Customer Reviews

The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens (Oxford Medieval Texts)

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The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio was most likely written by Bishop Guy of Amiens (born circa 1014 - 1074/1075) the second son of the Count of Ponthieu in France. The editor, Frank Barlow, spends half the massive introduction presenting the arguments for the disputed authorship. The song itself, only a third of the actual book, is written in imitation of the epics writing of Virgil, Statius, and Ovid and is full of references but still remains an important source (although arguably not very accurate) of the battle of Hastings. The author attempts to present the battle with the 'French' element of the Norman invasion force in the best possible light. His nephew is portrayed as a Classical Hero etc... Barlow presents a conflicting and convoluting argument for the importance of the text, however, he raises some interesting points about the contemporary sources for the battle and the opinions and biases that rise due to location etc.

However, the downfall of the volume is its EXTREME PRICE and the convoluted and excessively meandering introduction that says very little. Thankfully, I have access to an amazing University library so I could read the actual text without having to spend a ton of money. Five stars for the actual Song and three stars for the Frank Barlow's poor intro.

Illustrating the intro is this CONCLUDING statement: "Each has its peculiarities (the different accounts) due to its individual bias, purpose, artistic treatment, points of reference, and errors. This does not mean that Carmen necessarily provides the best or most accurate account." He carefully and laboriously points out how all the accounts differ but never explicitly concludes that the text is actually useful or not!!!

It's pretty obvious that this is a required text for a course at a University somewhere, for that's the only thing that could conceivably justify a $120 price on an ebook. The author would do well to discover that there are thousands of people such as myself that would consider such a book at $14.99 and likely increase his sales by a factor of ten or more.

The world has changed my friend -- you can sell to people all over the world now at the touch of a button, and they can find your product. There's no additional cost to selling additional copies of ebooks. Quit leaving money on the table.

J.