The Age of Chivalry (15 page)

The Bavarian knight and poet Wolfram von Eschenbach
(c.
1170–
c.
1220), author of
Parzival,
was not the first great artist to be attracted by the story. Chrétien de Troyes, author of the unfinished
Perceval, le Conte du Graal (Perceval, the Story of the Grail),
was also inspired by the tale. He dedicated the romance to his patron Philip, count of Flanders, and his account of the Arthurian hero has a stylistic and thematic connection with
Peredur,
one of the medieval Welsh prose tales collectively known as the
Mabinogi.

The true origin of Parzival's story is unknown, but the variety of its treatments shows how literary material reflected local circumstances within a cosmopolitan ambience. Von Eschenbach's poem, arguably the greatest of the German medieval epics, is infused by the knightly ethic with its portrayal of the need for compassionate love when searching for a healing wisdom. Parzival's grief-stricken mother, Herzeloyde, has consciously brought him up to be ignorant of chivalric knighthood following the death in battle of the boy's father Gahmuret. Itinerant knights, however, inform the youth of the glories of Arthur's court at Camelot, and Parzival departs for the island of Britain. His despairing mother, however, dresses him in a fool's clothes in the hope that his appearance will exclude him from courtly life and the dangerous attractions of knighthood.

Parzival's strange appearance makes him an object of curiosity at Camelot, and he is instructed in the need for knightly self-control. An even higher calling is reserved for him, however, and he arrives at the castle of the Grail where he meets the mysterious Anfortas, the wounded “Fisher King.”

Anfortas is the keeper of the Grail, but his wound means that he can do little other than fish, and his suffering mirrors that of his kingdom, which seems doomed to sterility. Many knights have tried to heal him, but only an individual with exceptional spiritual self-understanding can relieve Anfortas's suffering. That penitent knight turns out to be Parzival, who therefore holds the key to the regeneration of the kingdom itself. Liberated from earlier ignorance and self-centredness, Parzival learns that Anfortas is, in fact, his mother's brother, and he himself becomes in time the Grail king. Von Eschenbach's highly charged account of knighthood's challenges and tribulations gives a mythological dimension to the German empire of the Staufen. His primary emphasis is on the need for a spiritual self-understanding, but the theme of a regenerated kingdom that has recovered from its wounds and divisions has obvious affinities with the German empire's political and military struggles in the age of the Staufen princes.

Parzival (right) is shown in this manuscript (1443–46) of Wolfram von Eschenbach's poem
.

Stephen of Blois
(c.
1096–1154), raised to the throne by nobles hostile to the succession of Henry I's daughter Matilda, was the last member of the Anglo-Norman dynasty to wear the English Crown. His regnal claim, following Henry I's death in 1135, was reasonably justified: his mother, Adela, was William the Conqueror's daughter, and Stephen had been partly raised at the English court. But for the reasons why England's Norman aristocracy objected to Matilda, Henry's sole direct heir and his chosen successor, we must look beyond her sex. She was also married to Geoffrey of Anjou whose lands, including Touraine and Maine, bordered Normandy—and the count was the latest in a line of Angevin rulers who had territorial designs on the duchy, which was a possession of the English Crown
.

Matilda's first marriage—to Henry V, the Holy Roman emperor—had given her the courtesy title of empress. Although not crowned as such by the pope, she was keen on the title and continued to use it after Henry's death in 1125. Matilda was not someone whose rights could be trifled with, all the more so since her second husband, Geoffrey—handsome, vigorous and militarily talented—was extremely eager to conjoin her claims with his own ambition. As soon as Henry I died Matilda crossed the border into Normandy to claim her inheritance, but although she had some local supporters the duchy's wary nobility declared for Stephen. Matilda and Geoffrey remained undaunted, and the empress's invasion of England in 1139 marked a new stage in the succession crisis. Stephen was briefly deposed in April 1141, but although Matilda ruled in London for a few months her refusal to cut taxes made her unpopular locally, and by the end of the year the king had regained his throne.

In Normandy meanwhile Matilda's cause was prospering, and Geoffrey's campaigns in 1142–43 secured all the fiefdoms west and south of the Seine. He then took Rouen in 1144 and proclaimed Matilda and himself as Normandy's rulers. The duke and duchess ruled their territory jointly until 1149 when it was ceded to their son, the future Henry II of England. Louis VII who, as king of France, was the vassal lord of Normandy's dukes, authorized this arrangement. Henry succeeded his father as count of Anjou following Geoffrey's death in 1151. At Poitiers on May 18 of the following year he married Eleanor of Aquitaine, who ruled that duchy in her own right and whose marriage to Louis VII of France had been annulled just two months previously. Although restored to his throne, Stephen's position in England remained precarious. Henry arrived in England with an army in January 1153 and, after the sudden death in August of Stephen's son and heir Eustace, the king agreed to a compromise: the succession rights of his surviving son William would be set aside, and Matilda's son was recognized as Stephen's heir. From the end of 1153 onward Henry—already count of both Anjou and Maine as well as duke of both Aquitaine and Normandy—was therefore also in effective control of England. Following Stephen's death in October 1154 this multititled dynast was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on December 19.

R
IGHT
Geoffrey of Anjou is shown bearing a sword and shield on his tomb at Le Mans Cathedral, France
.

The new king's father, Geoffrey, had called himself “Plantagenet,” after the broom flower (
Planta genista
) he had adopted as his personal emblem. During the 15th century the term came to be used to describe the dynasty of English kings descended from Matilda and Geoffrey, and whose rule ended with the accession of the Tudor Henry VII in 1485. In the case of Henry II, and his sons Richard I and John I, the phrase “Angevin empire” was coined in the 19th century to describe their collection of territories that, covering the whole of western France, extended from the northern English border to the Pyrenees. Twelfth-century contemporaries did not use that term, however, and the assemblage of so many different titles owed everything to the luck of the gene pool, the accident of dynastic succession and good fortune in the chancy business of warfare. A ruler capable of maintaining his authority across such a diverse territory needed to be not just clever and tough but also lucky—as John I's loss of Normandy, Anjou and most of Aquitaine would demonstrate.

Henry II was educated in the law and is a major figure in the evolution of England's precedent-based common law system. The rights of the Crown he inherited in England were well defined and supported by an administration which, given a strong-minded monarch, could give a direct expression to the royal will. Unsurprisingly, Normandy was the regime's closest parallel for efficient authority on mainland Europe. Civil breakdown during the anarchic period of Stephen's reign had led to widespread usurpation of property, and the provisions of Henry's measure, the Assize of Clarendon (1166), specified how 12 knights could determine legitimate rights and order redress to be made. This arrangement built on earlier provisions in Anglo-Saxon law and would become known as the jury system. Henry's appointment of “justices” (judges) who traveled the country hearing cases elevated the Crown's authority while limiting the obstructive powers of self-interested local nobles.

A
BOVE
The Martyrdom of Thomas Becket,
a panel from Master Francke's St. Thomas Altarpiece, commissioned in 1424
.

Revenue was the key to the enforcement of authority, and Henry's rigorous application of the tax called
scutage
, which allowed vassals to buy out their obligation of military service, enabled him to employ the mercenaries who played a major role in his army. It was Henry's determination that the secular law of the king's justice should predominate over Church law that brought him into conflict with Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury who had formerly been the king's ostentatiously loyal lord chancellor. Church courts had been a continuing source of authority during the recent years of disorder in England, and they had extended their area of competence during that period. The Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) represented Henry's attempt at restricting their powers and limiting the scale of immunities enjoyed by the clergy. A provision that clergy who had been convicted by the Church courts should then
be handed over to secular jurisdiction and prosecuted in the king's courts was especially contentious. From late 1164 to 1170 Becket was in exile in France, and his theatrical campaign against the monarch's policies continued until knights belonging to the king's retinue killed him in his cathedral at Canterbury on December 29. The murder undermined Henry's authority, and the agreement he arrived at with the papacy two years later conceded the central point that clergy had a right of appeal to Rome.

THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE

1128
Matilda of England, widow of emperor Henry V and daughter of Henry I of England, marries Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou who succeeds (1129) his father as count.

1135
Henry I of England dies and is succeeded by his nephew, Stephen of Blois. Matilda contests the succession.

1144
Geoffrey and Matilda become duke and duchess of Normandy following a military campaign. They cede the duchy to their son Henry (1149), who is crowned king of England as Henry II (1154).

1170
Murder of Thomas Becket.

1173–74
Henry II's sons Henry, Richard and John unite in armed rebellion against their father's rule in England.

1188
Richard (“the Lionheart”) betrays his father and does homage to Philip II of France: the two allies invade Anjou (1189) and defeat Henry II's army.

1189
Henry II dies and is succeeded by Richard.

1199
Death of Richard I, who is succeeded by his brother John.

1204
A French military offensive drives the English out of Normandy, Anjou and most of Aquitaine.

1215
Supported by a French army, the English baronage launches a military offensive against John, who dies (1216) while fleeing from rebel forces.