The Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal ('History of William the Marshal') is a near-contemporary Anglo-Norman biography of the English nobleman, William Marshal (died 1219). In terms of genre it is therefore something of a rarity for its period, as it fits all the characteristics of a true biography, being William's story from cradle to grave, and moreover it examines the life of a lay person. It is a substantial work composed in 19,214 octosyllabic lines of plain verse in the French dialect of the Touraine. It shows little trace in its composition of any influence of the medieval schools. A modest number of Latin vitae or biographies survive from the period, almost all of them of clergymen. Its author was not entirely divorced from Latin scholarship, however. Source: Wikipedia (en)