This history of England in Anglo-Norman verse was extremely popular during the first half of the fourteenth century. Composed by Pierre de Langtoft (died c.1305), an English chronicler and Augustinian Canon, it was intended for the French-reading aristocracy. Part of the Rolls Series of publications of historical documents, the work was edited by Thomas Wright (1810-77), an antiquarian and historian with a special interest in Old English, Middle English and Anglo-Norman. Wright was also a member of many learned societies, including the Society of Antiquaries and the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of Paris. The first volume, published in 1866, is mainly an abridgment of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. It starts at the time when the legendary Brutus first colonised the island and covers the history of Saxon and Norman kings, up to the death of King Stephen in 1154.