In the Reign of King John

by Dan Jones

First published 2020

Amazon

4.4(475)

In the Reign of King John is an illustrated and retitled edition of Realm Divided: A Year in the Life of Plantagenet England. It uses the decisive year 1215 to examine England beyond the negotiations that produced Magna Carta, moving through royal government, baronial politics, the Church, forests, towns, households and the work of ordinary people.

King John’s quarrel with his barons provides the political framework, but the book’s purpose is to reconstruct the society over which they struggled. Law, food, clothing, belief, travel, violence and local obligation show how royal crisis affected different ranks of the population. By combining the charter’s creation with a broad portrait of daily life, Jones presents Plantagenet England as a divided yet highly organised kingdom on the edge of civil war.