OXFORD MEDIEVAL TEXTS General Editors D. E. GREENWAY B. F. HARVEY M. LAPIDGE W I L L I A M OF P O I T I E R S G E S T A G V I L L E L M I T H E D E E D S OF W I L L I A M The G E S T A G V I L L E L M I of William o f Poitiers EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY R. H. C. D AVISf A N D M ARJO RIE C H IB N A LL CLA REN D O N PRESS • OXFORD 1998 Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 0X2 6dp Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Marjorie Chibnall 1998 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted', in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press. Within the UK, exceptions are allowed in respect of any fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms and in other countries should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Gulielmus, Pictaviensis. [Gesta Guillelmi. English (5 Latin] The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers/edited and translated by R. H C. Davis and Marjorie ChibnalL p. cm.—(Oxford medieval texts) English and Latin parallel text. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. I. William I, King of England, 1027 or 8-1087. 2- Great Britain— History—William I, 1066-1087. 3• Great Britain—Kings and rulers— Biography. 4. Nobility—France—Normandy—Biography. 5. Conquerors—Great Britain—Biography. 6. Military history. Medieval. 7. Normans—England—History. I. Davis, R. H. C. (Ralph Henry Carless), içt8- . II. Chibnall, Marjorie. III. Title. IV. Senes. DA 197. G813 1998 942.02'i'092—dc2i 97-15372 [B] ISBN 0-19-820553-8 13 5 7 9 10 8642 Typeset by Joshua Associates Ltd., Oxford Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., Guildford (5 King's Lynn P R E F A C E A n e w edition of the Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers was first planned by R. H. C. Davis. At the time of his death he had carried out a prolonged, but unsuccessful, search in European libraries for the lost manuscript, and had completed a literal translation. His research had also produced several important papers on the author and his work. Mrs Eleanor Davis most kindly made all her husband’s papers available to me. The text now published is, inevitably, based on the 1619 edition of Duchesne. I have revised and rewritten the translation. The notes and introduction in their final form are mine; and though I have used R.H.C.D.’s work, in particular his published papers, where possible, the responsibility for any errors must be wholly mine. I owe a particular debt to Pierre Bouet, of the University of Caen, for making available to me the concordance of the Gesta Guillelmi which he had prepared with the collaboration of J. Potier and Ph. Fleury. My thanks are due to Elisabeth van Houts for lending me the proofs of Volume II of the GND of William of Jumièges before publication, and for many helpful suggestions; to Diana Greenway, who showed me parts of the Introduction to her edition of Henry of Huntingdon in proof; and to David Bates, for information about the charters of William I. The 1952 edition of Raymonde Foreville has proved invaluable, particularly for the identification of classical references. At its best the Latin of the eleventh-century schools was still true to its classical roots; but it was a living language, open to new influences. Not a great deal of it has survived. So the task of any editor and translator is far from easy. I have been fortunate in having the generous and learned help of Michael Lapidge and J. W. Binns over the problems of editing and translating, and to both I am deeply grateful. All three general editors and the learned staff of Oxford VI PREFACE University Press have been characteristically patient and helpful in suggesting improvements and bringing the volume to comple­ tion. Clare Hall, Cambridge M.C. October, 1996 CONTENTS ABBREVIATED REFERENCES ix INTRODUCTION 1. The author xv 2. The Gesta Guillelmi xix 3. The sources used by William of Poitiers xxvii 4. The battle of Hastings xxxii 5. The use of the Gesta Guillelmi by Orderic Vitalis xxxv 6. The language of the Gesta Guillelmi xxxix 7. Textual tradition xliii 8. Previous editions xlv 9. Editorial practice xlvi G E S T A G V I L L E L M I Sigla i Part i 2 Part 2 100 INDEX OF QUOTATIONS AND ALLUSIONS 189 GENERAL INDEX 191 ABBREVIATED R EFER EN C ES ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Two of the Saxon Chroni­ cles parallel, ed. C. Plummer and J. Earle, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892-9). Translation: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. D. Whitelock, D. C. Douglas, and S. Tucker (London, 1961) Barlow, Confessor F. Barlow, Edward the Confessor (London, 1970) Bates, Normandy D. Bates, Normandy before 1066 (London, 1982) Battle Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo- Norman Studies, i-iv (1979-82), ed. R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge, 1983-9); from v (1983) published as Anglo-Norman Studies Bayeux Tapestry The Bayeux Tapestry, ed. F. M. Stenton (London, 1957) Brevis relatio Brevis relatio de origine Willelmi Conquestoris, ed. J. A. Giles, Scriptores rerum gestarum Willelmi Conquestoris, Caxton Society, iii (London, 1845) Brooks, Canterbury N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984) Brown, Dover Castle R. A. Brown, Dover Castle (2nd edn., HMSO, 1974) Brown and Cumow R. A. Brown and P. Cumow, The Tower of London (HMSO, 1984) BSAN Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie Camden T. Smith, Camdeni et illustrium virorum ad Camdenum epistolae praemittitur Camdeni vita (London, 1691) Carmen The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens, ed. C. Morton and H. Muntz (OMT, 1972) Chibnall, ‘Geoffroi’ M. Chibnall, ‘La carrière de Geoffroi de Montbray’, in Les évêques normandes du X Ie siècle, ed. P. Bouet and F. Neveux (Caen, 1995), PP- 279-93- Councils and Synods Councils and Synods and Other Documents relating to the English Church, /. A.D. 871-1204, ed. D. Whitelock et al., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1981) CP The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland . . ., by G. E. C., rev. V. Gibbs et al, 13 vols, in 14 (London, 1910-59) X ABBREVIATED REFERENCES David, Curthose C. W. David, Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy (Cambridge, Mass., 1920) Davis, ‘William of R. H. C. Davis, ‘William of Poitiers and his Poitiers’ History of William the Conqueror’, in The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern, ed. R. H. C. Davis and J. M. Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford, 1981), pp. 71-100 Dorey, Latin Biography Latin Biography, ed. T. A. Dorey (London, 1967) Douglas, Conqueror D. C. Douglas, William the Conqueror (London, 1964) Duchesne André Duchesne, Historiae Normannorum scrip- tores antiqui (Paris, 1619) Dudo De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum auctore Dudone Sancti Quintini decano, ed. J. Lair, Mém. Soc. Ant. Norm, xxiii (Caen, 1865) Dunbabin J. Dunbabin, ‘Geoffrey of Chaumont, Thibaud of Blois and William the Conqueror’, Battle, xvi (1994), 101-16 Eadmer, HN Eadmeri Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. M. Rule (RS, 1884) EHR English Historical Review Encomium Encomium Emmae reginae, ed. A. Campbell, Camden 3rd ser., lxxii (London, 1949) Fauroux Recueil des actes des ducs de Normandie (91 /- 1066), ed. M. Fauroux, Mém. Soc Ant. Norm, xxxvi (Caen, 1961) Flori, L'essor J. Flori, L'essor de la chevalerie xi‘-x iï siècles (Geneva, 1986) Foreville Guillaume de Poitiers, Histoire de Guillaume le Conquérant, ed. R. Foreville, Les classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge (Paris, 1952) Foreville, ‘Synod’ R. Foreville, ‘The synod of the province of Rouen in the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, in Church and Government in the Middle Ages, ed. Christopher Brooke et al. (Cambridge, 1976), *9-39 Freeman E. A. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1867-79) FW Florentii Wigomiensis monachi chronicon ex chron­ icis, ed. B. Thorpe, 2 vols., Eng. Hist. Soc. (London, 1848-9) GC Gallia Christiana (Paris, 1715-1865)