Early in the 990s, the Norman ruler Richard I (d. 996) convinced Dudo, a canon of Saint Quentin, to write a history of the Norse who had settled in the western part of the French kingdom. Much history, of course, had been written during the previous two centuries that treated the activities of the Vikings and their posterity. The stories that related the invasions of the regnum Francorum from Scandinavia, the Norse settlement in Rouen and in the other civitates of Lugdunensis secunda were well known, as were the military activities of others of their Viking brethren. This history, however, had been produced at places such as Saint Bertin, Fulda, Prüm, and Reims, and the authors of these works portrayed the Norse in an exceptionally negative light. Indeed, a common epithet for them was pirates. It was time, Richard concluded, for the Northmen to have their story told in the way he wanted, a new story that would bring both glory and honor to his people.

Focus on the activities of a particular gens, whatever other motives might have been at issue for both patrons and authors, was hardly a new idea. As the first millennium of the Christian era was drawing to a close, this historical genre appears once again to have been gaining in popularity. For example, Widukind of Corvey had completed his Rerum Gestarum Saxonicarum a decade or more before Richard made contact with Dudo.