During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, texts about the recent and more distant past were produced in remarkable numbers in the lands controlled by the kings of England. This may be seen, in part, as a response to changing social and political circumstances in the wake of the Norman conquest of England in 166. The names of many of the twelfth and thirteenth-century historians are well known, and they include Orderic Vitalis, William of Malmesbury,...