MALMESBURY, WILLIAM OF, an old English historian, descended by his father's side from the Normans, and by his mother's from the Saxons, was born in Somersetshire about 1095 or 1096. At an early age he entered the monastery of Malmesbury, where he subsequently became librarian and precentor. He is also said to have declined the abbotship. From his youth Malmesbury was an enthusiastic devotee of literature. He explored the chief monastic libraries in the kingdom, and with equal ardour perused books of poetry, divinity, biography, and history. His care in correcting his style is seen by the changes in the four several editions of his De Gestis Regum that appeared during his lifetime; and no less evident in his writings is his scrupulous regard for historic truth. His numerous and apposite quotations from Latin authors show that he possessed an acquaintance with their works alike wide and intimate. Malmesbury was in high repute in his own day, and was patronized and befriended by Robert Earl of Gloucester, natural son of Henry I. The date of his death is generally fixed at 1143; but the fact that his Historiae Novella, published in 1142, was afterwards subjected to a thorough revival and emendation, evidently from his own hand, seems to indicate that he must have lived considerably longer.
The following is a list of his works:—De Gestis Regum; Historia Novella; De Gestis Pontificum; De Vita Aldelmi; De Vita S. Dunstani; Vita S. Patricii; Miracula S. Benigni; Pausis S. Indracti; De Antiquitate Gloucestrensis Ecclesiae; Vita S. Wulstani Episcopi Wigornensis; Chronica; Miracula S. Ellygile; Instructarium Joannis Abbatis Meldunensis versus Romanos; Expositio Threnorum Hieronimi; De Miraculis Divae Mariæ; De Serie Evangelistarum, in verse; De Miraculis B. Andreæ; Abbrevisatio Annalium de Ecclesiasticis Officiis, and Epistola Historiae Almonis Floricensis. Malmesbury's De Gestis Regum, Historia Novella, and De Gestis Pontificum, were published by Savile in his Scriptores post Bedam, 1596 and 1601. The De Vita Aldelmi and the De Antiquitate Ecclesiae Gloucestrensis appeared in Gale's Scriptores XV., Oxford, 1691. The former of these works and the Vita S. Wulstani are printed in the second volume of Wharton's Anglia Sacra. In 1815 was published The History of the Kings of England, and the Modern History of William Malmesbury, translated by the Rev. John Sharpe, 4to, London. This translation has been reprinted in Bohn's Antiquarian Library, 1847.