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25 - Normans in Europe by Arthur Henry Johnson · Normans in Europe

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Speaker 1: Section twenty five of The Normans in Europe by Arthur
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Speaker 1: Henry Johnson. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: Read by Pamel Andagami, Chapter sixteen Henry the First eleven
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Speaker 1: hundred to eleven thirty five, Part two. At this moment
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Speaker 1: in eleven twenty the death of Henry's son William threatened
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Speaker 1: to undo the painful work of years. As he was
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Speaker 1: returning in triumph to England, the ship in which William
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Speaker 1: sailed was wrecked off Barfleur. The Prince had managed to
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Speaker 1: gain a boat and pushed off from the sinking ship,
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Speaker 1: but the cries of his sister recalled him to the wreck.
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Speaker 1: The boat was capsized by the rush of the despairing crew,
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Speaker 1: and one alone survived to bring the news to Henry.
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Speaker 1: Crushed by this sudden loss, Henry is said never to
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Speaker 1: have smiled again. The death of the Prince was a
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Speaker 1: severe domestic affliction, but that was not all. He was
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Speaker 1: Henry's only son, and no woman had yet ruled in England.
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Speaker 1: Thus the hopes of seeing his family established in England
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Speaker 1: received a cruel blow. The ties of interest which bound
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Speaker 1: folk of Anjou to Henry were destroyed by the death
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Speaker 1: of William, who had been married to the daughter of
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Speaker 1: the angevanscount and Fulk once more took up the cause
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Speaker 1: of William Clito. In eleven twenty four, his daughter's Sybylla
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Speaker 1: was affiance to the pretender Louis the sixth again threatened
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Speaker 1: to join the coalition, and Henry was forced to engage
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Speaker 1: in another war in Normandy, but fortune favored him once more.
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Speaker 1: Fulk shortly after resigned his estates to his eldest son,
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Speaker 1: and marrying the heiress of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, accepted
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Speaker 1: the precarious crown. The rebels were discomfited, and three years afterwards,
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Speaker 1: in eleven twenty eight, the death of William Clito, Henry
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Speaker 1: of the only competitor for the duchy of Normandy. Maine,
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Speaker 1: which had been a source of continual trouble to William
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Speaker 1: and his sons, was definitely secured, and Henry's rights as
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Speaker 1: lord over Brittany were acknowledged. The prophecy of William was
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Speaker 1: now fulfilled, and Henry enjoyed a larger dominion than that
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Speaker 1: enjoyed by the conqueror himself. Normandy and Maine were at
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Speaker 1: last definitely united to England. These continental dominions formed part
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Speaker 1: of the English Kingdom until they were finally lost in
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Speaker 1: the reign of John. But this triumph, though increasing the
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Speaker 1: power of the English king, was not a benefit to
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Speaker 1: the English people. It once more made England part of
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Speaker 1: a great continental kingdom to which her own interests were
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Speaker 1: likely to be sacrificed. It gave the nobles increased power,
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Speaker 1: the results of which were seen in the succeeding reigns.
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Speaker 1: During that of Stephe Even, for instance, the Long Wars
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Speaker 1: were due chiefly to the nobles, who hoped thereby to
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Speaker 1: increase their independence, and in the reign of Henry the Second,
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Speaker 1: the power they had thus gained was once more used
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Speaker 1: to rebel against the strong anti feudal government of the king. Lastly,
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Speaker 1: English nationality could never be established until England was split
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Speaker 1: off from Normandy and the continent and left alone to
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Speaker 1: work out her national life for herself. Secure at last
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Speaker 1: in the possession of Normandy in England, Henry now turned
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Speaker 1: his attention to the question of the succession. Matilda, his wife,
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Speaker 1: had died in eleven eighteen. He afterwards married Adelais of Louvain.
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Speaker 1: His new wife, however, bore him no child and it
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Speaker 1: remained to secure the succession of Matilda, his daughter, who,
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Speaker 1: on the death of her husband, the Emperor Henry the Fifth,
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Speaker 1: had returned a widow to her father's court. The barons
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Speaker 1: were ordered to swear allegiance to her, and shortly afterwards,
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Speaker 1: in eleven twenty eight, anxious to secure the alliance of Anjou,
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Speaker 1: Henry married her to Geoffrey, the son of Folk. By
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Speaker 1: this means he hoped to win the friendship of the
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Speaker 1: House of Anjou, always so hostile to the Norman power,
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Speaker 1: as he had done before by the marriage of his
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Speaker 1: son William. But the barons declared that their oath of
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Speaker 1: allegiance had been given on the promise that Matilda should
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Speaker 1: not marry a foreigner without their consent, and the hereditary
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Speaker 1: jealousy of the Normans for the Angeovains caused many of
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Speaker 1: them to abandon Matilda for the cause of Stephen. On
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Speaker 1: Henry's death. Henry was still in Normandy arranging the disputes
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Speaker 1: caused by the marriage when he died in December eleven
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Speaker 1: thirty five. It is said from eating too heartily of
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Speaker 1: a dish of Lampreys. Amid the constant wars which had
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Speaker 1: disturbed his reign, Henry had found time to improve the
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Speaker 1: the administration of the country, and his reign of thirty
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Speaker 1: six years forms a prelude to that of Henry the
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Speaker 1: Second in this as in many other respects. In fact,
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Speaker 1: the three reigns of William the First, Henry the First,
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Speaker 1: and Henry the Second, the three great organizers of feudal England,
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Speaker 1: stand closely together. In Henry's quarrel with Anselm, the same
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Speaker 1: principles were involved as in William's dispute with the Pope,
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Speaker 1: and these were again to appear in the quarrel of
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Speaker 1: Beckett with Henry the Second, though the combatants had somewhat
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Speaker 1: changed their ground. We have seen the quarrels between the
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Speaker 1: king and his feudal nobles, which had begun in the
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Speaker 1: reign of William, continued in that of Henry the First.
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Speaker 1: The reign of Stephen undid much of Henry's work, which
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Speaker 1: was left for Henry the Second to complete. In this struggle,
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Speaker 1: the kings, in spite of the arbitrary character of their rule,
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Speaker 1: had been striving for the good of the country. The
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Speaker 1: feudal nobles, aiming to establish their independence at the cost
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Speaker 1: of the nation's welfare. It was well for England that
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Speaker 1: her early kings were so strong, for else she might
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Speaker 1: have suffered from the evils of a continental feudalism, and
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Speaker 1: her history might have been a counterpart to that of France.
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Speaker 1: In the administration of justice and in the organization of
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Speaker 1: the executive power, the same connection between the reins is seen,
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Speaker 1: the same anti feudal tendency appears, and one reign is
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Speaker 1: illustrative of the other. Henry's father had continued the Anglo
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Speaker 1: saxon local courts of the hundred and the Shire during
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Speaker 1: the reign of William Rufus. They had been suffered to
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Speaker 1: fall into disuse. The nobles probably had tried to encroach
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Speaker 1: upon their jurisdiction or to get rid of them entirely,
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Speaker 1: and under Ranolf Flambard they had been used for the
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Speaker 1: purposes of fiscal extortion, and thus became objects of suspicion
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Speaker 1: to the people themselves. These courts Henry now revived, and
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Speaker 1: promised that for the future, when he had need of money,
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Speaker 1: he would not demand it at the ordinary sessions. But
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Speaker 1: some of these courts, especially for the purpose the local
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Speaker 1: courts thus revived, it was necessary to draw them closer
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Speaker 1: to the central court of justice the Curia Regies introduced
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Speaker 1: by William his father. The means resorted to were these.
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Speaker 1: The duties of the Curia Regis and its financial committee
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Speaker 1: were systematized the offices of the Justiciary and those of
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Speaker 1: his staff of justices, organized by his circuits to the
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Speaker 1: local courts. Their dependence was secured already the justices his
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Speaker 1: subordinates began to take his place, and making their heirs
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Speaker 1: or circuits, chiefly to superintend the collection of the royal
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Speaker 1: dues and therefore in their office as barons of the exchequer,
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Speaker 1: led the way for the deafening establishment of justices in
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Speaker 1: air by Henry the Second. In some cases the justices
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Speaker 1: were made sheriffs of several counties, and thus presiding in
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Speaker 1: the regular sessions of the shire courts, connected them closely
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Speaker 1: with the central court of the king. To carry on
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Speaker 1: this work, new officers were required, and Henry, neglecting the
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Speaker 1: old nobility, who had by their continual rebellions forfeited all
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Speaker 1: title to his confidence, turned to the lower ranks of
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Speaker 1: the noble order. Thence he created a class of ministerial
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Speaker 1: families who furnished the sheriffs of the counties, the justices
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Speaker 1: of the Courier Regis and the barons of the exchequer,
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Speaker 1: and greatly facilitated Henry's policy. They were indeed unpopular, but
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Speaker 1: for that very reason they served Henry's purpose all the better.
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Speaker 1: They were bound by interest to the Crown, they were
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Speaker 1: not too powerful to be brought to justice, and their
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Speaker 1: acts were closely criticized by nobles and by people. The
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Speaker 1: most important of these new ministers was Roger, Bishop of Salisbury.
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Speaker 1: Henry had first met him when a poor priest in Normandy. Attracted,
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Speaker 1: as the story runs, by the wit which the poor
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Speaker 1: priest had shown in discerning his impatience to hasten to
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Speaker 1: the hunt, and satisfying it by shortening the service, Henry
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Speaker 1: made him his steward and chaplain. Here his great powers
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Speaker 1: of administration were displayed, and finally he rose to be
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Speaker 1: Bishop of Salisbury and justiciary. The choice was wisely made
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Speaker 1: to Roger, as chiefly due the fiscal organization of the
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Speaker 1: office and of the Curia Regis, the control of which
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Speaker 1: remained in his family for nearly a century. While thus
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Speaker 1: advancing the administration of justice and introducing order and routine,
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Speaker 1: Henry was not regardless of other interests. His charter to
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Speaker 1: the towns mark a step in the growth of municipal
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Speaker 1: life and the wise recognition of their claims. His police, too,
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Speaker 1: is good. The system of frank pledge was maintained and
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Speaker 1: developed by this Everyone had to find a surety. If
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Speaker 1: he was a vassal, his lord was answerable. If a freeman,
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Speaker 1: the association of freemen to whom he belonged. The false
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Speaker 1: coiners were heavily punished and a new coinage issued. In
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Speaker 1: every way, the reign of Henry the First was again
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Speaker 1: to England. It marks a distinct advance in the growth
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Speaker 1: of national life and in the progress of arbitrary but
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Speaker 1: good administrative government. And it is to Henry's credit that
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Speaker 1: he has earned the title of the Lion of Righteousness.
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Speaker 1: But withal Henry was an irresponsible despot and loved to
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Speaker 1: be so. With all his father's military and administrative sagacity,
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Speaker 1: he was more cruel and perhaps even more tyrannical. He
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Speaker 1: refused used to give up the forests. Those who dared
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Speaker 1: gainsay him or rebel against him were punished with merciless rigor,
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Speaker 1: and Henry would listen to no will but his own
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Speaker 1: His great judicial reforms were probably to be attributed to
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Speaker 1: no higher motive than the love of order and the
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Speaker 1: desire to increase his revenue by the fines of the courts.
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Speaker 1: Hence his heavy taxation a continual source of lament. In
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Speaker 1: the Chronicles of the Rain, the manifold taxes never ceased.
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Speaker 1: He who had any property was bereaved of it by
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Speaker 1: heavy taxes, and he who had none starved with hunger.
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Speaker 1: His wars in Normandy, his wars against his nobles, all
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Speaker 1: are to be referred to his overmastering selfishness. But fortunately
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Speaker 1: for England, that selfishness was clear sighted and far sighted,
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Speaker 1: and his own private aims tallied with the interest of
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Speaker 1: the nation. The nobles were his enemies. He destroyed them,
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Speaker 1: and in doing so destroyed the enemies of the nation.
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Speaker 1: Anarchy was hateful to him. He substituted the reign of routine,
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Speaker 1: and thus prepared the way for law, which might in
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Speaker 1: time itself set a limit to royal responsibility. Thus, while
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Speaker 1: the people could not love him, they respected him, and
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Speaker 1: they feared him, And this accounts for the varying characters
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Speaker 1: left of him by the chroniclers. Men thought differently about
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Speaker 1: him says Henry of Huntington, And after he was dead,
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Speaker 1: spoke their minds. Some spoke of splendor, wisdom, prudence, wealth
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Speaker 1: and victories, some of cruelty, avarice and lust. The lower
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Speaker 1: classes were very miserable. Throughout his reign. The constant wars
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Speaker 1: rendered taxation necessary. A series of bad harvests and stormy
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Speaker 1: seasons made the burden heavier. Henry, in spite of the
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Speaker 1: support given him by the English, was at heart a foreigner.
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Speaker 1: No Englishman found a place among his ministers, No Englishman
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Speaker 1: found preferment in the church. The two nations were gradually uniting,
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Speaker 1: so that in the reign of Henry the Second we
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Speaker 1: are told it was difficult to distinguish between them. But
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Speaker 1: yet the English found no recognition of their claims at
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Speaker 1: the hand of their Norman king. And yet while the
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Speaker 1: English complained, they instinctively supported the king, acknowledged that he
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Speaker 1: sought for peace, and saw that their only hope lay
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Speaker 1: in strengthening the royal power and thereby crushing the feudal nobility.
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Speaker 1: Inflexible in the rigor of justice, he kept his native
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Speaker 1: people in quiet, and his barons according to their deserts,
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Speaker 1: says William of Malmsbury, while Henry of Huntington tells us
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Speaker 1: that in the evil times that followed, the very acts
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Speaker 1: of tyranny or of royal wilfulness seemed, in comparison with
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Speaker 1: the worst state of things present, most excellent. Henry was
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Speaker 1: the last of those great Norman kings, who, with all
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Speaker 1: their vices, their cruelty and lust, displayed great talents of
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Speaker 1: organization and adaptation, guided England with a wise, if a
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Speaker 1: strong hand through the days of her youth, and by
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Speaker 1: their instinctive, though selfish love of order, paved the way
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Speaker 1: for the ultimate rise of a more stable, yet freer
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Speaker 1: government that, however, was yet in the womb of the future.
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Speaker 1: And the Norman period closes in the anarchy of Stephen's reign.
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Speaker 1: Of that reign, we do not intend to treat it
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Speaker 1: forms rather the prelude to the reign of Henry the Second.
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Speaker 1: The Norman era really ends with Henry the First, for
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Speaker 1: Stephen was only a Norman by the spindle side, as
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Speaker 1: was Henry the Second, the Anjovin and throughout the reign,
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Speaker 1: all constitutional history is at a standstill. It is a
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Speaker 1: period unexampled in English history, a period during which England
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Speaker 1: suffered all the ills of continental feudalism. Amidst the anarchy
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Speaker 1: of the Civil War, the nobles covered the country with
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Speaker 1: their castles, set authority at defiance, fostered the continuance of
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Speaker 1: discord for their own ends, and strove to establish their
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Speaker 1: selfish independence. In the misery which ensued, the lower classes,
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Speaker 1: both Norman and English, were learning their identity of interest
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Speaker 1: against such men as these, with whom they felt that
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Speaker 1: no truce should be kept. Painfully, but surely they were
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Speaker 1: drawn together into a close national unity and to an
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Speaker 1: intense yearning for peace, which led them one and all
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Speaker 1: to welcome the strong rule of Henry the Second and
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Speaker 1: any government which might crush out forever this hateful continental feudalism.
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Speaker 1: Thus the reign of Stephen, though it closes the Norman
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Speaker 1: period in sorrow and shame, was yet a valuable discipline
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Speaker 1: for the country, and formed a secure basis for the
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Speaker 1: reforms of Henry the Second, who took up the work
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Speaker 1: where Henry the First had left it and completed it.
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Speaker 1: We have now traced the course of the Great Scandinavian Exodus, which,
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Speaker 1: beginning in the ninth century, stretched over the whole of Europe,
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Speaker 1: Having briefly sketched the fortunes of the less important branches.
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Speaker 1: We have devoted especial attention to the settlements in France
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Speaker 1: which assumed the specific name of Norman. After following their
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Speaker 1: fortunes in France, we have accompanied them in their various
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Speaker 1: settlements in Spain, Italy and England, finally concentrating our attention
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Speaker 1: on the latter country, where their genius receives its most
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Speaker 1: forcible development. We have traced the connection between it and Normandy,
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Speaker 1: and in greater detail drawn out their influence on our
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Speaker 1: country and the principles of our government. With the reign
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Speaker 1: of Henry the First, the Norman kings reached their highest
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Speaker 1: pitch of power. After him, their kingdom passed away first
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Speaker 1: to the House of Blois, then to that of Anjou.
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Speaker 1: With both these houses they had long been connected with
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Speaker 1: both an hereditary and deadly hostility had existed from the
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Speaker 1: earliest times. But though the Norman power thus slipped away
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Speaker 1: from the direct descendants of Ralloh, the Norman influence was
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Speaker 1: not destroyed. In England. They never were driven out. They
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Speaker 1: coalesced with the English and lost their individuality in the
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Speaker 1: common nationality. But they long enjoyed the chief positions in
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Speaker 1: the state, and the Norman administration and executive machinery still
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Speaker 1: lies embedded in our constitution, side by side with the
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Speaker 1: local institutions of the Anglo Saxons. It will be well
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Speaker 1: at the close of our survey to cast our eyes
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Speaker 1: abroad and take a last glance at the condition of
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Speaker 1: the other Scandinavian or Norman powers. The continents of Denmark,
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Speaker 1: Sweden and Norway had long settled down into organized communities,
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Speaker 1: and for half a century had not troubled Europe. Norway
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Speaker 1: still enjoyed her nominal sway over the Orkneys, the Shetlands,
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Speaker 1: and the districts of Sutherland and Caithness and Scotland, these
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Speaker 1: not being ceded to the Lowlands till the middle of
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Speaker 1: the fifteenth century. In Iceland, the free Republic was on
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Speaker 1: the point of being dismembered by the rise of an aristocracy,
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Speaker 1: and one century later was once more to be occupied
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Speaker 1: by Norway. To the west of Scotland lay the sovereignty
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Speaker 1: of the Isles, consisting of the Hebrides and other islands
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Speaker 1: along the coast, as well as certain settlements in anglesey
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Speaker 1: Man and Ireland. This kingdom, under the lords of the
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Speaker 1: Isles owed allegiance to Norway, but was virtually independent of
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Speaker 1: these Anglesey and Ireland fell to England in the reign
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Speaker 1: of Henry the Second in twelve sixty six. Man Long
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Speaker 1: enjoyed semi independence under its own lords, while the Hebrides
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Speaker 1: were seated to Scotland in the latter half of the
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Speaker 1: thirteenth century. In Italy, the Norman kingdom of Apulia and
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Speaker 1: Sicily still belonged to the descendants of Robert Guiscard and
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Speaker 1: maintained constant intercourse with England. Under this line of kings,
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Speaker 1: it continued until the end of the twelfth century, when
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Speaker 1: their dominion passed away with the hand of Constance the
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Speaker 1: Norman heiress to the Emperor Henry the sixth. In Palestine,
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Speaker 1: the Norman nobles still held some fiefs, and the Frankish
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Speaker 1: name was to continue there, but with fast declining power,
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Speaker 1: until the end of the thirteenth century. In twelve ninety one.
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Speaker 1: In Russia, the descendants of Rurik still sat on the
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Speaker 1: throne of Kiev until they were subdued by the Tartar
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Speaker 1: invasion of the same century twelve forty. Thus the end
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Speaker 1: of the Norman period in England nearly synchronizes with that
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Speaker 1: of their rule elsewhere. They had been the leaders during
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Speaker 1: a most important epoch of European history. They had seen
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Speaker 1: the foundation of most of the future great European powers.
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Speaker 1: For two centuries at least, they had been the most
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Speaker 1: influential people in Europe. They had formed the nucleus of
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Speaker 1: cohesion amidst the fluctuating state of European nationalities. Wherever they went,
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Speaker 1: they had shown themselves great warriors, founders, organizers, and administrators,
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Speaker 1: with extraordinary powers of adapting themselves to outward and altered circumstances.
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Speaker 1: They had, while adopting the systems of their conquered subjects,
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Speaker 1: developed them, added to them, and perfected them to them.
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Speaker 1: France owes the establishment of her national kings, nay almost
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Speaker 1: to very existence as the Kingdom of France Southern Italy,
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Speaker 1: a dynasty under which she enjoyed a prosperity denied her
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Speaker 1: since Russia, a long line of powerful and clever princes,
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Speaker 1: Iceland a free republic, England a stern and harsh schooling, indeed,
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Speaker 1: but a useful one. Stern law, the suppression of anarchy,
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Speaker 1: the establishment of order and excellent administration, all essential preliminaries
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Speaker 1: of true progress, and now their work is over. The
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Speaker 1: Norman period is fast waning. New ideas, new forms of government,
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Speaker 1: new systems are to arise, and the great impulse which
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Speaker 1: originally had come from the Scandinavian continents, is exhausted. End
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Speaker 1: of Section twenty five