Gerard J. Brault is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor Emeritus of French and Medieval Studies and Fellow Emeritus of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at The Pennsylvania State University. He began his research for this landmark edition in 1968 while a Guggenheim Fellow and Fulbright-Hays Research Scholar in Strasbourg, France. In 1978, the year it appeared, this work was selected by Choice: The Journal of the Association of College and Research Librarians as an Outstanding Academic Book. In 1985, Professor Brault was elected International President of the Soci&et&e Rencesvals (pour l'&etude des &epop&ees romanes), the only American ever to serve in that office. The author of seven other books and more than a hundred articles, he is also internationally known for his research in medieval heraldry and in French-Canadian language and culture. A graduate of Assumption College (Worcester, MA), which awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 1976, Professor Brault received his MA at Laval University and his PhD in Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, the Heraldy Society of London, and the Acad&emie Internationale d'H&eraldique.

In 1981, he was awarded the Ordre National du M&erite by the Government of France and, in 1987, the Ordre des Francophones d'Am&erique by the Government of Quebec. In 1998, colleagues and students published Echoes of the Epic: Studies in Honor of Gerard J. Brault.