Jocelin's second commission in Scotland brought the Furness monk to the Cistercian house of Melrose to write the Vita of a near-contemporary, Abbot Waltheof (d. 1159). As a text commemorating the life of a man who had died only fifty years or so previously, the composition of the Vita Waldevi posed several new challenges. In contrast to Jocelin's other works, which were built on the foundation of various earlier written accounts, the Vita Waldevi appears to have been the first hagiographical text to document Waltheof's cult. Consequently, the work was based largely on the abbey's oral traditions, stories that had been recounted to Jocelin by ‘the trustworthy elders of the house of Melrose’. The text was also supplemented by the testimony of eyewitnesses drawn mainly from within the monastery, men who were able to testify personally to the authenticity of Waltheof's posthumous powers.

Jocelin's use of these oral sources conformed to common historical and hagiographical practice. In a period where the written word was valued as a record of the distant past, but where recent events could be more than adequately recalled through memory, the testimony of these ‘trustworthy elders’ was accorded a very high value. Indeed, such was the authority of oral tradition that Jocelin seems to have been reluctant openly to acknowledge the presence of any written material behind the Vita. From the outset the text is styled as a product of oral history. The statement in the prologue, where we are informed that he has written ‘nothing herein opposed to truth but what I have accepted from the trustworthy elders of the house of Melrose’, implies that the work is based solely upon oral sources. Similarly, the introduction to Waltheof's posthumous miracula is also suggestive of oral communication: ‘for inclusion in the previous book on the blessed Waltheof, we have diligently sought from those who knew material which might be worthy of remembrance’. Yet close analysis of the Vita reveals a number of textual sources underlying the work, written materials which both supported and interacted with the oral components of the cult. As will be shown below, it seems probable that when Jocelin arrived at Melrose, the community not only made themselves available for discussion and advice, but also provided him with access to an assortment of written material concerning Waltheof's life and miracles.