Ivanhoe, the Norman Swordsman Ivanhoe, the Norman Swordsman Ivanhoe, the Norman Swordsman () is a 1971 peplum film directed by Roberto Mauri. After the death of King Henry I in 12th-century England, the throne is taken by Stephen Cunningham who claims to possess the mythical "Sword of Normandy." A man named Ivanhoe returns from years in the Holy Land knowing that Henry I's son, the rightful heir to the throne, died in the Crusades, and that Cunningham's sword is a fake. After forging alliances with a group of highwaymen and a band of traveling thespians, Ivanhoe reclaims the real sword that will topple Cunningham.
Henry II of England his close advisers from the ranks of the Norman bishops and, as in England, recruited many "new men" as Norman administrators: few of the larger landowners in Normandy benefited from the king's patronage. Henry frequently intervened with the Norman nobility through arranged marriages or the treatment of inheritances, either using his authority as duke or his influence as king of England over their lands there: Henry's rule was a harsh one. Across the rest of France, local administration was less developed: Anjou was governed through a combination of officials called "prévôts" and seneschals based along the Loire and in western