Note 12 — Chapter II · REBELLION AND EXILE

Ordericus Vitalis is the only early writer who treats in detail of the quarrels between Robert and the Conqueror. He discusses them at length in two places (ii, pp. 294-298, 377-390), but unfortunately his accounts are confused and very difficult to disentangle. There clearly were two quarrels and two periods during which Robert was in exile. Ordericus himself (ii, p. 390) is specific with regard to this; and we know independently that the first quarrel—followed by a relatively short period of exile—ended in the reconciliation after the siege of Gerberoy (1079) and that Robert was again in exile at the time of the Conqueror’s death (1087). Pretty clearly the second exile was for a longer period than the first. But the two accounts of Ordericus do not deal each with one of these quarrels. Rather they both purport to relate to the earlier quarrel and to the banishment which followed it. Yet it is obvious that Ordericus, lacking contemporary knowledge of the events, has confused the two episodes and has related incidents of the latter as if they belonged to the former. For example (ii, p. 381), he represents Robert as wandering in exile for a period of five years. Clearly this was not after the first quarrel, to which he relates it, since that could have been followed by no such extended banishment. In the narrative detail which follows I have attempted to disentangle the accounts of Ordericus Vitalis conjecturally, striving to preserve something of the vivacity of style of the original, without supposing that I have been able to arrive at rigorous historical accuracy. Ordericus’s own narrative is obviously in a high degree a work of imagination.