The Will of King Henry II of England

     Revised Regesta Regni (RRR) document #1097 is the will of Henry II of England indicating the large sums of money to be divided among the military orders of the holy land as well as the defense and wellbeing of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The source for this entry in the RRR is noted as the Recueil des actes d’Henri II, specifically, the act listed under the title of Testament de Henri II (The Will of Henry II).[1] The Recueil notes that while the original document has been lost, two extant sources attest this documents historicity, those of Gervais of Canterbury, found in his Chronicle of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard,[2] and the Foedera by Thomas Rymer.[3] However, it is noted that the main source used in the Recueil is that of Gervais with Rymer’s work only used for some small variants.
     Gervais begins his account with Henry arriving at Waltham with a host of retainers and clergy ordering his will to be put into writing and notarized with his seal along with the corroboration of the various nobles present including barons, representatives of his sons, and the archbishops of Oxford, and Derby, as well as Randulf of Glanville, Justiciar of England. 
     The chronicle then goes on to recount, in full, the words recorded in Henry’s will. These include the disbursement of 5000 silver marks[4] to the Templars and Hospitallers as well as another 5000 each for the general defense of Jerusalem, to be utilized by the heads of the aforementioned orders, and to various religious organizations operating within the Kingdom of Jerusalem to be utilized by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. This is then followed by a listing of other various religious orders within England, Normandy, and Anjou and their respective disbursements and closes with a command to recognize these disbursements as well as a threat of excommunication, via a letter of approval from the pope, of any who dispute the contents of the will.[5]
     Gervais then mentions that three copies of this document were written, signed, and affixed with the king’s seal and placed in the church at Canterbury, the royal treasury, and the treasury at Winton.[6]
       Noting that all three of the original manuscripts mentioned by Gervais of Canterbury seem to be lost, it is difficult to determine the veracity of this document, however when comparing the two existing sources, and their general agreement, it is possible to draw certain conclusions. 
    Thomas Rymer’s Foedera is a collection of treaties and documents produced by the English Crown with little commentary. The document in question is a copy of from an unspecified old manuscript (as evidenced by notation in the marginalia),[7] written in Latin, reflecting the official nature of the document as well as its trans-national nature (not only were the nobility of England concerned, but also those of France, the Pope, as well as religious orders in England, France, and Jerusalem). Latin would serve well to facilitate understanding across these multilingual groups.
         The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury is a chronicle of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I. This chronicle was meant to be distributed and read by future kings and nobles, and thus, to maintain its readability, Latin was used.
     Considering that both a collection of official documents and the recounting in a chronicle largely agree on how Henry’s estate was to be divided as well as the vast time difference between the two (Gervais writing in the late 12th Century and Rymer compiling in the mid 18th Century), it could be concluded that they were working from the same manuscript and therefore the document did exist at some point.
       As for its importance on the crusades, this document shows the value that the Kings of England placed on both the defense and wellbeing of the Crusader States (specifically the Kingdom of Jerusalem. When looking at the breakdown of his bequeathments, the amount of silver marks donated to religious organizations for the defense and support of the Kingdom of Jerusalem is nearly equivalent to the amount donated to all of the religious organization in England and France combined (20000 marks to Jerusalem, 20800 marks to England and France). This would indicate that the Crown of England had a vested interest in the success of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It is also peculiar to note that while much is set aside for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the crusader States of Tripoli and Antioch are notably absent from this will (the County of Edessa was not mentioned as it had been captured by the Zengids decades prior).

​[1]Henry II, “Testament de Henri II.” in Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle and Élie Berger (Paris: Klincksieck, 1927), 219-221.
[2]Gervais of Canterbury, The historical works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. William Stubbs (London: Longman & Co, 1879) 297-300.
[3]Thomas Rymer, “Hoc est testamentum illistrissimi Regis Henrici Secundi Angliae.” in Foedera (London: J. Tonson, 1726), 57-58.
[4]Post Norman Conquest, a silver mark was worth approximately 160 pennies. A substantial sum considering the purchasing power of 5 pennies in 10th C. England was a sheep. For more information about early medieval coins and purchasing power see Henry Dunning Macleod’s A Dictionary of Political Economy (459) and Rory Naismith’s Money and Coinage in the Middle Ages (184-185).
[5]Gervais, The Historical Works, 220-221
[6]Gervais, The Historical Works, 221
[7]Rymer, Foedera 57

​By Benjamin Hausman, MA Student of Medieval Studies at Fordham University