2 - William as Historian and Man of Letters

Summary

AS A HISTORIAN and man of letters, William has over the last two centuries drawn very diverse reactions from those scholars whose work has brought them into contact with him. At one end of the spectrum, praise has been lavished on his wide reading, critical acumen and historical judgement; at the other, he has been accused of credulity, carelessness, wilful mishandling of evidence and meandering irrelevance. Some scholars have judged him as head and shoulders above, and in advance of, his time – a‘modern’ writer; while others have seen him as the creature of his epoch and immediate environment in a limiting sense. The fact is that hardly any modern scholar apart from William Stubbs has given attention to William for himself alone, or attained such a command of his output as to be able to offer an overall assessment of it. Even Stubbs did not claim to be attempting this and, in any case, was unacquainted with several of William's works, and misattributed others. Of course William is best known now, and doubtless always was, for his major historical writings. His other literary and intellectual activities have until recently been passed by, although it is scarcely possible to offer a comprehensive judgement upon his achievement as historian without taking account of his other literary and intellectual interests. It is also debatable whether he saw himself as a historian first and foremost, rather than as a Christian man of letters for whom the rescuing, collecting and editing of Latin literature, the writing of history and hagiography, the compilation of biblical commentaries and works of moral edification were all legitimate and important tasks which suited his talents, and which would benefit his and other monastic communities.

In attempting a comprehensive assessment of William as Benedictine scholar, let us begin with his reading. The first impression conveyed by the list of his reading which is Appendix II is surely that he read everything on which he could lay his hands. I believe that this is correct so far as it goes; that is, that William was a voracious and omnivorous reader who attempted in all seriousness to read for himself, or to obtain for his local library, the totality of what was available to the Western world of his time. Of course he was not successful.