A Historical and Diplomatic Introduction to the Charters of King Henry II, 1154-1189

我打算写一篇介绍亨利二世在世的3000封信件和宪章的文章。这里收集的材料长达200万字，来自近400个档案馆和数万份手稿，目前分散在英国、爱尔兰、法国、北欧和美国。它包括中世纪英国、爱尔兰和法国历史的一些最重要的书面证据：例如，克拉伦登宪法(从它产生了国王和他的大主教托马斯·贝克特之间的巨大争端)，或国王的审判(在许多方面，第一部法律法规，从它产生了英语世界的大多数普通法制度，反过来，部分反应，部分模仿，产生了大宪章)。没有这样一本亨利二世的书信和宪章，毫不夸张地说，我们对国王、他的宫廷、他的法律、他的“帝国”、他的教会、他的妻子和家庭、他的个人和政治交易的了解仍然非常不完整。由于亨利二世的统治本身被认为是英法历史上宪政和政治发展的关键，这里的差距是非常显著的。提交的文件中有近1000份以前从未发表过。1909年，也就是几乎恰好一个世纪前，伟大的法国历史学家利奥波德·德莱尔为他现在收集的3000本宪章中的800本写了一篇长达500页的《导言》。到那时为止，德莱尔的研究是对中世纪宪章体系发表的最详细和最有启发性的研究。例如，它证明了在国王的头衔中引入了一种特殊形式的单词‘上帝的恩典’(因此，‘英格兰的亨利二世国王’变成了‘亨利二世，上帝的恩典’)，尽管表面上只是出于古代的考虑，但实际上是确定亨利数百份宪章的日期的关键，否则不可能分配到1154年到1189年之间的任何确定的日期，这是他统治的外部界限。德莱尔的“介绍”也是重建亨利二世宫廷的人事、运动以及历史和政治关切的根本。然而，一个世纪过去了，Delisle的“介绍”迫切需要替换。它只涵盖了现在收集的证据中的一小部分(3000份宪章中的800份左右)，并且可以通过多种方式加以改进。它几乎没有关注亨利二世权力的地理分布，而是关注法律和立法、大法官办公室(国王的信件和宪章实际写在其中的办公室)、国王的印章(或者更确切地说，因为我们现在知道至少有三个印章，而Delisle只知道一个)等主题。此外，我们的新证据必须放在盎格鲁-诺曼皇家宪章的其他版本的背景下，包括盎格鲁-诺曼国王和12世纪主教的那些版本(所谓的英国圣公会章程系列)，这些在Delisle写的时候是根本无法获得的。如果没有这样的介绍，出版亨利二世宪章的版本将更像是生产一台没有启动或维护说明的伟大机器。亨利二世宪章的版本，以及这里提出的引言，代表了对12世纪英国、法国和爱尔兰历史的重大贡献，所有这些领域都被植物王权的动态力量从根本上改变了。

I intend to write an introduction to the 3000 surviving letters and charters of King Henry II. The body of materials here assembled runs to two million words culled from nearly 400 archives and tens of thousands of manuscripts now scattered across the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, northern Europe and the USA. It includes some of the most significant written evidences for medieval English, Irish and French history: for example, the constitutions of Clarendon (from which sprang the great dispute between the King and his archbishop, Thomas Becket), or the King's assizes (in many respects the first statutes in law, from which springs most of the common law system of the English-speaking world, and from which in turn, in part in reaction, in part in imitation, sprang the making of Magna Carta). Without such an edition of Henry II's letters and charters, it is no exaggeration to state that our knowledge of the King, his court, his laws, his 'empire', his Church, his wife and family, his personal and political dealings, remains woefully incomplete. Since Henry II's reign is itself regarded as pivotal in the constitutional and political development of Anglo-French history, the gap here is a highly significant one. Nearly 1000 of the documents presented have never before been published. In 1909, almost exactly a century ago, the great French historian, Leopold Delisle produced a massive 500 page 'Introduction' to his edition of 800 of the 3000 charters now collected. Delisle's was, to that date, the most detailed and illuminating study ever published of a body of medieval charters. It demonstrated, for example, that a particular form of words 'Dei gratia' ('By God's grace') introduced into the King's title ( so that 'Henry II King of the English' became 'Henry II, by God's grace, King of the English'), although of apparently no more than antiquarian concern, was in fact the key to establishing the dates of several hundred of Henry's charters, otherwise impossible to assign to any definite date between 1154 and 1189, the outside limits of his reign. Delisle's 'Introduction' was also fundamental in reconstructing the personnel, the movements and the historical and political concerns of Henry II's court. A century later, however, and Delisle's 'Introduction' is badly in need of replacement. It covers only a small portion (800 or so of the 3000 charters) of the evidences now collected, and can be improved upon in numerous ways. It devotes hardly any attention to the geographical spread of Henry II's power, to such themes as law and lawmaking, the physical dispositions of the chancery (the office in which the king's letters and charters were physically written), the King's seal (or rather 'seals' since we now know of at least three seals, where Delisle knew only one). Furthermore, our new evidences have to be set in the context of other editions of Anglo-Norman royal charters, including those of the Anglo-Norman kings and of twelfth-century bishops (the so-called English Episcopal Acta series) which were simply unavailable at the time that Delisle wrote. Without such an introduction, to publish the edition of Henry II's charters will be rather like producing a great machine with no instructions as to start up or maintenance. The edition of Henry II's charters, and the introduction here proposed, represent a major contribution to the history of twelfth-century England, France and Ireland, all of which realms were altered fundamentally by the dyanamic force that was Plantagenet kingship.