Conclusion

Summary

This study has explored the range and extent to which personal religion was practised by King John. Ultimately, we cannot know what he thought about the religious rituals of his day. What can be shown, however, is that he realised that he needed to be seen to participate, that this was an aspect of kingship that he should acknowledge and harness. In his wider rulership, his political and military failures can rarely be attributed to lack of effort, despite the criticisms of the chroniclers. In terms of religion, he fell out with the church dramatically, but realised that the personal religion of a king needed to be demonstrated as part of his efforts to preserve an aura of authority.

Thus, we can reconstruct the religious calendar of King John's court across the year, including most of the major festivals of the church year and the major saints, notably the Virgin Mary (see Table 2, below). The extent to which each feast was observed yearly is unclear, but the annual pattern would also have included the principle moveable feasts: Palm Sunday, Easter (including Maundy Thursday and Good Friday), Ascension (also the anniversary of John's coronation), Pentecost (Whitsunday), and possibly Trinity Sunday. An important element of John's religious activity was focused around Holy Week, as seen in his combined pilgrimages to Bury St Edmunds, Canterbury, and Westminster in 1201. This is before one-off religious events are considered, such as the king's attendance and participation at the funeral of Hugh of Lincoln in 1200.

Amidst observance of the rhythms of the religious year, this was a ruler who attended mass when expected. As far as we can tell, he participated in the required elements of the religion of the time, from baptism through to confession and blessing on his deathbed. He visited shrines, acknowledged their feast days, and gave offerings in honour of the saints. John recognised the new religious phenomenon of the cult of St Thomas Becket and, like his father and brothers, sought to integrate this within wider devotion to the saints, in particular veneration of royal cults, notably St Edward the Confessor and St Edmund, King and Martyr, both regarded as exemplary kings.