England during the Crusades
Henry I (1100-1135)
Henry technically should not have been king; the elder claim belonged to Robert of Normandy. But Robert was still on his way back from the First Crusade and Henry was on the spot, so he seized his chance. In order to seal support, he issued a proclamation at his coronation on August 5, 1100 making a number of promises. He promised the Church its liberty (without being overly-specific) and made a number of fairly specific promises to the barons of England. While he proceeded to ignore these promises as it suited him, his proclamation was cited a hundred years later at the time of the Magna Carta. For Henry, it was likely no more than an expedient, but later generations turned it into a precedent.
Probably the development for which Henry's reign is most famous lies in the area of law and royal administration. Under Henry developed the institution of itinerant justices: royal judges who toured the countryside, holding courts in every town and judging cases that affected the Crown. Another example is the Exchequer. Although this probably began under William Rufus, with Henry the Exchequer became something like a national office of the Treasury. The term refers to the checkerboard cloth that was spread over a table on which money was stacked, each square representing a different area of income. For the Exchequer was concerned mainly with the gathering of royal revenues. In other words, with Henry we begin to see royal government beginning actually to keep books on its income. This is further attested to by the fact that the Pipe Rolls first appear in 1130. The Pipe Rolls are the earliest surviving official government archives for the Middle Ages.
The Investiture Struggle that was playing out in Germany had its echoes in England. Henry quarrelled with Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The quarrels were mainly over minor matters, but they ended with Anselm taking refuge in France. He finally returned in 1107 and Henry acquiesced by giving up his right to invest bishops with the ring and staff.
Robert of Normandy never accepted Henry's rule. He rebelled, but in June 1106 at Tinchebrai Henry dealt Robert a resounding defeat. Robert was captured and kept a prisoner until his death in 1134. Thus did Henry re-unite England and Normandy, keeping England with an interest in the Continent. This, naturally, brought him into conflict with France, and Henry defeated Louis VI at Brémule in 1119.
Henry's son William was married to the daughter of Fulk of Anjou. Besides the king of France, the count of Anjou was Henry's main rival, so the marriage was an attempt to secure Normandy against a dangerous enemy. But William was drowned returning to England in the White Ship in 1120, leaving Henry with only one child, his daughter Matilda. She was married to Emperor Henry V. The Emperor died in 1125, though, and Matilda returned to England. Henry then married her to Geoffrey Plantagenet,
another of Fulk's sons, in 1128.
Fulk left Anjou in the spring of 1129, to marry Melisende, the heiress to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Almost at once, Geoffrey began scheming to take Normandy. In 1135, the year Henry died, Geoffrey invaded.