[1] Gilo, a native of Toucy, wrote while he was a cleric in Paris before he joined the abbey of Cluny or became cardinal-bishop of Tusculum.
The anonymous, however, implies that King Baldwin I of Jerusalem was dead at the time of his writing, which places his additions after 1118.
There is no evidence that this was the poet's actual name, although it has been suggested that he was the Magister Fulco who was a schoolmaster and dean at Reims Cathedral from 1165 to 1175.
Internal evidence suggests that the poet hailed from the County of Champagne in France or from the vicinity of Bouillon in the Duchy of Lower Lorraine.
[6] He is more restrained than his anonymous counterpart, employs more Leonine rhyme and makes extensive use of zeugma and the ablative absolute.