Ralph Henry Carless Davies - King Stephen

KING STEPHEN 11351154

King Stephen 11351154

R.H.C. Davis

First published 1967 by Addison Wesley Longman Limited

Second (paperback) Edition 1977

Third Edition (reset) 1990

Fifth impression 1997

Published 2013 by Routledge

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R. H. C. Davis, 1967, 1977

Copyright 1990, Taylor & Francis.

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ISBN 13: 978-0-582-04000-7 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Davis, R. H. C. (Ralph Henry Carless), 1918

King Stephen, 11351154.3rd ed.

1. England. Stephen King of England

I. Title

942.0240924

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Davis, R. H. C. (Ralph Henry Carless), 1918

King Stephen, 1135 1154/R. H. C. Davis.3rd ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0582040000

1. Stephen, King of England, 1097?1154. 2. Great BritainHistoryStephen, 11351154. 3. Great BritainKings and rulersBiography. I. Title.

DA198.5,D3 1990

942.024 092dc 20

Contents

MAPS

TABLES

J. H. Rounds Geoffrey de Mandeville has long been recognized as the classic study of Stephens reign, and it may seem audacious to challenge it. But in the seventy-five years which have passed since it was published, our knowledge of the period has increased considerably. We now have the final portion of the Gesta Stephani (from 1148 to 1154), and the texts of many charters which have since been discovered. As a result the chronology of the reign has had to be revised, and some events arranged in a new order. At times this Life of Stephen offers not only a new interpretation, but also a new story.

I first began to work on Stephen some twelve years ago, when Professor H. A. Cronne asked me to be his co-editor for the third volume of the Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum. That volume is now in the press and contains full texts of all the known charters of King Stephen, the Empress Matilda, and Dukes Geoffrey and Henry of Normandy, as well as a detailed discussion of the light which they throw on the government of the country. Since the Life and the Regesta are complementary to each other, I have inevitably benefited in the one from the work of my collaborator in the other. Professor Cronne has been a most unselfish colleague and friend, and I am extremely grateful to him for all his help and constructive criticism. I also wish to thank Professors M. D. Knowles, R. W. Southern, and C. Warren Hollister, who have all read this book in typescript or proof and made many valuable suggestions; and also my wife who has read it more times than I care to remember. A further debt is to my father. Though he died in 1928, he had already done much preparatory work for the third volume of the Regesta, and I have constantly been working through the material which he first collected, and on which he first commented. I therefore dedicate the book to his memory.

R. H. C. DAVIS

In this edition I have corrected some errors (particularly with a postscript to ch. vi), expanded the central portion of also taken the opportunity to update the footnotes so that they refer to the most recent editions and translations of the narrative sources.

R. H. C. D.

We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

Burns and Oates Ltd for extracts from The Letters of St Bernard trans, by Bruno Scott James; J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd and E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc. for an extract from Anglo-Saxon Chronicle trans. by G. N. Garmonsway (Everymans Library 953), and Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd for extracts from The Historia Pontificalis of John of Salisbury by Marjorie Chibnall and Historia Novella and Gesta Stephani by K. R. Potter (Nelsons Medieval Texts).