Legends about Britain and Anglo-Saxon England were incorporated into Anglo-Norman chronicles, as described in the last two chapters, demonstrating the interest that the authors of these chronicles took in that past. Yet they wrote in a language that had only been in widespread use in England, whether for literature or administration, since the Norman Conquest. It seems to me essential, as part of the process of understanding how these chronicles fashion their narratives, to ask how these authors understood the event that ultimately determined the choice of language for their chronicles. This is especially the case since the Conquest was recognised as a decisive moment in English history from the time the historians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries first described it.

The Conquest's vital importance in popular history from the Renaissance to the present has been outlined in several important studies. By contrast, the treatment of the Norman Conquest in historical writing during the later Middle Ages in England has not attracted as much critical attention. Yet it seems unlikely that during this period the Conquest lacked the significance for most historians which it had possessed in the twelfth century and which it would hold again after the Reformation. The attitudes of some later medieval Latin authors, notably Matthew Paris and Ranulf Higden, to the Conquest have been examined, as have accounts of the Conquest in the works of Gaimar, Wace and Benoît de Sainte-Maure, and in some Middle English verse chroniclers, including Robert of Gloucester, Robert Mannyng and Thomas Castleford. However, this chapter is the first survey of later accounts of the Conquest in Anglo-Norman prose.