| You are here: | About>Education>Medieval History |
 | Medieval History |
|
|
|
Known as Richard the Lionhearted (or Lionheart, Lion-heart or Lion-hearted; from the French, Coeur de Lion) for his courage and prowess on the battlefield, Richard was the son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and the second king in the Plantagenet line.
Richard was far more interested in his holdings in France and in his Crusading endeavors than he was in governing England, where he spent about six months of his ten-year reign. In fact, he nearly depleted the treasury left by his father in order to fund his Crusade. Though he scored some successes in the Holy Land, Richard and his fellow Crusaders failed to meet the objective of the Third Crusade, which was to recapture Jerusalem from Saladin.
On his way home from the Holy Land in March of 1192, Richard was shipwrecked, captured, and handed over to Emperor Henry VI. A large portion of the 150,000-mark ransom was raised through heavy taxing of the people of England, and Richard was freed in February of 1194. Upon returning to England he had a second coronation to demonstrate that he still had control of the country, then promptly went to Normandy and never returned.
The next five years were spent in periodic warfare with King Philip II of France. Richard died from a wound inflicted when besieging the castle of Châlus over a recently-discovered hoard of gold. His marriage to Berengaria of Navarre had produced no children (possibly, it has been theorized, due to his homosexuality), and the English crown passed to his brother John.
Important Dates
Born: Sept. 8, 1157
Crowned king of England: Sept. 3, 1189
Captured: March, 1192
Freed from captivity: Feb. 4, 1194
Crowned again: April 17, 1194
Died: April 6, 1199
Dynastic Table
Medieval & Renaissance Monarchs of England
Use this table to see the progression of Kings and Queens from Egbert of Wessex in the ninth century to Elizabeth I in the sixteenth. Hyperlinks lead to entries in Who's Who.
On the Web
In Print
On Film
The link below will take you to a site where you can compare prices at merchants across the web. More in-depth info about the film may be found by clicking on to the film's page at one of the online merchants.
The Lion in Winter
Henry II (Peter O'Toole) must choose which of his three surviving sons will succeed him, and a vicious verbal battle ensues between himself and his strong-willed queen. Richard is portrayed by Anthony Hopkins (in his first feature film); Katharine Hepburn won an Oscar® for her portrayal of Eleanor.
Related Resources
The Crusades
Multilevel index on the religious wars, the people who fought them, and the ideologies that drove them.Medieval Britain
Sites that focus on general British medieval history, people, places, events, documents, the Norman Conquest, the Wars of the Roses, and other aspects of Britain in the Middle Ages.Medieval France
General history, people, places, maps and more about France in the Middle Ages.
|
|
|
Index |
or Role in Society |
Index |
|
Who's Who |
|
in Who's Who |
|
|