Merlin related by a certain Elias; Lincoln Cathedral
104 (Anglo-Norman; 13th c.) adds 640 Alexandrines
of the same prophecies by a certain William; and B.L.
Add. 45103 (Anglo-Norman; 13th c.) contains yet an-
other version of the prophecies, also in Alexandrines,
and anonymous. B.N. fr. 1450 (Picard; 13th c.) goes
even further and inserts between lines 9,798 and 9,799
Chrétien de Troyes’s romances Erec, Perceval, Cligés,
Yvain, and Lancelot, in that order.
Wace is remarkably critical of his source, frequently
stressing that he is not certain of a fact; conversely, he
romanticizes the dry events of history in order to make
them palatable to an audience of noble laypersons. In
particular, his work contains several episodes that pres-
age the spirit of courtly love, such as King Aganippus’s
love “from afar” for Cordeïlle, King Leïr’s youngest
daughter, or Uther Pendragon’s love from reputation
only for Ygerne; but he also stresses the catastrophic
consequences of passion, illustrated, for example, by
the episodes of Locrin’s and Mordred’s adulterous
relationships. Though he eliminates the most fantastic
elements in his source, such as Merlin’s prophecies, he
adds many picturesque details, among them a mention
of the institution of the Round Table, a detail that to
date has not been satisfactorily explained. Wace’s work
was enormously popular (twenty-six manuscripts have
preserved it in complete or fragmented, form), and ca.
1200 the priest Layamon of Raston in Worcestershire
adapted it into Middle English, swelling it to nearly
30,000 lines; it is Layamon who reports that Wace had
dedicated his work to Eleanor, which is possible though
not mentioned in the text.
While in the Roman de Brut Wace was highly suc-
cessful in converting pseudohistory into narrative fi c-
tion, he was less so in the Roman de Rou (i.e., Rollo),
or Geste des Normands (11,440 octosyllabic lines;
plus a prologue of 315 lines and the fi rst 4,425 lines of
the work, in Alexandrines; in addition, there exists the
fi rst draft of a prologue in 750 octosyllabic lines). The
work was commissioned by Henry II, who wanted a
poem similar to the Brut with respect to the history of
Normandy. Wace especially had recourse to Dudo de
Saint-Quentin’s unreliable De moribus et actis primo-
rum Normanniae ducum, from the fi rst years of the 11th
century, Guillaume de Jumièges’s Gesta Normannorum
ducum of 1071, Guillaume de Poitiers’s Gesta Guillelmi
(ca. 1078), and William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum
Anglorum of the fi rst half of the 12th. Wace began the
project in 1160. He was uncomfortable with real history
and its sources, excelling only when he narrated legend-
ary 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 fi rsthand information concerning the reign
of the Conqueror, such as details about William’s fl eet
in 1066, having as a small child heard his father com-
ment on it. The commission did not excite Wace: for
a while, he even attempted another meter, the Alexan-
drine (one of the fi rst authors, if not the fi rst, 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
fi rst 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.
See also Benoît de Sainte-Maure; Bernard of
Clairvaux; Chrétien de TroyesFurther Reading
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. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1990.
——.. La vie de saint Nicolas par Wace, poème religieux du Xlle
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’infl uence du “Brut” de Wace sur les romans
français de son temps. Paris: Droz, 1931.
Hans-Erich KellerWALAFRID 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 ex-
pelled 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 hexameterWA C E