REALM DIVIDED: A Year in the Life of Plantagenet England

1215, the year of Magna Carta, was one of the most momentous in British history, ranking with 1066 as a watershed when everything changed. King John owned vast territories in France when he ascended the throne following the death of his brother Richard the Lionheart, but by 1215 they had all vanished. The loss of Normandy was a particular blow because many nobles owned territories and titles on both sides of the Channel and now they had to choose whether to be English or French. The ruling élite consisted of about 100 barons and their lives were seriously disrupted by John's extortionate tax demands in the spirit of his father Henry II, who had levied punitive charges on the nobility for services such as marriage. Meanwhile Pope Innocent III placed the English church under an interdict forbidding clergy to conduct church services. John's quarrel with the Pope began when they disagreed on the choice of Archbishop of Canterbury, with Innocent insisting on the appointment of Stephen Langton, a scholar in the tradition of the martyr Thomas Becket who had been murdered for his temerity in criticising John's father. John himself was excommunicated, but the inconvenience caused by the suspension of rites such as marriage finally led him to make peace with the Vatican. In 1213 John accepted the Pope as his feudal overlord, promising to stop pillaging the church and vowing to go on a crusade. This was the last straw for the barons, who went on the offensive beginning with the siege of Northampton and concluding with the Magna Carta, signed at Runnymede. The agreement only had two months' currency before Innocent intervened to nullify its conditions, and John died the following year. A highly readable history. 312pp, paperback, colour photos, feature boxes on 13th century life.