• DOI:10.2307/4048700
• Corpus ID: 159992034

Religious Patronage of Angevin Royal Administrators, c. 1170–1239 *

@article{Turner1986ReligiousPO,
  title={Religious Patronage of Angevin Royal Administrators, c. 1170–1239 *},
  author={Ralph V. Turner},
  journal={Albion},
  year={1986},
  volume={18},
  pages={1-21}
}

• R. Turner
• Published 1 April 1986
• History
• Albion

Ecclesiastical benefactions by English barons have provided topics for a number of scholars, but the professional civil servants, proto-bureaucrats, who first appeared in the twelfth century, are another group whose gifts to the Church deserve more study. In England, such men appear as early as Henry I's time, but they become more numerous in the reign of his grandson, Henry II. At first, such royal servants were men of all work, doing whatever the king assigned to them at the curia regis, in the counties, and abroad. By the last years of Henry II and in the reigns of his sons, however, some specialization was taking place, and this becomes easier to see in Henry III's early years. It is next to impossible to probe these royal administrators' minds. They left few letters, no personal recollections, and they earned only a few anecdotesmainly hostile-in the chronicles. For a number of years, I have been studying a group of fifty-two of these men, whose careers span the last third of the twelfth and the first third of the thirteenth centuries, chosen first chiefly because of their connection with the work of royal justice. They form a representative sample, ranging in rank from the justiciar to knights of the counties, from archbishops to men in minor orders, including roughly equal numbers of clergy and laity. They range from close associates of the king to largely local officials (see Appendix I). These royal officials are sometimes depicted as either ruthless plunderers of Church property or as superstitious purchasers of salvation. They were often both at the same time, yet they were not incapable of genuine religious feeling or charitable concern. A diligent search can produce some information about their devotional practices. The twelve who became bishops present special problems, for some of them retired from active royal service, and gifts made after they left court may reflect a changed outlook. Some evidence for the donations of two-thirds of the fifty-two survives. In addition, there is some evidence about their wills and their choice of burial-places (Appendix IV). I must confess failure, however, with 25 % (15 of 52) for whom I have no evidence whatsoever. The most solid evidence of religious feeling is the gifts that these administrators made to religious houses, especially establishing new houses. Twelve (23%) founded a total of twenty-six new religious houses (Appendix II). These twelve fit quite easily into the mold of the curiales, new men from knightly