assassinate the young duke in childhood. Bishop Guy himself was out of favour with the pope, and it has been suggested that he wanted to garner some Norman influence by writing the Carmen in William's honour and inviting Lanfranc of Pavia, abbot of Abbey of Saint-Étienne, Caen and later Archbishop of Canterbury (to whom the Proem of the poem is dedicated) to use his influence with king and pope. A further possibility (though none of these are mutually exclusive) is that Guy composed the Carmen to present Eustace, Count of Boulogne, in a favourable light in order to reverse King William's banishment of Count Eustace following his failed invasion of England in the autumn of 1067 (Eustace remained in fact out of favour until late in the 1070s). The Carmen possesses exceptional historical importance as an early account of the Norman Conquest. It is the most vivid of the original written accounts and practically the only one to give a non-Norman point of view in detail. The Bayeux Tapestry is problematic; the identity and purpose of its creators is unknown, though it bears evidence of English involvement (eg. English spelling) in its production. In fact, it is the Carmen'''s very vividness which has caused it in the past to come under attack as either a forgery, fraud or at the least a later, 12th-century source. Frank Barlow argued that the Carmen was most likely from the year 1067, and following Elisabeth van Houts' arguments in her article "Latin Poetry and the Anglo-Norman Court 1066-1135: The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio," this is the commonly accepted scholarly opinion. The Carmen is notable for literary reasons, too. It describes the Norman Conquest in terms borrowed from classical and Carolingian epic and praise poetry, but in ways that contrast with other contemporary praise poets. The ironic application of classical and Carolingian language to William sows doubt about his faithfulness and piety (two core political values for the Carolingians and the Capetians). This indicates that the contradictions and early weaknesses of William's conquest and regime were already apparent in 1067, even as Guy could praise William for his achievement. Editions Carmen Widonis - The First History of the Norman Conquest, transcription, translation and commentary by Kathleen Tyson, Granularity Press 2018. Carmen de Triumpho Normannico - The Song of the Norman Conquest, transcribed from digital images of the manuscript and translated by Kathleen Tyson, Granularity Press