GUGLIELMO di MALMESBURY. - Benedictine historian (in secular life G. Somerset) of the abbey of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, where he was also librarian; b. about 1090; he is still mentioned in 1143; thereafter all trace of him is lost. He is the principal English historian of the 12th century.
His output was considerable. Among his works are: Regalium sive De rebus gestis regum Anglorum, from 449 to 1127; Historiae novellae libri tres, from 1127 to 1143; De gestis Pontificum Anglorum, down to 1125; Vita s. Dunstani episcopi; Liber de antiquitate Ecclesiae Glastonensis, etc. Many other works remain unpublished.
Editions: the De rebus gestis regum Anglorum, the Historiae novellae, and the first four books of the De gestis Pontificum Anglorum were published by Enrico Savile, in London in 1596 and in Frankfurt in 1601; the fifth book of the De gestis Pontificum and the Vita s. Dunstani were published by H. Warthon in vol. II of the Anglia sacra, London 1691, and by Tommaso Galeus in vol. XV of the Scriptorum Anglorum Sylloges, Oxford 1691, in which he also included the Liber de antiquitate Ecclesiae Glastonensis. More recent editions are those of PL. 179, 955-1772 and of W. Stubbs, 2 vols., London 1887-89.