Roman de Brut

Arthur finds a giant roasting a pig. (British Library Egerton MS 3028, fol. 49)

Roman de Brut or Brut is a verse literary history of Britain by the poet Wace. Written in the Norman language, it consists of 14,866 lines.

It is based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, and was probably begun around 1150 and finished in 1155. It was intended for a Norman audience interested in the legends and history of the new territories of the Anglo-Norman realm, covering the story of King Arthur and taking the history of Britain all the way back to the mythical Brutus of Troy.

The Brut was the most popular of Wace's works and survives in more than 30 manuscripts or fragments. It was used by Layamon as the basis for his Brut. It contained a number of significant elaborations of Geoffrey, including the first mention of King Arthur's Round Table.

See also

• Roman de Rou
• Matter of Britain

Further reading

Editions and translations

• Wace, Roman de Brut
  • ed. and tr. Judith Weiss (2002) [1999]. Roman de Brut. A History of the British: Text and Translation. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. ISBN 978-0-85989-734-1. Standard edition.
  • tr. Eugene Mason (1912). Arthurian Chronicles, by Wace and Layamon. London: Dent. Reprinted in 1962. (at the Internet Archive)
  • ed. Le Roux de Lucy (1836–1838). Roman de Brut. 2 vols. Rouen. Earlier edition (now superseded by that of Weiss). (at the Internet Archive)