HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

CONTEMPORARY AND ‘EYEWITNESS’ HISTORY 253successful campaign of 1066 is evoked for us in the Latin verse ofGui d’Amiens, 10 the poet clearly seeking to portray William as thevery epitome of courage, military leadership and heroism. 11 Guillaumede Poitiers wrote his equally encomiastic Gesta Guillelmi in Latin prose,whilst Raoul de Caen celebrated the deeds of Tancred in the samelanguage (early twelfth century). North of the Channel, Richard ofHexham’s De bello standardii and Ælred of Rievaulx’s Relatio de standardo(both ca. 1138) also laid claim to eyewitness authority and maybe seen as exemplars of a small but significant number of ‘campaign’histories written in Latin.The Vita Sancti Thomae of William Fitz Stephen, in contrast, is aprime example of a hagiographical text written very soon after themartyrdom of a saint. At the beginning of the work the authoraffirms his status as privileged eyewitness (at first- but sometimes second-hand)of Thomas Becket’s martyrdom: “Passionem eius Cantuariaeinspexi ...caetera plurima, quae hic scribuntur, oculis uidi, auribusaudiui; quaedam a consciis didici relatoribus”. 12 Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, author of a six-thousand-line vernacular Vie de SaintThomas Becket, 13 appears to have used a number of written sources,including royal edicts and letters written by Henry II and Becket,in compiling his work. His editor Walberg tells us that he also paraphrasedin verse a number of sections from the Latin biographiesof Edward Grim (1172) 14 and William of Canterbury (1172–74); andat lines 147–50 and 6168, 15 Guernes claims to have consulted Thomas’sservants and friends at Canterbury itself, presumably the closest hecould manage to eyewitnesses of the outrage, but on the whole thisis a self-consciously literary and highly partial (if precise) account ofthe martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas. The poet uses all of therhetorical resources of dialogue and set-piece dramatic episodes to10Carmen de Hastingae proelio, ed. C. Morton and H. Muntz, Oxford MedievalTexts (Oxford, 1972); cf. Davis (1978); Sayers (1966–67).11For a lively translation into modern French of ll. 438–64 of the poem, basedon F. Michel’s edition, Chroniques anglo-normandes (Rouen, 1840), vol. III, 1–38, seeGally and Marchello-Nizia (1985), 179.12William Fitz Stephen, ed. James Robertson, Vita Sancti Thomae, Rolls Series,vol. 67/3 (London, 1877), 1–2, quoted in Damian-Grint (1999), 71.13Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, La Vie de Saint Thomas Becket, ed. E. Walberg(Paris, 1964).14See Damian-Grint (1999), 71 n. 19.15See La Vie de Saint Thomas Becket, ed. Walberg, x–xi.