Whether or not the composition of the Vie de saint Nicolas postdates the Conception Nostre Dame, this poem occupies an interesting intermediate position between the relatively straightforward task of adapting for a French-speaking audience the Vie de sainte Marguerite, from two, quite similar Latin versions, and the textual labyrinth offered by the sources relating to the life of the Virgin. Though the subject matter was less elevated than for the Conception, for his Vie de saint Nicolas Wace was working with even more popular material than that of La Vie de sainte Marguerite. Saint Nicholas was one of the most loved saints of the medieval Christian world; his cult was well-established in Western Europe from the eleventh century, and his miracles were celebrated in Latin Lives and hymns, as well as plays. His fame endures to this day in the popular figure of Santa Claus.

Nicholas is thought to have lived at some time in the fourth century AD. The only son of wealthy parents, so the legend tells us, he was noted from his youth for his piety and charity. At the death of his parents, he sells all his belongings and gives the money to the poor. Elected Bishop of Myra, he leads an exemplary life distinguished by numerous miracles; his legend thus credits him, amongst other marvels, with freeing three counts unjustly condemned to death by the emperor Constantine; saving some sailors threatening with shipwreck by calming a storm; averting famine from his country; and bringing back to life students murdered by an innkeeper for their money. He is said to have died on 6 December 343. As patron saint of sailors, merchants and children, Saint Nicholas met with an early popularity in Normandy, thanks to the commercial links with the Norman kingdom of Sicily. Two churches were dedicated to him in Caen alone, in the 1080s. The cult was further reinforced in 1087, when Norman merchants took the relics of the saint from his tomb in Myra and transferred them to Bari, in southern Italy, which swiftly became an important pilgrimage centre. Wace's Life of Nicholas, like his Life of Margaret (or indeed the Conception), was thus composed in the first stages of a period of expansion in the cult of the saint; Nicolas saw his popularity spread from England, Italy and Normandy throughout twelfth-century France and western Germany.