ABSTRACT
The reign of Henry III was the heyday of the monastic chronicle. Such chronicles, which were primarily records and comprised entries arranged in strictly chronological order, had increased in number in King John's reign,1 and now became an omnibus type of historiography, subsuming not only general history but also local history and biography. As a result both local history2 and biography3 declined as distinct genres, and the influence of the romance tradition of historiography became minimal. Only Robert of Gloucester, in his chronicle in Middle English verse, was noticeably influenced by romance literature.
