Roman de Brut — Wace

Wace s Roman de Brut 1155 can be seen as the gateway to the history of the Britons for both French and English speakers of the time and thus to Arthurian history as the first complete Old French adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth s Latin History of the Kings of Britain late 1130s in which Arthur appears for the first time as king of the Britons The Roman de Brut was a foundational work an inspiration for a series of anonymous verse Bruts of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries and for the Anglo Norman Prose Brut the most widely read French vernacular text on this material in medieval England as well as a forerunner of the Middle English Brut tradition including Layamon s Brut c 1200 Wace s poem thus inaugurates and shapes Brut traditions including Arthurian tales in verse and in prose in historiography and in literature including Wace s innovation of King Arthur s Round Table This volume contains an English prose translation of Wace s Roman de Brut accompanied by an introduction and notes a select bibliography a summary of the text a list of manuscripts and indexes of personal and geographical names

Wace s Roman de Brut 1155 can be seen as the gateway to the history of the Britons for both French and English speakers of the time and thus to Arthurian history as the first complete Old French adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth s Latin History of the Kings of Britain late 1130s in which Arthur appears for the first time as king of the Britons The Roman de Brut was a foundational work an inspiration for a series of anonymous verse Bruts of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries and for the Anglo Norman Prose Brut the most widely read French vernacular text on this material in medieval England as well as a forerunner of the Middle English Brut tradition including Layamon s Brut c 1200 Wace s poem thus inaugurates and shapes Brut traditions including Arthurian tales in verse and in prose in historiography and in literature including Wace s innovation of King Arthur s Round Table This volume contains an English prose translation of Wace s Roman de Brut accompanied by an introduction and notes a select bibliography a summary of the text a list of manuscripts and indexes of personal and geographical names