Part VI
In this part . . .
This part is all about picking out the best of the Medieval World and flagging up some things that you may want to look at again or in more detail. Get ready to meet some nasty and perhaps unlucky rulers, as well as some exceptional medieval people who changed the world. I describe some of the more unusual pastimes that medieval people enjoyed - quite a lot of which were, unsurprisingly, violent. I also compile a thank-you list for all the things that the Medieval World provided, including modern languages, beer and football to name just three. Enjoy!
Chapter 25
In This Chapter
● Cringe-worthy kings
● Bad, bad Byzantine emperors
● Reckless warlords
Being a ruler isn’t easy; you’re responsible for absolutely everything and any decision you make can have ramifications and consequences for years and years, even after you die. The Middle Ages saw hundreds of people taking the role of king, queen, emperor, duke and all sorts of other positions of power. Some of them were exceptional and most just muddled through - but a few made a really spectacular hash of things. Others never got the chance or were killed before they were able to do anything good.
In this chapter I take a look at ten people who I think were particularly bad in leadership roles. The following list is just my personal opinion, of course, and you may beg to differ. That’s what studying history is all about!
King Stephen of England (c. 1096-1154)
Although I find this hard to write, the one English king who shares my name is considered by most historians not to have been terribly good. Stephen was the grandson of William the Conqueror (Chapter 10 has all about William’s exploits) and the last Norman king of England, reigning between 1135-1154. Stephen was unfortunate in that he came to the throne at a time when opinion was split on who should be the new monarch. His predecessor, Henry I, had wanted his only surviving child - daughter Matilda - to assume power, but she was unable to gather enough support from the nobility.
Stephen thought that he could do better and seized the throne, but within four years he’d lost most of his support and England was plunged into a period called ‘The Anarchy’, which lasted for the rest of his reign.
He remained on the throne until his death but had already signed an agreement that his children would be passed over in the line of succession, in favour of Matilda’s son Henry (the future Henry II). Stephen isn’t known to have achieved anything significant in his reign and when he died his only impact was to have caused a decade-long civil war!
The contemporary chronicler Walter Map described Stephen as follows:
A man of a certain age, remarkably hard-working but otherwise a nonentity [a nobody] or perhaps rather inclined to evil.
Essentially, he wasn’t even good at being bad!
King John of England (1166-1216)
Countless Robin Hood stories and movies have portrayed King John as one of the villains of English history, but he’s more accurately described as one of England’s most ineffective kings. Whether due to a lack of talent, bad luck or cruel fate, he seemed to fall out with everybody and everything that he touched went wrong. In fact, identifying anything in his reign (1199-1216) that went well is pretty much impossible. Quite whether it was his fault is a subject that I tackle in Chapter 17 but I couldn’t exclude him from this chapter.
Most famously John was forced to agree to the Magna Carta in 1215, a treaty that made the king responsible to a group of barons (effectively a forerunner to the English parliament) and put legal limits on regal power (check out Chapter 17 for more details). Whilst most of it never came to pass it was nonetheless a humiliating event for John. His final humiliation was losing most of his treasury in an estuary on England’s east coast known as The Wash, the Crown Jewels being swept away by an incoming tide.
John also managed to fall out with Pope Innocent III, who forced the closure of all the churches in England and then excommunicated him in 1213! Oh yes, and many people accuse him of murdering his nephew Arthur. Eventually, in 1216 John died of dysentery, which some people alleged was caused by eating poisoned plums or drinking too much cider. Given his record of bad results, such an ending definitely fits!
Vortigern (c. 450)
Vortigern was a fifth-century warlord in Britain who seized control of an area in the southeast of England when the Roman Army withdrew. Historians know little about him or even if Vortigern was his real name. The one thing that’s recorded about him is that he made one of the worst decisions in history.
Looking to secure his kingdom, Vortigern came up with the bright idea of employing a group of mercenary soldiers from overseas. These soldiers were Saxons from the Low Countries (modern-day Belgium and The Netherlands) who had spent the last century continually raiding the English coast.
According to sources that are possibly apocryphal, a group of Saxons readily agreed to Vortigern’s proposition and settled in the east of England. They rather liked the area and invited over some more of their relatives. In no time at all, enough had arrived to overthrow Vortigern and kick-start the Anglo-Saxon domination of England (as I describe in Chapter 3). Another version of the story suggests that they revolted when they weren’t paid. Whether the precise details of the event are accurate or not, the story lingers and certainly qualifies Vortigern for inclusion in the ‘rubbish ruler’ category!
Charles ‘The Bad' of Navarre (1332-1387)
With a name like Charles ‘The Bad’, I was quite unable to omit ol’ Charlie from this chapter. He was officially called Charles II of Navarre, where he was king from 1349-1387. He was quite successful in that he gained lands in Normandy and elsewhere in France, but the manner in which he became so successful is the source of his nickname.
Charles was probably the most untrustworthy person in medieval history, and if you’ve read the rest of the book, you know that the competition for that title is pretty fierce! Charles was married to the daughter of King John II of France and was jealous of the Royal Constable, Charles de la Cerda, and so the king had de la Cerda murdered! This killing was just the start of a lifetime of treachery that saw him switch sides during the Hundred Years’ War on two occasions, be imprisoned by the French king and join forces with a notable Catalan freebooter who was later excommunicated by the pope!
Charles received his comeuppance though. In 1387 he became so unwell that his physician ordered him to be wrapped in a linen sack at night, presumably so that he didn’t harm himself whilst he slept. Unfortunately the treatment didn’t turn out too well:
One of the female attendants of the palace, charged to sew up the cloth that contained the patient, having come to the neck, the fixed point where she was to finish her seam, made a knot according to custom; but as there was still remaining an end of thread, instead of cutting it as usual with scissors, she had recourse to the candle, which immediately set fire to the whole cloth. Being terrified, she ran away, and abandoned the king, who was thus burnt alive in his own palace.
Louis V of France (c. 967-987)
King Louis V is a curious case. Although he’s known variously as Louis ‘The Lazy’, ‘The Indolent’, ‘The Do Nothing’ and ‘The Sluggard’, none of these nicknames are his fault. He was the son of the former king, Lothair, the last Carolingian monarch in France (I discuss the Carolingian family in Chapter 4). Even though Louis was crowned in 979, he didn’t actually take power until Lothair’s death in 987. Sons were often crowned as co-emperor as a way of avoiding challenges from other pretenders by making sure the son was firmly established in the role by the time the father eventually died. In Louis’s case this meant that he ruled for only one year (the probable reason for his nickname).
Nothing went terribly well for him though. When he was 13, he married a woman 20 years older than him (Adelaide of Anjou), but she ran off after two years. Eventually Louis died in May 987, possibly poisoned by his own mother! Perhaps Louis ‘The Hard Done By’ would have been more appropriate!
John I of France (1316-1316)
This story is a sad one. Known as John ‘The Posthumous’, he had the shortest reign in medieval history. He was the successor of King Louis X. When Louis died in June 1316, his wife Clementia of Hungary was pregnant. She gave birth to a boy on 15 November and named him John. The tiny infant was the next king of France, but within five days he too had died.
Infant mortality was common in the Middle Ages, but many people believe that John’s uncle, Philip of Champagne, was responsible for his death, because he replaced John on the throne, becoming Philip V. One story suggests that Philip kidnapped John and put a dead infant in his place. In the 1350s an Italian man turned up in Provence claiming to be the now adult John. He was immediately thrown in prison and died there in 1360. Nobody will ever know for sure what happened to the shortest-lived ruler in French history.
Louis X of France (1289-1316)
The father of John I of France (check out the preceding section) also gets into this chapter. Louis X was king of Navarre and king of France for only two years between 1314-1316. Despite dying relatively young, he managed to earn the nickname Louis ‘The Quarreller’ (or ‘The Turbulent’ or ‘The Stubborn’) and does seem to be the sort of person who was able to start an argument in an empty room. Throughout his time as king of Navarre, he was in almost continual dispute with his nobles and things weren’t much better domestically.
His first wife was Margaret of Burgundy, until in 1313 Louis’s father, Philip IV, accused her of adultery and Louis had her imprisoned. Within 18 months she was dead, in what contemporary sources considered to be very suspicious circumstances - particularly considering that he married Clementia of Hungary only five days later! Modern historians aren’t so sure about all of this, suggesting that Margaret possibly died from a cold, but at the time many people suspected Louis. Mud sticks, it would seem. Whilst there doesn’t now seem to be too much evidence of bad behaviour, his contemporaries were clearly able to believe he was capable of anything.
Louis X died entertainingly though, from infection possibly worsened by having drunk too much wine after a particularly strenuous game of ‘real tennis’. The account of his death is the first mention of tennis in history and Louis’s sole contribution to the game!
Justinian U of Byzantium (669-711)
The Byzantine emperors were a fascinating bunch. Assassinations, imprisonments, uprising and usurpations were the order of the day, and many rulers suffered cruel and unusual fates. One of the more interesting examples is Justinian II, known as the ‘Split-Nosed’. Justinian ruled the empire twice: first between 685-695 and then from 705 to his death in 711.
First time around he became hugely unpopular with everybody for raising taxes massively to finance his luxurious lifestyle. One of his generals called Leontius led an uprising, captured Justinian and cut his nose off in the belief that doing so would prevent him from becoming emperor again (emperors were supposed to be unblemished). Instead Justinian went off to a Black Sea port, plotted a comeback and regained the throne in bloody style in 705.
He wasn’t much more successful the second time though; a second rebellion rose up and this time they executed him. He gets into this chapter for being rubbish twice!
Justin II of Byzantium (c. 520-578)
Plenty of medieval rulers had the word ‘mad’ added to their name and although nothing is funny about mental illness, the truth is that many of them could have made it into this chapter. One such ruler from the early medieval period is the Byzantine emperor Justin II, known somewhat inevitably as Justin ‘The Mad’. His reign was pretty much a complete disaster, during which time the Byzantines were almost permanently at war with the Persian Empire and lost control of all their lands in Italy.
Justin can rightly be blamed for most of his empire’s problems, but his increasingly frequent bouts of insanity caused him to abdicate the throne in 578. By this point his behaviour had become even more bizarre. According to the chronicler John of Ephesus, he was continually pulled round the palace on a wheeled cart, biting any attendants that came close to him. Only the constant playing of organ music calmed his rages, and so had to accompany his every waking hour. Even worse were the rumours that night-time saw him engage in bouts of cannibalism! Justin died a few years after abdicating, having spent his time in isolation in a quiet royal palace. A sad story.
Aethelred ‘The Unready' (968-1016)
The list of rubbish rulers wouldn’t be complete without one of the most famously poor kings: Aethelred II, known as ‘The Unready’ Whilst he wasn’t a raging success, his nickname is a little unfair. ‘Unready’ didn’t have quite the same meaning at the time as it does now, and a better translation is probably ‘The Ill-Advised’. Nevertheless, he must have had some pretty bad advisors.
Aethelred was the Anglo-Saxon king of England between 978-1016. He reigned for quite a while and was moderately successful - except for one key event. Throughout his reign England was buffeted by continuous attacks from the Vikings. In 1013, the Viking king, Sweyn, was intending to invade with the goal of conquering the country. Aethelred was unable to gain enough support to organise the defences of England and so he abandoned the country and fled to Normandy! When he eventually returned, the situation had changed and most of England was under the control of the Danish king, Cnut (turn to Chapter 3 for more on Cnut). Aethelred fell off his horse soon afterwards and died. No great loss.