The title of the only identifiable work by Geffrei Gaimar, L'Estoire des Engleis, has long and unfairly coloured its reception, and has cast dark shadows over the nuances of its contents. The Estoire is frequently perceived as an unproblematically national history, a product of a time when the homogenous ‘Normans’ and the monolithic ‘English’ vied for control over the territory of an unproblematic England and its singular, English, past. It is seen above all as a straightforward means by which the Normans who commissioned it could attach themselves to, and root themselves in, England and its past and so ‘become’ ‘English’.

And perhaps such perceptions are not surprising. Firstly, the Estoire is the earliest known historiographical work in Anglo-Norman, which leads to the impression that it is evidence of the Anglo-Norman language – and those who used it – asserting themselves by claiming the right to write history. Secondly, the Estoire is heavily reliant on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and is often considered to be a mere verse translation of it. So in turn it is hard not to see it as a Norman claim to the right of writing the history of England in particular. And thirdly it was produced in the second quarter of the twelfth century, precisely when historians consider the distinctions between Englishness and Norman-ness to have been breaking down. It was a time when, in R. H. C. Davis's formulation, ‘the Normans belonged to England as much as England belonged to them’