Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, also known as Garnier, was a 12th-century French scribe and one of the ten contemporary biographers[1] of Saint Thomas Becket of Canterbury.
[3] 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.
[4] Guernes immediately started working on a second draft and, being a wandering cleric, went to England to interview the eyewitnesses of Becket's death in the Canterbury area.
In her introduction to her English translation Janet Shirley describes the text as the following: “It is a lively emphatic creation, written for quiet study but to be enjoyed by a listening audience… It was both a serious work and a tourist attraction.”[7] Despite the desire to entertain, and the obvious hagiographical imperative of the poem, Guernes expressed his concern for truth through accuracy, which is reflected in his journalistic methods of compiling information.
[10] Vie de Saint Thomas Becket is seen to adopt a myth perspective towards truth because of Guernes's preoccupation with accuracy.
[9] Vie de Saint Thomas Becket represents the forerunner in the hagiographical epic style because Guernes was one of the first to write about a contemporary, which freed him to focus on the historicity of his subject because he was already canonized; there was no need to overplay his saintliness.