William of Malmesbury (; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. Hollister ranked him among the most talented English historians since Bede, "a gifted historical scholar and an omnivorous reader, impressively well versed in the literature of classical, patristic and earlier medieval times as well as in the writings of his own contemporaries. Indeed William may well have been the most learned man in twelfth-century Western Europe."