Symeon of Durham is principally known to modern scholars as an author and compiler of narrative histories and chronicles pertaining to the history of northern England in the Anglo‐Saxon and Anglo‐Norman periods. Symeon's best‐known work is his narrative account of the Northumbrian church now usually known as the
Tract on the Origins and Progress of This, the Church of Durham
. In addition to this text, Symeon has also been identified as the compiler of two collections of Durham annals and a short chronicle known as the Durham
History of the Kings of the English
, as a copyist of charters and administrative documents, and as Durham's monastic cantor from c. 1115 until his death in 1129/30.