ABSTRACT
Gervase of Canterbury was a later commentator rather than an eye-witness to the pontificates of Ralph d'Escures, William of Corbeil and Theobald of Bee. Gervase became a monk at Canterbury in 1163, but did not begin writing until much later. About 1185 he produced two tracts detailing the conflicts between Archbishop Baldwin and the monks of St. Augustine's monastery and between the archbishop and his own monks at Canterbury. He began the Chronica about 1188, and relied for his information about the past on the works of Henry of Huntingdon, John of Worcester and Benedict of Peterborough. Three shorter works, the Gesta Regimi, the Actus Pontificum and the Mappa Mundi, were produced about ten years later. It is evident that Gervase takes the side of the archbishop of Canterbury against all opponents, except the Canterbury monks, in which case he becomes a partisan of his own chapter. 1 His writings about the early pontificates are important, not for any new information that they provide, but because they illustrate what was important to and remembered by the monks of Canterbury in later years.
