The appellation 'of Gloucester' was added by early modern antiquarians on the basis of the perspective taken in later sections of the longer version of the chronicle.
[2] The manuscripts of the longer version are:[3] The manuscripts of the shorter version are:[4] The chronicle is similar to the South English Legendary (probably first composed c. 1270–85), and between them they comprise 'two huge monuments of later thirteenth-century literary activity' in England: The South English Legendary [...] and the historical chronicle that goes under the name of Robert of Gloucester, have long been known to be intimately related.
They are written in the same septenary couplet metre, and are closely similar in dialect, vocabulary, phrasing, choice of rhyme words, overall narrative technique, and 'outlook': a Christian piety which places them on the side of the oppressed and suffering individual, and in opposition to corrupt and wicked lords of whatever estate.
The first part of the Chronicle translates materials from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae, narrating fabulous British history.
The majority of English/Anglo-Saxon history is compiled from the works of Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury, and the post-Conquest portions are translated from numerous sources densely interwoven with original text.