Wace
Jersey poet Wace
presenting his Roman de Rou to Henry II
of England
Illustration from Notice sur la vie et
les écrits de Robert Wace by Frédéric
Pluquet, 1824.
Engraving by C. E. Lambert.
born c. 1100, Jersey, Channel Islands
died after 1174
Anglo-Norman author of two verse
chronicles, the Roman de Brut
(1155) and the Roman de Rou (1160–74),
named respectively after the reputed
founders of the Britons and Normans.
The Rou was commissioned by Henry II
of England, who sometime before 1169
secured for Wace a canonry at Bayeux in
northwestern France. The Brut may have
been dedicated to Henry’s queen, Eleanor
of Aquitaine. Written in octosyllabic
verse, it is a romanticized paraphrase
of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum
Britanniae, tracing the history of
Britain from its founding by the
legendary Brutus the Trojan. Its many
fanciful additions (including the story
of King Arthur’s Round Table) helped
increase the popularity of the Arthurian
legends. The Rou, written in
octosyllabic couplets and monorhyme
stanzas of alexandrines, is a history of
the Norman dukes from the time of Rollo
the Viking (after 911) to that of Robert
II Curthose (1106). In 1174, however,
Henry II transferred his patronage to
one Beneeit, who was writing a rival
version, and Wace’s work remained
unfinished.
Wace’s artistry in the Brut exerted a
stylistic influence on later verse
romances (notably on a version of the
Tristan story by Thomas, the
Anglo-Norman writer), whereas the
English poem Brut (c. 1200) by Lawamon
was the most notable of many direct
imitations. Three devotional works by
Wace also survive.
