William was born c.1095 not far from Malmesbury in Wiltshire; he entered the monastery at Malmesbury as a boy, and stayed there as a monk for the rest of his life, writing works which were to win him lasting fame as a historian. His Deeds of the Bishops of England chronicles the activities of the bishops in all the dioceses of England from Augustine's arrival in Canterbury in 597 down to the 1120s when the work was being written; in addition to bishops and cathedrals, William also includes saints who were not bishops, and religious houses other than cathedrals. For the period after Bede's...