The Reign of King Stephen, 1135-1154

by David Crouch

A biography of King Stephen (1134-54), the last Norman monarch whose reign was key in English history as well as the subject of much controversial assessment. Traditionally regarded as a period of anarchy and civil war, recent research has presented a more balanced perspective.

Genres: History, Medieval History, Biography, Medieval, British Literature, Nonfiction

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 24, 2000

About the author

David Bruce Crouch, FRHistS, FBA, was Professor of Medieval History at the University of Hull, where he taught from 2003 until his retirement in 2018.

Reviews

[Julie Yates]

Whatever misfortunes Stephen experienced in his reign, they were as nothing to the damage done to his posthumous reputation by being the first posthumous victim of modern scientific history. Stephen's misfortune was to be the successor of Henry I and the predecessor of Henry II, both the darlings of the school of Anglo-American constitutionalist and administrative historians who dominated the writing of history between the 1870s and 1970's. Looked at down their noses through their particular spectacles, Stephen must seem a disappointment, although they generally allowed that he was an effective warrior. To them his reign seemed a blip in a clear line of development between the reign of Henry I and Henry II. For historiographical reasons going back to the eighteenth century, the blip became an 'anarchy' and Stephen the villain in a constitutional drama. But as we have seen, Stephen was not trying to preserve a constitution between 1135 and 1154, he was trying to rule a kingdom.....

It is not in England that we find Stephen the failure, but in Wales and Normandy. Here indeed he proved inadequate, but with the exception of the greatest of kings, who could have done better? Rather than compare Stephen's record to the success of King Henry I, we would do better to compare it to that of Louis VII of France. Louis VII had his military successes, but they were never decisive. Louis too, attempted to rule two realms, the Capetian principality and the duchy of Aquitaine and rapidly lost the latter to a rival. Louis too, could do no more that contain his formidable rivals in key provinces, such as the Vexin and Vermandois, and in the end lost ground in both. Yet he is not considered such a failure as a king, probably because the reigns of his predecessor and initially his successor were not marked contrasts to his own. It is for the next generation of historians to start looking at Stephen and his reign more objectively and, and judge them accordingly.

[Best British Biographies]

When David Crouch’s study of Stephen was released in 2000, it was the first major work focused on his reign since Ralph Davis’s biography was published over three decades before. In that time, the ongoing scholarship about the period raised questions about some of the conclusions and suppositions on which Davis’s book was based. Though Keith Stringer addressed this in his admirable short study of Stephen’s reign, the nature of his work – a short study designed as a focused introduction to its subject – precluded the broader reexamination that Crouch provides in this work.

For the rest of my review, click on the link:

https://www.bestbritishbios.com/2022/...

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent biography of King Stephen by one of the best medieval scholars out there. My second read for research purposes