Regis de scott biography of william

William of Poitiers evidently wrote his Gesta Guillelmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum (Deeds of William, Duke of the Normans and King of the English) between 1071 and 1077.

Regis de scott biography of william

According to Orderic Vitalis, who used the Gesta as a source, William of Poitiers was born at Préaux, Normandy, and in his youth was one of Duke William’s knights. He gave up soldiering, however, to study at Poitiers – hence the name William of Poitiers.

Returning to Normandy, he became Duke William’s chaplain, and later archdeacon of Lisieux. (Hugh, bishop of Lisieux from c.1049 until his death in July 1077, was apparently still alive at the time William of Poitiers was writing.)

As far as is known, no copy of the original Gesta survives.

A printed edition was published in 1619 by French historian André Duchesne, but the manuscript he used, which is now lost, was incomplete – both the beginning and the end of the work were missing. The surviving text, which starts and finishes m