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’). Completed before 1125, both are important commentaries not just on the English past, but on the traumas of the Norman Conquest. Malmesbury was exceptionally learned and widely read.

William of Malmesbury (c.1095–1143), the first full-scale writer of history in England after Bede. His major works were the Gesta Regum Anglorum, a history of England from 449 to 1120 which includes two stories about Arthur; the Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, an ecclesiastical history of England from 597 to 1125; the Historia Novella, the sequel to the Gesta Regum, dealing with 1128 to 1142 and left unfinished; De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae (a work which has led to the speculation that he may have lived at Glastonbury, written between 1129 and 1139); and the Life of St Dunstan, a hagiographical work. As well as being an authoritative and serious historian, William was a picturesque and circumstantial writer who enlivened his narrative with topographical observation, anecdote, reminiscence, and comment.

William of Malmesbury , c.1096-1143, English writer, monk of Malmesbury. His most important work is the Gesta regum Anglorum, a history of the kings of England from 449 to 1127, with its continuation, Historia novella (ed. by William Stubbs, 1887-89). Book V is contemporary history, especially valuable for the reigns of Henry I and Stephen. The work appeared in English as The Chronicle of the Kings of England (see ed. by J. A. Giles, 1847, repr. 1968). He also wrote Gesta pontificum Anglorum, a source for early ecclesiastical history and for several saints' lives.