1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/William of Poitiers

WILLIAM OF POITIERS (c. 1020-c. 1090), Norman chronicler, was born at Préaux, near Pont Audemer, and belonged to an influential Norman family. After serving as a soldier he studied at Poitiers, and then returning to Normandy became chaplain to Duke William (William the Conqueror) and archdeacon of Lisieux. He wrote an eulogistic life of the duke, the earlier and concluding parts of which are lost; and Ordericus Vitalis, who gives a short biography of him in his Historia ecclesiastica, says that he also wrote verses. William's Gesta Guilelmi II. ducis Normannorum, the extant part of which covers the period between 1047 and 1068, is valuable for details of the Conqueror's life, although untrustworthy with regard to affairs in England. According to Freeman, “the work is disfigured by his constant spirit of violent partisanship.” It was written between 1071 and 1077, and was used by Ordericus Vitalis.

The Gesta was first published by A. Duchesne in the Historiae Normannorum scriptores (Paris, 1619); and it is also found in the Scriptores rerum gestarum Willelmi Conquestoris of J. A . Giles (London, 1845). There is a French translation in tome xxix. of Guizot's Collection des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France (Paris, 1826). See G. Körting, Wilhelms von Poitiers Gesta Guilelmi ducis (Dresden, 1875); and A. Molinier, Les Sources de l'histoire de France, tome iii. (Paris, 1903).