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 and
Boulogne 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, was the uncle (and not the brother) of
Enguerrand II and his brother
Guy I of Ponthieu. 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 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 Con ...
. This may have been the (contributing) reason why bishop Guy composed 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 Bish ...
'' (''Song of the
Battle of Hastings''), as an effort to flatter the new
Norman 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, 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'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'' 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