William of Malmesbury was an English monk who lived in the first half of the twelfth century and wrote a very valuable _Chronicle of the Kings of England_, which reached the opening of the reign of Stephen (1135). He thus had abundant opportunity to learn of the first crusade from people who had actually participated in it. His rather humorous picture of the effects of Pope Urban's call is thus well worth reading. Better than it, however, is the account by the priest Fulcher of Chartres (1058-1124)--better because the writer himself took part in the crusade and so was a personal observer of most of the things he undertook to describe. Fulcher, in 1096, set out upon the crusade in the company of his lord, Etienne, count of Blois and Chartres, who was a man of importance in the army of Robert of Normandy. With the rest of Robert's crusaders he spent the winter in Italy and arrived at Durazzo in the spring of 1097. He had a part in the siege of Nicaea and in the battle of Dorylaeum, but not in the siege of Antioch. Before reaching Jerusalem, in 1099, he became chaplain to a brother of Godfrey of Bouillon and was already making progress on his "history of the army of God." Sources--(a) Guilielmus Monachi Malmesburiensis, _De gestis regum Anglorum_ [William of Malmesbury, "Chronicle of the Kings of England"], Bk. IV., Chap. 2. Adapted from translation by John Sharpe (London, 1815), p. 416. (b) Fulcherius Carnotensis, _Historia Iherosolimitana: gesta Francorum Iherusalem peregrinantium_ [Fulcher of Chartres, "History of the Crusade to Jerusalem: the Deeds of the French Journeying Thither"], Chap. 6. Text in _Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux_ (Paris, 1866), Vol. III., p. 328. [Sidenote: Universal interest in the crusade] (a)