Since there’s a new Robin Hood movie coming out soon, and since I don’t know what they’ll do to the character of Richard the Lionheart, my favorite English king, I thought I’d take a moment to recommend an excellent biography: Richard I (Yale English Monarchs) by John Gillingham.
“In this new account of Richard the Lionheart’s reign, John Gillingham scrutinizes the king’s fluctuating reputation over the centuries and provides a convincing revised interpretation. Neither a feckless knight-errant nor a neglectful king, Richard I was in reality a masterful and businesslike ruler.”
This isn’t a pop history book, it’s a carefully researched biography, so the tone isn’t pithy or humorous. But if what you want is a well-reasoned examination of this king who so powerfully impressed himself upon history in such a short time, this is it.
Richard I is often criticized for only being in England a mere six months out of his reign. He was often away protecting his French domains and on the Third Crusade. While this sounds like neglectful kingship to us, we have to remember that his frontiers were in France, and at that time especially, frontiers needed to be protected; and that the Crusades were considered by the people at the time a rescue mission, and all rulers were expected to go on Crusade. Richard may have been seen as shirking responsibility if he did not go. The expectations of a ruler then were quite different to what we expect from our leaders now.
This book explores the motivation behind Richard’s actions, and spends a good deal of time on his captivity. Richard was that active sort of person to whom everything seems to come easily, so that he inspired envy, and had a sense of humor and a knack for making his opponents feel inferior. So by the time he shipwrecked on his way back from the Third Crusade, he’d made enough enemies that he had to travel through the alps in secret. It wasn’t long before Duke Leopold of Austria took him captive, and a heavy ransom was required for his release. In Richard I, Gillingham examines the reasons behind this captivity, and shows that far from being an irresponsible king who foolishly abandoned his country, Richard had set up a well-organized government that would have functioned soundly in his absence, if he hadn’t been imprisoned unlawfully.
Purchase Richard I (Yale English Monarchs) at Amazon.
This looks like an interesting book. It’s a shame that so many people want to view history through modern lenses and apply modern thought to a completely different time and mindset. I am glad you gave a brief explanation of what the Crusades were and how expectations of rulers were different back then, when compared to now. Knowing the *why* of things is so much more important than just the *when* and *how*. The context that *why* gives shapes the entire interpretation of the *when* and *how*.
Thanks for your comment. :) I just read an interesting quote by Raymond Ibrahim in respect to that very thing re: the Crusades:
“Medieval man was not modern man. While all men throughout all time have been prone to hypocrisy, greed, violence, etc., Medieval Christians, as opposed to their 21st century (secularized) counterparts, were, by default, much more guided by faith (whether this faith was misplaced or not is hardly the point). ’Secularism’ was never an option; Christians firmly believed in heaven and hell, God and the devil. And these were motives…One need not believe in God and religion; but one should still give them their due when discussing the Medieval world.”
The article is posted here: http://victorhanson.com/articles/ibrahim060609.html