William of Malmesbury: Saints' Lives.(Book Review)

ed. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson (Oxford: Clarendon P., 2002; pp. 396. 65 [pounds sterling]).

This volume contains Williams two complete Lives of Saints, Wulfstan and Dunstan, and the fragmentary Lives of Patrick, Benignus and Indract. Pride of place is rightly given to that of Wulfstan, the most important Anglo-Saxon bishop of the late eleventh century, a long-lived survivor as bishop of Worcester until late in the reign of Rufus (d. 1095). William (c. 1090-1143), the outstanding monk-scholar of the early twelfth century, was invited by the monks of Worcester to write this Life: in doing so, he made use of the lost vernacular Life by Coleman. It has long been disputed how much he borrowed from this work, and we will probably never know. What clearly emerges from this edition is that …