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A Taste for the Antique? Henry of Blois and the Arts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

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Summary

Having surveyed a considerable body of material relating to the life and achievements of Henry of Blois, Lena Voss turned her attention in the closing pages of her biography to the personality and character of her subject. While accepting that Henry's was an unusual and multi-faceted life, Voss expressed the view that the written record was so full of gaps and contradictions that to get anything like a rounded picture of him it was necessary to assemble the pieces like the tesserae of a mosaic. Henry is not alone in this, and whether or not we agree with Knowles that he was neither a Lanfranc nor a Grosseteste, he was one of the most notable and, for a time, one of the most powerful bishops to have held office in England during the twelfth century. Henry was, as Knowles had it, a ‘personality to be reckoned with’, and the author of the Gesta Stephani, though partial, may have spoken for others when he said that Henry was ‘reckoned to surpass all the great men in England in judgment and wisdom, and to be their superior in virtue and wealth’. Not all of his contemporaries were so charitable, however, and if some of Henry's schemes and actions appear to have been misjudged, his record of achievement leaves no doubt that he was an outstanding administrator, an assiduous diocesan, and a generous benefactor to the communities in his care.

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Anglo-Norman Studies 30
Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2007
, pp. 213 - 230
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2008

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