Information about The Carmen De Hastingae Proelio
The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio (Song of the Battle of Hastings) is an early written source for the Norman invasion of England in September through December 1066; attributed to Bishop Guy of Amiens, uncle to Count Guy of Ponthieu, who figures rather prominently in the Bayeux Tapestry as the vassal of Duke William of Normandy who captured Harold Godwinson in 1064.
The Carmen is generally accepted as the earliest known written account of the invasion, which naturally focuses on the famous Battle of Hastings. It is in poetic form, 835 lines of hexameter and pentameter, and is preserved in only a single extant copy (Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique no. 10615-729, folios 227v-230v), which is apparently an early 12th century copy of the 11th century original.
Bearing all the signs of a hasty work, the Carmen was most likely composed within months of the coronation of William as king of England. Probably sometime in 1067, possibly as early as Easter of that year, to be performed at the royal festivities in Normandy, where King William I presided. The motivation for the poem's production and performance must have been something to do with Bishop Guy's family, which possibly was then out of favor over the involvement of Hugh of Ponthieu in the death of King Harold. For it is tempting to identify Hugh as the younger brother of Count Guy of Pontheiu, and the perpetrator of the mutilation of King Harold once he had been slain. For this reason, or some other unknown reason, Bishop Guy felt it necessary to impress King William with the contributions his nephew(s) had made to William's invasion of England. Also, at the time, Bishop Guy himself was out of favor with the pope, and perhaps wanted to garner some Norman influence by giving William the gift of The Carmen in his honor. A third possibility (though none of these are mutually exclusive), is the disfavor of Count Eustace of Boulogne, who appears by the contents of The Carmen, to have been a family friend (and or relative: most of these noble houses were intermarried by this time): therefore The Carmen might have been composed to put in a plug and 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 favor until late in the 1070s).
Altogether, The Carmen is the most vivid of the original written accounts, and practically the only one to give a non Norman point of view in detail. (The Bayeux Tapestry is problematic; because we do not know the purpose of its authors, nor even for certain who they were; but it bears evidence of English involvement in its production.) In fact, it is The Carmen'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. But Frank Barlow has recently advanced convincing arguments to support the position of The Carmen as a very early source indeed, most likely from the year 1067.
The Carmen is generally accepted as the earliest known written account of the invasion, which naturally focuses on the famous Battle of Hastings. It is in poetic form, 835 lines of hexameter and pentameter, and is preserved in only a single extant copy (Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique no. 10615-729, folios 227v-230v), which is apparently an early 12th century copy of the 11th century original.
Bearing all the signs of a hasty work, the Carmen was most likely composed within months of the coronation of William as king of England. Probably sometime in 1067, possibly as early as Easter of that year, to be performed at the royal festivities in Normandy, where King William I presided. The motivation for the poem's production and performance must have been something to do with Bishop Guy's family, which possibly was then out of favor over the involvement of Hugh of Ponthieu in the death of King Harold. For it is tempting to identify Hugh as the younger brother of Count Guy of Pontheiu, and the perpetrator of the mutilation of King Harold once he had been slain. For this reason, or some other unknown reason, Bishop Guy felt it necessary to impress King William with the contributions his nephew(s) had made to William's invasion of England. Also, at the time, Bishop Guy himself was out of favor with the pope, and perhaps wanted to garner some Norman influence by giving William the gift of The Carmen in his honor. A third possibility (though none of these are mutually exclusive), is the disfavor of Count Eustace of Boulogne, who appears by the contents of The Carmen, to have been a family friend (and or relative: most of these noble houses were intermarried by this time): therefore The Carmen might have been composed to put in a plug and 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 favor until late in the 1070s).
Altogether, The Carmen is the most vivid of the original written accounts, and practically the only one to give a non Norman point of view in detail. (The Bayeux Tapestry is problematic; because we do not know the purpose of its authors, nor even for certain who they were; but it bears evidence of English involvement in its production.) In fact, it is The Carmen'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. But Frank Barlow has recently advanced convincing arguments to support the position of The Carmen as a very early source indeed, most likely from the year 1067.
Sources
- 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.
Norman conquest of England began in 1066 with the invasion of the Kingdom of England by William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy), and his success at the Battle of Hastings resulted in Norman control of England.
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Motto
Dieu et mon droit (French)
"God and my right"
Anthem
No official anthem specific to England — the anthem of the United Kingdom is "God Save the Queen".
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Dieu et mon droit (French)
"God and my right"
Anthem
No official anthem specific to England — the anthem of the United Kingdom is "God Save the Queen".
..... Click the link for more information.
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Guy, Bishop of Amiens, was the uncle (and not the brother) of Enguerrand II and his brother Guy I of Ponthieu. Count Enguerrand II's and Guy I's father Hugh II was the son of Enguerrand I by an earlier marriage: Enguerrand I evidently married a Boulognnais countess, the wife of
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Guy I of Ponthieu (died 13 October 1100) was born sometime in the mid to late 1020s. He was the second son of Count Hugh II. Guy's older brother Enguerrand II became Count of Ponthieu upon the death of their father on 20 November 1052, possibly in battle.
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The Bayeux Tapestry (French: Tapisserie de Bayeux) is a 50 cm by 70 m (20 in by 230 ft) long embroidered cloth which depicts the events leading up to the 1066 Norman invasion of England as well as the events of the invasion itself. The Tapestry is annotated in Latin.
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William I of England (William the Conqueror; c. 1028 – 9 September 1087) was a medieval monarch. He ruled as the Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and as King of England from 1066 to 1087.
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Harold II of England (Harold Godwinson); c. 1022 – October 14, 1066) was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon King of England.[1] He ruled from January 5 to October 14 1066 when he was killed at the Battle of Hastings.
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Battle of Hastings was the decisive Norman victory in the Norman conquest of England. The location was Senlac Hill, approximately six miles north of Hastings, on which an abbey was subsequently erected.
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Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. It was the standard epic metre in Greek and became standard for Latin too.
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In poetry, a pentameter is a line of verse consisting of five metrical feet. Iambic pentameter is one of the most commonly used meters in English, used extensively by many poets, including William Shakespeare, John Milton, and William Wordsworth.
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Normandy (in French: Normandie, and in Norman: Normaundie) is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the coasts of the south of the English Channel between Brittany (to the west) and Picardy (to the east) and
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William I of England (William the Conqueror; c. 1028 – 9 September 1087) was a medieval monarch. He ruled as the Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and as King of England from 1066 to 1087.
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Eustace II, (d. 1093), was count of Boulogne from 1049-1093, fought on the Norman side at the Battle of Hastings, and afterwards received a large honour in England.
He was the son of Eustace I.
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He was the son of Eustace I.
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The county of Boulogne (Dutch: Bonen) was a historical region in the Low Countries. It consisted of a part of the present-day French département of the Nord (French Flanders), in parts of which there is still a Flemish-speaking minority.
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The Bayeux Tapestry (French: Tapisserie de Bayeux) is a 50 cm by 70 m (20 in by 230 ft) long embroidered cloth which depicts the events leading up to the 1066 Norman invasion of England as well as the events of the invasion itself. The Tapestry is annotated in Latin.
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