Poetry and stories written in French were popular after the Norman conquest, and by the 12th century some works on English history began to be produced in French verse. Romantic poems about tournaments and courtly love became popular in Paris and this fashion spread into England in the form of "lays"; stories about the court of King Arthur were also fashionable, due in part to the interest of Henry II. English continued to be used on a modest scale to write local religious works and some poems in the north of England, but most major works were produced in Latin or French. In the reign of Richard II there was an upsurge in the use of Middle English in poetry, sometimes termed "Ricardian poetry", although the works still emulated French fashions. The work of Geoffrey Chaucer from the 1370s onwards, however, culminating in the influential "Canterbury Tales", was uniquely English in style. Major pieces of courtly poetry continued to be produced into the 15th century by Chaucher's disciples, and Thomas Malory compiled the older Arthurian tales to produce "Le Morte d'Arthur".