Born
of an English mother and a Norman father, William entered the abbey at
Malmesbury (Wiltshire)
as a boy and remained a monk there for the rest of his life. William was,
however, well-travelled and met many other scholars and writers of his day. He
was prolific as a biographer and historian. Amongst his principal works is Gesta
Pontificum Anglorum (Deeds of the Bishops), written 1115-20, which is a
series of ecclesiastical biographies. Better known, however, is the Gesta
Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings), completed in 1126, although
additions were made in the 1130s. A self-conscious attempt to continue the
work of the Venerable Bede who wrote in the 7th century,
William’s Gesta is a history of England from the 5th
century to the time of Henry I for whose reign it is an important independent
and primary source. It includes a number of famous passages such as that
describing the Normans thus:
‘They are a race inured to war, and can hardly live without it, fierce in
attacking their enemies, and when force fails, ready to beguile or to corrupt
by bribery’.
In
1140 at the request of Robert of Gloucester, leader of the Empress Matilda’s
party in the civil war with Stephen, William wrote the Historia Novella
(the Contemporary History). It is an account of and critical commentary on the
period 1126-42 ending with the escape of the Empress from Oxford which must
have happened just before he died. In addition, William wrote a number of
saints’ lives and a history of the antiquities of Glastonbury Abbey.
Bibliography
-
Giles, J.A., 1847. William
of Malmesbury’s Chronicle
(London)
-
Hamilton, N.E.S.A., 1870. Willelmi Malmesbiriensis, Monachi de Gestis
Pontificum Anglorum
libri quinque (London, Rolls Series 52)
- King, E. (ed.) and
Potter, K.R. (trans.), 1998. William of Malmesbury,
Historia Novella, The Contemporary History (Oxford)
- Mynors,
R.A.B., Thomson, R.M. and Winterbottom, M., 1998-9. Gesta
Regum Anglorum
2 vols (Oxford)
- Stubbs, W. (ed.), 1887-9. Willelmi Malmesbiriensis, Monachi de Gestis Regum Anglorum libri quinque
(London, Rolls Series 90, 2 vols)
