¹ This article refers to multiple editions of William of Malmesbury’s Gesta pontificum Anglorum and Liber super explanationem Lamentationum Ieremiae prophetae. Citations using English titles (The deeds of the bishops of England and On Lamentations) refer to editions in English translation, and citations using Latin titles refer to Latin editions. When using a translated edition that does not include the Latin, I provide two references in the footnote: one for the translation and one for a Latin edition, along with the Latin itself. The Latin editions of these works referenced below are Gesta pontificum Anglorum, ed. and trans. Rodney Thomson and Michael Winterbottom, Oxford 2007; Liber super explanationem Lamentationum Ieremiae prophetae, ed. Michael Winterbottom and Rodney Thomson, Turnhout 2011. Their editions in English cited below are The deeds of the bishops of England, ed. David Preest, Rochester 2002, and On Lamentations, intro., trans. and notes Michael Winterbottom, Turnhout 2013. The biblical verses are drawn from Michael Winterbottom’s translation of William’s commentary. Winterbottom gives preference to the Douay-Rheims while also incorporating the idiosyncrasies of the biblical verses as they appear in William’s commentary.

² Sønnesyn, Sigbjørn, ‘Eternity in time, unity in particularity: the theological basis of typological interpretation in twelfth-century historiography’, in Kretschmer, Marek Thue (ed.), La Typologie biblique comme forme de pensée dans l’historiographie médiévale, Turnhout 2014, 77–95 10.1484/M.TEMA-EB.4.000159CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Winkler, Emily A., Royal responsibility in Anglo-Norman historical writing, Oxford 2017, 56 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See, for example, Gildas, De excidio Britanniae, trans. Hugh Williams, London 1899, 1.

⁴ ‘In short, the fires kindled by the pagans proved to be God’s just punishment on the sins of the nation, just as the fires once kindled by the Chaldeans destroyed the walls and buildings of Jerusalem’: Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people, i.15, trans. Leo Sherley-Price, rev. R. E. Latham, London 1990, 63.

⁵ Winkler, Royal responsibility, 93.

⁶ ‘Nam, ut ipse fatetur in libro tertio super Samuelem, expositiones suae, si non aliud afferrent lectoribus emolumentum, hoc sibi non mediocriter ualerent, quod, dum haec omni studio agebat, lubricum seculi et inanes cogitationes post tergum ponebat’: William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum i.60.1, pp. 90–1. The line from Bede to which William refers is as follows: ‘Et si quidem multorum ut desidero meus sudor utilitati et commodo profuerit, multa me donandum mercede cum illis a domino spero; sin autem, nec mihi tamen mea sollertia quae me tanto tempore laboris huiusce otiosum esse superuacuisue rebus animum indulgere non sinit infructuosa existere poterit’: Bede, In primam partem Samuhelis libri IIII, ed. D. Hurst, Opera exegetica, Turnhout 1962, 10.

⁷ William of Malmesbury, On Lamentations, 35; ‘Id erit precipuum quod nos dehortari a seculo, quod ad Deum possit accendere’: Liber super explanationem Lamentationum prophetae, prologus, 3.

⁸ Other twelfth-century commentaries on Lamentations include those by William of Fly (d. 1120), Guibert of Nogent (d. 1124), Rupert of Deutz (d. c. 1130), Gilbert the Universal (d. 1134), Hugh of St Victor (d. 1141), Hervé de Bourg-Dieu (d. 1150) and Peter the Chanter (d. 1197).

⁹ ‘Hi mores armatos enervant populous et munitas subruunt civitates. Hi Iudeos quondam Deo dilectos primo Babiloniis, mox Macedonibus, postremo Romanis fecerunt bello impares, obsequio clientes, captivos in victoria, tributarios in pecunia. Iuste. Qui fuerant ingrati Dei clementiae, pro superbia victorum raptabantur libídine. Hi mores ad quantulos nos redegerunt, qui eramus quondam gens etsi non multa, at certe multis eruditione et affabilitate preferenda! Profecto illud in nobis videtur impletum quo psalmista Iudeos denotavit, dicens: Disperge illos in virtute tua, et destrue eos, protector meus, Domine. Ita pars deposita mundi amisit gloriam, pars eiecta dulcem suspirat patriam, pars defuncta miseriarum secum tulit conscientiam’: William of Malmesbury, Liber super explanationem Lamentationum i.14, p. 84.

¹⁰ John Gillingham, ‘A historian of the twelfth-century renaissance and the transformation of English society, 1066–ca. 1200’, in Thomas F. X. Noble, John Van Engen, Anna Sapir Abulafia and Sverre Bagge (eds), European transformations, South Bend, In 2011, 63.

¹¹ ‘Ceterum quia de indignitate persecutorum agitur, meminerimus quia non est nouum quod patimur. Seculare est vitium et fere naturale, ut mali grassentur in miseros. Si enim boni essent, non grassarentur. Veruntamen Deus, bene utens malitia eorum, per eos corripit quos diligit, quia quilibet virgam qua filium percutit castigato puero plerumque in ignem proicit’: William of Malmesbury, Liber super explanationem Lamentationum i.14, p. 85.

¹² Penances were likely assigned by the Norman council of 1070 and confirmed by the papal legate, Ermenfrid of Sion: H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Bishop Ermenfrid of Sion and the penitential ordinance following the battle of Hastings’, this Journal xx/2 (1969), 233.

¹³ ‘Nonne a maioribus nostris accepimus quod Christiani reges et duces, nonne ipsi vidimus quod episcopi monasteria et abbatias destruxerint, monachos effugauerint? Vidimus ornamenta aecclesiarium uel uenum proposita uel alteri aecclesiae data. Hoc est nostrorum principum religio, ut spolia ueterum cenobiorum suis inuehant, ut quod a miseris prouintialibus predati fuerint Deo conferant. Hoccine est sacrifitium Deo placitum?’: William of Malmesbury, Liber super explanationem Lamentationum ii.4, p. 141.

¹⁴ ‘Sola sunt gaudia in opes possidendo, nichilque pontificem magis exornat quam census. Itaque, uoto cunctorum ad questum tendente, pessumiere uirtutes, dum erubescit plebs sacerdotes suos bonis artibus preire’: ibid. i.15, p. 89.

¹⁵ ‘Et (o res dolenda!) non illa externi fatiunt, sed ipsi tutores, ipsi episcopi, quos tutari debuerant totis machinationibus impugnant’: ibid. ii.17, p. 175.

¹⁶ William of Malmesbury describes Ranulf’s position under the king as ‘totius regni procurator effectus’: Gesta pontificum Anglorum iii.134.1, p. 416. Orderic Vitalis characterises the position somewhat differently, claiming Ranulf was ‘summus regiarum procurator opum et iusticiarius’: The ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis iv.107, p. v, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, Oxford 1975, 310. On Ranulf’s position see Frank Barlow, William Rufus, Berkeley, Ca 1983, 193, 200–2, and Prestwich, J. O., ‘The career of Ranulf Flambard’, in Rollason, David (ed.), Anglo-Norman Durham: 1093–1193, Rochester 1994, 299–310 Google Scholar. See also Southern, R. W., ‘Ranulf Flambard and early Anglo-Norman administration’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society xvi (1933), 95–6, 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While Stubbs saw Ranulf as the lawyer of feudalism, Southern saw him as a more nuanced participant in the expansion of royal authority. Southern dismissed William of Malmesbury’s negative views of Ranulf as ‘exaggerations’ and ‘exuberances’ (pp. 97, 100). However, terminological variation notwithstanding, contemporary historians such as Marjorie Chibnall have agreed with William that Ranulf was ‘the chief financial and legal agent of the king’: Marjorie Chibnall, The ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis, iv, Oxford 1973, 171n. See also Southern, R. W., Medieval humanism and other studies, Oxford 1970, 183–205 Google Scholar.

¹⁷ William of Malmesbury, The deeds of the bishops of England, 184. ‘Sed uno et altero delicto commisso nec uindicato, eo processit ut reum, si quando ad ecclesiam Sancti confugeret, abstrahere non dubitaret, ausus scelus omnibus retro annis inauditum’: Gesta pontificum Anglorum iii.134.3, p. 416.

¹⁸ For more on northern England during the Norman Conquest see Kapelle, William E., The Norman conquest of the north: the region and its transformation, 1000–1135, Chapel Hill, NC 1979 Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Despite the bishop’s change of residence to Coventry, the transfer of his episcopal administration was only partially successful, eventually resulting in a ‘dual organization not unlike that of Bath and Wells’: Knowles, David, The monastic order in England: a history of its development from the times of St Dunstan to the fourth Lateran council, 940–216, Cambridge 1963, 132 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ ‘adeo sacras opes dilapidans peculatus crimen incurrit, repetundarum reus futurus episcopus, si esset accusator paratus’: William of Malmesbury, The deeds of the bishops of England, 209–10. The Oxford Medieval Texts edition notes a divergence in manuscript traditions over whether the king was aware of and complicit in Robert’s misappropriation of church wealth. However, both manuscript traditions agree that Robert’s spoliation was motivated by greed: William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum iv.173.2, p. 470.

²² For more on Amalarius in twelfth-century England see Jones, Christopher A., ‘The book of the liturgy in Anglo–Saxon England’, Speculum lxxiii/3 (1998), 659–702 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Pfaff, Richard W., ‘Introduction to the “abbreviatio Amalarii”’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale xlvii (1980), 77–113 Google Scholar. For general information on Amalarius see Ward, Graeme, ‘The order of history: liturgical time and the rhythms of the past in Amalarius of Metz’s De ordine antiphonarii ’, in Elina Screen and Charles West (eds), Writing the early medieval West: studies in honour of Rosamund McKitterick , Cambridge 2018, 98–112 10.1017/9781108182386.008CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Chazelle, Celia, ‘Amalarius’s liber officialis: spirit and vision in Carolingian liturgical thought’, in de Nie, Giselle, Morrison, Karl F. and Mostert, Marco (eds), Seeing the invisible in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, Turnhout 2005, 327–5710.1484/M.USML-EB.3.2353CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ Amalarius of Metz, Liber officialis, bk ii.xiii, in Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, ii, ed. Ioanne Michaele Hanssens, Vatican City 1948–50, 226–33.

²⁴ ‘ambitio cepit inolescere’: William of Malmesbury, Abbreviatio Amalarii, ed. Richard W. Pfaff, in Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale xlviii (1981), 168.

²⁵ For more on Roger of Salisbury see Edward J. Kealey, Roger of Salisbury: viceroy of England, Berkeley, Ca 1972; West, Francis, The justiciarship in England, 1066–1232, Cambridge 1966 Google Scholar; Hollister, C. Warren, Monarchy, magnates and institutions in the Anglo-Norman world , London 1986 Google Scholar; and Green, Judith A., The aristocracy of Norman England, Cambridge 1997 Google Scholar.

²⁶ Hollister, Monarchy, magnates and institutions, 233.

²⁷ West, The justiciarship in England, 16–17.

²⁸ Hollister, Monarchy, magnates and institutions, 231. Hollister cites Henry of Huntingdon’s reference to Roger as ‘justitiarius fuit totius Angliae, et secundus rege’: Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. Thomas Arnold, London 1879, 245. Scholars have sometimes used the term ‘chief justiciar’ in reference to Roger, but Hollister contends that Roger’s position was so new to Anglo-Norman administration that it did not have a formal title. Instead, he argues that Roger’s formal title remained episcopal. So too, Francis West contends that Roger, though a figure of seminal power over the exchequer, owed his influence in English government to feudal ties and familial network rather than a formal title. Moreover, West shows that the regency was not yet formalised under Roger, and that the king often bypassed it entirely, even when away from England and on the continent: The justiciarship in England, 16–26.

²⁹ Edward J. Kealey notes conflicting accounts of why Roger removed Edwulf. One account held that Roger had acted without cause, while another contended that he had merely assumed the abbey by default once it was vacant. These variants can be found in Annales monastici, ii, ed. Henry Richards Luard, London 1865, 45; ms Cotton Vitellius A X, British Library, London, fos 59v–60r and Kealey, Roger of Salisbury: viceroy of England, 113.

³⁰ Papsturkunden in England, ii, ed. Walther Holtzmann, Göttingen 1970, 141–2, cited in Kealey, Roger of Salisbury, 113.

³¹ Kealey, Roger of Salisbury, 113–14.

³² Ibid. 89. Roger had other building works, as well, including at Sherborne and Devizes, and possibly also the tower at Salisbury: Green, The aristocracy of Norman England, 189.

³³ Motte-and-bailey castles such as Roger’s in Malmesbury were a major architectural component of the Norman process of conquest and were widespread in Anglo-Norman England: Charles Homer Haskins, The Normans in European history, Boston, Ma 1915, 150–2.

³⁴ William of Malmesbury, The deeds of the bishops of England, 117. ‘The monastery had’ changed from Preest’s ‘the monastery has’ and ‘when it experienced a similar crisis’ from Preest’s ‘when it had experienced a similar crisis’. ‘Quem libenter laudarem, nisi quod humana cupiditate raptatus usurpauit indebita, quando monasterium nostrum suis substrauit negotiis. Sentimus ad hunc diem impudentiae illius calumpniam, licet locus ille statim eo moruo omnem Episcoporum eluctatus fuerit violentiam usque ad nostrum temus, quando in idem discrimen recidit. Ita proteruum est mala inchoare, quia si auctor decidit exemplum non transit … Nostri predones et populantur et premunt, ut nec libera vox dolori concedatur’: Gesta pontificum Anglorum ii.79, p. 278. In the Gesta regum Anglorum, William presents a shorter account of Ealhstan’s involvement in Malmesbury that agrees with the longer account in the Gesta pontificum Anglorum. The Gesta regum names greed as Ealhstan’s motivation in Malmesbury and asserts that the precedent he set was having negative repercussions in Malmesbury in William’s day: Gesta regum Anglorum ii.108.3, pp. 156–9.

³⁵ ‘Ego Rogerium Salesberiensem episcopum sepe audivi dicentem, solutum se a sacramento quod imperatrici fecerat. Eo enim pacto se iurasse, ne rex preter consilium suum et ceterorum procerum filiam cuiquam nuptum daret extra regnum. Eius matrimonii nullum auctorem, nullum fuisse conscium, nisis Rotbertum comitem Gloecestriae, et Brianum filium comitis, et episcopum Luxouiensem. Nec vero haec iccirco dixerim quod credam vera fuisse verba hominis, qui se unicuique tempori pro volubilitate fortunae accommodare nosset; sed sicut verax historicus opinionem provintialium scriptis appono’: William of Malmesbury, Historia novella i.3, ed. Edmund King, trans. K. R. Potter, Oxford 1998, 10–11.

³⁶ ‘Monachi abbatiarum quas Rogerius episcopus contra fas tenuerat, rege adito, antiqua privilegia et abbates habere meruerunt. Electus est in abbatem Malmesberiae a monachis, secundum tenorem privilegii quod beatus Aldelmus a Sergio papa iam ante quadringentos et sexaginta sex annos impetraverat, et a regibus Westsaxonum Ina, Mertiorum Ethelredo, roborari fecerat, eiusdem loci monachus Iohannes, vir benignitate morum et animi liberalitate apprime insignis … ipse proculdubio eam a servitute vendicavit’: ibid. ii.35, pp. 70–1.