William’s discovery of English history
Half Norman as he was by descent, it was natural that William’s first endeavor as assistant librarian should be to collect at his own expense some histories of foreign nations.…
Ealdhelm’s shrine and relics at Malmesbury
To the scholar Malmesbury was classic ground where every step brought William face to face with some memory of Wessex under the old royal house from which Ealdhelm sprang.…
The legend of John Scotus
On the left of the high altar, facing Ealdhelm’s shrine, stood a tomb believed in William’s day to cover the remains of John Scotus.…
Constantine the Greek at Malmesbury
On the hillside north of the abbey, scanty traces of a vineyard were associated with a yet more distant visitor, the mysterious Constantine who in the time of the Danish kings sou…
William’s search for an English historian
Under the influence of such surroundings William began his studies in English history but was brought to a standstill at the very threshold for lack of a guide.…
The origins of the Gesta Regum Anglorum
Unable to be satisfied with what he found written of old, William began to scribble himself, and thus produced his first historical work, the Gesta Regum Anglorum or *Acts of th…
Comparison with Florence of Worcester
William’s Gesta Regum was first published in 1120, two years after the death of Florence, whose work had doubtless reached him by then and was certainly well known to him before…
William’s character and historical method
William’s temper, as displayed in his works, might form the subject of a curious psychological study, for in many respects it seems to belong to a man of the world of the modern d…
Decline of the English gleeman
The Norman conquest had doomed to gradual extinction a vast growth of unwritten popular verse which for four hundred years had colored the whole social life and thought of England…
Song and the national revival of history
Before the gleeman’s day was quite over, the new school of patriotic historians arose and plunged into the mass of traditional and romantic lore of which he was the depositary as…
KAPITEL I.
Chapter I introduces William of Malmesbury as a representative lens onto the monastic and intellectual culture of Henry I’s England. The chapter argues that William, though exceptional in genius, flourished within an ordinary monastic setting that was deeply engaged with every r…
William of Malmesbury as an exceptional monastic figure
William of Malmesbury should not be taken as an average representative of monastic culture: he was a man of exceptional genius who would have stood out in any age.…
The monastic community in contact with every rank of society
The community of Malmesbury was in active and constant relations with every rank and class of society throughout the kingdom.…
The medieval monk as a worldly traveller, not a bookworm
William’s career dispels the notion of the medieval monk as a solitary bookworm. The abbot ranked as a great noble, sitting among earls and bishops in the Great Council and being…
William’s personal observations across England
William’s little sketches of town and country in his survey of English dioceses must have been made on the spot.…
The new intellectual movement beyond the cloister
The new intellectual movement was by no means confined to the cloister. Clerks and laymen shared in it, and king and queen encouraged it warmly—marking their sympathy with the pat…
Henry I as a royal patron of learning
Henry I exemplified the royal patronage of learning. Beyond cherishing the maxim that an unlettered king is a crowned ass, he studied natural science in characteristically practic…
Queen Maude and the scholars at her court
Henry’s queen Maude shared his tastes. She had received at her aunt’s convent at Romsey an education given to few women of her time, and in her later years at Westminster, when th…
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