Publisher's Synopsis
William of Malmesbury's Commentary on Lamentations is one of the rare works of biblical commentary produced by an English Benedictine in the twelfth century. Surviving complete in a single manuscript, and in burnt fragments of another, it is here edited for the first time. Although the work is explicitly based upon the ninth-century commentary by Paschasius, it is enriched by William's own wide and deep reading of the Bible, the Fathers and the Latin Classics. Here we find the great historian grappling with theological and moral issues both universal and personal, as he attempts to understand God's disciplining of His people, whether understood as the Jews, the Church, or the English of William's own day.
