when he narrated legendary material, such as stories about Duke Richard I, the Richard of
Normandy in the Chanson de Roland, and events during the reigns of kings William II
Rufus and Henry I (r. 1100–35), where he was a historian in his own right, drawing from
personal information. Occasionally, he also gives firsthand information concerning the
reign of the Conqueror, such as details about William’s fleet in 1066, having as a small
child heard his father comment on it. The commission did not excite Wace: for a while,
he even attempted another meter, the Alexandrine (one of the first authors, if not the first,
to do so); the work thus advanced so slowly that Henry II grew impatient and
commissioned the much younger Benoît de Sainte-Maure, whose Roman de Troie (ca.
1165) had superseded the Brut as a literary success, with the same task. Wace, bitterly
disappointed, interrupted his work after having narrated the Battle of Tinchebrai, in
which Henry I defeated his older brother Robert Curthose and annexed Normandy
(1106). Since he mentions Henry II’s siege of Rouen in 1174, it is assumed that he died
soon after that date.
Wace is undoubtedly the most brilliant author of the first period of Norman literature;
the modern reader is also struck by his conscientiousness, honesty, and—for the period—
highly critical, even scholarly approach to literature.
Hans-Erich Keller
[See also: ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE; BENOÎT DE SAINTE-MAURE;
GEFFREI GAIMAR; HISTORIOGRAPHY]
Wace. Le roman de Brut de Wace, ed. Ivor Arnold. 2 vols. Paris: SATF, 1938–40.
——. The Conception Nostre Dame of Wace, ed. William Ray Ashford. Chicago: University of
Chicago Libraries, 1933.
——. Le roman de Rou de Wace, ed. Anthony J.Holden. 3 vols. Paris: Picard, 1970–73.
——, ed. Wace: La vie de sainte Marguerite, ed. Hans-Erich Keller. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1990.
——. La vie de saint Nicolas par Wace, poéme religieux du XIIe siècle, ed. Einar Ronsjö. Lund:
Gleerup, 1942.
Keller, Hans-Erich. Étude descriptive sur le vocabulaire de Wace. Berlin: Akademie, 1953.
——.“The Intellectual Journey of Wace.” Fifteenth Century Studies 17(1990):185–207.
Pelan, Margaret. L’influence du “Brut” de Wace sur les romans français de son temps. Paris: Droz,
1931.
WALAFRID STRABO
(ca. 808–849). A Carolingian scholar and poet, Walafrid (Strabo means “the squinter”)
was born in Swabia and educated at Reichenau and later at Fulda under Rabanus Maurus.
He served from 829 to 838 as tutor to Louis the Pious’s youngest son, Charles the Bald.
After 838, he was the abbot of Reichenau; for political reasons, he was expelled by Louis
the German in 840 but; reinstated in 842. Walafrid died on August 18, 849, crossing the
Loire to visit his former student, Charles the Bald.
To modern readers, Walafrid’s most famous works are his poems, including the Visio
Wettini, a hexameter treatment of visions of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise written at the
age of eighteen and dedicated to his former teacher, Wettin of Reichenau; and De cultura
hortorum (or hortulus), a medicinal description and allegorical interpretation of twenty-
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1834