Orderic Vitalis

Orderic Vitalis is best known as an author and copyist of historical texts relating to the history of Normandy and its neighbors in the period c. 1050–1142. Orderic's interpolated copy of theGesta Normannorum ducumand his 13‐bookHistoria ecclesiasticaprovide extensive commentary on the major political, social, and ecclesiastical events of the Anglo‐Norman period, all seen and digested from within the walls of Orderic's monastic community of Saint‐Evroult in southern Normandy. This wealth of detail has ensured that Orderic is one of the best‐known and most widely cited contemporary authorities on the history of the Normans and the Anglo‐Norman realm in the tenth and eleventh centuries.