William of Nangis wrote that the White Ship sank because all the men aboard were sodomites. See: ’’Chron.’’ in Rolls series, ed. W. Stubbs (London, 1879), vol. 2, under A.D. 1120. which reflects the medieval belief that sin caused pestilence and disaster. See also: Codex Justinian, nov. 141. Another theory is expounded by Victoria Chandler, "The Wreck of the White Ship", in The final argument: the imprint of violence on society in medieval and early modern Europe, edited by Donald J. Kagay and L.J. Andrew Villalon (1998). Her theory discusses the possibility of it being a mass murder.
There are seven accounts of the disaster: Orderic Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica 12.26 (ed. and trans. Chibnall, 1978, pp. 294–307); William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum 5.419 (ed. and trans. Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, 1998, pp. 758–763); Simeon of Durham, Historia regum 100.199 (ed. T. Arnold, 1885, vol. 2, pp. 258–9); Eadmer, Historia nouorum in Anglia (ed. M. Rule, 1884, pp. 288–9), Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum 7.32 (ed. and trans. Greenway, 1996, pp. 466–7), Hugh the Chanter, History of the Church at York (ed. and trans. Johnson, 1990, pp. 164–5), Robert of Torigni, Gesta Normannorum ducum (ed. and trans. E. van Houts, 1995, vol. 2, pp. 216–19, 246–51, 274–7), and Wace, Roman de Rou, pt. iii, lines 10173–262 (ed. A. Holden, 1973, vol. 2, pp. 262–6).
