Gesta Guillelmi
William of Poitiers wrote the Gesta Guillelmi some time after 1066. It tells the story of Duke William prepared for, and achieved the Conquest of England. It also justifies William's succession to the English throne. The bulk of the writing probably took place 1071 - 1077.
The Gesta Guillelmi is the earliest extended biography of any Duke of Normandy, and is an invaluable source for the Battle of Hastings in 1066. William of Poiters was well-placed to write the Gesta Guillelmi, being both trained as a military knight and serving as a chaplain within Duke William's household.
There are no surviving manuscripts of the ‘Gesta Guillemi'. André Duchesne published an edition in 1619, although even his (now lost) manuscript was missing its beginning and end. Its present form covers the period from 1047 to 1068, and both starts and finishes mid-sentence. There is also some retrospective material concerning affairs in England after Cnut's death (1035). Orderic Vitalis says that it originally finished in 1071. The Gesta Guillelmi is most valuable as a source for the Battle of Hastings, probably based on first hand oral evidence.
The 'History' also serves as a panegyric to William the Conqueror. R. Allen Brown writes: "Within the panegyric there is a wealth of facts and details... most derived from personal knowledge and personal contacts, compiled and intelligently put together by a man uniquely qualified as both clerk and knight, closely connected with the court...One may add that William of Poitiers must have known his hero from their joint youth up, and stress that as both former knight and former chaplain of the duke he is able to bring us closer to the heart of Normandy in the mid-eleventh century than any other writer of that age or later."
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