Note 497 — Chapter VIII · THE EARLY YEARS OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.[497] A.D. 1028–1051.

In this Chapter I have had of course mainly to depend on the Norman writers as my authorities. The Latin writers are to be found in the great collection of Duchèsne. The first place is of course due to William of Poitiers. His Gesta Guillelmi has every advantage which can belong to the writings of a well-informed contemporary. But the work is disfigured by his constant spirit of violent partizanship (see above, p. 4). He must therefore be always followed with great caution, and in all purely English matters he is utterly untrustworthy. The beginning of his work is lost, so that we have no account from him of his hero’s birth and childhood. William Calculus, a monk of Jumièges, according to Orderic (Prol. ad Lib. iii. p. 458), abridged Dudo, and continued the History of Normandy, through the reigns of Richard the Good, Richard the Third, Robert, and of William himself down to the Battle of Senlac (Ord. Vit. 618 D), presenting his work to William himself. This portion of the existing work ends at lib. vii. c. 42. He seems afterwards to have added the account of William’s death (vii. 44), in which William of Poitiers and Guy of Amiens are spoken of. An eighth book, together with many interpolations in the earlier books, were added by a later hand, apparently by Robert of Torigny, Abbot of Saint Michael’s Mount, commonly called Robert de Monte (see Pertz, vi. 475). William of Jumièges begins to be a contemporary writer in William’s reign; with perhaps smaller opportunities of information than William of Poitiers, he is less violently prejudiced, and his work is of great value. His narrative forms the groundwork of the poetical history in the Roman de Rou. Its author, Robert Wace, Canon of Bayeux in the time of Henry the Second, seems to have been a really honest and painstaking inquirer, and I do not look on his work as being any the less trustworthy on account of its poetical shape. But of course, whenever he departs from contemporary authority, and merely sets down floating traditions nearly a hundred years after the latest events which he records, his statements need to be very carefully weighed. I have used M. Pluquet’s edition (Rouen, 1827) and the English Translation of part of the work by Mr. Edgar Taylor, whose genealogical and topographical notes are of great value. The other rhyming chronicler, Benoît de Sainte-More, is of a far more romantic turn than Robert Wace, and is therefore of much smaller historical authority. Still he also preserves many curious traditions. Orderic Vital, whose work becomes afterwards of such preeminent importance, is just now beginning to be of use, but as yet his main value is for information about Norman families and Norman monasteries. But his constant repetitions and utter lack of arrangement make him still more difficult to read or consult than William of Malmesbury himself.