Evil enough to serve as an example. The Anglo-Norman clergy and the description of William II Rufus, regrettably, king of England
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4000/medievalista.1584Keywords:
Guglielmo Rufo; Anglo-Normanni; Cultura; Plantageneti; ChiericiAbstract
William II called Rufus – William the Conqueror‘s third-born – was king of England from 1084 until his unexpected death in 1100. Being an excellent captain and a brave warrior, William Rufus succeeded in strengthen the English kingdom. He spent most of his regency in war against his older brother, and in direct conflict with the Church. His name will be remembered by the History, especially through the annals written immediately after his death, as one of the worst kings of England. In the 11th and 12th centuries, William Rufus became the example of everything a sovereign should not be: he missed every aspect of the kingship. He did not show nor gracefulness nor justice nor capability of government. His memorial image was created by ecclesiasticals that well remembered and abhorred his behavior towards the Church. In this paper I will briefly reconstruct the steps through which authors such as William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis described William II. Moreover, I will analyse John of Salinsbury, Gerald of Wales and Walter Map’s works of the 12th century. They present the portrait of the evil sovereign as a comparison tool for the contemporaneity – he became an exemplum and his death emerged as “divine justice”.
Bibliography
Printed sources
ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. Ed. Dorothy Whitelock, David Douglas and Susie Tucker. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1986.
EADMERO – Historia Novorum. Ed. Martin Rule. Lessig-Druckerei: Kraus reprint, 1965.
– Vita Anselmi. Ed. Inos Biffi, Aldo Granata, Stefano Maria Malaspina, Costante Marabelli. Milano: Jaca Book, 2009.
GAIMAR GEFFREY – Estoire des Engleis. Ed. Thomas Wright. London: Canton Society, 1850; Short, Ian. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
GIOVANNI DI SALISBURY – Policraticus. Ed. Charles C. J. Webb. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909.
– Vita Sancti Anselmi. Ed. Inos Biffi, Aldo Granata, Stefano Maria Malaspina, Costante Marabelli. Milano: Jaca Book, 2009.
GIRALDO CAMBRENSE – Topographia Hibernica, Expugnatio Hibernica, Itinerarium Kambriae, De Principis Instructione, Speculum Ecclesiae. Ed. John S. Brewer, James F. Dimock, George F. Warner, Giraldi Cambrensis Opera. 8 vol. Londra: Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, 1851-1891.
GUGLIEMO DI MALMESBURY – Gesta Regum Anglorum. Ed. Roger A. B. Mynors, Rodney M. Thompson, Michael Winterbottom. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
JOHN OF WORCESTER – Chronica. Ed. Reginald Darlington, Patrick McGurk. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, (canonized by pope Alexander 3., A. D. 1173). Ed. James C. Robertson. London: Longman, 1891.
ORDERICO VITALE – Historia Ecclesiastica. Ed. Marjorie Chibnall. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.
WALTER MAP – De Nugis Curialium. Ed. Montague R. James, Charles N. L. Brooke, Rodney A. B Mynors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Studies
AURELL, Martin – L’empire des Plantagenêt. Paris: Perrin, 2003.
– “Les Plantagenêt, la propagande et la relecture du passé”. in AURELL, Martin (ed.) – Culture Politique des Plantagenêt: 1154-1224: Actes Du Colloque Tenu à Poitiers Du 2 Au 5 Mai 2002. Poitiers: Université de Poitiers - CNRS, 2003, pp. 9-34.
BARLOW, Frank – William Rufus. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
BARTLETT, Robert – Gerald of Wales, 1146-1223. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
– “Political prophecy in Gerald of Wales”. in AURELL, Martin (ed.) – Culture Politique des Plantagenêt: 1154-1224: Actes Du Colloque Tenu à Poitiers Du 2 Au 5 Mai 2002. Poitiers: Université de Poitiers - CNRS, 2003, pp. 303-311.
– England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075-1225. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006.
BELLEI MUSSINI, Lorenzo – Propter adhorantium auctoritatem voluntate. Legittimazione, patronage e propaganda nelle Gesta Regum Anglorum di Guglielmo di Malmesbury. Bologna: Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, 2014. PhD Thesis.
BEZZOLA, Reto – La cour d’Angleterre comme centre littéraire sous les rois Angevins (1154-1199). Paris: Champion, 1963.
BRETT, Martin – The English Church under Henry I. London: Oxford University Press, 1975.
CALLAHAN, Thomas – “The Making of a Monster: the Historical Image of William Rufus”. Journal of Medieval History 7, 2 (1981), pp. 175-185.
CANTARELLA, Glauco Maria – Principi e corti nel XII secolo. Torino: Einaudi, 1997.
– “Il pallottoliere della regalità: il re perfetto di Sicilia”. in CORRAO, Pietro e MINEO, E. Igor (eds.) – Dentro e fuori la Sicilia. Roma: Viella, 2009, pp. 29-45.
CHAUOU, Amaoury – L'idéologie Plantagenêt: Royauté arthurienne et monarchie politique dans l'espace Plantagenêt, XIIe-XIIIe siècles. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2001.
– “La culture historique à la cour Plantagenêt et les réseaux ecclésiastiques”. in AURELL, Martin (ed.) – Culture Politique des Plantagenêt: 1154-1224 : Actes Du Colloque Tenu à Poitiers Du 2 Au 5 Mai 2002. Poitiers: Université de Poitiers - CNRS, 2003, pp. 269-286.
CHIBNALL, Marjorie – The world of Orderic Vitalis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
CHURCH, Stephen – King John: New Interpretations. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012.
– King John, Magna Carta and the making of a Tyrant. London: Macmillan, 2015.
CINGOLANI, Stefano Maria – “Filologia e miti storiografici: Enrico II, la corte plantageneta e la letteratura”. Studi Medievali XXXII (1991), pp. 814-832.
CROSBY, Everett – The King's Bishops: The Politics of Patronage in England and Normandy, 1066-1216. New York: Palgrave, 2013.
CROUCH, David – The Beaumont twins: The roots and branches of power in the twelfth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
– The birth of nobility: Constructing aristocracy in England and France: 900-1300. Harlow, England: Pearson/Longman, 2005.
DAL PRA, Mario – Giovanni di Salisbury. Milano:Bocca, 1951.
DAVIES, Rees – The first English Empire, power and identities in the British Isles, 1093-1343. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
DE FALCO, Fabrizio – “Lo specchio del cavaliere. L’uso del fantastico per rappresentare i lati oscuri dei milites nel de Nugis Curialium di Walter Map”. L’immagine riflessa Testi, società, culture XXIV/34 (2015), pp. 135-155.
– “Portraits of royalties in the De nugis curialium of Walter Map. A hyphothesis about chivalric royalty and political factins at the Plantagenet court”. [online] Memoria Europae II/1, (2016), pp. 120-153, www.ojs.unsj.edu.ar/index.php/memoriaeuropae/article/view/100/99 [accessed on 13-01-2017].
– “I capitoli melusiniani del de nugis curialium: ribaltamento dell’ideologia cavalleresca e uso politico”. Studi Medievali LVIII, 1 (2017), pp. 45-92.
– “I tempi narrati e il tempo della narrazione. Alcune ipotesi sulla Topographia Hibernica di Giraldo Cambrense”. in BARILLARI, Sonia Maura; DI FEBO, Martina (eds.) – Calendari. L’uomo, il tempo, le stagioni. Aicurzio: Virtuosa-Mente, in corso di stampa.
DUBY, George – “Les “jeunes” dans la société aristocratique dans la France du Nord-Ouest au XII siecle”. Annales E.S.C. 5 (1964), pp. 835-846.
DUFFY, Sean – “Henry II and England’s insular neighbours”. in HARPER-BILL, Christopher; VINCENT, Nicholas (eds.) – Henry II: New Interpretations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 132-133.
FARMER, Dom Hugh – “William of Malmesbury's Life and Works”. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 13, 01 (1962), pp. 39-54.
FASSÒ, Andrea – Il sogno del cavaliere: Chrétien de Troyes e la regalità. Roma: Carocci, 2003.
FLORI, Jean – Richard Coeur de Lion: Le roi-chevalier. Paris: Éditions Payot, 1999.
GILLINGHAM, John – “Kingship, Chivalry and Love: Political and Cultural Values in the Earliest History Written in French: Geoffrey Gaimar's Estoire Des Engleis”. in HOLLISTER, C. Warren (ed.) – Anglo-Norman Political Culture and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Proceedings of the Borchard Conference on Anglo-Norman History, 1995. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1997, pp. 45-47.
GARFAGNINI, Gian Carlo – “Legittima potestas e tirannide nel Policraticus di Giovanni di Salisbury”. Critica Storica 14 (1977), pp. 9-44.
GILLINGHAM, John – Richard Coeur de Lion: Kingship, chivalry, and war in the twelfth century. London: Hambledon Press, 1994.
– The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperalism, National Identity and Political Values. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2008.
– William II The Red King. London: Lane, 2015.
GOUTTEBROZE, Jean-Guy – “Robert de Gloucester et l’écriture de l’histoire”. in BUSCHINGER, Danielle (ed.) – Histoire et literature au moyen âge: actes du colloque du Centre d’Études Médiévales de l’Université de Picardie (Amiens 20–24 mars 1985). Göppingen: Kümmerle Verlag, 1991, pp. 143-160.
GRANSDEN, Antonia – Historical Writing in England. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1974-1982.
GREEN, Judith A. – The Government of England under Henry I. London; New York Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
HAAHR, Joan Gluckauf – “The Concept of Kingship in William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum and Historia Novella”. Mediaeval Studies 38 (1976), pp. 351-371.
HARPER-BILL, Christopher; VINCENT, Nicholas (eds.) – Henry II: New Interpretations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
HASKINS, Charles Homer – The renaissance of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927.
HOLLISTER, C. Warren – “The Strange Death of William Rufus”. Speculum 48, 4 (1973), pp. 637-653.
– “William Rufus, Henry I, and the Anglo-Norman Church: Difference in Style or Change in Substance?”. Peritia 6-7 (1987), pp. 119-140.
– (ed.) – Anglo-Norman Political Culture and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Proceedings of the Borchard Conference on Anglo-Norman History, 1995. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1997.
KÖHLER, Erich – L’avventura cavalleresca. Ideale e realtà nei poemi della Tavola Rotonda. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1985 [ed. originale 1970].
MASON, Emma – “William Rufus: Myth and Reality”. Journal of Medieval History 3, 1 (1977), pp. 1-20.
– King Rufus: The Life & Mysterious Death of William II of England. Stroud: History, 2008.
MASSEY, Hector J. – “John of Salisbury: Some Aspects of His Political Philosophy”. Classica et Mediaevalia 28 (1967), pp. 357-372.
OLDONI, Massimo – Gerberto e il suo fantasma. Tecniche della fantasia e della letteratura nel Medioevo. Napoli: Liguori, 2008.
PATTERSON, Robert – “William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester: A Re-evaluation of the Historia Novella”. The American Historical Review 70, 4 (July 1965), pp. 983-997.
ROUSE, Richard and ROUSE, Mary – “John of Salisbury and the Doctrine of Tyrannicide”. Speculum 42 (1967), pp. 693-709.
SOUTHERN, Richard William – Saint-Anselm and his biographer: a study of monastic life and thought: 1059 - c.1130. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963.
– Medieval Humanism: And Other Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1984.
STRICKLAND, Matthew – War and chivalry: The conduct and perception of war in England and Normandy, 1066-1217. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
– “On the instruction of a prince: the upbringing of Henry, the young king”. in HARPER-BILL, Christopher; VINCENT Nicholas (eds.) – Henry II: New Interpretations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 184-214.
THOMSON, Rodney M. – William of Malmesbury. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003.
TÜRK, Egbert – Nugae curialium: le règne d'Henri II Plantegenêt (1145-1189) et l'étique politique. Genef: Librairie Droz, 1977.
VÀRVARO, Alberto – “Le corti anglo-normanne e francesi”. in Lo spazio letterario del Medioevo, II Medioevo volgare, La produzione del testo. Vol. I. Roma: Salerno editrice, 1994, pp. 253-301.
WARREN, Wilfred Lewis – Henry II. London: E. Methuen, 1973.
WEILER, Björn – “William of Malmesbury on Kingship”. History XC (2005), pp. 3-22.
– “William of Malmesbury, king Henry I and the Gesta regum Anglorum”. in LEWIS,Christopher P. (ed.) – Anglo-Norman Studies XXXI: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2008. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009, pp. 157-176.
WILKS, Michael – The World of John of Salisbury. London: Blackwell, 1994.
WOLF, Kenneth Baxter – Making History: The Normans and Their Historians in Eleventh-Century Italy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.