13thcenturyhistory

                              King John and the Growth of a Navy                                                                                                          This post came about from reading 'King John -An Underrated King' by  Graham E.  Seel, A worthy book and very much the case for the defence as far as King John's reputation is concerned. The author credits John with establishing a 'standing navy' and  Ithought that the notion of King John as a maritime king needed further consideration. In 1204 Normandy, Anjou and Maine fell to the French king, Philip Augustus .  The Anglo-Norman hegemony, the range of...

       Some thoughts on Bouvines- An important but unknown battle                                                                           1827 painting of the battle by Horace Vernet, in the public domain courtesy of Wikipedia Hope all blog readers are surviving these strange times . I have quite a number of blog-posts half written, but am not in position to cross reference my work with lockdown being in place and the closure of libraries . Decided instead to share my thoughts about the Battle of Bouvines 1214. Never recall this battle being mentioned at school, yet the defeat of the alliance between England, Flanders and the Holy Roman empire  ( and others) at the hands of Philip of Augustus of France had a far reaching impact on Western Europe. Said defeat was also...

                           Simon de Montfort as a Revolutionary ?                                       Drawing of a stained glass window of Chartres Cathedral, depicting Simon de Montfort, courtesy Wikipedia This is a first of a serious of posts about 1258, and how this year radically changed the way England was governed. Amongst the reforms achieved were that a Council of fifteen was to be elected who would have the right to choose who the King appointed as ministers and could regulate the use of the King's seal. It's hard to find evidence of  such an arrangement in other European countries. Parliament  was to meet three times a year on fixed dates. The harsh weather conditions as from 1257 and the ghastly  famine of the time has been already covered in this blog.  The barons challenge to th...

       A Hostel for Jewish converts to Christianity -founded 1232 The original intention of this  piece was to write a blogpost about the talk 'Dependence Intolerance and Expulsion; the Story of England's Medieval Jewish Community 1066-1290' by Sean Cunningham held at the National Archives on January 24th 2020. Unfortunately due to   problems on the rail network,I did not manage to attend. So have  had to resort to posting about my own research instead, starting with   the death of Little Sir Hugh of Lincoln in 1255   here     Another subject that I have been looking at is the Domus Conversorum -'House of converts'  and happy to concede that this post is very much 'work in progress' and does not represent my conclusive views of the subject.                                       Marginal Illustration from ...

                                                                              Little Sir Hugh of Lincoln                                                         My original intention was  to write a blogpost about the talk 'Dependence Intolerance and Expulsion; the Story of England's Medieval Jewish Community 1066-1290' by Sean Cunningham, at the National Archives on January 24th 2020. Unfortunately due to the problems on the rail network, I did not manage to attend could not reach Kew. Thought that would write about the Jewish Community during the reign of Henry III instead ...and this is the first part.       ...

                                                                                                                                Coronation of Henry III  Cotton Vitellius A. XIII  courtesy of                                                             Wikipedia, in public domain.  In this year, there was a failure of crops; upon which failure a famine ensued,to such a degree that people from the villages resorted to the city for food; and there upon the famine waxing still greater, many thousand perso...

' The Song of Simon de Montfort-England's First Revolutionary and the Death of Chivalry ' Sophie Therese Ambler , Published by Picador in hardback (2019) and also available in kindle.  An earlier version of this piece was turned down for publication in the Simon de Montfort' Society's  magazine 'The Lion' , so has been overhauled and published on line instead.   Ultimately this  a worthwhile biography which encourages the reader to explore the life and era of Simon de Montfort . At her best Sophie Therese Ambler, both as a writer and speaker, is not over academic nor patronising to her readers. Can appeal to the medieval history enthusiast outside the world of academia and build on their interest. So sincerely hope that my criticism is not taken to be some sort of personal attack on the author. as I do quite admire her.   But to me,  claiming that de Montfort was a 'revolutionary' seems unconvincing. Would add that  ...