John Lackland

John

 known as John Lackland

(born Dec. 24, 1167, Oxford, Eng.—died Oct. 18/19, 1216, Newark, Nottinghamshire) King of England (1199–1216). The youngest son of Henry II, he joined his brother Richard (later Richard I) in a rebellion against Henry (1189). John became lord of Ireland, and, when Richard was imprisoned in Germany on his way back from the Third Crusade, he tried to seize control of England (1193). On Richard's return, John was banished (1194), but the two were later reconciled. Crowned king in 1199, John lost Normandy (1204) and most of his other French lands in a war with Philip II (Philip Augustus). After Innocent III excommunicated him for refusing to recognize Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury, John was obliged to declare England a fief of the Holy See (1213). He launched a military campaign against France in 1214 but made no lasting gains. His heavy taxes and aggressive assertion of feudal privileges led to the outbreak of civil war (1215). The barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta, but the civil war continued until his death.

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John Lackland 

Born Dec. 24, 1167, in Oxford; died Oct. 19, 1216, in Newark. English king (ruled from 1199) of the Plantagenet dynasty. John was the youngest son of Henry II and was nicknamed Lackland because unlike his older brothers he was not given any lands in France.

As a result of an unsuccessful war with France (1202–04) John lost a considerable part of England’s possessions on the Continent. In 1207 he came into open confrontation with Pope Innocent III over his refusal to recognize the new archbishop of Canterbury appointed by the pope. After Innocent laid an interdict on England in 1208 and excommunicated John the following year, the latter completely submitted to the pope in 1213 and acknowledged himself as the pope’s vassal. The fiscal and political pressure that John exerted against the important feudal lords (barons) coupled with his openly arbitrary way of ruling and his unsuccessful foreign policy brought about a baronial rebellion in England in 1215. The rebellion was supported by the knights and the townspeople who were dissatisfied with the sharp increase in taxes. John was thus forced to sign the Magna Carta. After his refusal to abide by the charter the barons started a war against him in 1216, during the course of which he died.

REFERENCES

Petrushevskii, D.M. Ocherki iz istorii anglisskogo gosudarstva i obshchestva v srednie veka, 4th ed. Moscow, 1937.
Petit-Dutaillis, C. Feodal’naia monarkhiia vo Frantsii i v Anglii X–XIII vv. Moscow, 1938. (Translated from French.)

E. V. GUTNOVA