This book is the third edition of a well-received introduction to medieval England, with emphasis on the rulers. The political story is the familiar one of royal power expanding and contracting, weakest during Stephen's reign, during John's last years, and during Henry III's minority, then again temporarily after the rebellion of 1258. And the story is told in its European context, as the subtitle of the first edition indicated: "Foreign Lordship and National Identity." The strongest theme of the book is that throughout the period under discussion, "England was dominated by men from overseas" (1). This theme gets special emphasis from the title given to the section on the reigns of John and Henry III: "The Poitevins." Closely related to that idea are both the major constitutional developments and the growing sense of national identity. The kings' dynastic claims to lands on the continent and their preference for foreign-born, malleable ministers provoked resistance from the great men of England. The emerging sense of English national identity had roots in this antipathy for the "incomers," but also in the growing consciousness that England was different from the "barbarian" Celts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, a subject given considerable attention in several of the chapters.
The main divisions of the book are Part I: The Normans (1066-1135), Part II: The Angevins (1135-99), Part III: The Poitevins (1099-1272), and an Epilogue (chapter fifteen) on Edward I (1272-1307), which first appeared in the second edition. (Clanchy entitles Part III "The Poitevins" not because all the "incomers" were from Poitou, but because that is how they were known--and hated--in England.) The main differences between this edition and the second are three new chapters, described below. There is also a new sub-section in chapter one entitled "England and Britain." The chapters generally follow conventional chronological order, with topical exceptions being the new chapters, together with chapters four ("Church Reform"), seven ("Law and Order"), eight ("The Twelfth-Century Renaissance"), and twelve ("National Identity").
The new chapters are valuable additions. Clanchy gives early warning (5) that the book will not be dealing with the lower classes, but in the new chapter five, "The Creation of Wealth," he makes good use of Domesday Book to give an excellent sense of the substance of England's wealth, in its churches and in its towns, down to the concrete details of pigs and eggs. In the new chapter nine ("The Matter of Britain"), the author blends the role of Arthurian legends and French epics and romances with the ambition of English kings to dominate Celtic Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. (It would have been helpful if the otherwise useful maps and genealogical tables had been augmented to support this new material.) In the new chapter fourteen, "Lordship and the Structure of Society," Clanchy gives welcome emphasis to lordship as a central idea: "Lordship was the most enduring and characteristic feature of medieval society" (263). This idea might have been introduced earlier in the book, with a reduced and clarified use of "feudalism" and its related terms.
"Feudalism" remains a problem. Clanchy contrasts Bloch's "broad definition" of feudalism, representing all of European society roughly between 800 and 1200, with Stenton's "narrow definition" as applied to England after the Conquest (59). He concludes, "Feudalism is an all-embracing term, which includes the large world of knightly heroes as well as the restrictive legalism of twelfth-century charters" (62). Given that definition, it's difficult to consider the question discussed by the author, whether Henry II was "anti-feudal" or not (124-5), or to appreciate fully his observation that although European rulers like William the Conqueror used force, their governments "tempered and directed it through the disciplines of feudalism and the idealism of the reformed clergy" (5). Here and elsewhere, Clanchy frequently assumes that the readers already know the basics of his subject. The sequence of events constituting the Norman Conquest is taken for granted. The frequent references to the fall of Hubert de Burgh in 1232 as the "Poitevin coup d'tat" may be somewhat puzzling. The beginner will also be challenged in the chapter on "The Twelfth-Century Renaissance," where there are detailed descriptions of architectural innovations and other works of art, all without benefit of any illustrations.
Clanchy takes up several major historiographical questions, with valuable introductions to the work of a number of major scholars. How much did the Norman Conquest change England? What was the true impact of the reign of Henry I? What were the goals of Henry II? "Was Henry Aanti-feudal"? How competent a king was Richard I? How radical were the contents of Magna Carta? Were Henry III and his ministers claiming absolute power for the king? Was Edward I a good king or bad? When did England, rather than continental possessions, emerge as the primary interest of its rulers, royal and baronial? In addressing these questions, Clanchy generally avoids a direct and explicit answer, choosing instead to quote the contrary opinions of other historians. But the narrative that follows usually indicates which way the author leans, and he frequently leans in directions contrary to the historical tradition.
Especially regarding the effects of the Norman Conquest, he tries to be even-handed, and throughout the book he points out the Anglo-Saxon precedents for most of what the Norman and Angevin rulers did. But unless one limits the effects of the Conquest to the first few years after Hastings, the story he tells makes pretty clear that the effects were enormous, justifying R. W. Southern's words "At the level of literate and aristocratic society, no country in Europe, between the rise of the barbarian kingdoms and the twentieth century, has undergone so radical a change in so short a time..." ( 32). At the time of Domesday Book, all of the richest people were Normans (93). By the early twelfth century, English had been replaced with Latin in government documents, virtually all of the baronies were in the hands of Normans and other Frenchmen, and the basic relationships between king and barons were defined with precise feudal terms (meaning here: the customs governing fiefs). But as for the importance of the Poitevins in the thirteenth century, Clanchy minces no words: "Poitevins were as prominent and powerful in England in the first half of the thirteenth century as Normans had been in the eleventh century..." (182). That seems to this reader to be a considerable exaggeration, as does the author's statement that the papacy was "the most powerful government of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries" (16).
The author tends to stress causes other than human agency. The Norman introduction of knights, castles, and specific feudal arrangements was not so much creative kingship as simply a response forced upon William I by the need to hold onto newly conquered land (61-62). Clanchy is reluctant to give Henry I and Edward I much credit for their legal innovations, suggesting that their apparent achievements may simply mean that better records were kept during their reigns than during those of their predecessors. On Henry II's system of assizes and formalized writs, "more was probably due to the effects of writing as a technology than to Henry himself or any other individual" (132). But surprisingly, Richard gets high marks as king, especially for his good fortune in having Hubert Walter as his chief minister. Clanchy joins John Gillingham in judging Richard I to be "a highly competent ruler, unusually effective..." (122). One gets the impression that England fared the best under absent or ineffective kings. Clanchy says, referring to Richard's reign and Henry III's minority, "The king's absence or incapacity seemed to bring the best out of the judicial system" (200). Perhaps human agency gets fullest recognition in Clanchy's discussion of communal action at all levels, culminating in chapter thirteen, "The Commune of England (1258-72)."
A book of this length and character cannot deal with every subject nor treat every subject with equal thoroughness. The internal religious life of English rulers and their people, other than the bizarre, is given little attention. Chapter 4 is entitled "Church Reform," but it says little about religious life in England, other than institutional structures. According to Clanchy "Gregorian reform" primarily meant [in England] that the higher clergy became a privileged class for whom the scriptures and canon law were titles to privilege" (70). He believes that on the level of village priests, "nothing perhaps changed for better or worse" (80). The author defends the value of monastic chronicles, but the monasteries themselves appear most notably as the most grasping and contentious defenders of their rights against all comers.
As Clanchy follows the monarchy throughout the centuries, he points out the continuity with Anglo-Saxon antecedents and the parallels with developments on the continent. He is rightly critical of the nationalist bias of many of his predecessors. Still, it remains true that England and its government after the conquest were significantly different from what came before in England and what was occurring at the same time on the continent, and those differences were to have powerful influence on the rest of the world.
Readers of this book may very well be stimulated to seek out more detailed accounts and more complete explanations in the works cited in Clanchy's "Suggestions for Further Reading"--works such as Robert Bartlett's excellent volume England under the Norman and Angevin Kings: 1075-1225 (Oxford, 2000) in The New Oxford History of England. Bartlett has nearly seven hundred pages to deal with a slightly shorter period. But Clanchy's book, with its brevity and readability, provides a very good introduction to medieval England. Introductory paragraphs provide clear summaries of most chapters. Scattered throughout are lucid explanations, such as his treatment of why the minority of Henry III was not a disaster for the monarchy. The questions Clanchy raises, his frequent challenges to the views of other historians, his thoughtful and learned discussions of major issues in the history of medieval England, and his generous and explicit use of primary sources all combine to offer rich material for reflection and discussion.