The Hermit’s Communion with Nature
With the fervour of the older asceticism Godric had caught also its poetic tenderness. Wandering through forest after forest from Carlisle to the Tees, he found, like S.…
The Last of the Old English Saints
Godric settled at Finchale in 1122, two years after the wreck of the White Ship, and dwelt there for sixty years.…
The National Character of the English Church
The spiritual side of this revival was closely bound up with its national side. All the foreign influences which the Norman Conquest had brought to bear upon the English Church ha…
Renewed Veneration of Anglo-Saxon Saints
One of the most striking signs of the times was the renewed reverence for those older English saints whose latest successor was striving to bury himself in the woodlands of S.…
Revival of Saints’ Lives and Historical Writing
Literary activity was re-awakened by the same impulse. Two successive precentors of Canterbury, Osbern and Eadmer, worked up into more elaborate biographies the early memorials of…
The Worcester Scriptorium and the English Chronicle
There was one cathedral monastery in the west of England where the traditions of a larger historical sentiment had never died out.…
The Chronicle Continued at Peterborough
In the middle of Henry I’s reign, the monks of Peterborough, probably in consequence of the loss of their own records in a fire which destroyed their abbey in 1116, borrowed a cop…
Florence of Worcester and Latin Historiography
Precious as it is, this English chronicle-work at Peterborough was a mere survival; half its pathetic interest springs from the fact that it stands utterly alone, for, save in tha…
Influence and Legacy of Florence’s Chronicle
While the last English chronicle lay isolated and buried in the scriptorium at Peterborough, it was through the Latin version of Florence that the national and literary tradition…
CAPÍTULO I.
Chapter I traces the formation of William of Malmesbury as a historian, beginning with his birth and parentage and proceeding through his early training, the monastic culture of Malmesbury Abbey from its Irish foundation to the era of Norman reform, and his own intellectual deve…
Birth and parentage of William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury was born some three or four years before the death of William the Conqueror, in or near the little Wiltshire town from which he took his surname.…
Early literary training under his father
William’s father destined his son from an early age to a literary career, impressing upon him the duty of devoting himself to study if he would not waste his life and imperil his…
The Irish foundation of Malmesbury Abbey
Malmesbury Abbey owed its origin to Maidulf, an Irish recluse who in the seventh century sought retirement from the world in the forest then covering the northern part of Wiltshir…
Maidulf and the rise of the monastic school
Maidulf’s hermitage expanded through the attraction of scholars and disciples into a formal monastic school.…
Ealdhelm and the culture of Wessex
Ealdhelm, Maidulf’s successor as abbot, became one of the most brilliant figures in the history of early West-Saxon learning and culture.…
The Norman abbots Turold and Warin
Darker times came with the first Norman abbot, Turold, whose stern and warlike character so ill befitted a monk that the king transferred him to Peterborough to check the English…
Abbot Godfrey’s reform of the abbey
About the time of William’s birth Warin died, and his successor, the monk of Jumièges named Godfrey, undertook a vigorous reform of the abbey in material, moral, and intellectual…
William’s course of study at the abbey school
William’s course of study at the abbey school revealed the bent of his mind in the subjects he chose for special attention.…
Formation of the abbey library
Godfrey’s darling scheme was the formation of a library, and when at length he found time and means to attempt its execution, William became his most energetic assistant.…
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