William of Malmesbury as Historian and Man of Letters

Abstract

As a historian and man of learning, William of Malmesbury has over the last century drawn the most diverse reactions from those scholars whose work has brought them into contact with him. On the one hand, praise has been lavished on his wide reading, critical acumen and historical judgement; on the odier, his credulity, carelessness, wilful mishandling of evidence and meandering irrelevance have been stigmatised. One group of scholars sees him as head and shoulders above, and in advance of his time, a ‘modern’ writer; others see him as the creature of his epoch and immediate environment in a pejorative sense. Yet it would surely be true to say that no-one since or apart from William Stubbs has attained such a command of William's output as to be in a position to make an overall assessment of it. Even Stubbs did not claim to be attempting this and, in any case, he was unacquainted with several of William's works, and misattributed others.

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