and I watched his fine disposition develop. Moreover, he and I came
from the same region, and his parents held benefices from my parents,
and owed them homage, and we grew up together, and his whole life and
development were an open book to me.

He is a spokesman not only for aristocrats, but for the French, in
spite of his emphasis on per Deum in his title, regularly emphasizing,
throughout his text, the significance and superiority of the French
contribution. At the end of Book One, Guibert insists that Bohemund,
the major military figure in his history, was really French:

Since his family was from Normandy, a part of France, and since he
had obtained the hand of the daughter of the king of the French, he
might be very well be considered a Frank.

In Book Three, when the Franks win a significant victory, Guibert
insists that the defeated Turks and the victorious Franks have not
merely common but noble ancestors, thereby melding his two political
commitments:

But perhaps someone may object, arguing that the enemy forces were
merely peasants, scum herded together from everywhere. Certainly the
Franks themselves, who had undergone such great danger, testified
that they could have known of no race comparable to the Turks, either
in liveliness of spirit, or energy in battle. When the Turks
initiated a battle, our men were almost reduced to despair by the
novelty of their tactics in battle; they were not accustomed to their
speed on horseback, not to their ability to avoid our frontal
assaults. We had particular difficulty with the fact that they fired
their arrows only when fleeing from the battle. It was the Turk's