David Bates (1) (1945–)

This is the kind of study that can only be produced by someone who's spent their career studying a topic: confident in its overarching narrative and context while still highly detailed. The casual reader indeed may find this too demanding a study to make for easy reading, since for example the complicated and fragmentary nature of the contemporary source base about William the Conqueror requires David Bates to make frequent references to the comparative merits of various anonymous show more chroniclers. Bates is also a thoughtful historian but not an elegant prose stylist, and there are parts of this that are a bit of a slog to read. That quibble aside, this is still a fine biography and one that's about as comprehensive as it's possible to be. show less

This is an excellent biography of the ambitious, cruel, and implacable man (also known as William the Bastard to his contemporaries for his demeanor as well as his parentage) who conquered England in 1066 and changed history. I often wonder how the world would have turned out if he had been vanquished by King Harold at Hastings.

A good general introduction to the life of the Conqueror, though it's not as meaty and detailed as the David Douglas biography.

The author provides the citations for everything he says and comments of who any authors were and their relationship to William (as in are they likely to be biased). I found it amazing how many actual sources still exist from the years around 1066.