Roman de Brut

WacesRoman 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 Monmouths LatinHistory of the Kings of Britain(late 1130s), in which Arthur appears for the first time as king of the Britons. TheRoman de Brutwas a foundational work, an inspiration for a series of anonymous verseBrutsof the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries and for the Anglo-Norman ProseBrut— the most widely read French vernacular text on this material in medieval England — as well as a forerunner of the Middle EnglishBruttradition, including LayamonsBrut(c. 1200). Waces poem thus inaugurates and shapesBruttraditions, including Arthurian tales, in verse and in prose, in historiography and in literature, including Waces innovation of King Arthurs Round Table.

This volume contains an English prose translation of WacesRoman 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.