ABSTRACT
Five years ago Professor Ursula Nilgen of Munich very kindly drew my attention to the existence of a copy of William FitzStephen’s Vita et Passio sancti Thome in the library of Heidelberg University. Shortly afterwards, I was able to confirm my suspicion that the Life of St Thomas in Carpentras Bibl. Municipale MS 116, fos. 69r-101r, formerly mistakenly attributed to John of Salisbury 1 , was also a version of FitzStephen’s Vita. 2 The discovery of these two manuscripts added a new dimension to our knowledge of FitzStephen. Until then it had been assumed not only that the biography was unknown outside England, but that knowledge of it was restricted even there. 3 Only five medieval manuscript copies of the Life had been identified, all of English provenance:
