Robert of Torigni, author of additions to the Gesta Normannorum Ducum and of a chronicle that he pronounced to be a continuation of the universal chronicle of Sigebert of Gembloux, as well as of other less ambitious works, has never attracted the attention bestowed on the likes of Orderic Vitalis, William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. This neglect is undoubtedly explicable by his having neither the originality of Orderic nor the depth and polish of Malmesbury and Huntingdon; the briefest of acquaintances with his writings rapidly reveals both his pedestrian prose style and limited range of interests. A notable verdict, although also a debateable one, is the late Margaret Gibson's that he was ‘an intelligent man without a trace of romance in his soul’. These well known limitations notwithstanding, there are in fact overwhelmingly strong reasons to include his contribution to the Historia Anglorum as an aspect of the process of how, in the words of Ann Williams, twelfthcentury historians ‘helped to weld English and Normans into a new English nation’. He was after all the only historian of Norman birth who lived almost his entire life in the duchy to set out explicitly to write the history of the English.

Robert was born at Torigni-sur-Vire in western Normandy at an unknown date, became a monk at Le Bec from 1128, was appointed prior there from c. 1149, and became abbot of Le Mont Saint-Michel, where he demonstrated exceptional administrative abilities, from 27 May 1154 until his death on 24 June 1186.