Angevin Dynasty

Abstract

The Angevin dynasty in England followed the Anglo-Norman kings, who had ruled since the Norman Conquest in 1066. Henry II, the first Angevin king (r. 1154–1189), was the son of Matilda, daughter and heir of Henry I, and her second husband, Geoffrey le Bel or Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou. Henry II was the first Plantagenet king of England, although he and his two sons, Richard I, the Lionhearted (r. 1189–1199), and John (r. 1199–1216) are often termed the Angevin dynasty. The term Plantagenet is usually limited to Edward I (r. 1272–1307) and his successors down to 1485. Henry II assumed the English crown after a civil war that followed the 1135 death of Henry I, who left his daughter, Matilda, as heir. Stephen of Blois, Henry I’s nephew, challenged her right and seized power. In 1139 she came to England to fight for her inheritance until her son Henry was old enough to take charge; and her husband, Geoffrey le Bel, Count of Anjou, invaded Normandy. Henry reached agreement in 1153 with King Stephen, who recognized him as his heir; and on Stephen’s death, Henry was crowned king. He was already Count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, and Duke of Normandy, conquered by his father. On Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, he became Duke of Aquitaine, extending Angevin control over all southwestern France. Henry’s collection of lands on both sides of the English Channel had no name, but they are often termed the “Angevin Empire.” His and his sons’ rule over their French lands was complicated by the French monarch’s position as their lord. French efforts to weaken and divide the Angevins’ continental lands dominated politics, and by the time of Philip II, France was a greater threat, as his power rose to equal Angevin power. Henry’s “empire” was in many ways simply an expansion of the Anglo-Norman realm. England continued to experience close ties to the continent, and to French culture and a strengthening of its central government. England and Normandy were the most strongly governed and the richest of all the Angevin rulers’ territories, and they needed its revenues for wars to maintain control their other possessions, resulting in innovations to strengthen royal money-raising. Fiscal demands on the baronage reached a high point with Richard Lionheart’s crusade and wars with the French king that continued under King John, when such policies led to rebellion and Magna Carta in 1215.