What to do with Richard the Lionheart and his ransom?
I am writing this whist sitting in the Loggia of Santa Maria dell Grazie in Arezzo, one of the finest early renaissance buildings ever. And I am all alone. Behind me is one of Andrea della Robbia’s masterpieces and the church also holds a fresco by a pupil of Piero della Francesca. The fact that even one of the smaller towns in Tuscany can hold absolute wonders entirely off the beaten tourist track tells you all you need to know about the delta in wealth between Italy and most of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages.
One who was painfully aware of that delta in potential tax income was our friend Emperor Henry VI. If he could only get hold of the kingdom of Sicily, the inheritance of hi wife, he would be so rich and powerful. But having lost his army before Naples and even worse, having his wife falling into enemy hands means this all looks terribly leak.
But his luck is about to turn thanks to one of the most famous and most unexpected events of the High Middle Ages, involving one of Englands most overrated monarchs. I am sure you have heard the story a thousand times of Richard the Lionheart being kidnapped ad ransomed by crowned highwaymen. Today you get the Kurusava treatment and will hear the story from the other German perspective.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 71 – To catch a King
I am writing this whist sitting in the Loggia of Santa Maria dell Grazie in Arezzo, one of the finest early renaissance buildings ever. And I am all alone. Behind me is one of Andrea della Robbia’s masterpieces and the church also holds a fresco by a pupil of Piero della Francesca. The fact that even one of the smaller towns in Tuscany can hold absolute wonders entirely off the beaten tourist track tells you all you need to know about the delta in wealth between Italy and most of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages.
One who was painfully aware of that delta in potential tax income was our friend Emperor Henry VI. If he could only get hold of the kingdom of Sicily, the inheritance of hi wife, he would be so rich and powerful. But having lost his army before Naples and even worse, having his wife falling into enemy hands means this all looks terribly leak.
But his luck is about to turn thanks to one of the most famous and most unexpected events of the High Middle Ages, involving one of Englands most overrated monarchs. I am sure you have heard the story a thousand times of Richard the Lionheart being kidnapped ad ransomed by crowned highwaymen. Today you get the Kurusava treatment and will hear the story from the other German perspective.
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History has not been kind to our emperor Henry VI. He occupies the slot between the heroic Barbarossa and the enigmatic Frederick II. It is never quite clear what he was for. But I always saw him like the slice of bread between the two pieces of meat in a Big Mac. It isn’t strictly speaking necessary but without it, it would not be a Big Mac. Chroniclers were less kind to him. They portrayed him as the ruthless, calculating power player. Three events had shaped this reputation, one of which happened to be one of the most famous events in Medieval history.
Let’s start with the first two.
The first was how he dealt with the desertion of young Henry, the son of Henry the Lion. You may remember from last episode that young Henry, the son of Henry the Lion had deserted the imperial army before Naples. He first fled to the defenders and then returned to Germany, spreading the rumour the emperor had died. Young Henry may even have harboured ambitions to get himself elected king.
This unprecedented act by a member of the second most august family in the realm called for retaliation. The desertion compounded the initial betrayal by the house of Welf who had sworn an oath to stay in exile until 1193 but returned almost immediately after Barbarossa had left on crusade.
As to be expected Henry VI. had both father and son put into the ban and called an imperial war against the House of Welf. The Saxon nobles did not need much encouragement to muster an army against the lords of Brunswick. Henry the Lion has spent the last 40 years expanding his personal property at their expense and though they managed to depose him as duke, he had remained the most powerful and most vengeful of aristocrats in Saxony.
Henry the Lion is now 62 years old and has no appetite for a full-on confrontation with the empire. He offers the one thing he knows Henry VI wants more than stability of the empire, he offers to join another campaign down to Southern Italy and his time he would come along personally so no shenanigans will happen.
Well shenanigans still need to happen, but this time not against the emperor, but again, against the Saxon nobles. For the second time in his very short reign, Henry VI will leave the Saxon nobles hang out to dry. They are not aware of the under the table agreement between the two Henries and expect their imperial overlord to join them with all his might and bring down Henry the Lion for good. Henry VI keeps up appearances, declares young Henry an outlaw and all that. But when it came to sending troops, ah, no that did not happen. The Saxon Nobles left alone by their emperor get a bloody nose before Brunswick. That was the first x on his score sheet.
His duplicitous policy in Saxony is followed by his involvement in the botched election of the bishop of Liege. Liege, in today’s Belgium was an important bishopric, crucial to retain some control over Lothringia and as a line of defence for the empire’s western border. There were two contenders to succeed the recently deceased bishop, one from a pro-Hohenstaufen party and another from an anti-imperial faction.
As per the Concordat of Worms in disputed episcopal elections, the emperor has the last word. And he chooses a third individual, Lothar von Hochstaden, a Hohenstaufen ally who had just lost out on the archbishopric of Cologne. The Anti-imperial party appeals to the pope in Rome, and Celestine III, by now firmly opposed to Henry VI. appoints their candidate, Albert, brother of the duke of Brabant. Things go back and forth a bit until on 24th of November 1192 the papal appointed candidate is struck down by two German knights whilst travelling near Reims in France.
A murdered bishop is never a good thing. What makes things more problematic is that the two knights who had murdered Albert were close associates of Henry VI. and they find refuge at his court. The duke Henry of Brabant blames not just Lothar von Hochstaden but the emperor himself for the murder of his brother. This local issue is now gradually turning into a full-blown rebellion calling for Henry VI to lay down his crown. Let us not forget that the murder of Thomas a’Beckett, just 20 years earlier, was still fresh in people’s mind. The whiff of episcopal murder is the next scratch on Henry’s scoreboard.
And that brings us to the third and by far biggest stain on Henry VI.s reputation. In January 1193 Henry VI. receives news that duke Leopold of Austria had arrested King Richard the Lionheart of England on his return from the Holy Land.
The short version of that story goes as follows. Richard the Lionheart had insulted duke Leopold of Austria during the Third crusade. Hence, when he travelled through Austrian land on his return from the Holy land, Leopold had him arrested in revenge. Henry VI. bought Richard the Lionheart from Leopold and demanded ransom from England. The amount of the ransom was ratcheted up as Henry played Richard against his enemies, King Phillippe Auguste and John Lackland. After more than a year he was released from prison after swearing allegiance to Henry.
In the public imagination Richard the Lionheart is painted as the heroic knight returning home after securing the survival of Outre-Mer. On the other side you have the archvillain, John Lackland who conspired to bring his brother down even joining up with the Angevin’s archenemy, the wily King Phillippe Auguste. Henry VI. is seen as greedy and calculating, using his position to squeeze out every penny from the unfortunate English peasants. Only duke Leopold gets away ok. He had been insulted and was hence justified in what he did. The other three had no justification, other than insatiable appetite for money and power.
Let’s take a look at this in more detail.
First up, the famous insult before Akkon.
The Third Crusade was a pan-European effort led initially by two kings and an emperor. Phillippe Auguste of France, Richard the Lionheart of England and Barbarossa. By the time the French and the English arrived in Palestine, Barbarossa was long dead. What remained of the German contingent was initially led by duke Frederick of Swabia, Henry VI. younger brother. After Frederick had died of disease in early 1192, command of the Germans went to Leopold, duke of Austria, the most senior imperial prince present.
The Third Crusade was somewhat successful in as much as it regained several of the cities on the coast, but failed to regain Jerusalem, the main objective of the exercise. When the crusaders took Akkon, the most important stronghold along the coast, the question of distribution of the spoils arose. The two kings, Phillippe Auguste and Richard raised their banners s a sign where the plunder should be collected. Leopold raised his banner alongside, not in his role as duke, but as representative of the emperor. What he did not know was that Richard and Phillippe Auguste had already decided to keep him and the other Germans out of the distribution. So, Richard had Leopold’s banner taken down by common soldiers. That infuriated Leopold in two ways, one, he didn’t get any plunder, nor did his knights and soldiers which will be difficult to explain and his banner had been insulted. But Henry VI. as emperor had also been insulted as the rights of the empire and the standard of his representative had been disregarded.
The insult was certainly one justification for Henry’s behaviour, but the much more significant one was that he had already declared Richard the Lionheart an enemy of the realm for the following reasons:
- Richard had encouraged Henry the Lion to break his oath and return early, creating a civil war in Saxony
- Richard was an ally on Tancred, the usurper king of Sicily who denied Constance and Henry’s legal rights to Southern Italy
- Richard had extracted vast sums of money from Tancred, which was money that by rights belonged to the kingdom of Sicily and hence to Constance
As far as Henry VI. can make out, Richard the Lionheart was out to undermine his rights and standing in Europe and was an enemy. Whether Richard pursued an active anti-imperial policy is however doubtful. It is quite clear that he did not take his agreement with Tancred seriously since he departed Sicily with all his troops once the gold was on board and rumblings of the imperial army arriving before Naples could be heard. And I doubt he had any notion of the havoc an early return of Henry the Lion would cause in Germany. It is typical Lionheart. He is a bit of an elephant in a porcelain shop, crashing into things and then looking befuddled at the debris.
And then we come to the question whether apprehending, imprisoning and ransoming Richard was an unprecedented crime that no one else was daring to commit.
For that, let’s find out why in December 1192 Richard finds himself disguised as a merchant in Vienna, literally 1000 miles from home.
Richard had returned from the Holy land and initially planned to return the same way he had come, via Sicily, Marseille and then through Provence and the county of Toulouse into his duchy of Aquitaine.
That route was blocked because he had got into a quarrel with the count of Toulouse and he was planning to apprehend him should he come near his lands. There was also a Genoese fleet based on Sardinia tasked with finding and capturing him. The Genoese may be in the pay of the King of France or have their own reason to seek out Richard. And if he had made it through to Marseille, a journey up the Rhine would have delivered him right into the hands of Phillippe Auguste. So, he had to go down the Adriatic towards Venice. It was now late autumn, and the seasonal storms broke his ship somewhere in Dalmatia.
From there he could have gone to Venice and from there across the alps on one of the western passes. But that would have meant going across Swabia or Bavaria, held by close allies and family of Henry VI., the man who had put a search warrant out for him.
Richard, the accomplished diplomat (Encyclopedia Brittannica) had irritated so many rulers in Europe that he had only one route to get home, sneak under disguise through Slovenia and Austria into Bohemia and from there into the lands of his brother-in-law, Henry the Lion and take a ship home.
Richard, more accomplished than the rest of his family (Encyclopedia Brittannica) was shockingly unconvincing as a travelling merchant. When he passed through the county of Gorizia he had the count sent a hugely valuable ruby as a present to ensure safe passage. This royal gift was unlikely to have come from the humble merchant Hugh he was travelling as. The count who also did not like Richard for god knows what reason had men searching for him and in a skirmish Richard lost 8 of his knights.
From Gorizia he ran for three days covering 150 miles before he collapsed with exhaustion in an inn near Vienna. There he was again quickly discovered because he was throwing money around as no merchant would ever do. Duke Leopold of Austria had him apprehended and brought to the castle of Durnstein. Leopold informed Henry VI. that he had the king of England in custody.
I do not know about you, but it seems this hero of the Troubadours (Encyclopedia Brittannica) was lucky to make it as far as Vienna with pretty much all of Europe out to get him, including his own brother.
Henry promised Leopold 50,000 Mark of Silver for his hostage and Richard was brought to the Trifels, the great imperial castle in the Palatinate and then negotiations began.
Henry as we know has one political objective at this point, the crown of Sicily. Hence his demands on Richard were: a.) money and b.) military support. 100,000 mark of silver plus 50 ships, 200 knights and 100 archers led by Richard himself.
Richard like most members of his class did not care one bit about the money. What he refused to do was serve in Henry VI. army. That would have turned him into an imperial vassal which he could not and would not accept.
For the next year the two sides would negotiate almost exclusively about this issue of service in Henry VI. army. Henry had a tremendous negotiation position. Between him and the very significant military power of the Angevin house lay the Kingdom of France, so he did not have to fear any efforts to free the king by force. Moreover, Richard’s brother, John Lackland did not want his brother to return. Richard was childless so if he ended up dead in a German prison cell, John would not have minded one bit. Even worse for Richard, John and Phillippe Auguste were conspiring about ways how to prolong Richard’s stay on the Rhine. These two conspirators offered Henry VI. to pay a large amount of money for prolonging his stay in Germany.
Richard’s only trump card were his cousins, the sons of Henry the Lion. They were weighing in on the Lionheart’s behalf, offering on the one hand to take over the military obligations on Richard’s behalf, whilst on the other threatening to block any legal proceedings against Richard in the Court of Princes.
In May the two sides finally agreed a compromise. Richard would pay an additional 50,000 Mark of silver, so 150,000 in total but would be relieved from having to serve. Instead, he would convince the Welf to join the campaign.
Money then began to flow from England and a date for the release of Richard was put in the diary for January 17, 1194. But shortly before that date envoys from Phillippe Auguste and John Lackland arrived, offering Henry the exact same sum as Richard had, 150,000 mark of silver for the prisoner. If Henry had handed Richard over to the king of France, the Lionheart would never got out of jail. And that was quite tempting. Given the choice between Richard out in the wild able to retaliate for his involuntary sojourn or Richard languishing in a French prison, never able to get back at him, its pretty easy.
Henry immediately cancelled the assembly scheduled for the initial release date to ponder this extremely generous offer. He then scheduled a new assembly for February 2. There everyone expected the release of the Lionheart and his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine was even considering coming down for the event.
And as Richard came in to the assembly, Henry threw in his hand grenade. He called on the envoys of Phillippe Auguste and John to read out loud what ha been offered. He then turned to his princes and asked them what he should do. These guys saw the dollar signs and would probably have voted to ship the hero of the Third Crusade from the Trifels to the Chateau de Vincennes.
Richard then did what he had wanted to avoid at all cost. He knelt down and agreed to become an imperial vassal. He handed the Kingdom of England over to Henry who then returned it to him as an imperial fief.
As a vassal of Henry VI. Richard could demand protection from his enemies, which meant he could no longer be handed over to the French. Richard came back to England and had himself crowned again in an attempt to wash off the oath of fealty. He spent the rest of his life fighting against Phillippe Auguste and died aged just 41 from an arrow.
Henry’s behaviour in this affair, specifically that last move to force Richard to become his vassal has been the cornerstone of his poor reputation. He is shown as the grimy ransom dealer versus the heroic chivalric knight. But all that has happened is that the world had moved on from a world where emperors like Henry II or Otto the Great pursued mainly Christian ideals to one driven by dynastic interests. And Henry’s dynastic interest was to a.) gain the Sicilian inheritance and b.) keep his empire safe, which meant keep the House of Welf in check. Richard delivered him that and screw chivalry, the crusades and all that. He is no different to Phillippe Auguste who will brand a war against the Count of Toulouse as the Albignesian crusade against heretics. Nor is he the only one to be shadowed by the whiff of murder, Richard had the murder of Conrad of Montferrat, elected king of Jerusalem, hanging over him as well.
Next question. What did they do with the money? Leopold took his 50,000 and invested it into new walls for Vienna, a ducal mint and other useful infrastructure. Henry VI. used it to gain the Kingdom of Sicily.
Flush with cash he mustered a large army. Since he could not demand a second Italian campaign from his vassals, this army consisted almost exclusively of his own Ministeriales and very expensive mercenaries.
All throughout the negotiations over Richard’s ransom Henry VI. had meticulously planned his campaign. Things had also improved in other ways. Constance had been released after a year of imprisonment thanks to papal intervention and probably in the hope to reduce the urge of the emperor to come down to Sicily.
And on February 20th, 1194 Tancred had died. Though Tancred had been formally recognised and invested by Pope Celestin III, Henry thought that with his death papal policy would now change. His army was getting ready and surely Celestin III would not want to stand in the way of such overwhelming force. Celestin, he thinks will do the sensible thing and recognise Constance’s right to inherit. But no. Celestin III invested Tancred’s little son as King William III of Sicily.
And so, Henry’s army sets off in April 1194. They hold a great muster on the fields of Roncaglia in June. The imperial lord high steward Markward of Annweiler, an important Ministeriale takes command of a combined Pisan and Genoese fleet. No longer will Henry risk that the squabbles between the two republics impede his success.
The land army advanced in three columns down into Southern Italy. The Normans put up virtually no defence. The city of Salerno where Constance had been apprehended and imprisoned saw its worst nightmares come true. Henry VI. left the city to his men to plunder for three days. Afterwards he as all its houses put to the flames.
As the army marches down the length of Apulia and Calabria, the imperial fleet under Markward of Annweiler takes Messina. In October 1194 Henry VI. first set foot on the island of Sicily. With that the military part of the campaign is over. Henry VI. immediately dismisses his expensive mercenary troops.
Tancred’s widow, Sybil and her little son, the little king William III are holed up in the royal palace above Palermo. As the Germans approach the city, the children of Tancred are brought to a strong defensive castle in the interior, whilst their mother prepares to throw herself at the feet of the conquering emperor.
Henry VI. elated by his easy success is in a magnanimous mood. He promises Sybil and her children freedom and safety. They are even allowed to retain the county of Lecce, one of Tancred’s possessions from before he had taken the throne.
On December 25th, 1194, Henry VI. is solemnly crowned King of Sicily in the Cathedral of Palermo. The royal insignia are brought to him by the little boy king William III who kneels before him, swears allegiance and in return receives the county of Lecce as his fief.
Within almost exactly 3 years Henry VI. has recovered from his nadir as a defeated war leader who had lost his wife to his enemies to lord of an additional two kingdoms, Sicily and England. Ok, England may be a bit of an exaggeration, but Richard Lionheart had knelt before him which is quite cool for an emperor that most people have long forgotten.
But even more astounding than the rise from this set of serious setbacks is the other miracle that took place two days after his coronation. His wife, Constance, by now nearly 40 years old had not made it to the coronation in Palermo. She had to stay behind central Italy because after 8 years of marriage she had become pregnant. A pregnancy at that age in the 12th century was extremely unusual but not impossible. The unnaturally fecund Agnes of Waiblingen may have had her last child at the age of 52, but then she really was really unnaturally productive.
One of the most unusual medieval stories surround the delivery of Constance’s child on Boxing Day 1194 in the town Jesi. The story goes that Constance gave birth in a tent on the main square in the presence of the reputable matrons of the city. The tent’s doors were then opened, and she breastfed her little son for all to see, as further proof that the child was indeed hers.
As much as I would love this to be true, and there is even an inscription on the town square of Jesi claiming to be the spot where the tent has stood, there are good reasons to believe the story might have been an invention.
It begins circulating only after another set of stories are making the rounds. Constance so we are told by Albert of Stade was already 60 years old at the time of her marriage. Thanks to some medical quackery Constance had made her bely swell up so as to convince the emperor of her miraculous pregnancy. Then, when it was time, the doctors lanced her stomach, let out the puss and passed a butcher’s son off as the heir to the throne. These stories were repeated in various forms. Proof was found when the king of Jerusalem called him a butcher or in fictional stories that Markward of Annweiler had told the pope he wasn’t the emperor’s real son.
The tent story was created to discredit the rumours.
Who was that child whose birth agitated so many scribes from St. Albans to Albano? That child is Frederick, the future emperor Frederick II, history dreamboat for both Germans and Italians, an enigma who for some was an autocratic proto-Hitler and for others a scientist on the imperial throne. The stupor mundi as Matthew Paris called him.
At the end of December 1194, this little boy is the crowning glory of a truly great years for emperor Henry VI. and a dawning nightmare for pope Celestin IIII and all his successors until the day they will have ripped out the Hohenstaufen, root and stem.
Next time we will see how our emperor of ill repute will attempt to make peace with Pope Celestin, offering him the one thing the papacy wants even more than freedom from encircling imperial armies, Jerusalem.
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