drine are rarely
used for Verse Chronicles, the most remarkable exception being the
spirited _Combat des Trente_[77], which is however very late, and the
_Chronique de du Guesclin_ of the same date. There are earlier examples
of history in Alexandrines (some are found in the twelfth century, such
as the account of Henry the Second's Scotch Wars by Jordan Fantome,
Chancellor of the diocese of Winchester), but they are not numerous or
important. It is not unworthy of notice that the majority of the early
Verse Chronicles are English or Anglo-Norman. The first of importance is
that of Geoffrey Gaymar, whose Chronicle of English history was written
about 1146. Gaymar was followed by a much better known writer, the
Jerseyman Wace[78], who not only, as has been mentioned, versified
Geoffrey of Monmouth into the _Brut_[79], but produced the important
_Roman de Rou_[80], giving the history of the Dukes of Normandy and of
the Conquest of England. The date of the _Brut_ is 1155, of the _Rou_
1160. This latter is the better of the two, though Wace was not a great
poet. It consists chiefly of octosyllabics, with a curious insertion of
Alexandrines in rhymed not assonanced _laisses_. Wace was followed by
Benoist de Sainte-More, who extended his Chronicle of the Dukes of
Normandy to more than forty thousand verses. The 'Life of St. Thomas'
(Becket), by Garnier de Pont St. Maxence, also deserves notice, as does
an anonymous poem on the English wars in Ireland. But the most
interesting of this group is probably the history[81] of William
Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who died in 1219 and who during his life
played a great part in England. It abounds in passages of historical
interest and literary value. During the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, the practice of writing history in verse gradually died out,
yet some of the most important examples date from this time. Such are
the Chronicles of Philippe Mouskes[82], a Fleming, in more than thirty
thousand verses, extending from the Siege of Troy to the year 1243.
Mouskes is of some importance in literary history, because of the great
extent to which he has drawn on the Chansons de Gestes for his
information. In 1304 Guillaume Guiart, a native of Orleans, wrote in
twelve thousand verses a Chronicle of the thirteenth century, including
a few years earlier and later. There are a large number of other Verse
Chronicles, but few of them are of much importance historically, and
fewer still of a