7. Death of Richard. 1199.—It was not only Richard's love for his old home which fixed him on the Continent. He knew that the weakest part of his dominions was there. His lands beyond sea had no natural unity. Normans did not love Angevins, neither did Angevins love the men of Poitou or Guienne. Philip was willingly obeyed in his own dominions, and he had all the advantage which his title of king of the French could give him. Richard fought desperately, and for the most part successfully, against the French king, and formed alliances with all who were opposed to him. He built on a rock overhanging the Seine above Les Andelys a mighty fortress—the Château Gaillard, or Saucy Castle, as he called it in jest. With characteristic haste he completed the building in a few months. "How fair a child is mine!" he called to his followers, "this child but a twelvemonth old." Other child he had none, and he had but the miserable John to look to to hold his dominions after he was gone. He did not live long enough to see whether his new castle could stand a siege. A peasant dug up a treasure on the land of the lord of Châlus in the Limousin. Richard claimed it as his right because he was the over-lord. On the refusal of the lord to surrender it he laid siege to Châlus. An arrow from the castle struck him on the shoulder. The wound rankled, and mortification followed. As Richard lay dying the castle surrendered, and the man who had aimed the fatal shot was brought before him. "What have I done to thee," asked Richard, "that thou shouldest slay me?" "Thou hast slain my father and two of my brothers with thy own hand," said the prisoner, "and thou wouldest fain have killed me too. Avenge thyself upon me as thou wilt. I will gladly endure the greatest torments thou canst devise, since I have seen thee on thy deathbed." Richard, generous to the last, bade his attendants set the prisoner free. They kept him till Richard was dead, and then tortured him to death.
Part of the choir of Ripon Cathedral: built during the last quarter of the twelfth century.
8. Church and State under the Angevin Kings.—During the forty-five years of the reigns of Richard and his father the chief feature of English history is the growth of the power of the state. There was more justice and order, and also more taxation, at the end of the period than at the beginning. During the same period the influence of the Church grew less. The character of Thomas's resistance to the king was lower than that of Anselm, and not long after Thomas's murder Henry indirectly regained the power which he had lost, and filled the sees with officials and dependents who cared little for the higher aims of religion. The evil consequences of making the Church dependent on the king were at least as great as those of freeing the political and social life of the clergy from the control of the State. Even monasticism ceased to afford a strong example of self-denial. The very Cistercians, who had begun so well, had fallen from their original purity. They were now owners of immense tracts of pasture-land, and their keenness in money-making had become notorious. They exercised great influence, but it was the influence of great landlords, not the influence of ascetics.
9. Growth of Learning.—The decay of asceticism was to some extent brought about by the opening of new careers into which energetic men might throw themselves. They were needed as judges, as administrators, as councillors. A vigorous literature sprung up in the reign of Henry II., but at the end of the reign most of it was connected with the court rather than with the monasteries. Henry's Justiciar, Ranulf de Glanvile, wrote the first English law-book. His Treasurer, Richard Fitz-Nigel, set forth in the Dialogus de Scaccario the methods of his financial administration, and also produced 'The Deeds of King Henry and King Richard.' William of Newburgh, indeed, the best historian of these reigns, wrote in a small Yorkshire monastery, but Roger of Hoveden and Ralph de Diceto pursued their historical work under the influence of the court. Still more striking is the universality of the intellectual inquisitiveness of Walter Map. On the one hand, in his De Nugis Curialium he chattered over the manners of his contemporaries, and in his satirical poems scourged the greed and vices of the clergy, whilst on the other hand he took a principal part in spreading a knowledge of the legend of the high-souled King Arthur and of the quest of the Holy Grail. Giraldus Cambrensis again, or Gerald of Wales, wrote on all sorts of subjects with shrewd humour and extensive knowledge.
10. The University of Oxford.—There was already in England a place where learning was cherished for its own sake. For some time there had been growing up on the Continent gatherings for the increase of learning, which ultimately were known as universities, or corporations of teachers and scholars. One at Bologna had devoted itself to the study of the civil or Roman law. Another at Paris gave itself to the spread of all the knowledge of the time. In these early universities there were no colleges. Lads, very poor for the most part, flocked to the teachers and lodged themselves as best they could. Such a university, though the name was not used till later, had been gradually forming at Oxford. Its origin and early history is obscure, but in 1186 Giraldus, wishing to find a cultivated audience for his new book on the topography of Ireland, read it aloud at Oxford, where, as he tells us, 'the clergy in England chiefly flourished and excelled in clerkly lore.' It appears that there were already separate faculties or branches of study, and persons recognised as doctors or teachers in all of them.