In the spring of 1106, an account of the First Crusade and the early years of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, the Historia Hierosolymitana written by Fulcher of Chartres, arrived in northern France. Unfortunately, there is no surviving copy of what would become the first recension of Fulcher's text, which he continued to edit in at least two further recensions until 1127. However, we know of its existence not only from echoes in these later reworkings, but also from the works of two other writers – the apocryphal ‘Bartolf of Nangis’ and Guibert, abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy. Thus, the Gesta Francorum Ierusalem expugnantium (henceforth GFIE), a text unreliably attributed to ‘Bartolf’ and still relatively neglected by scholars, noted at the outset:

Likewise, Guibert of Nogent, who is rather better known among scholars, named his source as Fulcher when he incorporated material from the Historia into the seventh and final book of his account of the First Crusade known as Dei gesta per Francos.

A comparison of these two works with Fulcher's final version (1127) allows not only a degree of conjecture about the content of the lost text, but also enables an investigation into how it was edited and restructured by Fulcher writing in the Holy Land in the 1120s, and how it was received and utilised by two very different writers working in western Europe. Indeed, that it was around the same early date that the text came to the notice of both Guibert in Picardy and ‘Bartolf’ in Flanders, as well as the fact that they used their source in different ways, allows for a comparative study that can reveal more about contemporary efforts to shape the early history of crusade and settlement.