Discovering William of Malmesbury ed. by Rodney M. Thomson, Emily Dolmans, and Emily A. Winkler (review)

Over the past forty years, Rodney Thomson has established himself as the authority on the life and works of William of Malmesbury. It is reassuring then for scholars of England’s foremost twelfth-century historian to find Thomson’s name attached to a project such as Discovering William of Malmesbury. What is perhaps even more reassuring is that this edited volume of eighteen chapters gives ample evidence that interest in William of Malmesbury remains strong among a new generation of scholars, and that the future study of his legacy is in good hands.

The contributions to this volume display the impressive breadth of scholarship on William and his works currently being undertaken—from William’s conceptualization of history and his place in the historiography of twelfth-century England, through to his portrayal of the Jews, his perception of the Britons, and his understanding of kingship. However, considering that there are eighteen individual contributions and the book is only 224 pages in length, it is of note that each study is brief. This is not in itself problematic, and the tight focus and contained argument of each chapter is a credit to both the editors and the authors. Yet, with so many contributions, the reader may reasonably expect to be guided by the thematic division of chapters that has become the norm of edited volumes. However, this is lacking. The net effect is to create the impression of a compilation of independent studies, rather than an integrated collection in which the contributions are in conversation. But this is a small criticism. It is an excellent book, to be thoroughly recommended.

William gives scholars not only a glimpse of history as a record of events, but in the very process of writing provides a lens through which to understand the social, political, and cultural milieu in which he lived and operated. It is a duality that editors Emily Dolmans and Emily A. Winkler highlight in their introduction, asserting the aim of the volume is ‘to present an image of William as subject and object’ (p. 3). They thus identify two thematic concerns to the studies in the volume. First, ‘William the man’ (pp. 5–7), the ambitious historian and scholar, more interested in learning than the pursuit of direct political agency. Second, ‘William’s works’ (pp. 8–10), writings that catered to a wide range of audiences, to his own thirst for knowledge and its preservation, incorporating elements of historiography, hagiography, and philosophy. This proposed demarcation of the man and his works is not quite as clear as the introduction implies (our knowledge of William’s life comes entirely from his own writings), yet it does hold broadly true of the studies that follow.

Granted the breadth and number of contributions to Discovering William of Malmesbury, we must content ourselves with an overview of a few especially noteworthy chapters of each type. In Chapter 2 Anne E. Bailey assesses the utility of notions of genre in Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, examining the blend of historical and hagiographical characteristics of the work. Bailey’s study can be applied across all of William’s works (and even more broadly across twelfth-century English histories) for, as she notes, history mixes with hagiography throughout William’s entire corpus, though it is simply more evident in Gesta Pontificum Anglorum. Bailey ably demonstrates William’s skilled synthesis of multiple sources to augment his narratives, both historical and hagiographical, and that in the resultant biographies William himself consciously shifted between history and hagiography. Suggesting that William’s intent was to relate ‘heritage’ rather than ‘history’ (p. 25), Bailey concludes that William was deliberate in constructing narratives that preserved regional traditions.

In Chapter 4, John Gillingham looks at William’s portrayals of William II and Henry I, arguing that William preserves a far more nuanced view of both kings than that offered by his contemporaries and successors. Moreover, Gillingham proposes...