William of Malmesbury's Carolingian sources
Rodney M. Thomson
In his great history of England, the Gesta regum Anglorum, completed in 1125, William Malmesbury included digressions on continental affairs. One these, Merovingian and Carolingian monarchs, provides an interesting study William's historical method. His Frankish sources are difficult to identify, but we helped by survival late twelfth-century English MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library Lat. class d.39. This book contains, inter alia, a collection chronicles short pieces history. We attempt show that it was copied from made or for William, own notes were recopied into its margins. Moreover, seems probable he himself compiled it. discovery enables us identify most materials, draw important conclusions about manipulation them, so advance our knowledge historiography generally.
Journal of Medieval History