mousteriana
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Registered: 03-2005
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Re: The strange world of Mr.W.o.Poitiers?
Housecarl and WRTF:
Marita and the WRTF are correct that Hereward wasn't a legend. And Housecarl is surely right that he was a skilled commander(there is evidence that he was a mercenary in Flanders for a good while). He probably would not have been able to hold out in Ely for over a year had he not been. And it is this that made people remember him. Since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle doesn't say what happened to Hereward after Ely fell, I suppose you could say that the Gesta Herewardi Saxonis account of his eventual submission to William is "legendary". But then, so is the Geoffrey Gaimar account in the Histoire Engleis. In this account, Hereward is "ganged up on" by a bunch of Normans and eventually killed. I don't claiim to know what "happened" to him. What I do know, however, is that the Gesta does not "portray him as little more than a brigand". Rather, the author, who apparentely was a monk by the name of Richard, and apparently got his information about Hereward from someone who was one of his followers, portrayed him quite heroically. This may or may not be an exaggeration; by the time the Gesta was written down, locally powerful people had become interested in the history of their adopted country, and were beginning, at least, to consider themselves "English". for this reason, they wanted to know as much of the history of their country and region as was possible, and people like Richard of Crowland and Geoffrey Gaimar were only too happy to oblige them, for good or ill. Yes, there is a lot of "legendary" stuff about Hereward, but these bits are in the same mold as similar contemporary tales about Alexander and Arthur and other medieval heroes.
Anne G
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8/3/2008, 8:14 pm
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