WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY (c. Io8o—c. 1143), Eng lish historian of the 12th century, was born about the year 1080, in the south country. He was a monk of Malmesbury, and assisted Abbot Godfrey (1081-1105) in collecting a library for the use of the community. The education which he received at Malmes bury included a srr attering of logic and physics ; but his principal studies were on moral philosophy and history. He made a collec tion of the histories of foreign countries, and decided to write a popular account of English history, modelled on the great work of Bede. William produced about 1120 the first edition of his Gesta regum, followed by the first edition of the Gesta pontificum (1125). A second edition of the Gesta regum, (1127) was dedi cated to Earl Robert of Gloucester ; another patron was Bishop Roger of Salisbury. He was offered the abbacy of Malmesbury in 1140, but he preferred to remain a simple bibliothecarius. His one public appearance was made at the council of Winchester 141), in which the clergy declared for the empress Matilda. About this date he undertook to write the Historia novella, giving an account of events since 1125. This work breaks off abruptly at the end of 1142.
William is the best English historian of his time. His con tempt for the annalistic form makes him at times careless in his chronology and arbitrary in his method of arranging his material; but he is, however, an authority from 1066 onwards ; many telling anecdotes, many shrewd judgments on persons and events, are found in his pages.
The standard edition of the Gesta regum and the Historia novella is that of W. Stubbs in the "Rolls" series (I vol., in 2, 1887-89) ; the second part contains a valuable introduction on the sources and value of the chronicler. The Gesta pontificum was edited for the "Rolls" series by N. G. S. A. Hamilton (London, 187o) from a manuscript which he was the first to identify as the archetype. Another work, De antiquitate Glastoniensis ecclesiae (A.D. is printed in Gale's Scriptores XV. (Oxford, 1691). Wharton in the second volume of his Anglia sacra (London, 1691) gives considerable portions of a life of Wulfstan which is an amplified translation of an Anglo-Saxon biography. Finally Stubbs in his Memorials of St. Dunstan ("Rolls" series, London, 1874) prints a Vita S. Dunstani which was written about 1126.