Significance
He is lauded by many, including John Milton, to be one of the best English historians of his time, and remains known for strong documentation and his clear, engaging writing style. A strong Latin stylist, he shows literary and historiographical instincts which are, for his time, remarkably sound. He is an authority of considerable value from 1066 onwards; many telling anecdotes and shrewd judgments on persons and events can be gleaned from his pages. Some scholars criticize him for his atypical annalistic form, calling his chronology less than satisfactory and his arrangement of material careless. Much of William's work on Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester is thought to derive from a first-hand account from Coleman, a contemporary of Wulfstan, William merely translating the document from Old English into Latin. William's works are still considered invaluable, and despite these shortcomings, William of Malmesbury remains one of the most celebrated English chroniclers of the twelfth century.
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Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?—to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)
“It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)