Men of Letters of Henry the Young King's Era

Today a few words about the scholars and chroniclers of the era of Henry the Young King and his father, Henry II. They not only recorded the major and minor events and left vivd descriptions of the rulers they wrote about, but also, inevitably, shaped the views and opinions of their contemporaries and generations to come. 

Herbert of Bosham (d. 1194) was a notable scholar, a Hebraist, remembered for his devotion to Thomas Becket. He worked for Becket before 1157 when the future archbishop was Henry II's chancellor. Later, being a memeber of the archbishop's household Herbert was a counsellor and confidential agent. In 1164, accompanying Becket at Clarendon and Northampton he shared his exile afterwards. Henry the Young King must have known him from the time he was Becket's ward. Herbert was as difficult, obstinate and extreme in all he did as Thomas Becket was. Devastated at the latter's murder and not being present at Canterbury that day, Herbert became fanatical in honouring the late archbishop's memory and hostile to all who did not. In 1184-86 he wrote Life of St. Thomas of Canterbury and dedicated it to Archbishop Baldwin. It contains the detailed account of Becket's exile. 

An illustration of a monk at work, from a manuscript in Durham Cathedral Library. Shelf-mark: A.II.3, folio 2

William Fitzstephen (d. 1191) a clerk in the service of Thomas Becket and eye-witness to his assasination. He wrote Becket's biography in which he gave a vivid description of the differences between Becket and Henry II. He also mentioned that he was among those of Becket's advisors who cautioned against excommunicating king Henry. The biography also included a preface, the  account of life in the city of London in the 12th century, entitled  Descriptio Nobilissimi Civitatis Londoniae. And there are passages featuring Henry the Young King as a young boy and Becket's ward, before the latter fell from Henry II's favour:

‘Magnates of the kingdom of England and of neighbouring kingdoms placed their children in the chancellor’s service, and he grounded them in honest education and doctrine… The king himself, his lord, commended his son, the heir to the kingdom, to his training, and the chancellor kept him with him among the many nobles’ sons of similar age, and their appropriate attendants, masters and servants according to rank.’

Roger of Howden (d. 1201/1202) an indispensible source for the reigns of both Henry II and Richard I, writing about Henry the Young King as well; author of two major chronicles, the Gesta Henrici II et Ricardi (Deeds of Henry II and Richard), which covered events to 1192 and a Chronica, which revised and edited the Gesta and expanded it. A Yorkshireman, Roger was a vicar of Howden from 1173/6, royal clerk by 1174 and itinerant justice from 1185 to 1190. He was sent on diplomatic missions and accompanied Richard I on crusade. In 1191 he was sent by the king back to Europe to keep an eye on Philippe Auguste. 

John of Salisbury (c. 1115/20-1180) educated at Exeter and Paris, he travelled vastly and found employment across Europe, making international career and gliding between the royal, papal and ecclesiastical courts. He was well acquinted with the intelectual and spiritual leaders of the era. His contribution was mainly literary. Apart from the letters he composed for his masters, he was also an author of Metalogion, Historia Pontificalis, Policraticus, and the lives of Anselm and Becket. A friend of the latter, he was with him at Canterbury on 29 December 1170, when the obstinate archbishop met his violent end. It was then when he was famously to say to Becket: 'We are sinners and not yet prepared to die: I see no one here except you who is anxious to die for dying's sake.'' John was as good as his word and when the four knights entered the cathedral, he hid. John admitted openly to yet one more human weakness: drink. Connoisseur of wine, he wrote to his friend once:

"I am fond of both wine and beer, and do not abhor any liquor that can make me drunk.''

As far as his connection to Henry the Young King is concerned, he played major part in an incident at Poitiers, where Henry's clerk Adam of Churchdown was put on trial fot treason. Having been accused of reporting to Henry's father on actions of the son, Adam would have been put to death, had John not intervened. He literally saved Adam's life. 

Ralph Diceto (d.1201) a secular clerk, he spent most of his career at St Paul's Cathedral, London, first as a canon, then archdeacon and finally dean, He actively took part in reorganising the cathedral archives. He also travelled to France, especially to Paris and to Anjou. In 1160s he was closely associated with Gilbert Foliot's opposition to Becket. Through Foliot he entered the court of Henry II. Well-informed, in the late 1180s he began writing history,  In his works he covered not only events at home, but also foreign politics and events, French, Sicilian and crusades. His main works are Abbreviationes Chronicorum and Ymagines Historiarum, 

Jordan Fantosme (d. 1185), the spiritual chancellor of the diocese of Winchester and eyewitness to the main events of the Great Revolt of 1173-74. In his Chronicle of the War between the English and the Scots, written without the benefit of hindsight of the Young King’s premature death, he does not condemn the Young Henry for his rebellion, only tries to understand the son’s motives and explain them to the father: “After this coronation and after this investiture you filched from your son something of his honor/ You took away from him his will, he could not get the mastery of it”. Jordan points out that “…A king of land without honor does not know well what to do: the young sovereign did not know it, the gentle and good”. 

Peter of Blois (d. 1212) professional writer of letters, pamphlets and short treaties, he was one of the most popular authors of the Middle Ages, his legacy being over five hundred surviving manuscripts of his works. Vastly-travelled, he held a post at the Sicilian court as a keeper of a royal seal and tutor to young William II, only to come back to England and attach himself to the households of the archbishops of Rouen,  and later the archbishops of Canterbury, whose chancellor he became. With archbishop Baldwin of Ford he went to Outremer on crusade in 1190. Upon his return he offered his service to Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hubert Walter and Goeffrey Plantagenet, the illegitimate son of Henry II, who held the bishopric of York. In his works he recorded and commented upon the current events, the Great Revolt of 1173-74 among them. 

St Davids Cathedral today

Gerald of Wales (1146-1223) one of the most prolific writers of his generation, today remembered mainly due to his frustration over his unfulfilled clerical career (failed attepmts to become bishop of St Davids) and hostility towards the Angevin kings of England, to which he gave vent in his works. Royal clerk, chronicler, etnographer he found himself caught in between his mixed Franco-Welsh legacy, which became the central theme of his life. Apart from his best known works such as Topographia Hibernica, he wrote a polemical history of the Rise and Fall of Henry II, which he entitled the Principis Instructione (Concernig the Education of Princes). 

He left vivid descriptions of Henry II and his sons. About Henry the Young King he wrote:

In peace and in private life, he was courteous, affable gentle, and amiable, kindly indulgent to those by whom he chanced to be injured, and far more disposed to forgive than to punish the offenders.

[...] His disposition was so good that he could never refuse to give anything that was fitting, thinking that no one ought to leave his presence sorrowful, or disappointed of his hopes.

[...] wonderful as was his [Henry's] career, one thing appears almost miraculous, namely, that almost all the world attached themselves to a man who was totally without resources, either in money or territory. 

[...] In arms he was like the thunderbolt winged by lightning, the only hope or fear of all. (...) When in arms and engaged in war, no sooner was the helmet on his head than he assumed a lofty air, and became impetuous, bold, and fiercer than any wild beast. His triumphs were often gained more by his valor than by fortune...

Jocelin of Brakelond popularised by Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present Jocelin's Chronicle remains the most lively description of the life of community of monks written in medieval England. A monk at Bury St Edmund's himself, Jocelin held a position of Abbot Samson's chaplain and secretary, becoming also his biographer. He completed his Chronicle shortly after 1202, covering the events in the abbey from 1180 to 1202, and leaving the vivid description of Abbot Samson's physique, personality and his administrative and financial reforms. 

"I have been concerned here to record what I know from personal experience of the events that took place in St Edmund’s church in my time, describing the bad deeds as well as the good, to provide both warning and example. I begin in the year in which the Flemings were taken prisoner outside the town…’                                                                                            With these words Jocelin begins his Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds and adds that 1173 was the year when he himself entered the monastery. Following suit, Jocelin must have known every detail of the battle that was fought at nearby Fornham St. Genevive on 17 October 1173, the first serious defeat of Henry the Young King’s forces on English soil in the rebellion against his father [The Great Revolt of 1173-74].

Walter Map (d. 1210)  one of Henry II’s clerks and protégés, royal clerkwriting shortly after Henry the Young King’s death  royal clerk and church administrator, remembered as the author of De Nugis Curialium (Courtiers' Trifles), a compendium of court gossip and satirical anecdotes written between 1181 and the early 1190s. Walter attended the Third Lateran Council as one of Henry II's representatives and was attached to the household of the Young King until the latter's death in 1183. This is how he described his young master:

.. the attractive  tinder of villainy, a lovely place of sin… 

[...] Truly, he left nothing unprobed, no stone unturned; he befouled the whole world with his treasons, a prodigy of unfaith and prodigal of ill, a limpid spring of wickedness, the attractive  tinder of villainy, a lovely place of sin… the originator of the heresy of traitors… a false son to his father… the peaceful king.

Gervase of Tilbury (c.1150–1220), Henry the Young King's chaplain, later entered the service of his nephew, Otto of Brunswick, Holy Roman Emperor (1175-1218) for whom he wrote Otia Imperialia ("Recreation for an Emperor"), an encyclopedic work concerning history, geography, physics, and folklore, in the manner of speculum literature. In it he included passeges about his fomer lord, of whom he wrote: 'gracious to all', 'amiable to all' and 'incapable of making an enemy'. "He was tall in stature, and distinguished in appearance... Fair among children of men” And also:

… In this man, God assembled every kind of goodness and virtue, and the gifts which fortune usually bestows on single individuals of special distinction, she exerted herself to give all together and in richer measure to this man, so as to make him worthy of all commendation. (Otia Imperialia, p. 486-7 in The Instruction of a Prince).

Abbey church of St Peter [ Eglise abbatiale Saint-Pierre], Vigeois, France

Geoffrey of Vigeois, abbot at Vigeois (1170-1184), trained at the abbey of Saint-Martial, Limoges. In his Chroniques he related the events happening from 994 to 1184. An important source for the last campaign of Henry the Young King and the events surrounding his death, which he was an eyewitness to. 

Roger of Wendover (d.1236) a monk of St. Alban's, prior of the cell at Belvoir. He began writing his  history sometime after 1202, entitling it Flores Historiarum (Flowers of History). It covered the time period from the Creation to his own day. He left an account of King John's death which the latter owed his black reputation to. He included many anecdotes, today thought to be invented, about how lecherous, idle and sadistic John was. They may have, however, reflected what was actually said about the late king in the years following hid death, when his son and heir was still a minor and situation in the realm far from stable. Matthew Paris, his successor as chief historiographer at St Alban's, incorporated Roger's account in his Chronica majora. 

Bernard Itier (1163–1225), monk, librarian, copyist and chronicler at the abbey of Saint Marshal in Limoges. Bernard was the sub-librarian (subarmarius) of the abbey from 1195 and then chief librarian (armarius) from 1204 until his death, He added numerous historical notes in Latin to the margins of over thirty manuscripts. Most of Bernard's notes and his chronicle exist as autographs, but a few are known only from copies. This latter class includes his additions to the chronicle of Geoffrey of Vigeois. Bernard's chronicle is mainly interested in Saint Martial's and in local affairs. It is an important source for the last campaign of Richard I. 

Gilbert of Mons (c.1150 - 1224), a  cleric and sole author of Chronicon Hanoniense [Chronicle of Hainaut]. Among many offices he held, he was a court chaplain to Count Baldwin V of Hainaut, later his second notary and first notary, finally to take the office of chancellor of Hainaut from 1180 to 1195 and chancellor of Namur from 1192 to 1195 (the year of Baldwin V's death). Upon the accesssion of Baldwin VI, Baldwin no longer held any offices at the court of Hainaut. The new count had his own ministers. Gilbert composed his chronicle after the death of his patron, Baldwin V, in the years 1195 and 1196. You will not find any references to the events after 1196 in it, hence the assumption it was not continued afterwards. John is never styled as king of England, for example, and there is no reference to Emperor Henry VI's death in 1197. Nevertheless, the chronicle remains an invaluable source of information not only about the houses of Hainaut and Flanders, but also about the counts of Champagne, Vermandois, dukes of Louvain, etc., not to mention the royal families of France and England. As far as Henry the Young King is concerned, there is a vivid description of the war campaign he led in the name of his father (together with his younger brothers, Richard and Geoffrey) to support his young brother-in-law, Philip Augustus, against Philip of Flanders. Aoart from that, Gilbert mentions the Young King a few times, commenting upon the rebellion against Henry II and Henry's untimely death in 1183. 

Written by Katarzyna Ogrodnik-Fujcik