''Roman de Rou'' (" Romance of

Rollo Rollo (, ''Rolloun''; ; ; – 933), also known with his epithet, Rollo "the Walker", was a Viking who, as Count of Rouen, became the first ruler of Normandy, a region in today's northern France. He was prominent among the Vikings who Siege o ...

") is a verse chronicle by

Wace Wace ( 1110 – after 1174), sometimes referred to as Robert Wace, was a Medieval 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 car ...

in Norman covering the history of the

Dukes of Normandy In the Middle Ages, the duke of Normandy was the ruler of the Duchy of Normandy in north-western Kingdom of France, France. The duchy arose out of a grant of land to the Viking leader Rollo by the French king Charles the Simple in 911. In 924 an ...

from the time of Rollo of Normandy to the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106. It is a

national epic A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks to or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation—not necessarily a nation state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group wi ...

Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

. Following the success of his ''

Roman de Brut The ''Brut'' or ''Roman de Brut'' (completed 1155) by the poet Wace is a loose and expanded translation in almost 15,000 lines of Norman-French verse of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin '' History of the Kings of Britain''. It was formerly known ...

'', which recounted the history of the Britons, Wace was apparently commissioned by

Henry II of England Henry II () was King of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the form of government used by the United Kingdom by which a hereditary monarch reigns as the head of state, with the ...

to write a similar account of the origins of the

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; ; ) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Franc ...

and their conquest of England. Wace abandons his tale before bringing it up to date. He tells the reader in the final lines of Part III, that the king had entrusted the same task to a ''Maistre Beneeit'' (believed to be Benoît de Sainte-More). The work was started in the year 1160, and Wace seems to have performed his last revisions in the mid-1170s.

Composition

The work consists of: * a 315-line account of the Dukes in reverse chronological order known as the ''Chronique Ascendante''. This is believed by some scholars not to be an original part of the ''Rou'', but a separate work by Wace. * a 4,425-line section in

alexandrine Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French '' Ro ...

s known as Part II * an 11,440-line section in

octosyllable The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a Meter (poetry), line of verse with eight syllables. It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in trochees in languages with a stress accent. Its first occurrence is in a 10th-century Old French saint's legend, ...

s known as Part III A 750-line section known as ''Le Romaunz de Rou et des dus de Normendie'' appended in some editions appears to be an early draf that was, abandoned and later reworked into the final redaction.

Sources

Wace used as sources for his history of the Dukes of Normandy: *'' Gesta Normannorum Ducum'' *''De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum'' by

Dudo of Saint-Quentin Dudo, or Dudon, was a Picard historian, and dean of Saint-Quentin, where he was born the 960s. He was an erudite scholar and he likely acquired his education in Liège or perhaps Laon. By 987, Dudo had become a canon at St Quentin, the abbacy of ...

*''Gesta Guillelmi'' by

William of Poitiers William of Poitiers (, ; 10201090) was a Norman priest who served as the chaplain of Duke William II of Normandy (William the Conqueror), for whom he chronicled the Norman conquest of England in his ''Gesta Willelmi ducis Normannorum et regis ...

*''Gesta regum Anglorum'' by

William of Malmesbury William of Malmesbury (; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as "a gifted historical scholar and a ...

*''Brevis relatio de Guillelmo nobilissimo comite Normannorum'' *

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...

, including information from his father, and his own eyewitness

References

External links

* * Anglo-Norman literature Epic poems in French Culture of Jersey Norman chronicles {{poetry-stub

Composition

Sources

See also

References

External links