The literary activities of England during these centuries of the manuscript period were by no means limited to the production of fiction. The long series of contributions to local and national history made by the monkish chroniclers have been referred to in a previous chapter. In the twelfth century, Orderic Vital or Vitalis writes his _Angligenæ Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ_, Henry of Huntingdon, his _Historia Anglorum_ (from A.C. 55 to A.D. 1154), and William of Malmesbury, his _Gesta Regum Anglorum_. The _Historia Anglorum_ was printed in 1586, at the expense of Sir Henry Savile. William of Malmesbury was, like Richard de Bury, noted as a collector of books. His history was issued between 1112 and 1124. A few years later, in 1139, appears the great _Historia Regum Britanniæ_, of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey begins his British history with the earliest times, and, thanks, as he explains, to certain special discoveries, or to a special revelation, he is able to write with as much certainty about the reign of King Arthur as concerning events of his own time. This chronicle must have been largely multiplied and widely distributed, as an exceptionally large number of copies have been preserved to the present time, the British Museum alone possessing no less than thirty-four. In the thirteenth century the work of the historians is carried on by such writers as Roger of Wendover, and Matthew Paris, chief among English chroniclers. In the fourteenth century, the most noteworthy among a long series of historical writers is Ralph Higden, author of the _Polychronicon_, or “Universal History,” which remained for centuries an accepted authority.