Lambert spent his rather uneventful life in the region of Guines, as the devoted priest of the local lords of Guines and Ardre. He was married and had two sons who worked with him and a daughter who married the illegitimate son of the lord of Ardre. He wrote his history of the family at the request of Arnold of Ardre, the son of his lord Baldwin II. Arnold had been excommunicated for destroying a mill belonging to a widow. Now Arnold wanted to marry a wealthy heiress, Beatrice of Bour-bourg, but first he had to be reinstated into the Christian community. Lambert inadvertently insulted Baldwin by refusing to ring the church bells to announce Arnold’s absolution before receiving an official notification, an action that would have been contrary to Church regulations. The family history may have been an attempt to return to the good graces
Of his lord. We are the richer for Arnold and Lambert’s troubles because the Chronicle is a fascinating account of life in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Naturally, Lambert flattered his patron and dedicated the book to Arnold; nevertheless, Lambert seems to have tried to write an accurate account of his region. He had access to church records and consulted other people for their memories of local traditions and legends. Lambert had an essentially secular point of view, and attributes events to human action, not miracles. The lords of Guines were minor nobles living in the dune-land near Calais, but every detail of their family history was important to Lambert, who recorded such details as the bread tax instituted for the upkeep of a popular town bear. In his detailed descriptions of buildings and towns he notes the use to which buildings and even rooms in buildings were put, and so provides historians with valuable information.
Ordericus Vitalis (1075-C.1142), Monk of St. Evroult The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy (from the birth of Christ to the reign of Henry I of England)
Ordericus Vitalis was born on February 15, 1075, in Attingham near Shrewsbury, England. His father was a follower and council member of Robert de Montgomery, the Earl of Shrewsbury. Ordericus tells us that he began his studies in Shrewsbury at age five, and when he was ten years old, his father sent him to Normandy, where he entered the scholarly Benedictine monastery of St. Evroult. Ordericus was soon recognized for his intelligence and love of learning. In 1086 he became a monk, taking the name Vitalis. He became a deacon and, in 1107, a priest.
Ordericus Vitalis spent most of his time in his monastery, studying and writing a history of Normandy and England. He traveled once to Worcester in England and once to Cambray in Flanders to collect historical evidence, and he also attended a general meeting of the Benedictine Order. He finished writing his history at the age of sixty-seven, and he probably died soon thereafter, perhaps in 1142.
As one would expect from a twelfth-century historian, Ordericus Vi-talis began his history with the birth of Christ, but he rapidly moved from
The history of Christianity to the history of his own times and place— England and Normandy. He called his work an ecclesiastical history, but we read his books for their insights into his own times. Ordericus included all the good stories he heard, as well as traditional lore, adventures, bits of scandal, and his own opinions, and he blended them all into a gripping tale. If you want to read the work of only one medieval historian, then Ordericus Vitalis is the author to choose. (See Chibnall, Marjorie. The World of Orderic Vitalis. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.)
World History
