William of Malmesbury

William of Malmesbury (1095–c.1143) was a monk, born of Anglo-Norman parentage, who set out to write the history of the English in two books, the Gesta Regum Anglorum (‘The Deeds of the Kings of the English’) and the Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (‘The Deeds of the Bishops of the English’). Both were completed before 1125 and are important commentaries not just on the English past, but on the Anglo-Norman present and the traumas of the Norman Conquest. Malmesbury was exceptionally learned and widely read. He produced many other works and at the end of his life was writing a contemporary history, the Historia Novella, dedicated to Robert, earl of Gloucester. He is admired as a historian because he travelled to undertake research, because he criticized and evaluated his sources, and because he wrote in a good, classically based, Latin style.

David Richard Bates