Guy, Bishop of Amiens (d.1075) was an eleventh-century churchman, in what is now the north-east of France. Although the genealogy of early

Ponthieu Ponthieu (, ) was one of six feudal counties that eventually merged to become part of the Province of Picardy, in northern France.Dunbabin.France in the Making. Ch.4. The Principalities 888-987 Its chief town is Abbeville. History Ponthieu play ...

and

Boulogne Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the ...

is scanty (and the 12th century versions unreliable, because of their efforts to tie the ruling houses of Boulogne and Ponthieu into earlier noble houses), it is most likely that Guy, the

Bishop of Amiens The Roman Catholic Diocese of Amiens (Latin: ''Dioecesis Ambianensis''; French: ''Diocèse d'Amiens'') is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the department of Somme, of which the city of Ami ...

, was the uncle (and not the brother) of

Enguerrand II Enguerrand II, Lord of Coucy, known as of La Fère or of Marle, was a French nobleman. He was also lord of Marle, La Fère, Crécy (sur-Serre), Vervins, Pinon, Landouzy (la-Ville), Fontaine (lès-Vervins), and of several other places. Unlike ...

and his brother

Guy I of Ponthieu Guy I of Ponthieu (also known in the Bayeux Tapestry as Wido) was born sometime in the mid- to late 1020s and died 13 October 1100. He succeeded his brother (or possibly father) Enguerrand as Count of Ponthieu. Life Guy was a son of Hugh II, C ...

. 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 Arnold II, who died in battle: from this later marriage came Guy and his brother Fulk (later abbot of Forest l'Abbaye), and probably a Robert.

Career

Bishop Guy was educated for a career in the church at the abbey of St Riquier and was one of its most brilliant students. His teacher was abbot Enguerrand (called "the wise" d. 9 December 1045). Guy may have been an archdeacon by 1045, and was bishop by 1058. "His predecessor to the episcopate of Amiens, Fulk II, was caught up in the emerging struggle between the secular clergy, dominated by the political contentions of the great feudal families, and the reforming popes, with their bias in favour of monastic houses, which they often rendered exempt from episcopal jurisdiction." When Guy became bishop of

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France. In 2021, the population of ...

he inherited the legal struggles of his predecessor; this eventually resulted in Guy being suspended from his duties as bishop, although he continued to rule the see as lord. He was in this state of papal disfavour at the time of the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

. This may have been the (contributing) reason why bishop Guy composed the '' Carmen de Hastingae Proelio'' (''Song of the

Battle of Hastings The Battle of Hastings nrf, Batâle dé Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William the Conqueror, William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godw ...

''), as an effort to flatter the new

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

king of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

William I William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087 ...

, who was then in very high favor with the pope. But if so, bishop Guy's poem failed in its purpose. He was highly enough thought of at the Norman court to be assigned as

Matilda of Flanders Matilda of Flanders (french: link=no, Mathilde; nl, Machteld) ( 1031 – 2 November 1083) was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and regent of Normandy during his absences from the duchy. She was t ...

's chaplain when she went over to England for her coronation in 1068. But when bishop Guy died in 1075, he still had not regained his bishopric.

References

Sources

*''

The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio The ''Carmen de Hastingae Proelio'' (''Song of the Battle of Hastings'') is a 20th-century name for the ''Carmen Widonis'', the earliest history of the Norman invasion of England from September to December 1066, in Latin. It is attributed to Bisho ...

'' of Bishop Guy of Amiens, edited by Catherine Morton and Hope Muntz, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1972. *''The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio'' of Bishop Guy of Amiens, edited and translated by Frank Barlow, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999. {{DEFAULTSORT:Guy 1075 deaths 11th-century French Roman Catholic bishops Bishops of Amiens Year of birth unknown 11th-century Latin writers 11th-century French writers