘history’ to mean both the past and writings about the past; the lecture situates aspects of Henry's reign both within long-term historical developments and within a broad range of historiography. Here, I hope to share some of this dual aspect but concentrate on legal history, a subject upon which Southern touched but briefly. In particular, I reflect upon periodization and upon the ways in which different historians and different types of legal historiography attribute different degrees of significance to Henry's reign.

Writers in Henry I's reign and its aftermath state their opinions clearly. The author of the Leges Henrici Primi referred to the ‘formidable power [tremendum … imperium] of the royal majesty’ and to ‘the pleas of the king's court, which stand above everything'. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle stated that ‘no one dared injure another in his time. He made peace for man and beast.’ Geoffrey of Monmouth's Prophecies of Merlin referred to the ‘Lion of Justice’, who was identified with Henry. According to William of Malmesbury, By the rigour of inflexible justice he restrained his countrymen peacefully, his nobles with appropriate dignity. He showed the greatest diligence in seeking out thieves and forgers in their dens, and punishing them when found. Nor did he neglect details; having heard that broken coins, although made of good silver, were not being accepted by those making sales, he ordered that all coins should be broken or cut. He punished the false ell in use among merchants, introducing his own forearm as a standard measure for all throughout England. … At the beginning of his reign, so that by fearful example he might make a lasting impression on evildoers, he was more inclined to mutilation of limbs, later to require monetary payments.

The focus of writers was thus on Henry's power throughout his realm, his maintenance of peace, and his dealing with offences such as theft and false moneying.