The years immediately after 1066 were traumatic for the Malmesbury monks, and the prospects did not look promising for an institution that was closely associated with the former royal house of Wessex and the cult of an Anglo-Saxon saint unknown to most Normans. Despite these challenges the monastery managed to weather the storm, and by the end of the reign of the Conqueror the cult of Aldhelm had been endorsed by leading members of the new Norman elite. When seeking to understand this story we are fortunate to have the testimony of the great historian, William of Malmesbury (c. 1086– c. 1143), who devoted considerable attention to the history of the monastery in the decades after 1066 in his Gesta Pontificum. The last Anglo-Saxon abbot, Brihtric, was dismissed and left Malmesbury, later receiving the abbacy of Burton-on-Trent as some sort of compensation. William wrote positively about Brihtric describing how ‘he ruled the house with high distinction for seven years’. He had much less time for the first Norman, Turold, the first Norman abbot, recruited from the Norman monastery of Fécamp, who was high-handed and acted ‘like a tyrant’. Turold's tenure at Malmesbury was extremely brief, and by 1070 he had been replaced by Warin of Lire, who was abbot until around 1091.

William of Malmesbury provided a curiously partisan account of Warin's rule at Malmesbury. He acknowledged that Warin introduced a good level of monastic observance, but he was also highly critical of other aspects of his behaviour, denouncing him as a man whose selfish misuse of the monastery's resources harmed the monks.

On arrival in Malmesbury Warin, at least according to William, treated many of the monastery's pre-Conquest relics with great disrespect.