ROBERT OF

See also:

• GLOUCESTER
• GLOUCESTER (abbreviated as pronounced Glo'ster)
• GLOUCESTER, EARLS AND DUKES OF
• GLOUCESTER, GILBERT DE CLARE, EARL OF (1243-1295)
• GLOUCESTER, RICHARD DE CLARE, EARL OF (1222-1262)
• GLOUCESTER, ROBERT, EARL OF (d. 1147)
• GLOUCESTER, THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK, DUKE

GLOUCESTER  , English chronicler, is known only through his connexion with the work which bears his name . This is a vernacular history of England, from the days of the legendary Brut to the year 1270, and is written in rhymed couplets . The lines are of fourteen syllables, with a break after the eighth syllable . The author gives his name as Robert; the dialect which he uses, and his acquaintance with local traditions, justify the supposition that he was a monk of Gloucester . He describes, from his own recollections, the bad weather which prevailed in the neighbourhood of Evesham on the day of the battle between the Montfortians and Prince Edward (1265) . He also alluded to the canonization of Louis IX. of France, which took place in 1297 . He probably wrote about the year 1300 . The earlier part of his chronicle (up to 1135) may be from another hand, since it occurs in some manuscripts in a shorter form, and with an exceedingly brief continuation by an anonymous versifier . There is no good reason for the theory that this part was translated from a French original; nor does it contain any undoubted borrowings from French sources . The authorities employed for the earlier part were Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, the English Chronicles, and some minor sources; Robert, in making his recension of it, also used the Brut of Layamon . From 1135 to 1256 Robert is still a compiler, although references to oral tradition become more frequent as he approaches his own time . From 1256 to 1270 he has the value of a contemporary authority .

But he is more important to the philologist than to the historian . His chronicle is one of the last

works written in Old English . Robert's chronicle was first edited by T . Hearne (2 vols., Oxford, 1724) ; but this text is now superseded by that of W . Aldis Wright (2 vols., Rolls Series, 1887) . Minor works attributed to the author are: a Life of St Alban in verse (MS . Ashmole 43) ; a Life of St Patrick, also in verse (MS . Tanner 17) ; a Life of St Bridget (MS . C.C.C . Cambridge, 145) ; and a Life of St Alphege (MS . Cott., Julius D. ix) . A Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket and a Life of St Brendan, both attributed to Robert, were printed by the Percy Society in 1845 .

See T . D .

Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue of MSS. i . 68, iii . 181-9, 623; K . Brossman, Uber die Quellen der Chronik des R. von Gloucester (Striegau, 1887) ; W . Ellmer in Anglia (1888), x . I–37, 291-322 ; H . Strohmeyer, Der Stil der Reimchroieik R. von Gloucester' (Berlin, 1891) . (H . W . C .