Brother Robert was a cleric working in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 who adapted several French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 literary works into Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 during the reign of King Haakon IV of Norway

Haakon IV of Norway

Haakon Haakonarson , also called Haakon the Old, was king of Norway from 1217 to 1263. Under his rule, medieval Norway reached its peak....

 (1217–1263). The most important of these, Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, based on Thomas of Britain

Thomas of Britain

Thomas of Britain was a french poet of the 12th century. He is known for his Old French poem Tristan, a version of the Tristan and Iseult legend that exists only in eight fragments, amounting to around 3,300 lines of verse, mostly from the latter part of the story...

's Tristan, is notable as the only example of Thomas' "courtly branch" of the Tristan and Iseult

Tristan and Iseult

The legend of Tristan and Iseult is an influential romance and tragedy, retold in numerous sources with as many variations. The tragic story is of the adulterous love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult...

 legend that has survived in its entirety. It was the earliest Scandinavian version of the story, and is thought to be the first Norwegian adaptation of an Old French work. Its success may have inspired the spate of translations during King Haakon's reign.

Robert's nationality is unknown, but his name and other circumstantial evidence suggests he was Anglo-Norman

Anglo-Norman

The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...

. As such he may have been connected to the Cistercian monasteries of Lyse Abbey or Hovedøya Abbey

Hovedøya Abbey

Hovedøya Abbey was a Cistercian monastery on the island of Hovedøya in Oslo Fjord, founded in 1147 and dissolved in 1532 just before the Reformation.-History:...

, which maintained close ties with England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Robert's name is connected to one other work with assurance, Elis saga, an adaptation of the chanson de geste

Chanson de geste

The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds", are the epic poems that appear at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known examples date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, nearly a hundred years before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the trouvères and...

Elie de St. Gille, where he is called "Abbot." Four other anonymous works largely on Arthurian subjects have been attributed to him; these are Ívens saga and Parcevals saga, based on Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...

' romances Yvain, the Knight of the Lion

Yvain, the Knight of the Lion

Yvain, the Knight with the Lion is a romance by Chrétien de Troyes. It was probably written in the 1170s simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the action in that poem...

and Perceval, the Story of the Grail

Perceval, the Story of the Grail

Perceval, the Story of the Grail is the unfinished fifth romance of Chrétien de Troyes. Probably written between 1181 and 1191, it is dedicated to Chrétien's patron Philip, Count of Flanders...

; Möttuls saga, a version of the poem Le Mantel Mautaillié; and a collection of lais based on the Lais of Marie de France called Strengleikar

Strengleikar

Strengleikar is a collection of twenty-one Old Norse prose tales based on the Old French Lais of Marie de France. It is one of the literary works commissioned by King Haakon IV of Norway for the Norwegian court. The collection is anonymous...

. Robert's translations at Haakon's commission speak to the king's role in spreading French and Arthurian material throughout Scandinavia. The wide influence of Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar is especially apparent in Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

, where it served as the basis for the ballad "Tristrams kvæði" and the prose adaptation Saga af Tristram ok ĺsodd.