Note 758 — Chapter III · (continued 2)

Ib. C. “Multa intueor in divina pagina quæ subtiliter coaptata nostri temporis eventui videntur similia. [Every age, except perhaps the eighteenth, has made the same remark.] Ceterum allegoricas allegationes et idoneas humanis moribus interpretationes studiosis rimandas relinquam, simplicemque Normannicarum historiam rerum adhuc aliquantulum protelare satagam.” This praiseworthy resolve reminds us of an earlier passage (683 B) where he laments the failure of the princes and prelates of his day to work miracles, and his own inability to force them to the needful pitch of holiness; “Ast ego vim illis ut sanctificentur inferre nequeo. Unde his omissis super rebus quæ fiunt veracem dictatum facio.”

It would seem from this that Orderic dictated his book. (See also his complaint in 718 C, when at the age of sixty he felt too old to write and had no one to write for him.) We need not therefore infer in some other cases that, because an author dictated, therefore he could not write.