Carmen de Hastingae Proelio

TheCarmen de Hastingae Proelio(Song of the Battle of Hastings) is a 20th-century name for theCarmen Widonis,the earliest history of theNorman invasionof England from September to December 1066, inLatin.It is attributed toGuy, Bishop of Amiens,a noble of Ponthieu and monastically-trained bishop and administrator close to the French court, who eventually served as a chaplain forMatilda of Flanders,William the Conqueror's queen. Bishop Guy was an uncle toGuy I, Count of Ponthieu,who figures rather prominently in theBayeux Tapestryas the vassal ofDuke William of Normandywho capturedHarold Godwinson,later to become King Harold II of England, in 1064.

History and background

TheCarmenis generally accepted as the earliest surviving written account of theNorman Conquest.It focuses on theBattle of Hastingsand its immediate aftermath, although it also offers insights into navigation, urban administration, the siege of London, and ecclesiastical culture. It is in poetic form, 835 lines ofhexametersandelegiac couplets,and is preserved only in two twelfth-century copies fromSt Eucharius-MatthiasinTrier,Bibliothèque royale de BelgiqueMS 10615-729, folios 227v-230v, and Bibliothèque royale de Belgique MS 9799-809 (the latter containing only the last sixty-six lines).

TheCarmenwas most likely composed within months of thecoronation of William Ias king of England (on Christmas Day, 1066) – probably sometime in 1067, possibly as early as Easter of that year, to be performed at the royal festivities inNormandy,where King William I presided. The motivation for the poem's production and performance is open to debate. Queen Matilda may have commissioned theCarmenas an entertainment and to memorialize her husband's conquest, as queens customarily commissioned works of history composed by clerics, and Guy d'Amiens was known in the court of her father, Count Baldwin V of Flanders, where the bishop had witnessed a charter in 1056 with Earl (later King) Harold,Count Guy of Ponthieu,andCount Eustace of Boulogne.This theory is suggested by the work praising the allies from France, Boulogne, Ponthieu, Brittany, Maine, and the new Norman kingdom in Apulia, Calabria and Sicily. All the allies would have attended the Easter celebrations for the sharing-out of war booty. In 1066 Bishop Guy may have sought to win royal esteem, possibly damaged by the involvement of Hugh of Ponthieu in the death of King Harold and the senior family's attempts to assassinate the young duke in childhood. Bishop Guy himself was out of favour with the pope, and it has been suggested that he wanted to garner some Norman influence by writing theCarmenin William's honour and invitingLanfrancof Pavia, abbot ofAbbey of Saint-Étienne, Caenand laterArchbishop of Canterbury(to whom theProemof the poem is dedicated) to use his influence with king and pope. A further possibility (though none of these are mutually exclusive) is that Guy composed theCarmento presentEustace,Count of Boulogne,in a favourable light in order to reverse King William's banishment of Count Eustace following his failed invasion of England in the autumn of 1067 (Eustace remained in fact out of favour until late in the 1070s).

TheCarmenpossesses exceptional historical importance as an early account of the Norman Conquest. It is the most vivid of the original written accounts and practically the only one to give a non-Norman point of view in detail. TheBayeux Tapestryis problematic; the identity and purpose of its creators is unknown, though it bears evidence of English involvement (eg. English spelling) in its production.In fact, it is theCarmen's very vividness which has caused it in the past to come under attack as either a forgery, fraud or at the least a later, 12th-century source.Frank Barlowargued that theCarmenwas most likely from the year 1067, and followingElisabeth van Houts' arguments in her article "Latin Poetry and the Anglo-Norman Court 1066-1135: TheCarmen de Hastingae Proelio,"this is the commonly accepted scholarly opinion.TheCarmenis notable for literary reasons, too. It describes the Norman Conquest in terms borrowed from classical and Carolingian epic and praise poetry, but in ways that contrast with other contemporary praise poets. The ironic application of classical and Carolingian language to William sows doubt about his faithfulness and piety (two core political values for the Carolingians and the Capetians). This indicates that the contradictions and early weaknesses of William's conquest and regime were already apparent in 1067, even as Guy could praise William for his achievement.

Editions

• Carmen Widonis - The First History of the Norman Conquest,transcription, translation and commentary by Kathleen Tyson, Granularity Press 2018.
• Carmen de Triumpho Normannico - The Song of the Norman Conquest,transcribed from digital images of the manuscript and translated by Kathleen Tyson, Granularity Press 2014.
• The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens,edited by Catherine Morton and Hope Muntz, Oxford at the Clarendon Press 1972.
• The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens,edited and translated by Frank Barlow, Clarendon Press 1999.

Sources

• Davis, R. H. C. 1978. 'The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio'.The English Historical ReviewVol. 93, No. 367, pp. 241–261 (JSTOR).
• van Houts, Elisabeth. 1989. "Latin Poetry and the Anglo-Norman Court 1066-1135: TheCarmen de Hastingae Proelio,"Journal of Medieval History15, pp. 39–62.
• O'Donnell, Thomas. 2017. "TheCarmen de Hastingae Proelioand the Poetics of 1067, "Anglo-Norman Studies39, pp. 151–162.

External links

• Latin text of theCarmen de Hastingae ProelioIn J.A. Giles,Scriptores rerum gestarum Willelmi Conquestoris(1845) at Archive.org
• Same Latin text in the same book in Google Books
• Latin text with English translation and introductory notes: Oxford University Press 1972 (free Archive.org account required).