William of Malmesbury: Medical Historian of the Crusades

As Professor Rod Thomson noted in 1997 ('William of Malmesbury, Historian of Crusade', Reading Medieval Studies 23 (1997), 121–34), William of Malmesbury’s account of the First Crusade in his Gesta regum Anglorum has often been overlooked, thanks to its relatively late date of composition, and William’s reliance on other written sources to piece together his narrative. But in addition to the unique information William conveys about the expedition, and his interesting perspective on the crusader leaders and their knightly conduct (Thomson, 1997), William’s history also deserves attention in a study of health, medicine and the crusades. The experience of crusading took a physical toll on participants, whether due to the privations of the march, the risks of infectious disease in a siege context, or the dangers of an unfamiliar climate and hostile weather. A self-professed student of medicine, William’s history of the First Crusade (1095–99), and the subsequent expedition of Sigurd Jorsalfar (1106/08–10) is marked out from other accounts of the crusades by William’s evident interest in medical matters and his inclusion of vignettes which illuminate aspects of contemporary medical theory and the physical experience of crusading. This chapter situates William’s crusading narrative in the context of contemporary medical theory and understanding in order to contribute to our understanding of William of Malmesbury as an historian of the crusades, the use of chronicles as a source for medical history, and ongoing work on the experience of illness and medieval perceptions of health in a crusading context.