Longnon, Jean, and Raymond Cazelles. The Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry. New York:
Braziller, 1969.
Meiss, Millard. French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth Century and
the Patronage of the Duke. 2nd ed. 2 vols. London: Phaidon, 1969.
——, and Elizabeth H.Beatson. The Belles Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry. New York: Braziller,
1974.
Thomas, Marcel. The Grandes Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry. New York: Braziller, 1971.
JOHN I LACKLAND
(1167–1216). King of England. The youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine,
John acceded to the English throne in 1199, after the death of his brother Richard. He was
immediately confronted with the difficulty of securing English control over Maine,
Anjou, and Touraine against the claims of his nephew and rival for the crown, Arthur I,
duke of Brittany. The struggle ended in victory for John; as set out in the Treaty of Le
Goulet in May 1200, he was acknowledged heir to all continental possessions of his
father and brother in return for his recognition of the king of France as his overlord. But
following his marriage later that year to Isabelle d’Angoulême, her spurned fiancé,
Hugues X de Lusignan, appealed to Philip II Augustus for redress, and the French king
summoned John to appear before his court. When John refused, Philip declared forfeit his
continental possessions and launched an assault upon Normandy. John’s efforts to retain
hold of Normandy were thwarted by the defection of the Norman barons to Philip, and in
December 1203 he returned to England to reconsider strategy and gather his resources.
But Philip’s capture of ChâteauGaillard, a key stronghold, in March 1204 dealt a major
blow to his plans, and the rest of Normandy quickly fell, followed by John’s remaining
possessions with the exception of portions of Aquitaine. In an expedition in 1206, John
regained Poitou, and he spent the following eight years plotting his return to the
Continent to take back the rest of his former lands, during which time he built up a key
alliance with the Holy Roman emperor Otto of Brunswick. In 1214, he launched his
attack from Poitou while Otto invaded from Flanders. But John soon found his expedition
collapsing for lack of support, while his hopes were dealt a final blow with the defeat of
his allies at the Battle of Bouvines in July 1214. All that now effectively remained to the
English crown in France were the lands of Gascony in the southwest.
Whether due to ill fortune or to his own incompetence, John’s reign proved the turning
point in the efforts of the French kings to break up the Angevin empire and extend their
control over the territories of France. In addition, as a consequence of John’s defeat at
Bouvines the Capetian dynasty emerged as the strongest in Europe, a position it would
maintain for another century.
Jan Ryder
[See also: BOUVINES; CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD; GISORS; PHILIP II AUGUSTUS]
Painter, Sidney. The Reign of King John. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1949.
Powicke, F.M. The Loss of Normandy, 1189–1204: Studies in the History of the Angevin Empire.
2nd ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1961.
Warren, W.L. King John. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 950