Layamon's ''Brut'' (), also known as ''The Chronicle of Britain'', is a

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

alliterative verse In meter (poetry), prosody, alliterative verse is a form of poetry, verse that uses alliteration as the principal device to indicate the underlying Metre (poetry), metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly s ...

poem compiled and recast by the English priest Layamon. Layamon's ''Brut'' is 16,096 lines long and narrates a fictionalized version of the history of Britain up to the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...

. It was the first work of history written in English since the ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of ...

''. Named for Britain's mythical founder, Brutus of Troy, the poem is largely based on the Anglo-Norman French '' Roman de Brut'' by Wace, which is in turn a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth's

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Historia Regum Britanniae (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a fictitious account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the List of legendary kings o ...

''. Layamon's poem, however, is longer than both and includes an enlarged section on the life and exploits of

King Arthur According to legends, King Arthur (; ; ; ) was a king of Great Britain, Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In Wales, Welsh sources, Arthur is portrayed as a le ...

. It is written in the

style commonly used in

poetry by rhyming chroniclers, the two halves of the alliterative lines being often linked by rhyme as well as by alliteration. Like the earlier Latin works, it is now regarded as valueless as history. It gives the history of the Britons, largely ignoring the

Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

. Its narrative ends with the Welsh king Cadwallon ap Cadfan, who died in 634.

Language and style

The versification of the ''Brut'' has proven extremely difficult to characterise. Written in a loose

alliterative Alliteration is the repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a List of narrative techniques#Style, litera ...

style, sporadically deploying rhyme as well as a caesural pause between the hemistichs of a line, it is perhaps closer to the rhythmical prose of

Ælfric of Eynsham Ælfric of Eynsham (; ; ) was an English abbot and a student of Æthelwold of Winchester, and a consummate, prolific writer in Old English of hagiography, homilies, biblical commentaries, and other genres. He is also known variously as '' ...

than to verse, especially in comparison with later alliterative writings such as '' Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' and '' Piers Plowman''. Layamon's alliterating verse is difficult to analyse, seemingly avoiding the more formalised styles of the later poets. Layamon's Middle English is notably "native" in its vocabulary, i.e. devoid of words borrowed from Norman French; the scholar B.S. Monroe counted a mere 150 words derived from French in the poem's 16,000 lines. It is remarkable for its abundant

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

vocabulary, including deliberately archaic Saxon forms that were quaint even by Anglo-Saxon standards. Imitations in the ''Brut'' of certain stylistic and prosodic features of

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

alliterative verse show a knowledge and interest in preserving its conventions. Layamon's ''Brut'' remains one of the best extant examples of early Middle English. Solopova, Elizabeth, and Stuart D. Lee. Key Concepts in Medieval Literature. 1st ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. During an era in English history when most prose and poetry were composed in French, Layamon wrote for his illiterate, impoverished religious audience in

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

.Everett, Dorothy. (1978) "Layamon and the Earliest Middle English Alliterative Verse." Essays on Middle English Literature. Ed. Patricia Kean. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,. In 1216, around the time Layamon wrote, King

Henry III of England Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272), also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of John, King of England, King John and Isabella of Ang ...

came to the throne. Henry regarded himself as an Englishman above any other nationality, unlike many of his recent predecessors, and moved his kingdom away from the

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th [2-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...

dialects that had ruled the country's cultural endeavors.Ackerman, Robert W. (1966) '' Backgrounds to Medieval English Literature''. 1st. New York: Random House, Inc. Several original passages in the poem — at least in accordance with the present knowledge of extant texts from the Middle Ages — suggest Layamon was interested in carving out the history of the Britons (historical), Britons as the people 'who first possessed the land of the English'.

Manuscripts, editions and translations

Two copies of the manuscript are known; one in the MS. Cotton Caligula A ix, dating from the third quarter of the 13th century, and in the Cotton Otho C xiii, copied about fifty years later (though the extant, damaged, text is shorter). Both manuscripts are in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

. The text i
online from the University of Michigan
and a translation exists on

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

References

Bibliography

*Le Saux, Francoise H M, ''Layamon's Brut:The Poem and its Sources'', 1989, Boydell and Brewer *Tiller, Kenneth, ''Layamon's Brut and the Anglo-Norman Vision of History'', 2007, University of Wales Press,

Editions

* Brook, G. L. and R. F. Leslie (ed.), ''Laȝamon: Brut, Edited from British Museum MS. Cotton Caligula A. ix and British Museum MS. Cotton Otho C. xiii'', Early English Text Society, 250, 277, 2 vols (London: Oxford University Press, 1963–78), http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=cme;idno=LayCal. The standard edition. * W. R. J. Barron and S. C. Weinberg (ed. and trans.), ''Laȝamon's Arthur: The Arthurian Section of Laȝamon's ‘Brut’ (Lines 9229-14297)'' (Harlow: Longman, 1989). Facing text and translation, based on the Caligula MS. * Allen, Rosamund (trans.), ''Laȝamon: Brut'' (London, 1992) * Wace and Layamon, ''Arthurian chronicles'', trans. by Eugene Mason (London: Dent, 1962) * * * {{Authority control 12th-century poems 13th-century poems Arthurian literature in Middle English Epic poems in English Middle English poems Translations of Geoffrey of Monmouth