SOURCE: Thomson, Rodney M. “William of Malmesbury's Carolingian Sources.” Journal of Medieval History 7, no. 4 (December 1981): 321-36.

In the following essay, Thomson examines William's historical methods through an examination of one of his sources, also commenting in general on twelfth-century historiography.

William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum, completed in 1125, is of course primarily a history of England; primarily, but not solely, and certainly not in any narrow sense.¹ On the contrary, William felt it necessary to at least summarize, in a series of digressions, the history of those people who, by invasion, intermarriage or diplomatic intercourse, became part of England's history. So, he dealt with the continental Saxons and Scandinavians briefly, the Frankish, German and French royal families and the Normans in greater detail.² The excursuses became more frequent as, on nearing his own time, his vision grew even more pan-European, encompassing the First Crusade, the later stages of the...