[Artemisia] Richard the Lionheart

[rcfaevans at comcast.net]

There are several reasons for Richard's popularity, but one must first remove 21st Century concepts and think in terms of England and Europe at the time of His rule.

First, Richard was a warrior-king.  At that time, a King of England had to be at least reasonably competent on the battlefield and as an individual warrior.  Richard was exceedingly good at both.  From the perspective of the Peerage, this was enormously important.  (Several Kings before and after Richard were forced to abdicate or were killed out-of-hand because they were poor warriors.  One of the issues that Henry VIII had to deal with was that this idea of Warrior-King was beginning to die off.  Henry did not believe it and so felt that England would be plunged into civil war if a male heir was not produced.  We all know now that Elizabeth I was arguably the greatest monarch of England and was not a Warrior-Queen.  Times change....)

Second, Richard was a great supporter of the Crusades, and therefore the Church.  Since the Church represented 95% of the literate people in Europe at that time, the Church wrote the histories.  Richard was very favorably reflected in these histories.

Ryryd

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Tamar Black Sea <tamar at coteduciel.org> 

> Greetings Everyone, 
> 
> My two daughters are homeschooled and are doing a unit on the Crusades 
> and Richard the Lionheart. There is an essay portion with-in each unit 
> and one of the questions was a deceptively simple little question about 
> Richard the Lionheart's legacy in English history. I thought we could 
> whip out an answer in 10 minutes. I was wrong. Days later, we find 
> ourselves still discussing the question. 
> 
> I would love to hear in-put from anyone out there who has an interest in 
> this subject. The question was: 
> 
> "Why do you think Richard the Lionheart has always been so popular when 
> he accomplished so little?" 
> 
> Any thoughts? 
> 
> YIS, 
> Tamar 
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