Richard I Penguin Monarchs

Asbridge, Thomas

£7.99

Richard I’s reign is both controversial and seemingly contradictory. One of England’s most famous medieval monarchs and a potent symbol of national identity, he barely spent six months on English soil during a ten-year reign and spoke French as his first language. Contemporaries dubbed him the ‘Lionheart’, reflecting a carefully cultivated reputation for bravery, prowess and knightly virtue, but this supposed paragon of chivalry butchered close to 3,000 prisoners in cold blood on a single day. And, though revered as Christian Europe’s greatest crusader, his grand campaign to the Holy Land failed to recover the city of Jerusalem from Islam. Seeking to reconcile this conflicting evidence, Thomas Asbridge’s incisive reappraisal of Richard I’s career questions whether the Lionheart really did neglect his kingdom.

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Publish Date: 25/04/2019

Description

‘Here is the English sovereign as a crusader, battling on the fringes of the known world; the warrior-king … imbued with the heart of a lion’

Even within his own lifetime Richard I, dubbed the ‘Lionheart’, attained a kind of semi-mythical status as a paragon of chivalry, yet his reign is both controversial and full of contradictions. Seeking to reconcile the conflicting evidence, Thomas Asbridge’s incisive reappraisal of Richard I’s career questions how the memory of his life came to be interwoven with myth.

Additional information

Weight 89 g
Dimensions 181 × 111 × 8 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

117 , 8 unnumbered of plates

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

942.032092 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K