Geoffrey le Baker's Chronicle is an example of a narrative type that was to become common in fourteenth-century England, namely, an annalistic review of the recent past drawing on eye-witness or contemporary sources and written, not by a monk, but by a secular clerk. Usually such chronicles were the work of men employed in royal or ecclesiastical service, such as Adam Murimuth and Robert of Avebury, both of them authors of accounts of Edward iii's reign. Le Baker himself, unlike his peers, is an obscure and ill-documented figure. He tells us that he was from Swinbrook in Oxfordshire and that in 1347 he was a clericus living at Osney near Oxford. We learn from his narrative that he had connections with Sir Thomas de la More of Northmoor (Oxfordshire), whom he acknowledges as one of his sources for the deposition of Edward ii. Richard Barber argues convincingly that he may have had ties with the Carmelites, given the information that he appears to have collected from Carmelite sources.

Le Baker's chronicle is famous for its vivid description of the murder of Edward ii at Berkeley in 1327. Drawing on, but embroidering, the account in the Brut Chronicle, the author tells how Edward's jailers seized the deposed king as he lay on his bed, smothered him with mattresses and then thrust a red-hot poker into his bowels, careful to leave no external marks on his body for which they might have to answer. This narrative, as we are now aware, is largely invention, the product of a tendency in Edward iii's reign to see the previous king as a martyr and the victim of a terrible atrocity. The only part of the deposition narrative to incorporate reliable information is the account of the abdication proceedings at Kenilworth in January 1327, for which le Baker was dependent on his patron, de la More.

Of greater value as a witness to contemporary events is le Baker's narrative of the wars in France, which draws on the reports and observations of those who participated in them. He gives a good account of the battle of Poitiers in 1356, the greatest victory of his hero, Edward, the Black Prince, whose good name he did much to promote. Poitiers is a complex battle and one difficult to follow, and le Baker's narrative is invaluable for the information it gives about the movements of the French army in the field. Le Baker has the enemy advancing and then disappearing from view, engaging with the earl of Salisbury, being driven back by the English archers and forced to regroup, and finally advancing a second time to be overwhelmed for good. Richard Barber suggests that le Baker's information came from clerks in the prince's service who were present in the field. Other episodes in the French and Scottish wars which receive good coverage are the English victory at Halidon Hill near Berwick, the capture of the earls of Salisbury and Suffolk at Lille in 1340, the campaigns of Sir Thomas Dagworth in Brittany and, further afield, Henry of Lancaster's quarrel with Duke Otto of Brunswick.

Le Baker's Chronicle was first published more than a century ago, in a scholarly edition by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson. Richard Barber's new edition takes the form of an English translation only, without the Latin text and with much briefer notes than the original. The translation will be much appreciated by students because le Baker's Latin is convoluted and hard to fathom. For those with a deeper interest in the period, however, Maunde Thompson's edition is still essential for the sheer richness of its commentary on the text.