Oxford Medieval Texts – serie

This volume presents the first edition and translation of the Dyalogus de potentia summi pontifices, a little known, fragmentary work of fourteenth-century political theory by the Dominican Dondinus of Pavia. Dedicated to the Avignon Pope John XXII (1316-1334), it provides theological, philosophical, and historical justifications for the spiritual and temporal supremacy of the papacy asserted by Boniface VIII in Unam Sanctam of 1302. The dialogue unfolds in a dream vision in which an apologist for papal power and a sceptic argue before a judge. While the text at points characterizes opponents of papal power as heretics and even seems to counsel violence against them, the sceptic in the dialogue is nonetheless characterized as sympathetic, reasonable, and open to persuasion. An extensive introduction by the editor relates the Dyalogus to relevant landmarks of intellectual history of the early fourteenth century (such as John XXII's constitution Si fratrum on the vacant Empire and the subsequent pamphlet war with the imperial claimant Ludwig of Bavaria, or the curial trial of secular university master John of Pouilly over his critique of papally-granted pastoral privileges for mendicant friars). The introduction also provides a precise political context for understanding the work through a reconstruction of the career of the author's patron, Cardinal Luke Fieschi of Genoa, and through a consideration of John XXII's pro-Angevin strategy of pacification, inquisition, and crusade against Ghibelline lords of Northern Italy like the Visconti of Milan. An apparatus fontium points out parallels in contemporary authors such as John of Paris, Giles of Rome, James of Viterbo, Dante, Ptolemy of Lucca, and Marsilius of Padua. This editorial work ultimately reveals how Dondinus of Pavia used prior papal apologia to construct a dialogue that was most likely intended as a didactic tool of political catechesis for a lay audience.

During the past generation, Byrhtferth of Ramsey (c. 970 - c. 1020) has emerged as one of the principal authors of late Anglo-Saxon England, whose writings - in both Latin and Old English - are among the most important sources for our understanding of early English history. This work, the Historia regum, is transmitted anonymously in the single manuscript which preserves it; but Byrhtferth's idiosyncratic and individual Latin style allows certain identification of Byrhtferth as its author. The work is in four parts, and treats the history of the major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex) during the period 560 to 887. The Latin text is accompanied by facing-page English translation, and provided with extensive annotation intended to explain the many references to historical events (many of them unrecorded elsewhere) in the text. The Introduction treats the sources on which Byrhtferth drew in compiling this work, and provides full analysis of Byrhtferth's idiosyncratic Latin style. The edition is intended to be a companion volume to Byrhtferth of Ramsey: the Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine, published as an Oxford Medieval Text edition in 2009.

An edition and English translation of the Speculum Stultorum (The Mirror for Fools), a long Latin beast epic written near the end of the twelfth century by a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury. This was one of the most popular works of the Middle Ages, a favourite of Chaucer, Gower, and Henryson, and was copied for over three centuries, with a circulation extending as far as eastern Europe. It is not only a milestone in the history of medieval beast epic, but a rich source of information about contemporary life and events at Canterbury. The work is dedicated to William Longchamp, who was Richard I's chancellor, and the significance of this fact is shown.This is a highly entertaining narrative about a donkey who longs to have a longer tail and journeys to Salerno to buy some (imaginary) medicines which will provide it. When his medicines are destroyed in an accident, he decides to become learned instead, and goes off to study at the university of Paris for seven years, but can still say only 'heehaw'. Interwoven into this simple narrative are other stories and long rhetorical set-pieces which satirise the distorted values of contemporary religious life or the corruption of the papal curia, and describe the qualities of an ideal bishop (which the donkey hopes to become).

The text edited and translated in this volume recounts the first century of the history of the Augustinian priory of Llanthony in Monmouthshire, from its origin around 1100 as an isolated hermitage, through the introduction of the Augustinian Order and the semi-abandonment of the initial site in favour of a more secure location outside Gloucester, to the later twelfth century. The author of the History is a champion of the original community and compares it favourably with the Gloucester house, as well as giving his reflections on the duties of superiors and subordinates in the monastic life and describing and assessing the individual priors. The editorial introduction describes the manuscript, sets the History in context, and advances a theory about its authorship.

De gestis Giraldi is a narrative of the deeds of Gerald of Wales (c. 1146-1223), written in the third person but actually by Gerald himself, and framed as the biography of a bishop although Gerald never became a bishop. Gerald was born in south-west Wales of mixed Norman and Welsh descent and educated at Gloucester and in Paris. He worked for Henry II and Richard I, by whom he was valued as an intermediary between the king and Gerald's relations, who included the leading Welsh king, Rhys ap Gruffudd, and many of the first English settlers in Ireland. When elected bishop of St Davids, Gerald was sent by his fellow-canons to Rome to secure his own consecration and metropolitan status for St Davids; ultimately, both cases failed, defeated by the combined power and resources of the English state and church. Near the beginning of this final part, the single MS breaks off, but the chapter-headings show that much of the substance is preserved in another work by Gerald. His career spanned Wales, Ireland, and England, Paris and Rome, and De gestis Giraldi offers a vivid and personal view of them all.This volume has been prepared from a critical study of the extant manuscript, and features an accompanying English translation. The edition supports the translation and text with an authoritative introduction, extensive historical notes, and critical study of the work.

The Gesta Francorum Ierusalem expugnantium is a history of the First Crusade and the first years of Latin rule in the kingdom of Jerusalem (1095–1106) written before 1120, probably in Flanders. The anonymous author acknowledged that he had based his work on that of Fulcher of Chartres who was a participant in the crusade and the events that followed and who despatched an early version of his Historia Ierosolimitana to northern Europe in 1107. This debt to Fulcher, who went on to produce a longer Historia that ended in 1127, has frequently led later historians to undervalue the Gesta Francorum, although it is clear from a closer reading of it that the writer worked intelligently to abridge his source in a way that focused closely on the events and characters that would be of most interest to his local readership. He also augmented his main source where he felt it was lacking by including a much fuller description of the city of Jerusalem and an account of the siege of Jerusalem that was probably written by an eyewitness. The editors' introduction identifies the passages where the writer can be shown to have used Fulcher of Chartres's 1107 text, now lost, and distinguishes between those events where Fulcher was a participant and wrote from first-hand experience and others where he had been absent and so necessarily drew on other writers to describe them.The nineteenth-century edition of the Gesta Francorum was based on only four manuscripts; the present edition is based on twenty-eight, several of them previously unknown. These are described and their relationships established so that the Latin edition is authoritatively based on the earliest and best. It is complemented by an accurate and engaging English translation—the first in any modern language—and historical notes.

The Historia Novella is a key source for the succession dispute between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda which brought England to civil war in the twelfth century. William of Malmesbury was the doyen of the historians of his day. His account of the main events of the years 1126 to 1142, to some of which he was an eyewitness, is sympathetic to the empress's cause, but not uncritical of her. Edmund King offers a complete revision of K. R. Potter's edition of 1955, retaining only the translation, which has been amended in places. Not only is this a new edition but it offers a new text, arguing that what have earlier been seen as William of Malmesbury's final revisions are not from his hand. Rather they seem to come from somewhere in the circle of Robert of Gloucester, the empress's half-brother, to whom the work is dedicated. In this way the work raises important questions concerning the transmission of medieval texts.

The anonymous Life of King Edward, written about the time of the Norman Conquest, is an important and intriguing source for the history of Anglo-Saxon England in the years just before 1066. It provides a fascinating account of Edward the Confessor and his family: his wife Edith, his father-in-law Earl Godwin, and the queen's brothers Tostig and Harold (king in 1066). The foundations of the legend of St Edward the Confessor are apparent from the version of the work supplied by the unique MS of c.1100.Professor Barlow explores the problems raised by this anonymous work in its now incomplete MS, and examines the development of the cult of St Edward. He also investigates the life and works of Folcard and Goscelin of St Bertin, possible authors. Recent discoveries have enabled Professor Barlow to reconstruct in part the lacunae in BL Harley MS 526 with texts closer to the original. For the second edition, he has undertaken a complete revision of the book.

The church of Durham, founded in 995, claimed in the Middle Ages to be in origin the church of Lindisfarne or Holy Island, the members of which had fled in the face of Viking raids and had wandered for long across northern England, before re-establishing their church at Chester-le-Street in Co. Durham and then at Durham itself. The text edited and translated here for the first time for over a century is the most complete and detailed account of the history of that church. Important as a piece of early post-Conquest historiography by an author about whom much is now known, the text is fascinating for the details it gives about the ecclesiastical community of Durham, the miracles which its members believed had occurred, and the place of the church of Durham in relation to the lands and secular inhabitants of northern England.

BL With revised Latin text and English translationBL New historical notes and rewritten IntroductionColumba is one of the best-known saints of the early Celtic church; through his foundation of the abbey of Iona he had a far-reaching influence on medieval Christianity. In about 700, a century after his death, the Life of Columba was written by Adomnán, ninth abbot of Iona. It has long been valued as the major primary source on the subject, for the light it throws on early medieval Scotland and Ireland, and as an important work of literature. The 1961 edition of the Life, by Alan and Marjorie Anderson, has long been unavailable. Marjorie Anderson has now revised both the Latin text and the English translation, provided new historical notes, and rewritten the Introduction to take account of recent work in the area. This new edition of a source indispensable for the study of the early medieval church meets a major scholarly need.

The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis has been called `the greatest of all medieval chronicles'. Written in Normandy between 1114 and 1141, it is a detailed history of the Norman people and their conquests, full of vivid, often penetrating portraits of the lives and characters of kings and queens, lords and bishops, simple knights, and humble villagers. The chronicle gives a unique, authentic picture of feudal society during a period of rapid change in church and state which saw the emergence of the Anglo-Norman realm, the spread of new forms of monasticism, and the launching of the Crusades.Published in 1968, volume II of Marjorie Chibnall's six-volume edition of the Ecclesiastical History is now available for the first time in paperback.`a superbly edited Latin text and a unique English translation of the work of a major historian'American Historical Review`Mrs Chibnall is giving us ... her edition of a classical medieval text which will itself become a classic of medieval scholarship.'Times Literary Supplement

This is the first English translation and the first modern critical edition of Gervase of Tilbury's Otia Imperialia. Gervase wrote the Otia Imperialia in the early thirteenth century for his patron, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV. It presents an encyclopedic melange of cosmographical, historical, and geographical information and a wealth of learned and original accounts of folklore and popular belief. It also contains advice to Otto and pertinent remarks on the relationship between Empire and Papacy, together with scientific and theological speculation. The edition also includes Gervase's recently discovered Commentary on the Lord's Prayer. Gervase was a voracious and eclectic reader; his many borrowings are identified in this fully annotated edition.

The monastery of Walden was founded c.1136 by Geoffrey de Mandeville, a prominent baron in the civil war of Stephen's reign. Its site just outside the town of Saffron Walden in Essex is now occupied by the great Jacobean mansion known as Audley End House. The Book of the Foundation of Walden Monastery, written by a Walden monk soon after 1203, is here printed in its entirety for the first time. This lively narrative relates the history of the Mandeville earls of Essex and the inheritance of their lands and title by King John's justiciar, Geoffrey fitz Peter. The monk-author describes the development of the priory at Walden and its elevation to the status of a Benedictine abbey in 1190, and in the final section of the work he traces the consequent conflict with Geoffrey fitz Peter, concluding the story with the death of Abbot Reginald in 1200 or 1203. The interest of The Book of the Foundation of Walden Monastery extends far beyond the local: the editors' introduction and notes establish its position as a valuable historical source.

Peter of Celle, abbot of the great Benedictine houses of Montier-la-Celle (c.1145-62) and Saint-Remi, Reims (1162-81), and bishop of Chartres (1181-3), was a figure of considerable authority and influence in twelfth-century France. Close to the royal family and to the court of Champagne, a friend of John of Salisbury and a supporter of Thomas Becket, known to Saint Bernard and to Peter the Venerable, his connections were impressive. In his letters, however, it is the concerns and ideals of the monastic world which are to the fore. At a time of unprecedented upheaval in western religious life, Peter's circle embraced many members of the new orders, Cistercians, Carthusians, and Grandmontines among them. His letters form an eloquent testimony to the power of friendship and co-operation at a time of frequent tension and rivalry. They offer a unique insight into the ideals and values of the monastic world, through the strong voice and critical eye of one of its leading proponents, at a crucial turning point for western religion.

Thomas Walsingham, a monk of St Albans, has been described as the last of the great medieval chroniclers. His major work, the Chronica maiora, covers the years 1376 to 1420, and is arguably the most important account of English history to be written in England at this time. Walsingham's text has never been published as a continuous whole. It is found in no fewer than three separate publications in the Rolls Series, and was printed from manuscripts whose exact identity was not then clearly understood. The nature of the Rolls Series publications, and the different versions of the chronicle, have raised questions concerning the interrelationship of the various manuscripts of the Chronica maiora, and also of Walsingham's own involvement with the text. In this new edition these problems are considered, and the Chronica maiora is shown to be predominantly the work of one man, Thomas Walsingham.Volume I of The St Albans Chronicle (1376-1394) contains that part of Walsingham's chronicle which can with some confidence be said to have been written by 1400. With the exception of a brief contemporary continuation (1393-4) the text is taken from BL MS Royal 13 E IX which, although known to the Rolls Series editors, was not used by them as a principal source. During the 1390s the Royal manuscript was extensively revised at St Albans in order to remove criticisms of John of Gaunt. This revision is perhaps the best example of the contemporary rewriting of history in late medieval England.Although Walsingham has traditionally been regarded as the chronicler of the Lancastrian revolution, this part of his chronicle reveals his work as a major source for the Peasants' Revolt, the emergence of John Wyclif, and the political struggles of Richard II's reign. In everything that he wrote, Walsingham was as much a commentator as a recorder, and his absorbing chronicle reveals the manner in which one interested contemporary viewed current events.

The Evesham History is one of the last important thirteenth-century texts to be translated. This is also the first completely new edition of the Latin since that of 1863. The author, Thomas of Marlborough, was an educated and much travelled man and his work was written not so much in terms of a chronicle but as a history of the lawsuit between the monastery at Evesham and the Bishop of Worcester over the Bishop's right to visit or inspect the community. The case began in England, but was finally taken to Rome and battled out with much legal argument before Pope Innocent III's curia. Much of the History is an eye-witness account. It shows the development of canon law at this period and illustrates aspects of England's relationship with the papacy during King John's reign, including the period of the Interdict. It is valuable too for the light it sheds into the mind of its author, a Benedictine monk, who had pursued a career at Oxford before entering the community. It tells us much about institutional pride and of the use of earlier archives to help the case. In telling the story of the community of Evesham from its foundation by St Ecgwine in the eighth century, Thomas incorporated the work of earlier Evesham historians including the twelfth-century Prior Dominic who was responsible for the Life and Miracles of St Ecgwine. Marlborough also produced a most vivid and personal account of the tyranny of the scandalous Abbot Norreis and of the sufferings of the convent. He went on to recount the return of law and order to the community at Evesham, and the election of a new abbot with whom he attended the Fourth Lateran Council. The edition concludes with the death of Thomas as abbot in 1236.The History provides a very pertinent example of the importance of the past in the interpretation of the present. Building on the past, Thomas exploited the evidence at his disposal in order to maintain and improve the rights that were won in the lawsuit.Few other chronicles or histories provide such an intense, inside view of a community, and are so frank.

Adam Usk, the full details of whose remarkable life are here revealed for the first time, was born in Usk around the middle of the fourteenth century. Through the patronage of the Mortimer family - the earls of March - he studied law at Oxford, eventually rising to hold a chair in civil law there, before entering the service of Archbishop Arundel and, ultimately, of King Henry IV of England. He was an eye-witness to the revolution of 1399, but soon after this, having left England for Rome, he fell out with Henry IV and spent several years in exile, accused of collaborating with the Welsh rebel leader, Owain Glyn Dwr. Eventually, having returned to Wales secretly, he managed to gain a pardon from the king in 1411, and thus spent his remaining years, until his death in 1430, in relative peace.His chronicle, which is a first-hand source for the fall of Richard II, for the turbulent politics of Rome between 1402 and 1406, and for the Glyn Dwr revolt, also provides a fascinating insight - with its mixture of autobiography, political intrigue, and the supernatural - into the mind of a highly educated medieval author.

Henry Knighton, a canon of St Mary's Abbey, Leicester, wrote his Chronicle between 1378 and 1396. Leicester was a fief of the duchy of Lancaster, and the abbey was closely in touch with the households of Henry of Grosmont and John of Gaunt. The Chronicle contains exceptionally vivid accounts of the campaigns in France, in which Duke Henry was one of Edward III's leading generals, of the onset and effects of the Black Death, and of the crises of Richard II's reign. Knighton, whose fellow canon Philip Repingdon was a pupil and early disciple of John Wyclif, was a horrified witness of the rise of Lollardy, his account of which is unmatched.The Chronicle was printed in 1652 in a competent text with a brief Latin commentary, and less satisfactorily in the Rolls Series in 1889-95. This edition includes analysis of the text and its sources, and the first translation of its distinguished and engaging narrative.

The Gesta Normannorum Ducum is one of the most important sources for the history of Normandy and England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and contains the earliest prose account of the Norman Conquest. It was written by a succession of authors, the first of whom was William of Jumieges, who wrote for William the Conqueror. Later historians, such as Orderic Vitalis (d. c. 1142) and Robert of Torigni (d. 1186), interpolated and extended the chronicle as far as King Henry I (1100-1135). The later accretions reveal much not only about changing attitudes towards the Norman invasion of England, but also about views of the early Viking foundations of Normandy.Elisabeth van Houts's two-volume edition is based on a study of all forty-seven extant manuscripts of the Gesta, including the earliest surviving copy of c. 1100, unknown until very recently. The full original text of William of Jumieges is supplied, as well as the integral text of the subsequent revisions and additions. Volume I contains Dr van Houts's introduction to the whole work, together with the text and translation of books i-iv. Volume II contains books v-viii. The edition forms an important contribution to our understanding of Anglo-Norman politics.

Saxo was probably a canon of Lund Cathedral, at that period a Danish cathedral, and lived at the end of the twelfth century. He was in the service of Archbishop Absalon, who encouraged him to write a history of his own country from the beginnings up to his own time, with a strong Christian bias. Starting with the myths and heroic tales of primitive Scandinavia, he devoted the first nine of his sixteen books to legendary material before dealing with the first kings of the Viking age and finished in 1285, after relating the earlier exploits of King Cnut Valdemarsson. The activities of the Danish kings were intimately bound up with the monarchies of Norway and Sweden; Cnut the Great, one of Saxo's heroes, whose empire stretched as far as Britain and Iceland, was ruler of both these countries. In the last books Saxo took particular concern to describe the campaigns of Valdemar the Great and his warrior archbishop, Absalon, against the Wends of North Germany.The work is a prosimetrum, that is, in six of the first nine books he inserts poems, which are intended to parallel specimens of old Danish heroic poetry in Latin metres. Saxo's Latin prose style is often complex, based as it is on models like Valerius Maximus and Martianus Capella, but he is a lively and compelling story-teller, often displaying a rather sly sense of humour, and an interest in the supernatural. He is the first author to give a full account of Hamlet, whose adventures he relates at some length, the elements of which in a great many respects correspond surprisingly closely with the characters and incidents of Shakespeare's play.Volume I of Saxo Grammaticus contains an introduction from the editor, and the first ten books of Saxo's work.

This volume contains comprehensive and scholarly editions of three Anglo-Saxon saints' lives: Birinus of Dorchester-on-Thames, Kenelm of Winchcombe, and Rumwold of Buckingham. Rosalind Love provides the Latin texts, based on all known manuscript versions, with a facing-page English translation, together with full annotation and a historical introduction which sets these works in the context of the development of hagiographical literature. Dr Love traces the growth and changes in hagiographical writing, one of the most important genres of medieval literature and essential to the understanding of the religious mentality of the Middle Ages, and shows how the eleventh century saw significant new directions emerge in the cult of the saints and the writing of saints' lives.

William of Poitiers began his career as a knight before studying in the schools of Poitiers and entering the Church. He became a chaplain in the household of William the Conqueror, and was able to give a first-hand account of the events of 1066-7. The Gesta Guillelmi, his unfinished biography of the king, is particularly important for its detailed description of William's campaigns in Normandy, the careful preparations he made for the invasion of England, the battle of Hastings and the establishment of Norman power after the Conquest. It is a mine of information of military tactics and the conduct of war in the eleventh century. Though written from the point of view of the Norman court, it gives what is probably the most authentic account of these momentous events. This edition, by the late R. H. C. Davis and Marjorie Chibnall, with facing-page English translation of the Latin text, provides the first complete English translation, as well as a full historical introduction and detailed notes.

This volume presents, for the first time, an edition and facing English translation of all of the stories that belong to the Anglo-Latin corpus of the immensely popular and influential collection of moralized stories from the Middle Ages, known as Gesta Romanorum ('The Deeds of the Romans'). The Anglo-Latin branch of the Gesta is of particular interest and importance as it is the source of the Middle English versions of the stories as well as the earliest English printed version, and includes stories that are either not found in continental Gesta collections or that differ significantly from the continental versions. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 310 has been chosen as the base manuscript for the edition and has been collated with seven other Anglo-Latin manuscripts in order to illustrate the nature and degree of textual variation that is a feature of the Anglo-Latin Gesta tradition, and to facilitate comparison between the Anglo-Latin versions of the stories and the Middle English and Early Modern English versions. An edited text and translation of the stories that do not form part of the collection in Douce 310, some of which are found in only one or two manuscripts, have also been provided. In addition, the volume includes notes that identify the sources, analogues, and folktale motifs of the stories and that explain key literary, cultural, and linguistic features, and an introduction that provides an overview of the history and significance of the Gesta and a detailed account of the Anglo-Latin tradition.

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) is widely recognized as one of the most important writers of the twelfth century, famed for his skill in logic as well as his romance with Heloise. Even among Abelard's writings, the Collationes - or Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher, and a Jew - are remarkable for their daring and intellectual imaginativeness. Written probably c.1130, the work contains the fullest exposition of many aspects of abelard's ethics, the only statement of his unusual eschatological theory, and some of his most interesting ideas about faith and the relationship between theism and revealed religionThis is the first full critical edition of the Collationes. Based on an entirely new collation of the manuscripts, it provides a facing-page English translation, detailed notes, and an extensive historical and philosophical introduction.

Geoffrey of Burton's Life and Miracles of St Modwenna (BHL 2097) is among the most substantial pieces of twelfth-century English hagiographic writing not previously to have appeared in print. It was produced by the abbot of Burton, where Modwenna's bones supposedly lay, in the period 1118-50, and consists of two parts of unequal length: the vita or Life proper, and the collection of miracle stories. The first part, forming about four-fifths of the total text, was based on an earlier Life by the Irish author Conchubranus, which Geoffrey revised and modified in style and substance. His creative rewriting of the Life throws much light on the Latinity, religious attitudes, and historical consciousness of an early twelfth-century Benedictine author. The second and shorter part of the text is made up of accounts of the miraculous cures and punishments connected with Modwenna's shrine at Burton. Geoffrey composed these stories on the basis of oral traditions and his own experience and they constitute a valuable source for the social and religious history of this part of England in the Norman period.

William of Malmesbury's Regesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings) is one of the great histories of England, and one of the most important historical works of the European Middle Ages. Although its focus is national, its scope encompasses most of Western Europe and beyond, providing a full-scale account of the First Crusade. Apart from its formidable learning, it is characterized by narrative skill and entertainment value - with topics including unpowered flight and Henry I's zoo. This edition in the Oxford Medieval Texts series is the first modern translation and edition. A full historical introduction is supplied in Volume II.

William of Malmesbury's Regesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings) is one of the great histories of England, and one of the most important historical works of the European Middle Ages. Volume II of the Oxford Medieval Texts edition provides a full historical introduction, a detailed textual commentary, and an extensive bibliography. It forms the essential complement to the text and translation which appeared in Volume I.

The chronicle of John of Worcester is one of the most important sources for earlier English history. Completed at Worcester by 1140, it is of considerable interest to historians of both the Anglo-Saxon period and the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its annals complement and add significantly to those in the surviving versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It has never been adequately translated and a modern edition has long been needed. In this volume, Dr McGurk uses all the available manuscript evidence, as well as the additions for 1122-41 made in a Gloucester continuation of a manuscript started in Johns own handwriting. Taken with these interpolations, the chronicle offers crucial evidence for the first five years of King Stephens reign. The Chronicle will be published in three volumes. Volume II covers the annals from 450 to 1066, and Volume III from 1067 to 1140. Volume I will be published last, and will contain a general introduction and supplementary material.

This volume presents the hagiographical writings of the Benedictine monk, historian, and scholar, William of Malmesbury (c.1095-c.1143): his Lives of Wulfstan and Dunstan, which survive complete, and those of Patrick, Benignus, and Indract, which exist now only as fragments. Only the Life of Wulfstan has been translated before; the fragments are edited here for the first time, and for the first time an assessment is offered of William as hagiographer, and of the relationship between his historical and hagiographical output. For Wulfstan II, bishop of Worcester 1062-95, William's Life is the main primary source. The other Lives, written for the monks of Glastonbury, shed important light on William's use of his sources, and on the local cult of these saints.