It is of great historical importance to observe the firm hold taken by this fabulous character upon the English people, as evinced by the fact that he has been a popular hero of the English epic ever since. Spenser adopted him as the presiding genius of his "Fairy Queen," and Milton projected a great epic on his times, before he decided to write the Paradise Lost.
OTHER PRINCIPAL LATIN CHRONICLERS OF THE EARLY NORMAN PERIOD.
Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, 1075-1109: History of Croyland. Authenticity disputed.
William of Poictiers, 1070: Deeds of William the Conqueror, (Gesta Gullielmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum.)
Ordericus Vitalis, born about 1075: general ecclesiastical history.
William of Jumièges: History of the Dukes of Normandy.
Florence of Worcester, died 1118: (Chronicon ex Chronicis,) Chronicle from the Chronicles, from the Creation to 1118, (with two valuable additions to 1141, and to 1295.)
Matthew of Westminster, end of thirteenth century (probably a fictitious name): Flowers of the Histories, (Flores Historiarum.)
Eadmer, died about 1124: history of his own time, (Historia Novorum, sive sui seculi.)
Giraldus Cambrensis, born 1146, known as Girald Barry: numerous histories, including Topographia Hiberniæ, and the Norman conquest of Ireland; also several theological works.
Henry of Huntingdon, first half of the twelfth century: History of England.
Alured of Rievaux, 1109-66: The Battle of the Standard.
Roger de Hoveden, end of twelfth century: Annales, from the end of Bede's history to 1202.
Matthew Paris, monk of St. Alban's, died 1259: Historia Major, from the Norman conquest to 1259, continued by William Rishanger to 1322.
Ralph Higden, fourteenth century: Polychronicon, or Chronicle of Many Things; translated in the fifteenth century, by John de Trevisa; printed by Caxton in 1482, and by Wynken de Worde in 1485.
THE ANGLO-NORMAN POETS AND CHRONICLERS.--Norman literature had already made itself a name before William conquered England. Short jingling tales in verse, in ballad style, were popular under the name of _fabliaux_, and fuller epics, tender, fanciful, and spirited, called Romans, or Romaunts, were sung to the lute, in courts and camps. Of these latter, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, and Roland were the principal heroes.