“Gervase is not one of the great historians of his age, but he illustrates with fidelity the tone and temper of his monastic world. Much of what he writes has the value of contemporary knowledge and observation, or at least of personal recollection; and much bears the impress of recording the local tradition of the writer's religious house. Even that which is not original has at least the value of a contemporary or nearly contemporary corroboration of the statements which it repeats.”