I included a minibibliography in the Lionheart acknowledgments for the first time, and this was so well received by my readers that I am going to continue the practice. Obviously, I cannot list all of the books that I consulted, but at least I can cite those that I found most helpful in my research for A King’s Ransom. The gold standard for Ricardian biographies remains John Gillingham’s Richard I, published in 1999 by Yale University Press. Dr Gillingham has written several books about Richard, including Richard Coeur de Lion: Kingship, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth Century, which contains interesting articles about Richard and Berengaria, Richard’s death at Chalus, and his military skills. Dr. Gillingham’s academic article “The Kidnapped King: Richard I in Germany, 1192–1194,” published in the German Historical Institute of London Bulletin 30 (2008), was invaluable to me in establishing the chronology and details of Richard’s captivity, as was Hans Eberhard Mayer’s “A Ghost Ship called Frankenef: King Richard I’s Germany Itinerary,” English Historical Review, Vol. 115, No. 460 (2000). The most comprehensive source for the murder of the Bishop of Liege and Heinrich’s alleged involvement in it is “The Election and Assassination of Albert of Louvain, Bishop of Liege, 1191–92,” by Raymond H. Schmandt, Speculum, Vol. 42, No. 4 (1967). The Social Politics of Medieval Diplomacy: Anglo-German Relations (1066–1307) by Joseph P. Huffman, published by the University of Michigan Press, is also recommended. For my readers fortunate enough to read German, there is the biography by Ulrike Kessler, which I mentioned earlier in this note. The best source in English for Duke Leopold’s role in Richard’s abduction is A History of Medieval Austria, by A. W. A. Leeper, published by Oxford University Press (1941).
I already discussed biographies of Richard I in the Lionheart acknowledgments, but I am going to repeat the titles here for the benefit of new readers. Lionel Landon’s The Itinerary of King Richard I was a blessing for a writer as obsessive-compulsive about historical detail as I am. The Reign of Richard Lionheart: Ruler of the Angevin Empire, 1189–1199, by Ralph Turner and Richard R. Heiser, has a very interesting concluding chapter called “Richard in Retrospect,” which analyzes the way his reputation has fluctuated over the centuries. Kate Norgate’s Richard the Lionheart, published in 1924, has stood the test of time surprisingly well. I also recommend Richard Coeur de Lion in History and Myth, edited by Janet Nelson; The Legends of King Richard Coeur de Lion: A study of Sources and Variations to 1600, by Bradford Broughton; and The Plantagenet Empire, 1154–1224, by Martin Aurell, translated by David Crouch. And to quote a passage from the Lionheart acknowledgments: since so many of my readers have seen the wonderful but historically inaccurate The Lion in Winter, here are two excellent books about medieval sexuality: The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages, by Pierre J. Payer, and Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto Others, by Ruth Mazo Karras. I also recommend Ennobling Love by C. Stephen Jaeger, University of Pennsylvania Press (1999).
My favorite book about Richard’s mother remains Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, edited by Bonnie Wheeler. We still do not have the “definitive” biography of Eleanor, but she does not lack for biographers, including Ralph Turner, Regine Pernoud, Jean Flori, D. D. R. Owen, Marion Meade, and Amy Kelly, although the last two authors’ conclusions about the Courts of Love have been contradicted by more recent studies. I also recommend The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France Between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries, edited by Marcus Bull and Catherine Leglu, and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Courtly Love, and the Troubadours, by Ffiona Swabey.
I have always been surprised that there has been no biography written of Richard’s chancellor, William de Longchamp, called by his French name in A King’s Ransom, for he was an important figure during Richard’s reign. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered that he was the subject of a dissertation by David Bruce Balfour: “William Longchamp: Upward Mobility and Character Assassination in Twelfth-Century England.” I highly recommend this work for anyone interested in Longchamp and the ways in which propaganda becomes accepted as fact over the course of time. While acknowledging the chancellor’s flaws and errors of judgment, the author convincingly debunks the scurrilous stories that have tarnished Longchamp’s reputation, including the oft-quoted one in which Eleanor was alleged to have said she’d not trust her grandsons to the chancellor’s care.
I am not going to include books about the Albigensian Crusade since that occurred after the events of A King’s Ransom, but I will recommend one, Joseph R. Strayer’s The Albigensian Crusades, republished in 1995 by the University of Michigan Press, for this is an excellent account of this sad chapter in medieval history, well researched, well written, and utterly compelling.
The best resource about the Damsel of Cyprus remains the article published in Byzantion 38 (1968), pages 123–179, by W. H. Rudt de Collenberg, “L’Empereur Issac de Chypre et sa Fille.”