Originally published in 1949. Lacking the warlike bluntness of his predecessor, Richard the Lionheart, John came to the throne of England at a time when economic forces in the realm were threatening to undermine the very basis of feudal power. The Reign of King John covers his attempts to adjust a political system to cope with this threat and at the same time to assert the hegemony of the monarchy over its chief rivals—the barons and the church—made his reign one of particular importance and significance in English history.

An illustrated portrait of English society in the year of Magna Carta, from best-selling author Dan Jones.

Magna Carta marked a watershed in the relations between monarch and subject and as such has long been central to English constitutional and political history. This volume uses it as a springboard to focus on social, economic, legal, and religious institutions and attitudes in the early thirteenth century. What was England like between 1199 and 1215? And, no less important, how was King John perceived by those who actually knew him? The essays here analyse earlier Angevin rulers and the effect of their reigns on John's England, the causes and results of the increasing baronial fear of the king, the "managerial revolution" of the English church, and the effect of the ius commune on English common law. They also examine the burgeoning economy of the early thirteenth century and its effect on English towns, the background to discontent over the royal forests which eventually led to the Charter of the Forest, the effect of Magna Carta on widows and property, and the course of criminal justice before 1215. The volume concludes with the first critical edition of an open letter from King John explaining his position in the matter of William de Briouze. Contributors: Janet S. Loengard, Ralph V. Turner, John Gillingham, David Crouch, David Crook, James A. Brundage, John Hudson, Barbara Hanawalt, James Masschaele

King John is one of those historical characters who needs little in the way of introduction. If readers are not already familiar with him as the tyrant whose misgovernment gave rise to Magna Carta, we remember him as the villain in the stories of Robin Hood. Formidable and cunning, but also cruel, lecherous, treacherous and untrusting. Twelve years into his reign, John was regarded as a powerful king within the British Isles. But despite this immense early success, when he finally crosses to France to recover his lost empire, he meets with disaster. John returns home penniless to face a tide of criticism about his unjust rule. The result is Magna Carta – a ground-breaking document in posterity, but a worthless piece of parchment in 1215, since John had no intention of honoring it. Like all great tragedies, the world can only be put to rights by the tyrant’s death. John finally obliges at Newark Castle in October 1216, dying of dysentery as a great gale howls up the valley of the Trent.

"1215 - the penultimate year of the reign of a king with the worst reputation of any in our history - saw England engulfed by crisis. Dan Jones's vivid account of the vicissitudes of feudal power politics and the workings of 13th-century government is interwoven with an exploration of the lives of ordinary people: how and where they worked, what they wore, what they ate, and what role the Church played in their lives."--Back cover.

A study of the personal religion of King John, presenting a more complex picture of his actions and attitude.