The famous story of the sinking of the White Ship in 1120 and the death of king Henry I’s heir, prince William, and many members of the royal family and aristocracy was recorded by many contemporary historians. Here excerpts from sixwriters are included, passages that vary in length and style. The writers are Eadmer, William of Malmesbury, Orderic Vitalis, Symeon of Durham, Hugh the Chanter and Henry of Huntingdon. The accounts by William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis are literary masterpieces, providing historical detail and an overall depiction that has elements of epic andtragedy.

In the section on the Battle of Hastings of 1066, the first event in the Norman Conquest of Britain, an excerpt is given of the Latin text accompanying the embroidered pictures on the Bayeux tapestry. Then excerpts are given from the early twelfth-century accounts by William of Malmesbury of the Battle itself, and by Orderic Vitalis of the aftermath of the battle, in the following years of violence against the population in the rest of the country, including Northumbria and Cumbria.

This chapter's thesis is that it is only through an analysis that integrates personal, contextual, ethical and literary factors that we can understand the place of the eleventh- and twelfth-century historians of the Normans within the identity and the history – and the identities and the histories – of the Normans. It is about the dialogue between the personal and the public. To do this, what we can know of the personal biographies, life experiences and beliefs of the historians must be combined with an analysis of genre and context. Viewed in this way the historians become the reflectors of events as well as their recorders. Cultural memory and analyses associated with the so-called 'Vienna School' are of great importance to the argument. The historians are also seen as working within contemporary forms of moral discourse that sought to make sense of, and even to improve, the disturbed and often violent world of their times. The chapter concludes with some references to interaction with contemporary historians writing in England.

Anglo-Norman sources often ignore what we call the economy, or only make very quick allusions to it, thus leaving in the shadows the most dynamic moment of economic growth that this space has ever known. The narrative texts nevertheless make it possible to approach the representations that the clerics of the twelfth century had of the concrete problems of the satisfaction of needs and of the socially useful and morally virtuous use of natural wealth. The theme of hunger, common in the sources of the Rhenish regions, does not appear very frequently, and most often in connection with war. But the reading of texts by William of Malmesbury relating to the reign of William Rufus and the life of Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester also shows that the value of rulers, whether king or bishop, was measured by the subsistence of the inhabitants, especially the poorest. The question of the relationship between resources and needs, and more generally that of livelihood, thus appears to be a major political problem.

This chapter examines the dream vision of Walchelin the priest, as retold by Orderic Vitalis in Book VII of his Ecclesiastical History. This episode has been analysed several times as evidence of the growing importance of purgatory in religious life. Utilising the insights of Elisabeth van Houts into the credibility of witness testimonies, gender and how memory can be anchored in material objects, it argues that this excursus in Orderic's work, presented as an oral narrative, functions as both memory of trauma, and a gendered story of reclaiming power and authority through its re-telling. Walchelin's own, apparently scarred, body can be read as a 'peg' for structuring his memory of a supernatural event. The inclusion of Walchelin's brother as one of the nightmarish host seen by Walchelin introduces a family dimension that, it is argued, makes the story relatable to Orderic's own life as well. The chapter will first outline the story, then examine the ways in which Walchelin established his authority as a witness to Orderic, and finally explore how Orderic himself both remembered and 're-membered', that is, literally put flesh on the bones of, the story in his text.