In the fourth chapter, Sulovsky turns to the supposedly imperial saints’ cults of the 1160s: the Three Kings and Saint Charlemagne. The chapter demonstrates that the cult of the Magi was unconnected to the emperor. Rather, the agency of Rainald of Dassel in bringing the Magi to Cologne was related to his personal suffering from the Milanese while he was imperial legate in their city on the eve of Epiphany (= Three Kings’ Day). As this was liturgically already the vigils of Epiphany, and as Rainald was trapped in the imperial palace next to the saintly bodies before he barely escaped, he translated the Magi to honour his protectors. This debunks the Kulturkampf-inspired theory that the purpose of worshipping the holy kings who adored Christ long before the apostles were called would help achieve a sacral independence of the Empire from the Papacy. On the other hand, the cult of Saint Charlemagne is shown to have been accepted at the imperial court as a part of a plan to mend the Alexandrine schism by launching an Anglo-Franco-German crusade, which was thought of as an imitation of Charlemagne’s exploits in the east.

The famous story of the sinking of the White Ship in 1120 and the death of king Henry I’s heir, prince William, and many members of the royal family and aristocracy was recorded by many contemporary historians. Here excerpts from sixwriters are included, passages that vary in length and style. The writers are Eadmer, William of Malmesbury, Orderic Vitalis, Symeon of Durham, Hugh the Chanter and Henry of Huntingdon. The accounts by William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis are literary masterpieces, providing historical detail and an overall depiction that has elements of epic andtragedy.

The section on Thomas Becket includes a letter from Becket to the Empress Matilda (daughter of king Henry I) who was based in Rouen at the time, and one from the Empress in response, reprimanding Becket for his behaviour towards her son, Henry II. The second part contains two parallel excerpts from the accounts, by Edward Grim and William Fitzstephen, of the murder of Becket in Canterbury cathedral in 1170.

Walter Map’s De nugis curialium is a strange work, comprising a series of humorous anecdotes, with some serious satire, particularly of the monastic orders. Despite the attention it has drawn in modern times, it seems not to have been widely known and is preserved only in Bodleian MS Bodl. 851.

In 1169, Anglo-Norman forces from South Wales landed on the south coast of Ireland. With the backing of King Henry II of England, they went on to take military control of the bilingual Norse-Irish city-kingdoms of Dublin, Waterford and Wexford. In 1170, the High King of All Ireland led an Irish counteroffensive against the Normans, but in 1171 King Henry landed an army in Ireland to establish English control. Settlers from England began to move into the Norman-occupied areas, and as more and more of them arrived, much of the eastern and southeastern coastal areas of Ireland gradually became English-speaking, under an Anglo-Norman-speaking aristocracy.

It was during the reign of Henry II (1154–89) that royal justice was available to anyone could bring their case within a certain formula, known as a writ. This is discussed in Chapter 5, ‘The Father of the Common Law (c.1154–1215)’, the title of which refers to the title often bestowed upon Henry II, the first monarch from the House of Plantagenet. The chapter focuses on the development of the writ system during and in the aftermath of Henry’s reign in relation to what we now call land law and whether this marked a move to centralisation that replaced the feudal system. The chapter begins by examining the Becket controversy but will then move on to argue that it is for other developments that Henry Plantagenet’s reign should be remembered. The second part of this chapter explored the developments to the legal system that occurred during this reign and that allowed for a common law to develop and be regularised. The final section will explore in detail the origins of the writ system, following Maitland’s legendary account of The Forms of Action as well as the revisions and criticisms put forward by Milsom.