Dudo, or Dudon, was a Picard historian, and dean of Saint-Quentin, where he was born the 960s.[1] He was an erudite scholar and he likely acquired his education in Liège or perhaps Laon.[2] By 987, Dudo had become a canon at St Quentin, the abbacy of which was held by the counts of Vermandois. In that year he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Richard I of Normandy by Albert I, Count of Vermandois which was successful.[3] Dudo became a frequent visitor to the Norman court in the two years prior to Richard's death in 996. In a letter to Adalbero, Bishop of Laon, Dudo said that, as a result, Richard asked him to write a work recording "the customs and deeds of the Norman Land, the rights established within the kingdom of his great-grandfather Rollo".[2] During a second stay in Normandy, Dudo wrote his history of the Normans, a task which Duke Richard had urged him to undertake. Very little else is known about his life, except that he died before 1043.[4]
- ^ Christiansen 1998, p. ix.
- ^ a b Green 2023, p. 7.
- ^ Christiansen 1998, pp. x–xi.
- ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Dudo". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 638.
