The Soil’s Holy Bodies: The Art of Chorography in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Pontificum Anglorum

This article contends that chorography was instrumental to national identity in the century following the Norman Invasion. William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, in particular, uses the rhetoric of travelogues, perambulation, and visual description to write a history of England that recovers the nation’s pre-Conquest identity. This analysis pays special attention to William’s use of grave sites and embodiment to reconcile cultural difference in the early twelfth century and regulate national memory by fusing it with the land.