BIBLIOGRAPHY

Records

For the whole period covered by the reign of Henry II. the English national archives are fortunate in the possession of the unique series of Pipe Rolls. On these annual account rolls were entered in detail the issues of all the counties, escheats, vacant sees and other lands farmed for the Crown. The details of these payments, including “relief” paid by the heirs of deceased tenants in chief, amercements for innumerable offences and other miscellaneous information, are most valuable to the genealogist, topographer, and constitutional historian, but of greater value to the general historian are the balancing items of money expended by the sheriffs upon building operations, hiring ships, provisioning troops, entertaining members of the royal family or ambassadors from foreign courts, and in a hundred other different ways. From these it is possible in many cases to follow the king’s movements, while often the details given throw a cold, impartial light, corroborative or corrective, upon the prejudiced or distorted statements of the chroniclers. Of the corresponding Pipe Rolls for Normandy only that for 1180 and a fragment for 1185 have survived.

A large number of royal Charters of this period have survived and are of great value to the antiquary, though, for the most part, they yield little to the general historian. The Calendars of Charter Rolls, Mr. Round’s Calendar of Documents preserved in France, and the Monasticon Anglicanum contain the most important collections of these charters. With practically no exceptions the charters of Henry II. are undated and can only be assigned to their years by a careful examination of the attesting signatures, but M. Leopold Delisle in a series of articles in the Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes (1906-1908) claims that the charters prior to 1173 can be at once distinguished from those of later date by the absence from the king’s title of the formula Dei gratia, which is invariably found from 1173 onwards. This theory has been disputed, but the weight of evidence is in favour of M. Delisle.

Surveys of the manors and churches belonging to the canons of St. Paul’s, made in 1181 (printed in the Domesday of St. Paul’s by the Camden Society), and of the possessions of the Knights Templars in 1185 (Exch. K. R., Misc. Books, vol. 16) are of interest for the light thrown upon land tenure and agricultural life in general, and further particulars can be gleaned from the many monastic cartularies, printed and manuscript, which exist. Most important, perhaps, of all this class of records is the “Boldon Book,” an elaborate survey of the possessions of the see of Durham in 1183, which has been fully treated by Dr. Lapsley in the Victoria History of the County of Durham.

The Red Book of the Exchequer, which has been printed in the Rolls Series, contains the important returns of knights’ fees made in 1166 and the “Constitutio Domus Regis,” an account of persons composing the king’s household, their wages and perquisites, originally compiled in the reign of Henry I., but equally applicable to the court of Henry II.

Chronicles

For the acts of Henry prior to his accession we are mainly dependent upon the concise records of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Henry of Huntingdon, with the valuable addition of the more detailed Gesta Stephani.

For the general history of the reign the Chronicles of Robert of Torigny, Abbot of Mont St. Michel, down to 1186, in which year he died, and the History of William of Newburgh are two of the most reliable sources. From 1170 onwards we have the valuable aid of the Gesta Henrici, known by the name of Abbot Benedict of Peterborough, which is incorporated in the Chronicles of Roger of Hoveden. The works of Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St. Paul’s, and of Gervase of Canterbury are for the most part compilations based upon other writers, but each contain a few facts not found elsewhere. The Annales Monastici and other monastic chronicles printed in the Rolls Series and the Annales Angevines (Collection de Textes) supply a few occasional details of local events and serve to corroborate the more important works.

The bulk of the literature concerned with the Becket controversy has been collected in the seven volumes of Canon J. C. Robertson’s Materials for the History of Thomas Becket in the Rolls Series. These contain the Lives by William of Canterbury, including a long list of Miracles, Benedict of Peterborough, John of Salisbury, continued by Alan of Tewkesbury, William Fitz-Stephen, Herbert of Bosham, Edward Grim and two anonymous biographers, and also over eight hundred Letters connected with the controversy. Some light is thrown on the contemporary estimate of Becket by the Latin metrical chronicle, Draco Normannicus, attributed to Etienne of Rouen and written before Becket’s martyrdom had conferred upon him exemption from criticism.

Welsh affairs are recorded in the Annales Cambriæ and the more detailed Brut y Tywysogion, and much light is thrown upon them by the Descriptio Cambriæ and the Itinerarium Cambriæ of Gerald de Barri (“Giraldus Cambrensis”). The same writer’s Topographia Hibernica gives an interesting but inaccurate account of Ireland, and his Expugnatio Hiberniæ recounts the conquest of Ireland by Richard “Strongbow,” Earl of Pembroke, and his companions. Another and more reliable account of the conquest is given in the Norman poem, The Song of Dermot and the Earl (ed. G. H. Orpen, 1891); it appears to have been based upon materials supplied by Morice Regan, secretary to King Dermot. In addition to these sources we have, for Irish history, the Annals of the Four Masters and the Annals of Loch Cé.

Jordan Fantosme has left us a spirited Norman poem on the war between England and Scotland in 1173-4, including the capture of the Scottish king, at which he was present. Another poem, Guillaume le Maréchal (ed. P. Meyer, Société de l’Histoire de France), throws considerable light upon Henry’s later years, as does the De Principis Instructione of Gerald de Barri and the Vita Hugonis, or Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln.

On the legal and constitutional side we have Glanville De Legibus, a formulary compiled by the justiciar about the end of Henry’s reign, and the Dialogus de Scaccario of Richard Fitz-Neal, an elaborate account, historical and technical, of the exchequer.

In the matter of illustrating the life of the times first place must be accorded to Gerald de Barri, who exhibits in a unique degree the qualifications of a journalist; clever, humorous, plucky, possessing immense self-confidence, a fund of quotations, a love of “purple patches” and an eloquence of abuse worthy of his Welsh extraction, he continually enlivens his pages with personal anecdotes, usually scandalous. With him may be classed Walter Map, Archdeacon of Oxford, witty and sarcastic. The Maréchal poem, already mentioned, throws some light on the life of the nobles, more especially of the younger landless men, whose chief delight was in the tournament. The inner life of a monastery is shown with singular fidelity in the Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, monk of Bury St. Edmunds, and a few details of the general life of the people may be gleaned from the writings of Alexander Neckam.

Modern Writers

The reign of Henry II. has been treated by Lord Lyttleton, and more recently by Miss Norgate and by Mrs. J. R. Green. The period is also covered by the third volume of Sir J. Ramsay’s solid and scholarly History of England. Mr. Eyton in his Household and Itinerary of Henry II. endeavoured to trace the movements of the restless king from day to day and to assign to definite occasions his undated charters. Complete success in such a task is not to be expected, but although there are a number of mistakes, especially in the dating of charters, the work is monumental and most valuable to the student. Finally, mention may be made of Mr. Round’s various papers in Geoffrey de Mandeville, Feudal England, and The Commune of London.