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Peter des Roches: An Alien in English Politics, 1205-1238. By Nicholas Vincent. [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series, Volume 31.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1996. Pp. xx, 543. $79.95.)
This biography of Peter des Roches, the French bishop of Winchester (1205-1238), is very much a political biography. In it, Nicholas Vincent shows that des Roches, servant of King John and chief advisor to his son, exemplified devotion to the Angevin Empire, both in its concatenation of continental and insular lands and in its style of governance, centered on royal vis et voluntas.Yet, as Vincent argues, even des Roches' dedication to the recovery of John's French lands faded as his English connections and interests grew, while the xenophobic rhetoric of the attacks on des Roches was largely a cover for factional interests. Time,...