Nevertheless, the schools of the 12th century, the universities of the 13th, and the
friars left their marks on historical writing. The Historia scholastica of Peter Comestor
(ca. 1169), a biblical history, was intended expressly to assist theological study in the
schools. Jacques de Vitry (1160/70–1240), author of the Historia Hierosolymitana
abbreviata, was a student at Paris under Peter the Chanter. Vincent de Beauvais’s
enormous universal history, the Speculum historiale (1244–60), was the typically
scholastic project of a university-trained Dominican; Géraud de Frachet (d. 1266),
another Dominican, wrote the Vitae fratrum and a universal chronicle based on Robert
d’Auxerre, which enjoyed significant unmerited success. The famed Dominican
inquisitor Bernard Gui was also a historian; his Flores chronicorum (1306–31), a
universal chronicle, and the Reges Francorum (1312 and 1320) were widely read and
translated. To the scholastics, that history had its uses was self-evident.
But not only scholastics and monks felt so; the popularity of vernacular history
indicates that laypeople agreed. The earliest examples of vernacular history, the Brut
(now lost) and Estoire des Engleis of Geffrei Gaimar (ca. 1140), the Brut (ca. 1155) and
Roman de Rou (ca. 1160–70) of Wace, the Chronique des ducs de Normandie (ca. 1170)
and Roman de Troie of Benoît de Sainte-Maure, are in verse. So were the Estoire de la
guerre sainte (ca. 1195), an account of the Third Crusade by Ambroise d’Évreux, and the
Crusade Cycle: the Chanson d’Antioche and the Chanson des chétifs (both reworked in
the late 12th century by Graindor de Douai) and the Conquête de Jerusalem (ca. 1130).
Occitan verse was preferred by Guilhem de Tudela for his Chanson de la croisade contre
les Albigeois (ca. 1212–13). But by the Fourth Crusade, vernacular historians began to
prefer prose, since verse, associated as it was with epics and romances, seemed
untruthful. Geoffroi de Villehardouin and Robert de Clari, both writing about the Fourth
Crusade, were among the first to write in prose, as did Villehardouin’s continuator, Henri
de Valenciennes. Geoffrey and Robert were laymen as well; vernacular composition
enabled significant numbers of laypeople to read and write history for the first time.
However, prose history never completely effaced poetic history, for Geoffroi de Paris,
writing ca. 1317, composed a chronicle of his own times in verse.
The audience for vernacular history was sophisticated in its tastes. Highly learned
works, such as those of Peter Comestor and Vincent de Beauvais, were quickly
translated. Classical history also became available in the form of the anonymous Fet des
Romains (ca. 1213/14), the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César (ca. 1208–13), and the
Histoire de Jules César of Jean de Thuin (ca. 1240). These works, all prose, were
adaptations and translations of the work of classical historians, notably Lucan. Bernard
Gui’s histories appeared in French ca. 1368 in Jean Golein’s translation. But the choice of
language did imply a particular audience. It was thus natural for Guillaume de Puy-
Laurens, the chaplain of Count Raymond VII of Toulouse but also an envoy to Innocent
IV, to write his Historia Albigensium (ca. 1273) in Latin to reach an international
audience, while it was equally natural for the anonymous authors of the French verse
Chronique de Saint-Magloire (after 1307) and the Petit Thalamus de Montpellier, an
Occitan civic chronicle probably begun in the 14th century, to write in the language of
their anticipated audiences.
The existence of these separate audiences meant that there was always a need for
histories in both Latin and the vernacular. The Grandes chroniques de France, created ca.
1274, are Primat’s French translation of the Latin chronicle of Saint-Denis; the Grandes
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