Wace (c. 1115 – c. 1183) was an
Anglo-Norman poet, who was born in
Jersey and brought up in mainland
Normandy (he tells us in the Roman de Rou that he was taken as a child to
Caen), ending his career as
Canon of
Bayeux. His extant works include:
Roman de Brut - a verse history of Britain
Roman de Rou - a verse history of the
Dukes of NormandyOther works, also in verse, include lives of
Saint Margaret and
Saint Nicholas.Roman de Brut (c. 1155) was based on the
Historia Regum Britanniae of
Geoffrey of Monmouth. It cannot be regarded as a history in any modern sense, although Wace often distinguishes between what he knows and what he does not know, or has been unable to find out. Wace narrates the founding of Britain, by
Brutus of Troy, to the end of the legendary British history created by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The popularity of this work is explained by the new accessibility to a wider public of the Arthur legend in a vernacular language. In the midst of the Arthurian section of the text, Wace was the first to mention the legend of
King Arthur's
Round Table and the first to ascribe the name
Excalibur to Arthur's sword, although he on the whole adds only minor details to Geoffrey's text. The Roman de Brut became the basis, in turn, for
Layamon's
Brut, an alliterative Middle English poem, and
Piers Langtoft's Chronicle.
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An poet in the early Arthurian tradition credited with first introducing the concept of the
Round Table into the Arthurian mythos, his version of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain was completed in 1155.
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