WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH

Austin canon, historian, and theologian; b. near Bridlington, Yorkshire, England, 1136; d. probably 1198, certainly by 1201. William, one of the most outstanding historians of his day and a competent theologian, was educated by the canons of Newburgh and may have spent the whole of his life there, but probably he is to be identified with William, son of Elyas and brother of Bernard, prior of Newburgh, who acquired estates in Oxfordshire by marriage c. 1160 with Emma de Peri, who subsequently left his wife and children to become a canon regular of st. augustine at Newburgh.

The writings to which William of Newburgh owes his reputation belong to the last decade of the century. He composed his Historia rerum Anglicarum at the request of Ernald, abbot of nearby rievaulx, probably between 1196 and 1198. This work, which extends from 1066 to May 8, 1198, is remarkable, less for the originality of the material it contains, than for its clarity of thought, its display of an unusually keen sense of historical criticism, and its attack on commonly accepted fables such as those of geoffrey of monmouth. William's chief theological work was a commentary on the song of songs, composed before 1196 at the request of Roger, Cistercian abbot of Byland; it embodies the ideas of many earlier writers harmoniously, but without great originality of thought.

Bibliography: Historia rerum Anglicarum, v.1–2 of Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. r. howlett, 4 v. (Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores 82.1–2; London 1884–85); ed. with three sermons by t. hearne, 3 v. (Ox-ford 1719); tr. j. stevenson, 2 v. (London 1856); Explanatio Sacri Epithalamii in Matrem Sponsi: A Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles, ed. j. c. gorman (Fribourg 1960), with biography. k. norgate, "The Date of Composition of W. of N.'s History," English Historical Review 19 (1904) 288–297. h. e. salter, "W. of N.," ibid. 22 (1907) 510–514. r. jahncke, Guilelmus Neubrigensis: Ein pragmatischer Geschichtsschreiber des zwölften Jahrhunderts (Bonn 1912).

[m. m. chibnall]