Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T10:56:50.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anarchy in England, 1135-54: The Theory of the Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Robert B. Patterson
Get access

Extract

The constitutional arrangement of December 1135, under which Stephen of Blois won England with the support of the Londoners and of the administration at Winchester, with unction from the archbishop of Canterbury, and with recognition from the pope, did not prevail, as all know. Eighteen years later, the Treaty of Winchester legitimized the dynastic transfer from the house of Blois to the house of Anjou. By its very nature, the treaty constituted an endorsement of the Angevin rebellion against King Stephen. In the theory and mechanisms by which it provided a legal basis for the ultimate transfer of government to Henry Fitz Empress, Winchester relied upon certain crucial ideas and institutions: hereditary succession; the church as a guarantor of social and political order; the legal force of conciliar decisions; and the bonds created by fealty and homage. Such notions are supported in one way or another in the writings of men who observed Siephen's passage from dynastic victory to defeat. These commentators are thus an important gauge of the constitutional thought of Stephen's reign and of the early part of Henry II's, particularly for the right of rebellion, and they provide a context for appreciating the constitutional settlement which terminated Stephen's reign. The literary style of these observers is also worth notice for its effect on the historiography of Stephen's reign, chiefly in its contribution to the hard-to-eradicate image of this nineteen-year period as “the anarchy.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , Fall 1974 , pp. 189 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Cronne, H.A. and Davis, R.H.C., eds., Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum (Oxford, 1968), III, no. 272 [hereafter cited Regesta].Google Scholar

2 Some lines of inquiry for this study were suggested by Wieruszowski's, Helene “Roger of Sicily, Rex-Tyrannus, in Twelfth-Century Political Thought,” Speculum, XXXVIII (1963): 46–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 of Rievaulx, Ailred, “Relatio de Standardo,” in Hewlett, Richard, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I (4 vols.: London, 1884–1886), III: 187Google Scholar [hereafter cited Chrons. Stephen, etc.]; Stephen's case against the Empress Matilda included the charge of Matilda's illegitimacy and the claim of a death-bed designation by Henry I: Blake, E.O., ed., Liber Eliensis (London, 1962), p. 285Google Scholar; of Salisbury, John, Iohannis Saresberiensis Historia Pontiflcalis, ed. Chibnall, Marjorie (Edinburgh, 1956), pp. 83–84Google Scholar [hereafter cited Historia Pontiflcalis]; Morey, Adrian and Brooke, C.N.L., Gilbert Foliot and his Letters (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 119–22Google Scholar [hereafter cited GFL]; Davis, R.H.C., King Stephen (London, 1967), pp. 16–18Google Scholar; for the royalist claim that Stephen's oath to Matilda as Henry I's heiress had been coerced, see below n. 5; for the question of Matilda's legitimacy, see Southern, R.W., Saint Anselm and his Biographer (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 188–91.Google Scholar

4 To Henry II, Stephen was “ablator meus”: Caley, John, Ellis, Henry and Bandinell, Bulkeley, eds., Monasticon Anglicanum (6 vols, in 8; London, 1817–1830), V: 564Google Scholar; of Huntingdon, Henry, Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum, ed. Arnold, Thomas (London, 1879), p. 256Google Scholar [hereafter cited Henry of Huntingdon]; of Torigni, Robert, “Chronica Roberti de Torigneio, Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Michaelis in Periculo Maris,” in Chrons. Stephen, etc., IV: 127Google Scholar [hereafter cited Robert of Torigni]; of Newburgh, William, “Historia Rerum Anglicarum,” in Chrons. Stephen, I: 31Google Scholar; of Rouen, Stephen, “Draco Normannicus,” in Chrons. Stephen, etc., II: 660Google Scholar [hereafter cited Stephen of Rouen]; of Worcester, John, The Chronicle of John of Worcester 1118-1140, ed. Weaver, J.R.H. (Oxford, 1908), p. 28Google Scholar [hereafter cited John of Worcester]; of Salisbury, John, Historia Pontiflcalis, pp. 83–86Google Scholar; for a parallel case involving Henry I and Robert Curthose in 1100-1101, see Eadmer, , Eadmeri Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. Rule, Martin (London, 1884), p. 127Google Scholar and Stubbs, William, ed., Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi De Gestis Regum Anglorum (London, 1889), II: 471Google Scholar [hereafter cited Eadmer, and GR]; see also “Annales Wintonienses cum Contin. S. Augustini Cantuar.,” in Liebermann, Felix, ed., Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen (Strassburg, 1879), p. 82.Google Scholar

5 Potter, K. R., ed., Gesta Stephani (Edinburgh, 1955), pp. 7–8Google Scholar [hereafter cited GS]; Norgate, Kate, England Under the Angevin Kings (2 vols.; London, 1887), I: 243Google Scholar; Rössler, Oskar, Kaiserin Mathilde, Mutter Heinrichs von Anjou und das Zeitalter der Anarchie in England (Berlin, 1897), pp. 87–90Google Scholar; Chartrou, Josèphe, L'Anjou de 1109 à 1151 (Paris, 1928), pp. 18–20Google Scholar; Boussard, Jacques, “L'empire plantagenêt,” in Lot, Ferdinand and Fawtier, Robert, eds., Histoire des Institutions francaises au moyen age, vol. I (Paris, 1957), pp. 37–38Google Scholar; Warren, W.L., Henry II (London, 1973), p. 14.Google Scholar

6 Potter, K.R., ed., Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi Historia Novella (Edinburgh, 1955), p. 4Google Scholar [hereafter cited HN]; John of Worcester, pp. 27-28; Thorpe, Benjamin, ed., Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi Chronicon Ex Chronicis (2 vols.; London, 1848–1849), II: 84–85Google Scholar [hereafter cited Cont. Flor. Wig.]; of Hexham, John, “Historia Johannis Prions Hagustaldensis Ecclesiae XXV. Annorum,” in Arnold, Thomas, ed., Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia (2 vols., London, 1882–1885), II: 281Google Scholar [hereafter cited John of Hexham]; William of Newburgh, p. 30; see also Whitelock, Dorothy, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London, 1961), a. 1127Google Scholar [hereafter cited ASC]; Richard of Hexham, “Prioris Ricardi Haugustaldensis Ecclesiae, de Gestis Regis Stephani et de Bello Standardii,” in Chrons. Stephen, etc., III: 145Google Scholar [hereafter cited Richard of Hexham]; see also “Annales de Dunstaplia,” in Luard, H. R., ed., Annales Monastici (5 vols., London, 1864–1869), III: 14Google Scholar [hereafter cited Ann. Mon.]; “Annales de Wintonia,” in Ann. Mon., II: 50Google Scholar; Laporte, Jean, ed., Annales Gemmeticenses (Rouen, 1954), p. 63.Google Scholar

7 HN, p. 5; compare this with ibid., p. 65 for a contradiction; John of Worcester, pp. 27-28; for Stephen's view, see GS, pp. 7-8; see also below, n. 48.

8 Henry of Huntingdon, p. 256; William of Newburgh, pp. 32-33; Robert of Torigni, pp. 127-28; see also Morton, Catherine and Müntz, Hope, eds., The Carmen De Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens (Oxford, 1972), pp. 17, 21Google Scholar; Foreville, Raymonde, ed., Guillaume de Poitiers, Histoire de Guillaume Le Conquérant (Paris, 1952), 147Google Scholar; Marx, Jean, ed., Guillaume de Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum Ducum (Rouen and Paris, 1914), pp. 132–33.Google Scholar

9 Douglas, David C. and Greenaway, George W., eds., English Historical Documents 1042-1189 (London, 1968), no. 5, Plate XXVI.Google Scholar

10 GS, p. 135; Regesta, III, no. 635; Robert of Torigni, p. 175; GFL, pp. 105-23, especially, pp. 109-10.

11 Robert of Torigni, p. 128.

12 Henry of Huntingdon, p. 239; Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 72; Robert of Torigni, p. 96; of Durham, Symeon, “Historia Regum,” in Arnold, Thomas, ed., Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia (2 vols., London, 1882–1885), II; 249Google Scholar [hereafter cited Symeon of Durham]; of Worcester, Florence, Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi Chronicon Ex Chronicis, ed. Thorpe, Benjamin (2 vols., London, 1848–1849), II: 69Google Scholar [hereafter cited Florence of Worcester]; GR, pp. 481-82; see also ASC, a. 1127; Eadmer, p. 237; “Annales Wintonienses cum Contin. S. Augustini Cantuar.,” p. 77.

13 Cont. Flor. Wig., pp. 74-75; William of Newburgh, p. 30; GR, pp. 495, 497-98; see also Eadmer, p. 290.

14 HW, pp. 10, 13; Robert of Torigni, p. 128; John of Worcester, pp. 27-28; John of Hexham, pp. 286-87; William of Newburgh, pp. 29-30; see also ASC, a. 1127; Symeon of Durham, pp. 281-82; GFL, p. 115.

15 Le Patourel, John, “The Norman Succession, 996-1135,” English Historical Review, LXXXVI (1971): 225–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for the period after 1135, see Adrian Morey and Brooke, C.N.L., eds., The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot (Cambridge, 1967), no. 26Google Scholar [hereafter cited LCGF], and GFL, pp. 105-23; Davis, R.H.C., “What Happened in Stephen's Reign, II 35-1154,” History, n.s., XLIX (1964): 5–6.Google Scholar

16 Wilkins, David, ed., Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (4 vols.; London, 1737), I: 363, 367, 375-76, 382–83Google Scholar [hereafter cited Wilkins, Concilia]; Burchard of Worms, in Patrologia Cursus Complétas, ed. Migne, J.P. (221 vols.; Paris, 1844–1855), CXL, col. 815Google Scholar; Esmein, A., Le marriage en droit canonique (2 vols.; Paris, 1891; reprint. New York, 1968), I: 29Google Scholar; on Canon Law collections, see Brooke, Z.N., The English Church and the Papacy (Cambridge, 1931), pp. 89–90Google Scholar; see Eadmer, p. 290 for mention of legalis conjux and GR, p. 470 for a connubium legitimum.

17 Haddan, Arthur W. and Stubbs, William, eds., Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols.; Oxford, 1869–1878), III: 453Google Scholar—from Morton, and Muntz, , eds., The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens, p. 56n.Google Scholar

18 Liebermann, Felix, “On the Instituta Cnuti Aliorumque Regum Anglorum,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, n.s., VII (1893): 82–83Google Scholar; Le Patourel, , “The Norman Succession,” pp. 244–45.Google Scholar

19 David, Charles W., Robert Curthose (Cambridge, Mass., 1920), pp. 134–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hollister, C. Warren, “The Anglo-Norman Civil War: 1101,” English Historical Review, LXXXVIII (1973): 329–30Google Scholar; see also Freeman, Edward A., The Reign of William Rufus (2 vols.; Oxford, 1882), II: 412-14, 688–91.Google Scholar

20 Patterson, Robert B., ed., Earldom of Gloucester Charters: The Charters and Scribes of the Earls and Countesses of Gloucester to A.D. 1217 (Oxford, 1973), p. 3Google Scholar [hereafter cited EGC]; Patterson, Robert B., “William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester: A Re-evaluation of the Historia Novella,” American Historical Review, LXX (1965): 983–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Stephen's Shaftesbury Charter: Another Case Against William of Malmesbury,” Speculum, XLIII (1968): 487–92Google Scholar; a specific study of the earl's position as tutor regni is in preparation.

21 of Salisbury, John, Historia Pontiflcalis, p. 83Google Scholar; GFL, p. 119.

22 Patterson, , “William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester,” p. 987, n. 13Google Scholar; add Davis, R.H.C., King Stephen (London, 1967), p. 22Google Scholar; Appleby, John T., The Troubled Reign of King Stephen (London, 1969), pp. 30–31Google Scholar, and Cronne, H.A., The Reign of Stephen: Anarchy in England 1135-54 (London, 1970), p. 32Google Scholar; Kealey, Edward J., Roger of Salisbury: Viceroy of England (Berkeley, 1972), p. 162, p. 168 is the exception.Google Scholar

23 GS, p. 8.

24 LCGF, no. 26.

25 Patterson, , “William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester,” pp. 985–90Google Scholar and “Stephen's Shaftesbury Charter,” pp. 487-92.

26 HN, pp. 18-20, 34, 53; Regesta, III, no. 271; Le Prévost, Augustus, ed., Orderici Vitalis Historiae Ecclesiasticae Libri Tredecim (5 vols.; Paris, 1838–1855) V: 119–21Google Scholar is in sympathy with the arrests [hereafter cited OV].

27 GS, pp. 50-51, 56-57, 63; Davis, R.H.C., “The Authorship of the ‘Gesta Stephani’,” English Historical Review, LXXVII (1962): 212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 GS, pp. 56-57; HN, p. 41; Henry of Huntingdon, pp. 266-67; Webb, Clemens C. I., ed., Ioannis Saresberiensis Episcopi Carnotensis Policratici sive De Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis Philosophorum Libri VIII (2 vols.; reprint, Frankfort, 1965), II: 51Google Scholar; see also Laporte, Jean, ed., Annales Gemmeticenses, p. 63.Google Scholar

29 HN, pp. 41-42; Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 117; William of Newburgh, p. 33; grounds for complaint would have been the promise in the coronation oath; see Richardson, H.G. and Sayles, G.O., The Governance of Medieval England (Edinburgh, 1963), pp. 137-38, 143–44Google Scholar; compare with ASC, a. 1135, a. 1137; GS, pp. 1, 14.

30 John of Worcester, p. 40; Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 96; for a view sympathetic to Stephen, see OV, pp. 53-54, 57-58.

31 GS, p. 20; Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 118.

32 Henry of Huntingdon, p. 267 and John of Worcester, p. 40 are typical.

33 LCGF, nos. 1-3, 5, 13, 22, 24, 27, 32, 35, 50-52, 65, 77, 85, 94-96; GFL, p. 88.

34 For some examples, see Knowles, David, The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 268–70Google Scholar; Round, J. H., Geoffrey de Mandeville (London, 1892), p. 28Google Scholar, Richardson, H.G. and Sayles, G.O., Law and Legislation from Aethelberht to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1966), pp. 23, 40Google Scholar; Stenton, Doris M., English Justice between the Norman Conquest and the Great Charter 1066-1215 (London, 1965), p. 22.Google Scholar

35 “Leges Edwardi Confessons,” 1.1-3, 6, 12.1-11, 26, 26.1-2, 27, in Liebermann, Felix, ed., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (3 vols.; Halle, 1903–1916), I: 628-29, 631, 638-40, 650–51Google Scholar; ibid., II: 537-38, 687; Downer, L.J., ed., Leges Henrici Primi (Oxford, 1972), 10.1, 11.1, 11.12Google Scholar; Wilkins, , Concilia, pp. 415, 417, 421–22Google Scholar; Mansi, J.D., ed., Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio.… (31 vols.; Venice, 1757–1798), XXI: 750–52Google Scholar; Robert of Torigni, p. 145; for an earlier reference whose applicability to England is uncertain, see “Anonymi auctoris brevis relatio de origine Willelmi Conquestoris,” in Giles, I.A., ed., Scriptores Rerum Gestarum Willelmi Conquestoris Regis Angliae (London, 1845), p. 10Google Scholar; Liebermann, Felix, Uber die Leges Edwardi Confessons (Halle, 1896), pp. 2, 15, 59–61Google Scholar; Jolliffe, J.E.A., The Constitutional History of Medieval England From the English Settlement to 1485 (4th edn.; New York, 1961), pp. 113–16Google Scholar; the preceding suggests revision of Frederick Pollock and Frederic Maitland, W., History of English Law before the time of Edward I (2nd edn.; 2 vols.; Cambridge, 1898), I: 75, 75n–76Google Scholar, and of Lyon, Bryce, The Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval England (New York, 1960), p. 180Google Scholar; even the slight recognition of the Peace in van Caenegem, R.C., The Birth of the English Common Law (Cambridge, 1973), p. 11Google Scholar & n. needs strengthening.

36 HN, pp. 71, 76.

37 GS, p. 153.

38 See above, n. 35.

39 GS, pp. 104-106.

40 John of Hexham, p. 299; Richard of Hexham, pp. 170-71, 176; see also Eadmer, pp. 127-28 for 1101.

41 Wilkins, , Concilia, pp. 419–20Google Scholar; Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 130; HN, pp. 62-63.

42 Regesta, III, no. 272; John of Hexham, p. 331.

43 HN, p. 22-23; the existence of the bull is most doubtful; see Patterson, , “William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester,” pp. 992–93.Google Scholar

44 John of Hexham, pp. 288, 315-16, 319; also see below, n. 49.

45 Henry of Huntingdon, p. 284.

46 Megaw, Isabel, “The Ecclesiastical Policy of Stephen, 1135-1139: A Reinterpretation,” in Cronne, H.A., Moody, T.W. and Quinn, D.B., eds., Essays in British and Irish History in Honour of James Eadie Todd (London, 1949), p. 25.Google Scholar

47 John of Hexham, pp. 325-26; of Salisbury, John, Historia Pontiflcalis, p. 83Google Scholar; Poole, R.L., “The appointment and deprivation of St. William, archbishop of York,” English Historical Review, XLV (1930): 280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 GFL, pp. 105-23; Megaw, , “Ecclesiastical Policy of Stephen,” pp. 26-27, 31–32Google Scholar; of Salisbury, John, Historia Pontiflcalis, ed. Poole, R.L. (Oxford, 1927), pp. 107–13Google Scholar; Constable, Giles, ed., The Letters of Peter the Venerable (2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 1967), II: 252–56.Google Scholar

49 of Salisbury, John, Historia Pontiflcalis, pp. 6 & n., 42Google Scholar; James, Bruno Scott, ed., The Letters of St. Bernard (Chicago, 1953), pp. 261-62, 267-68, 270, 279Google Scholar; Migne, , Patrologia, CLXXXII, Ep. 239, cols. 431–32Google Scholar; Saltman, Avrom, Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1956), pp. 25, 37, 137Google Scholar; Davis, , King Stephen, pp. 98–110.Google Scholar

50 For examples, see Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 121; GS, pp. 60-61, 67, 75, 131; however, see OV, v. 108.

51 See above, n. 20.

52 HN, p. 18.

53 See Patterson, , “William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester,” p. 988, n. 18Google Scholar; EGC, nos. 95-96; OV, v. 104 gives an example of resistance to Stephen without rejection of fealty.

54 Regesta, III, no. 272, p. 98, lines 12-17: Ceteri vero…errata corrigerent.

55 John of Hexham, p. 331; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 289; GS, pp. 157-58; Robert of Torigni. p. 177; Davis, , King Stephen, pp. 122–26Google Scholar; Cronne, , Reign of Stephen, pp. 182–83Google Scholar; Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, pp. 251-54, 371–72Google ScholarPubMed, Law and Legislation, p. 55.

56 Adams, G.B., Councils and Courts in Anglo-Norman England (New Haven, 1926). pp. 1-42, 121–26.Google Scholar

57 John of Hexham, p. 287.

58 Regesta, III, no. 271.

59 HN, p. 5.

60 For a transfer of loyalty, see Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 71.

61 GS, pp. 8, 16, 44, 77.

62 Ibid, p. 22.

63 EGC, nos. 83 & n., 95 & n., 109-10 & n.; Cont. Flor. Wig., pp. 110-11, 117; HN, p. 35.

64 Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 126.

65 Richard of Hexham, p. 162; Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 111.

66 GS, p. 80; HN, p. 54.

67 Cont. Flor. Wig., p. 132; it is a confederatio in GS, p. 82.

68 HN, p. 51; Saltman, , Theobald, p. 16.Google Scholar

69 HN, p. 21; for an earlier example involving Henry I and Anselm of Canterbury, see Eadmer, p. 126.

70 Davis, King Stephen and Cronne, Reign of Stephen contain the principal discussions; SirStenton, Frank, The First Century of English Feudalism (2nd edn.; Oxford, 1961), pp. 218–19Google Scholar; Bishop, T.A.M., Scriptores Regis (Oxford, 1960), pp. 30–31Google Scholar; Poole, A.L., From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (2nd edn.; Oxford, 1955), pp. 131-66Google Scholar; also see Jolliffe, , Constitutional History, p. 203.Google Scholar

71 Regesta, III, no. 272.

72 Holt, J.C., Magna Carta (Cambridge, 1965), p. 19.Google Scholar

73 Ibid., p. 34.