The time has long since passed when Bishop Stubbs could say that William of Malmesbury ‘aspired to the art of history’, implying a failure on William's part to attain the lofty standards of the august art. But while the realisation that medieval monks did not try (and fail) to attain modern standards of historiography is becoming universally accepted, the standards, methods, and aims of medieval monastic historiography are still a matter of discussion. In what follows I would like to make two closely interrelated points about Orderic Vitalis as a historian addressing and guiding his audience: first, that Orderic provided an accurate and substantial description of his ideal reader, that is, the sort of reader likely to derive benefit from reading his works; and second, that grasping the characteristics of Orderic's ideal reader will illuminate Orderic's own aims and methods in writing.

Let us begin by revisiting the following, perhaps deceptively familiar, passage from Book VIII of the Historia ecclesiastica:

Now, I use the term ‘deceptively familiar’ here because this passage has been noted and discussed by most students of Orderic's methods and aims as a historian, but with a great variety of translations and interpretations. Chibnall, whose translation is quoted above, appears to indicate that Orderic surrendered questions of morals and spiritual exegesis to scholars – her translation of Orderic's studiosi – while Orderic himself remained content with transmitting simple and unadulterated facts. Ray, however, gives a very different rendering of this same passage in his article on Orderic and his readers: