Writing History for the King: Henry II and the Politics of Vernacular Historiography

3. The Roman de Rou

83 Around 1160, Henry II commissioned Wace, a clerc lisant born on the Norman island of Jersey and living in the Bessin, to produce the first vernacular history of his maternal ancestors, the Norman dukes and kings of England.1 Wace had recently finished another vernacular history, the Roman de Brut. Based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Brittaniae, the Brut recounted the history of the Britons from their Trojan founder, Brutus, to the death of King Cadwallader.2 To judge by the number of extant manuscripts, the Brut had enjoyed a success akin to that of a contemporary best seller and had made Wace’s reputation as a historian.3 1. Wace began writing the Roman de Rou in 1160. “Mil chent et soisante anz out de temps et d’espace / puiz que Dex en la Virge descendi par sa grace, / quant un clerc de Caen, qui ont non Mestre Vace, / s’entremist de l’estoire de Rou et de s’estrasce.” Wace, RR, I, vv. 1–4. Wace, The Roman de Rou, trans. Glyn S. Burgess with the text of Anthony J. Holden and notes by Glyn S. Burgess and Elizabeth M. C. van Houts (Isle of Jersey, 2002); and Wace, Le Roman de Rou deWace, ed. Anthony J. Holden, 3 vols. (Paris, 1970–73). 2. Wace, Le Roman de Brut, ed. Le Roux Lincy, 2 vols. (Rouen, 1836–38); Wace, Le Roman de Brut, ed. Ivor Arnold, 2 vols. (Paris, 1938 and 1940); and Wace’s Roman de Brut, A History of the British People:TextandTranslation, ed. and trans. Judith Weiss (Exeter, 1999). 3. The complete or nearly complete text of the Roman de Brut survives in nineteen manuscripts. An additional twelve manuscripts contain fragments of the text. For the most recent list of surviving manuscripts, see Weiss, Wace’s Roman de Brut, xxvii–xxix. Chapter 3 The Roman de Rou 84 CHAPTER 3 According to the English poet Layamon, who translated the Brut into Middle English in the thirteenth century, Wace dedicated this work to Queen Eleanor after its completion in 1155.4 Wace’s dedication of the Brut to Eleanor was likely intended to make a favorable impression on the new king and queen and to elicit future royal patronage. It appears that Wace’s gesture was well aimed, as he was repaid a few years later with a royal commission for the Roman de Rou.5 In modern editions, the Roman de Rou is divided into three main parts and an appendix that contains what was apparently a false start. Part I, also known as the Chronique Ascendante, is a 315-line poem composed in twelvesyllable laisses, which briefly sets out the history of the Norman dukes and kings of England in ascending order, beginning with Henry II and ending with the dynasty’s founder, Rollo (rendered in Old French as Rou).6 It functions both as a summary of the history that follows and as a plea for largesse directed to Henry II.7 Wace appears to have written the Chronique Ascendante after 1174; it contains references to the Great War of 1173/74 and the 1174 siege of Rouen, and is rife with denunciations of the French who had supported Henry II’s sons in their recent rebellion against their father.8 4. Layamon, Brut, ed. G. L. Brook and R. F. Leslie, 2 vols. (London, 1963 and 1978), I:20–23. Wace tells us that he completed the Brut in 1155. Wace, Roman de Brut, II, vv.14864–65. 5. Wace’s Roman de Rou and Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Chronique des ducs de Normandie were the only vernacular works directly commissioned by Henry II. See Broadhurst, “Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine,” 53–84. 6. A laisse is a stanza of variable length in which lines are grouped together on the basis of a single assonance. The Roman de Rou, trans. Burgess, xxiv, n. 29. There is some debate over whether Wace was the author of the Chronique Ascendante. Reto Bezzola has suggested that it is the work of a second author who was working from a lost dedication copy of the Roman de Rou. Bezzola, Les Origines et la formation de la littérature courtoise, 3:178. Anthony Holden counters these arguments in “L’Authenticité des premières parties du Roman de Rou,” Romania 75 (1954): 22–53. See also Philippe Auguste Becker, “Die Normannenchroniken: Wace und seine Bearbeiter,” Zeitschrift für romanische...