The constitutional arrangement of December 1135, under which Stephen of Blois won England with the support of the Londoners and of the administration at Winchester, with unction from the archbishop of Canterbury, and with recognition from the pope, did not prevail, as all know. Eighteen years later, the Treaty of Winchester legitimized the dynastic transfer from the house of Blois to the house of Anjou. By its very nature, the treaty constituted an endorsement of the Angevin rebellion against King Stephen. In the theory and mechanisms by which it provided a legal basis for the ultimate transfer of government to Henry Fitz Empress, Winchester relied upon certain crucial ideas and institutions: hereditary succession; the church as a guarantor of social and political order; the legal force of conciliar decisions; and the bonds created by fealty and homage. Such notions are supported in one way or another in the writings of men who observed Siephen's passage from dynastic victory to defeat. These commentators are thus an important gauge of the constitutional thought of Stephen's reign and of the early part of Henry II's, particularly for the right of rebellion, and they provide a context for appreciating the constitutional settlement which terminated Stephen's reign. The literary style of these observers is also worth notice for its effect on the historiography of Stephen's reign, chiefly in its contribution to the hard-to-eradicate image of this nineteen-year period as “the anarchy.”

The remote and rather dreary reign of King Stephen recently has had great appeal to contemporary historians and several distinguished scholars have carefully analyzed it. Indeed, who would have thought that a study of medieval government in a troubled time, always interesting on its own terms, would seem so pertinent, especially to concerned Americans? Since the Watergate revelations, nearly everyone observed a declining confidence in our national leadership. Journalists, politicians, and private citizens continually asked whether the president had lost the ability to govern. Barons, bishops, and burgers discussed similar questions in King Stephen's time—in 1135, in 1139, in 1141, and in 1153—and yet their king and country survived. Our nation also surmounted its series of crises and the consoling lesson of both trying periods may well be that the salvation of necessary administrative institutions and the preservation of relative prosperity depend far more upon the loyalty, dedication, and service of barely visible, self-effacing governmental bureaucrats than it does upon any one leader's personal skill, principal advisors, or private morals.

Generations of young men have grown old safely categorizing King Stephen's days as “The Anarchy” and their professors still regale other eager students with the Peterborough chronicler's description of that time in England when “Christ and His angels slept” and “we suffered nineteen winters for our sins.”

King Stephen's reign has long been recognized as a crucial period for monasticism in England. Many authors have written about alleged anarchical conditions during those nineteen years, and scholars have done a great deal of work on twelfth century English monasticism; nevertheless, comparatively little attention has been paid to the impact of this supposed anarchy on the monastic establishment. This impact is the concern of this essay. Due to the limitation of space, I will confine myself to the material damages suffered by monastic houses during Stephen's reign and will offer an extended summary of my findings.

The traditional picture of anarchy in England during Stephen's reign is that the civil wars wreaked havoc with nearly all aspects of life and inflicted massive and long lasting material damages. Medieval writers—most memorably the Peterborough chronicler— emotionally depicted scenes of terror and devastation, and the majority of later scholars—most notably H. W. C. Davis—upheld the basic validity of this picture. During the past century, however, historians have somewhat modified the traditional view. Whereas most medieval writers described an England embroiled in internal warfare for nearly all of Stephen's nineteen year reign, modern scholars have realized that the area of active fighting was more limited and that actual warfare lasted less than half of the reign. Also, modern scholars have shown that many of the occurrences in Stephen's reign were not characterized by aimless chaos and confusion, but rather by purposeful actions directed towards specific ends.

To H. W. C. Davis, writing in 1905, Stephen's reign presented “a terrible picture of rapine, cruelty, and wanton insolence.” More recently scholars have called into question the notion of the nineteen years when England suffered for its sins and “Christ and his saints slept.” Nowadays scholars of Stephen's reign commonly put “anarchy” in quotes in an effort to dissociate themselves from an old fashioned notion which they nevertheless continue ta find useful. Sir Frank Stenton, A. L. Poole and others have argued that warfare under Stephen was limited to specific periods and places and that the horror stories of contemporary writers are exaggerated or relevant only to particular local conditions. Most recently, H. A. Cronne and T. A. M. Bishop have both observed that Henry Ts administrative system survived Stephen's wars, at least after a fashion, and John Appleby has concluded that although Stephen was not the best of kings he was probably the best available at the time.

Each of the three foregoing essays contributes in some way to the problem of Stephen's anarchy. Robert Patterson has provided a valuable study of the application of medieval constitutional principles in the politics and polemical literature of the reign. Most of what he says is both illuminating and persuasive. And although he refrains from relating his findings directly to the anarchy issue, nevertheless certain connections can perhaps be made. Patterson's essay suggests to me that an age given to rational explanations of things—the age of Abelard and Gratian—was as capable of rationalizing domestic violence as theology and law.

In 1079, a few months after his consecration as abbot of Bec, St. Anselm set off for England to look after the abbey's lands there. In the course of his journey he stopped to visit Lanfranc, his predecessor as prior of Bec and now archbishop of Canterbury. Milo Crispin reports that when Anselm was returning to bed one night after Matins he found a gold ring in his possession. Crossing himself to determine whether it was some kind of vision sent by the devil to tempt him, he found that the ring was no illusion. After showing it to all the officials of Christ Church, Canterbury, and failing to find the owner, he sold it, giving the proceeds to the Christ Church monks. Lanfranc, hearing the story, interpreted it as a sign that Anselm would one day succeed him as archbishop just as Anselm had earlier succeeded him as prior of Bec.

Some years later, when the archbishopric was offered to Anselm, he pubicly opposed the appointment, repeatedly denying that he desired the office, and writing numerous letters refuting allegations that he was guilty of cupidity. Modern scholars, taking Anselm's protestations at face value, have cast him as a reluctant archbishop who would have preferred the quiet life at Bec to the storm at Canterbury. But is their conclusion necessarily true? Reluctance to assume important prelacies was an old medieval tradition, and one that Anselm evidently followed. An Anglo-Norman bishopric was a high and lucrative political position, often given as a reward for service to the king or duke. It was eagerly sought by careerists who desired to enrich themselves with the substantial lands and incomes that accompanied the episcopal office. The archbishopric of Canberbury was not only the highest prelacy in England, but one of the kingdom's three richest fiefs, lay or ecclesiastical. For Anselm to express a desire for such an office would be to compromise his saintly reputation and to cast himself in the mold of an ambitious courtier rather than as a servant of the Church. But certain of An-selm's actions suggest that in fact he aspired to the archbishopric, expecting to fulfil Lanfranc's prophecy and, as Milo Crispin implies, to follow in his footsteps.

William of Malmesbury's Historia Novella is an apologia for his pro-Angevin patron, Robert Earl of Gloucester, the premier supporter of the Empress Maud in the civil war with king Stephen (1135-1154). Stephen's failure to secure Robert of Gloucester's full backing weakened the reign from the outset. Robert, one of the two or three greatest landholders in the Anglo-Norman world, was among the last and most reluctant magnates to render Stephen homage, and among the first to turn openly against him. The earl of Gloucester became the model for the lay and ecclesiastical pro-Angevin nobility, and William of Malmesbury's panegyric of him guarantees the Historia Novella its place of importance among the sources for Stephen's reign.

Professor Robert B. Patterson has recently argued that the Historia Novella is inaccurate, mendacious, and unreliable, and that its author is unworthy of being called an historian. But a close analysis of Patterson's allegations shows that William's account of earl Robert's actions is consistent with evidence from charters and other chronicles. William of Malmesbury's bias lends interest to his account without seriously compromising its accuracy. The Historia Novella, William of Malmesbury's final work, is a characteristic product of his careful research and scholarship.

Patterson maintains that Robert of Gloucester did not support Maud until 1138, after the earl formally renounced his allegiance to Stephen. In fact, however, Robert was active in his half-sister's service as early as 1126.

Count Geoffrey Plantagenet's sudden death in September 1151 came at a most inopportune time for his eighteen-year-old son, Henry. Having just concluded a peace with their French overlord in which Henry's recent investiture with Normandy was formally recognized by Louis VII, father and son were about to launch a combined Angevin-Norman invasion of England. This invasion, it was hoped, would finally settle the issue of the English succession, reuniting the Anglo-Norman state under Henry l's intended heir. When this long-awaited goal was achieved, the young king/duke would rule over England and Normandy, while his father continued in the governance of Anjou. But the Count's illness and impending death brought forth a more immediate and unexpected issue: the Angevin succession.