`Like a Raging Lion': Richard the Lionheart's Anger during the Third Crusade in Medieval and Modern Historiography
Spencer, Stephen J (2017) `Like a Raging Lion': Richard the Lionheart's Anger during the Third Crusade in Medieval and Modern Historiography. The English Historical Review, 132 (556). pp. 495-532. ISSN 0013-8266
Abstract
Historians have almost universally characterised King Richard I of England, otherwise known as ‘the Lionheart’, as an intemperate hothead, whose anger was both uncontrollable and socially dysfunctional. This article seeks to test the evidential foundations of this longstanding view, and to explain its genesis, by analysing descriptions of Richard I’s anger in the narratives of the Third Crusade—narratives which have been foundational in formulating such assessments. It does not argue that Richard was a meek or tranquil king, or even that he was always in control of his passions. Rather, it contends that there exists a disparity between how most medieval chroniclers perceived Richard’s wrath and the evaluations of modern historians. The main conclusion reached is that the nature of the source material, which was not only polarised between the king’s supporters and detractors but also witnessed the incorporation of legendary material from an early stage, curtails any attempt to reconstruct the ‘reality’ of Richard’s temperament. After mapping the evolution of attitudes towards anger in the Middle Ages and scrutinising the twelfth- and thirteenth-century narrative accounts of the Lionheart’s wrath, the article seeks to explain why scholars have persisted in casting Richard as an individual who was unusually susceptible to irrational fits of rage and, in so doing, calls for greater sensitivity to the role of memory in future studies of medieval emotions.
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