Life
All that we know about Guernes is what he tells us, directly or indirectly, through his sole text, Vie de Saint Thomas Becket. He was born in the little French town of Pont-Sainte-Maxence, and was a wandering Christian cleric with good command of Latin. Shortly after Thomas Becket's death in 1170 Guernes set out to compose a vernacular-French, biographical poem of Becket's life. He completed his first draft in 1172, working from Europe, but it was stolen before he could correct it. This first draft was compiled only from secondary sources and drew mainly on an earlier biography by Edward Grim, who witnessed Becket's Death first hand and was wounded trying to save him. Guernes immediately started working on a second draft and, being a wandering cleric, left Europe to interview the eye witnesses of Becket's death in the Canterbury area. Guernes completed the text, in 1174, drawing primarily on Edward Grim and William of Canterbury, and consulting Benedict of Peterborough and William Fitzstephen. Although Guernes did not personally know Becket, he tells us he saw him numerous times riding against the French.
Read more about this topic: Guernes De Pont-Sainte-Maxence
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“His life itself passes deeper in nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist. The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What life is best?
Courts are but only superficial schools
To dandle fools:
The rural parts are turned into a den
Of savage men:
And where ‘s a city from all vice so free,
But may be termed the worst of all the three?”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“Your mother named you. You and she just saw
Each other in passing in the room upstairs,
One coming this way into life, and one
Going the other out of life you know?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)