William of Maleval

William of Maleval, also known as William the Great and in Italian as San Guglielmo di Malavalle, was a twelfth-century hermit whose disciples formed the congregation later called the Williamites or Hermits of Saint William. The year of his birth is not recorded, nor is a verifiable birthplace. Medieval and early modern accounts describe him as a Frenchman, and some later writers associated him with Poitou or even with the counts of Poitiers, but those claims rest on tradition rather than contemporary documentation. What is said of his youth likewise comes from later hagiography of uneven quality: he is portrayed as a man who spent his early years in a worldly, possibly military, and morally disordered way of life before a conversion that redirected him toward pilgrimage and penance.

After that conversion he is reported to have gone on pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James at Compostela and then to Rome. According to the traditional narrative, Pope Eugene III imposed on him a further penitential journey to the Holy Land. Following his return from Jerusalem he sought solitude in Tuscany. He first lived as a hermit in a ravine of Monte Pruno, then withdrew to a desolate valley called Maleval (Malavalle) in the Maremma, in the territory of what is now Castiglione della Pescaia in the province of Grosseto, not far from Siena. The harshness of the site is reflected in the name of the place. There he practiced severe austerity, remaining largely alone until near the end of his life.

In his last year he was joined by a disciple named Albert, who stayed with him until his death and is said to have written a life of William that has not survived. Another early companion named Rinaldo (Rainald) is also mentioned in the tradition. Because Albert’s biography is lost, later medieval accounts, including one associated with a writer named Theobald, mix moral exhortation with narrative and cannot be treated as fully reliable history. The outline that remains reasonably secure is that of a converted French pilgrim who ended his life as an eremite in a wild Tuscan valley and whose tomb quickly attracted followers.

William died at Maleval on 10 February 1157 and was buried at his hermitage. Disciples gathered around the grave and adopted his way of life, from which developed the Hermits of Saint William. The congregation spread in Italy and later in France, the Low Countries, and Germany; some Williamite houses were in time aggregated to the Hermits of Saint Augustine. Pope Innocent III canonized William in 1202. His feast is kept on 10 February. The principal shrine remains the former hermitage and later monastery of San Guglielmo di Malavalle in Tuscany. Many personal details of his career are uncertain, and responsible accounts distinguish the sparse historical core from later legend.