This book is part of a series which provides the student, scholar and general reader with authoritative short studies of key aspects and personalities in the medieval world. This book provides a re-assessment of the life and reign of King John (1167-1216, r.1199-1216). John's reign was a turning-point in the development of England: it saw the loss of Normandy, bitter conflict with the papacy, baronial rebellion, and the granting of Magna Carta with all its consequences for the future. Turner sets John in his full personal context, as a member of the turbulent Angevin family; in his full political context, as ruler of Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine and Ireland as well as England; and in the context of his time, since contemporary values and expectations of kingship were very different from our own today. He aims to present a more balanced picture of John than the older view that condemned him on the grounds of his personal immorality and the more recent rehabilitations of his reputation based on his supposed administrative genius. The book makes use of a new historical field - the history of childhood - to understand the flaws in John's adult personality (though avoiding the speculative excesses of psycho-history). It also incorporates recent advances in our economic knowledge of the times, which have revealed how John's finances were bedevilled by inflationary pressures which were beyond the understanding of him and his contemporaries and it gives due weight to John's continental dominions and his role on the European stage.