Walter Map conveyed this hectic lifestyle in his Courtiers’ Gossip , 4 quoting St Augustine’s observation that he was in time and spoke of time, yet knew not what time was. ‘With a similar sense of amazement,’ wrote Map, ‘I could say that I am in the court and I speak of the court, but God knows what the court is. [It] is a pleasant place only for those who obtain its favour [which] comes regardless of reason, establishes itself regardless of merit, arrives obscurely from unknown causes.’ 5
According to him, the entire retinue wore out their clothes, their mounts, their bodies and their souls, such was the relentless pace Henry expected of everyone in his service. Yet no courtier could risk not being present when summoned at any hour of the day or night, for those Henry had raised to greatness, he could cast down. And when they fell, they pulled others with them. ‘Friendship among those who are summoned to give the King counsel and undertake his business is one of the rarest things. Anxious ambition dominates their minds; each of them fears to be outstripped by the endeavours of the others. So is born envy, whichnecessarily turns immediately into hatred.’ 6 Thus Arnulf of Lisieux, a Norman vassal of Henry’s, wrote from his own bitter experience.
Yet Henry could be affable when hearing out petitioners. He could be generous to a captain who had lost his ship or a vassal who had lost a limb in the royal service or a peasant whose property had been damaged by the royal hunt or to the poor during time of famine. When relaxed, he joked with his intimates or called for needle and thread to mend his own clothes. He was tolerant of Jews and heretics, but not homosexuals, once authorising torture for some Templars accused of sodomy. Much of his legislation is a model of justice, while his forest laws were vindictively cruel.
Indifferent to food, he contented himself when necessary while travelling with gruel or bread and expected his companions to do the same. If he thought that this lifestyle might drive Eleanor to retire from the erratic progress and wait for him in the comital palace at Poitiers, he was wrong. The woman who had ridden across Turkey on the Second Crusade was tougher than that. Rising to every challenge, she was determined to establish her own position in the marriage from the outset, while quickly realising she would never have a fraction of the influence over her new husband that she had enjoyed over Louis.
Hyperactive, Henry rarely sat down except for a game of chess or to eat, and would be on the move again as soon as hunger was sated or the game over. Even during Mass he fidgeted continually, giving orders to his clerks or taking aside someone with whom he wished to talk. He dressed in costly but carelessly worn clothes, taking no interest in his appearance. His reddish hair was kept cut unfashionably short for the good reason that long hair became tangled by rubbing against the leather liner of a helmet of a man forever ready for combat. His nickname, Henry Curtmantle, referred to his habit of wearing a very short coat that gave little protection from the weather but made it quicker to mount and dismount.
His curiosity was insatiable. Never accepting another man’s word for anything, he had to see, touch and try it out for himself, whether a horse, a dog, a jewel or piece of material offered by a merchant, a vassal’s hawk, a weapon or an idea. 7 A genial enough companion for the few with the intellect to amuse him, he rapidly lost interest when they could no longer be of service or entertainment value. If thwarted or defied, he went literally berserk, foaming at the mouth and hurling himself at anyone within reach, or falling to the floor and rolling in the soiled reeds and refuse of an audience hall, groaning like an animal in agony.
Yet there was nothing haphazard about his apparently erratic habits. His hectic itineraries were an important factor in his later ability to govern very
According to him, the entire retinue wore out their clothes, their mounts, their bodies and their souls, such was the relentless pace Henry expected of everyone in his service. Yet no courtier could risk not being present when summoned at any hour of the day or night, for those Henry had raised to greatness, he could cast down. And when they fell, they pulled others with them. ‘Friendship among those who are summoned to give the King counsel and undertake his business is one of the rarest things. Anxious ambition dominates their minds; each of them fears to be outstripped by the endeavours of the others. So is born envy, whichnecessarily turns immediately into hatred.’ 6 Thus Arnulf of Lisieux, a Norman vassal of Henry’s, wrote from his own bitter experience.
Yet Henry could be affable when hearing out petitioners. He could be generous to a captain who had lost his ship or a vassal who had lost a limb in the royal service or a peasant whose property had been damaged by the royal hunt or to the poor during time of famine. When relaxed, he joked with his intimates or called for needle and thread to mend his own clothes. He was tolerant of Jews and heretics, but not homosexuals, once authorising torture for some Templars accused of sodomy. Much of his legislation is a model of justice, while his forest laws were vindictively cruel.
Indifferent to food, he contented himself when necessary while travelling with gruel or bread and expected his companions to do the same. If he thought that this lifestyle might drive Eleanor to retire from the erratic progress and wait for him in the comital palace at Poitiers, he was wrong. The woman who had ridden across Turkey on the Second Crusade was tougher than that. Rising to every challenge, she was determined to establish her own position in the marriage from the outset, while quickly realising she would never have a fraction of the influence over her new husband that she had enjoyed over Louis.
Hyperactive, Henry rarely sat down except for a game of chess or to eat, and would be on the move again as soon as hunger was sated or the game over. Even during Mass he fidgeted continually, giving orders to his clerks or taking aside someone with whom he wished to talk. He dressed in costly but carelessly worn clothes, taking no interest in his appearance. His reddish hair was kept cut unfashionably short for the good reason that long hair became tangled by rubbing against the leather liner of a helmet of a man forever ready for combat. His nickname, Henry Curtmantle, referred to his habit of wearing a very short coat that gave little protection from the weather but made it quicker to mount and dismount.
His curiosity was insatiable. Never accepting another man’s word for anything, he had to see, touch and try it out for himself, whether a horse, a dog, a jewel or piece of material offered by a merchant, a vassal’s hawk, a weapon or an idea. 7 A genial enough companion for the few with the intellect to amuse him, he rapidly lost interest when they could no longer be of service or entertainment value. If thwarted or defied, he went literally berserk, foaming at the mouth and hurling himself at anyone within reach, or falling to the floor and rolling in the soiled reeds and refuse of an audience hall, groaning like an animal in agony.
Yet there was nothing haphazard about his apparently erratic habits. His hectic itineraries were an important factor in his later ability to govern very
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