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February 25, 2008

King John, Sharia and England

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

King John, Sharia and England

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, recently mused about sharia law in Britain on BBC radio. He suggested that having only one system of law was "a danger". His comments sparked outrage, and numerous articles appeared, ostensibly "explaining" sharia. Many of these were patronizing or inaccurate, attempting like Williams to avoid the plain fact that in marriage, Muslim law discriminates against women.

In one article from the Guardian, Elizabeth Stewart mentioned briefly that in 1213, King John offered to become Muslim and submit Britain to the rule of sharia law. Stewart wrote: "But the Moroccan ruler decided that a king who was prepared to betray his own religion and subjects would probably not make a good ally, and turned him down."

This episode allegedly happened in 1213, two years before the unpopular monarch was forced to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede on June 19, 1215.

The story was taken up again by Graham Stewart in the Times more than a week later. The story is better known in the Muslim world than it is in Britain. Even in the 19th century, when study of Britain's Medieval period was more popular than now, historians mentioned that the story was little-known.

The British Embassy in Rabat, Morocco, states on its website: " Morocco and Britain have longstanding political and trading links. Diplomatic relations date back to at least 1213 AD, when King John of England dispatched envoys to seek the support of Mohammed El-Nasir, Morocco's fourth Almohad ruler. It seems that Mohammed El-Nasir was not impressed by what he heard of the English King, and informed the envoys that King John was unworthy of an alliance with him."

So what is the background of this tale, and does it have validity? The earliest mention of this delegation to Morocco is made by the historian Matthew Paris, a Benedictine monk. Paris wrote a massive history of the world in several volumes, a history that started with Creation and continued until his present day.

Paris drew many details of King John's life and times, such as the signing of Magna Carta, from the writings of another monk historian, Roger of Wendover, Prior of Belvoir, who died in 1236. Roger wrote a chronicle called "Flores Historarium" ("Flowers of History"), but no mention of King John's mission to Morocco is mentioned here.

King John's Reign

King John's reign was an unhappy one. He was born in 1167, the youngest of Henry II's sons. When Henry died in 1189, he left no lands to John, even though he was his favorite son. This led to John being called "John Lackland" by his peers, a nickname which would later stick to John after he became monarch in 1199, as he lost several territories in France during his reign.

Historical romances have treated John's elder brother Richard favorably. Richard I ("Coeur de Lion" or Lionheart) was a fine warrior but in many ways a bad king. He was anti-semitic and banned Jews from his coronation, leading to massacres of Jews in London. Richard gave John land and titles. Henry II had brought in a tax called the "Saladin tithe", to cover the costs of sending troops to recapture Jerusalem, which had fallen to Saladin's armies in 1187. (The fall of Jerusalem is the subject of the movie "Kingdom of Heaven").

In all of Richard's reign, he spent only six months in England and much of this time was spent raising taxes. The Third Crusade had some victories but failed in its objective to recapture Jerusalem. On Richard's return he was captured by Leopold, Duke of Austria in 1192 and imprisoned by Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. He was freed in 1194 after a ransom was paid. Once freed, Richard was away fighting the King of France, Philip Augustus. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, ruled in his stead. Richard was killed by an arrow while attacking the castle of Chaluz.

John had unsuccessfully tried to seize power from Richard in 1194 while the latter was a prisoner, but was subsequently pardoned. The fierce system of taxation introduced to pay for the Third Crusade would lead to runaway inflation by the time John was made king. Richard's battles with the French king would kindle conflicts of interest among the nobles in northern France who managed part of the Angevin/Plantagenet monarch's territories. Hubert Walter supported John's ascension to the throne, and as Lord Chancellor he kept England under some administrative and financial control. After his death on July 13, 1205, John's problems escalated.

The successor to Hubert Walter as Archbishop of Canterbury created a rift between English bishops and monks of Christ Church, the cathedral monastery at Canterbury. The monks wanted one of their own, Reginald, to become Archbishop, and John and the bishops wanted John de Frey (John de Gay). Both were elected by their supporters, but Pope Innocent III declared both elections invalid and instead chose Stephen Langton. On June 17, 1207, Innocent inaugurated Langton in Viterbo. John would not let Langton enter the country, and seized the property of the monks who had opposed him.

In 1207, John decided to tax the clergy. In the north of England in particular, Cistercian abbeys held massive lands, and used profits from farming and mining to increase their wealth. Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, led a clerical rebellion against John and had to flee the country.

On March 24, 1208, Innocent issued an interdict, which meant that all churches were locked. No services were held except for baptisms and confessions of the dying. The following year, Innocent excommunicated John. John responded with attacks upon church leaders and property, and Innocent officially deposed him in 1212. To ensure the deposition Innocent ordered Philip Augustus, King of France, to carry it out, continuing the war between England and France.

John's problems with the Angevin territories in France had started in 1202 when his nephew Arthur was murdered. The population in Brittany blamed John and staged a rebellion. John mounted several war campaigns in northern France, raising taxes to pay for these doomed endeavors. By 1206 he had lost control of Normandy, Anjou, Maine and parts of Poitou.

On May 13, 1213, John surrendered England to the Pope as a fiefdom of the Papacy. In the same year Stephen Langton finally returned to England to take up the role of Archbishop of Canterbury. After compensation was made to the Church, the interdict was lifted on June 29, 1214.

The religious crisis had weakened John and in May 1215, a civil war broke out with the barons, who seized London. Langton sided with the barons when they forced John to sign the Magna Carta in June of the same year. Innocent excommunicated the barons, suspended Langton and ordered him to remain abroad. Langton did not return to Britain until 1218, after John had died.

John died as a fugitive. The barons had invited Prince Louis of France to fight their cause, offering him the throne of England as a reward for victory. John was working his way around the eastern coast of England, by the tidal mud flats of the Wash. Here, on October 12, 1216, his baggage train carrying his personal treasure sank in the mud. Roger of Wendover wrote that John's "treasures, precious vessels and all the other things which he loved with so much care" were swallowed up by "bottomless whirlpools." The king made his way to Swineshead in Lincolnshire, where he died a few days later of a fever.

Matthew Paris' Account

The original account of John's sending a team to Morocco and offering to subject Britain to sharia rule was written long after these supposed events. Matthew Paris (c1200 to 1259) would have barely begun puberty when the envoy was sent to Morocco.

The full text (in Latin) can be found online at Stanford University's Medieval and Modern Thought Text Digitization Project. It is contained in Volume II of the Chronica Majora, on pages 559 to 564 (618 to 623 of the pdf document). The section is entitled: "Qualiter rex desperans miserit ad admiralium Murmelin".

An English translation from 1924 begins: "How the king in despair sent to the Amir ul-Muminin

Which, when the said envoys had secretly received, they arrived at the court of the said prince. They found a few armed men at the first gate guarding the inner approaches with drawn swords. At the second entrance (courtyard) to the palace they found soldiers armed to the fist and smarter than the former ones, and as one might judge, stronger and more noble than the others. In the second entrance of the inner palace they found what were apparently more powerful, more ferocious, and more numerous soldiers than in the first. When they were quietly ushered in, by permission of the amir himself (for their great king is called admiralius) the envoys, on behalf of their king that is of England, saluted respectfully and explained fully the reason of their coming, delivering a royal letter, which was clearly translated by an interpreter who had been called in. This having ben understood, the king closed the book he had been perusing...."

The story is described in brief in a book from 1842, "The Church History of Britain, From the Birth of Jesus" by Thomas Fuller, prependary of Sarum. He wrote: "King John, thus distressed, sent a base degenerous, and unchristian-like embassage to Admiralius Mermelius, a Mahometan king of Morocco, then very puissant, and possessing a great part of Spain; offering him, on condition he would send him succour, to hold the kingdom of England as a vassal from him, and to receive the law of Mahomet. The Moor, marvellously offended with his offer, told the ambassadors, that he lately had read Paul's epistles, which for the matter liked him very well, save only that Paul once renounced that faith wherein he was born and the Jewish profession: wherefore he neglected King John, as devoid both of piety and policy, who would love his liberty, and disclaim his religion: a strange tender, if true."

The Almohad king Mohamed el-Nasir (Muhammad an-Nasir, also called Mohammed III) ruled from 1199 to 1213 (or 1214), and was succeeded by Youssef II, who ruled until 1223. In July 1212, the year before the emissaries went to court him, Mohamed el-Nasir had been defeated in southern Spain by an alliance of Christian princes. The battle was called the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa by Christians, and the Battle of Al-'uqab by Muslims. It is unlikely that John would have sought the protection of a king who was militarily weakened, especially when John was facing the wrath of the Papacy and the entire Holy Roman Empire.

The Moroccan king is not specifically named by Matthew Paris. The titles given to him are not personal names. "Admiralius Murmelius" appears to means admiral or Emir Mirmelius (King of Africa). Miramumelinus appears to be a corruption of Emir el Muminin or "the commander of the faithful". This title was usually used to denote a Caliph, and in Spanish chronicles, the term "Miramamolin" was used to describe the Almohad rulers, who were also perceived as Caliphs. It is doubtful that Paris meant Nasir's successor Youssef, who was far less powerful.

Roger of Wendover made a brief mention of the King of Morocco (an-Nasir) in his "Flowers of History", stating in an appendix (my rough translation from the Latin): "In those days the king of Marroch then ruled thirty and numerous more armies of pagans, among which it was asserted there were six ten times a hundred thousand, storming out of Africa to land at Spain, ruling the land of Spain, and later provinces beyond, in time it will be heard that the Crusaders' general will make war on them, of which Richard, king of the great English, whose fame fills the whole Orient and even will terrify many Africans, of whom it is noted that he was taken and imprisoned and bartered, and who then prepares to go back to war against the King of France. All, therefore, in disbelief are made to retreat to their own lands."

Graham Stewart wrote in the Times that Matthew Paris was "a propagandist, intent on misrepresenting the King's position. On the other hand, he claimed an impeccably placed source for the story. Paris was a monk at St Albans Abbey where the guardian was Robert of London, supposedly one of King John's Moroccan posse."

The only other Medieval author to mention the envoy to the Moroccan king is Thomas Walsingham, a Benedictine monk at St Albans, Hertfordshire. He died in 1422. Walsingham resided at the same abbey where Matthew Paris had worked. Walsingham's account, a reworking of Paris's version, is contained in the book "Gesta Abbatum Sancti Albani" (records of the Abbey of St Albans).

King John was not a fortunate monarch, but his reputation suffered at the hands of chroniclers. Paris presented illustrations in his history, detailing the "atrocities of King John".

Even his death from illness was used as an excuse to malign him. In 1670, William Prynne's History of King John was published. Apparently quoting a story from the Chronicler of St Albans (Matthew Paris), he wrote that after losing his treasure in the Wash, John went to Swineshead Abbey. The king said he would inflate the economy so that a halfpenny loaf would cost twenty shillings.

A monk heard this and decided to give John "such a drynke, that all Englonde sholde be glad and joyful." The monk found a toad, pricked it with a brooch pin and dropped its blood into a goblet, which was topped up with ale. This was brought to John, and the monk said: "Wassayll, for never of all your lyfe dronke ye of so good a cup". Both drank, and both grew ill, with the monk dying in the abbey infirmary. John "commanded for to trusse, but it was for naught, for his belly began to swell, and within two days he died, on the morrow after St Lukis daye."

In the Victorian era, Thomas Fuller wrote of another account from Matthew Paris concerning King John. In 1212 "Peter, of Wakefield in Yorkshire, a hermit, prophesied that John should be king of England no longer than next Ascension-Day; after which solemn fesival, (on which Christ, mounted on his glorious throne, took possession of his heavenly kingdom,) this opposer of Christ should no longer enjoy the English diadem; and, as some report, he foretold that none of King John's lineage should after him be crowned in the kingdom. The king called this prophet "an idiot-knave"; which description of him implying a contradiction, the king thus reconciled, - pardoning him as an idiot, and punishing him as a knave with imprisonment in Corfe-Castle (Dorset). The fetters of the prophet gave wings to his prophecy; and, whereas the king's neglecting it might have puffed this vain prediction into wind, men now began to suspect it of some solidity, because deserving a wise prince's notice and displeasure. Far and near it was dispersed over the whole kingdom...."

Matthew Paris may have heard of the tale of the envoy to Morocco from Robert of London, and may have reported it faithfully. But whether he took the tale to be true, too much circumstantial evidence suggests it is mere propaganda. John's war with the Church was not taken lightly by monks and clergy, and he continued to be punished in literature written centuries later. The mythological tales of Robin Hood cast him as a villain. Shakespeare added to the popular myth of John as a weak and scheming monarch in his play, Life and Death of King John, first performed in 1596.

The Moroccan king was not in a position to grant favors in 1213, and though John was rash and desperate, his decision to offer Britain as a fiefdom of Pope Innocent III was a more successful solution to his problems. The barons cared more about their own survival than the reputation of the king. John was portrayed by religious chroniclers as an enemy of Christendom. Later political historians portrayed him as a tyrant who reluctantly accepted the Magna Carta, a document which would eventually lead to the formation of secular law.

The tale of John offering to become a Muslim is colorful and entertaining. It is however, almost certainly untrue, a myth born from malice.

Adrian Morgan

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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 25, 2008 6:20 AM

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