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The growing strength of the church.

little from the anarchy. The wave of emotion that called forth the crusades continued to swell with irresistible force, though its military phase was no longer prominent. In the days of Stephen there had risen a marvelous man to intellectual leadership in the church, Saint Bernard, the abbot of Clairvaux, a French

St. Bernard.

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monk of unexampled piety, whose intellectual vision embraced the entire church. Under his inspiration the reform work went on throughout all Europe. Even the anarchy of Stephen's reign helped to strengthen the English church by drawing the people closer to its protecting sanctuaries. From Stephen Henry II inherited two exasperating problems: how to deal with a stubborn and arrogant group of barons and, what was still more difficult, how to deal with a church that was growing in consciousness of its power and was determined to obtain authority as well as independence.

64. Summary: the Norman Period. For nearly ninety years the dynasty of William the Conqueror ruled in England. During this period the English people had almost nothing to

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say in the matter of their own government: Norman kings The benefits of and barons were in absolute control. In most Norman rule. respects the Normans gave efficient government both in state and church; but it was alien and sometimes unbearably harsh. The invaders reshaped English society by completing the process of feudalism, traces of which can be found in Anglo-Saxon times. As a necessary condition in a feudal state came serfdom, in this case under foreign landlords. The conquest also gave the country new leaders whose descendants in time would regard themselves as Englishmen; it unified the people by crushing out provincial ambitions; it hastened the introduction of the higher civilization of the Continent. But it also created conditions and problems for Norman rule. later kings to wrestle with, which rendered social and constitutional progress exceedingly difficult. The rulers of England, however, soon took up the fight against these new forces and feudalism disappeared from English soil long before it began to decay on the Continent.

The evils of

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NORMAN FEUDALISM. - Andrews, History of England, 72-78; Cheyney, Short History of England, 132–139; Fletcher, Introductory History of England, I, i, 99-107, Innes, History of England, 59-67; Oman, History of England, 72-75; Walker, Essentials in English History, 95–102.

THE NORMANS AND THE CHURCH. Bateson, Medieval England, 43-69; Cheyney, Short History of England, 115-124; Stenton, 382-406; Walker,

109-112.

THE MANORIAL SYSTEM. - Bateson, 96-122; Fletcher, I, i, 93-99; Walker, 102-108.

THE REIGN OF HENRY I. - Cross, History of England, 94-100; Fletcher, I, i, 118-125; Gardiner, Student's History of England, 122-131; Innes, 70-75; Ransome, Advanced History of England, 111-122; Tout, Advanced History of Great Britain, 102-110.

CHAPTER IV

THE CONFLICT WITH THE CHURCH AND THE BARONAGE

65. Henry II: Character and Personality. 1154-1189. With the accession of Henry Plantagenet, a new type of king came to the throne of England. Henry II was primarily an administrator like his grandfather Henry I, but Henry II as he was far more energetic than his learned prede- king. cessor. He was neither a legislator like Alfred nor a conqueror like Cnut or William; still, in a sense he was both, for he added large areas to his dominions, and though he made no formal laws, he issued a number of important instructions, called assizes, to his judges and other officials which had the force of law and were of far-reaching consequence.1

But King Henry's chief business, as he understood it, was to govern, and he put all his restless energies into the task. The social side of kingship, the festivities, the Personality of gorgeous robes, the stiff ceremonial of the palace, Henry II. the artificial dignity of monarchy, possessed little interest for him. He was plain in person and manners, undignified in action and appearance, and is described as a short, rather stout man "of ruddy complexion, with a long round head, piercing blue-gray eyes, fierce and glowing red in anger, with a fiery face and a harsh voice." But what impressed his contemporaries more than anything else was his restless activity and unusual capacity for work.

2

66. The Angevin Empire. The inheritance that came to the young prince was large enough to tax the energies of an even more strenuous monarch than Henry Plantagenet.

1 Masterman, 35-37.

2 Cheyney, No. 88 (Giraldus); Kendall, No. 19; Tuell and Hatch, No. 10; these two are from Peter of Blois.

Through his mother he inherited the duchy of Normandy.

Henry's inheritance.

At the death of his father he became count of

Anjou and Maine. As a young man of nineteen he married Eleanor, the divorced wife of the French king, who

Eleanor and

Aquitaine.

possessed in her own right the extensive duchy of Aquitaine. The western half of France was thus gathered up in the hands of the young duke. For all these lands he did homage to the king of France as overlord; but the treaty of Wallingford gave promise of a kingdom over which Henry would have full, independent, sovereign rights.

Henry II's position in Britain.

Eighteen years after his accession in England he extended his authority to Ireland, though for a long time the rights of the English crown on that island were scarcely more than nominal. Over Wales and Scotland he claimed the rights of overlordship. Though he did not exercise the same degree of authority in all his dominions, the sum of his powers was extraordinary for the time. In western Europe he had only one rival, the emperor. Frederick His position Barbarossa, who wore the imperial crown

in

in Europe. Henry's day, was a ruler of dignity and ability; but Henry of England controlled the resources of his dominions far more completely than the emperor ever could.

plans.

67. The English Policy of Henry II. In statesmanship Henry Plantagenet was an opportunist. His plans did not look far forward; they concerned the problems that lay nearest. Methods and His methods, though often violent and unlovely, were usually effective. It may be that he had no conscious aims and policies during the earlier years of his reign; but circumstances very soon forced upon him a course of action that brought him into conflict with the two most powerful social forces of the time, the church and the baronage. In neither conflict was he wholly successful: in his fight with the church he failed to gain all his ends; but he began a struggle that lasted through centuries. The important fact is that in his reign monarchy took the offensive.

1 Cheyney, No. 89.

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