Table Of ContentTHE ANGLO-NORMAN PROSE BRUT TO 1332:
AN EDITION
by
Heather Joanne Pagan
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Ph.D.
Graduate Department of French
in the University of Toronto
© Copyright by Heather Joanne Pagan, 2006.
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Abstract of the Doctoral Thesis “The Anglo-Norman Prose Brut to 1332: An
Edition” by Heather Joanne Pagan
Thesis submitted to the Graduate Department of French, in the University of
Toronto, 2006.
Thesis Advisor: Prof. Brian Merrilees
Thesis Committee: Prof. James Carley, Prof. Ed Heinemann
Recounting the history of the kings of England from the discovery of the island by
Brutus to the reign of Edward III, the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut was one of the most
popular texts of its time. Subsisting in fifty manuscripts, the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut
has not been the subject of a published edition, despite being the source of the very
popular English Prose Brut, one of the first texts to be published by Caxton. Very little of
the text can be considered original material; most of the work is a translation of well
known sources, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, Wace’s
Roman de Brut, Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis and Langtoft’s Chronicle.
While the work originally terminated in 1272 with the death of Henry III, it was
the subject of two continuations in the decades that followed. The first continuation is
believed to have added an account of the reign of Edward I, ending in 1307, though few
manuscripts attest to the work ending at this point. Two separate continuations were
added to the text during the reign of Edward III (1327-1377), updating the work to
contemporary times. These two continuations are known for reason of their length as the
short and long continuatiorts.
Within the manuscripts of the short version of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut is
found a smaller family of manuscripts, those known as the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut to
1332 and the subject of this thesis. This text is found in three manuscripts: London,
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British Library, Harley 200, used as the base text, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 128
(21702) and Cambridge, Trinity College, R.5.32 (723). These manuscripts were felt to be
an interesting subject for an edition because of their unique manuscript context and their
textual anomalies.
Along with the edited text are presented explanatory notes, a glossary of unusual
terms and an index of proper names. The introduction to the text includes a discussion of
the evolution of the work, its author and its literary significance. An evaluation of the
language used in the text is also found in the introduction.
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Acknowledgements
I will never be able to sufficiently thank Professor Brian Merrilees of the
University of Toronto, my thesis advisor, for his continued guidance, support and
encouragement over the course of this project. Few are as lucky as I to have had such a
caring, enthusiastic teacher to assist them and inspire them.
I would like to thank Professor Ed Heinemann of the University of Toronto and
Professor James Carley of York University for their excellent insight and advice as
members of my thesis committee. They helped prevent countless mistakes and guided my
research to new areas.
I would also like to thank Professor Delbert Russell of the University of Waterloo
who graciously agreed to read tny work ahd provide suggestions and corrections.
Thanks is also extended to my colleagues at the University of Toronto whose
friendship and laughter made the Iasi six years very enjoyable.
And a heartfelt thanks to my family and my husband for their continued love and
support.
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Table of Contents
Page Number
1. Introduction..................................................................................................1
I. Defining the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut..........................1
II. Description of the Manuscripts.......................................3
III. The Anglo-Norman Prose Brut......................................12
IV. The Literary Context......................................................24
V. Sources............................................................................36
VI. The Author.....................................................................52
VII. Language......................................................................56
VIII. Establishment of the Text...........................................69
2. The Anglo-Norman Prose Brut to 1332....................................................72
3. Notes to the Text.....................................................................................271
4. Glossary...................................................................................................353
5. Index of Proper Names...........................................................................382
6. Bibliography...........................................................................................438
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Introduction
I. Defining the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut
During the 13th and 14th centuries in England, a number of texts were written in
the insular dialect of French which purported to recount the history of the kings of the
island. The legend of Brutus, who discovered an unknown island that he would later
baptize Brutonia (Bretagne), was an important foundation myth during the Middle Ages,
establishing a line of descent from the discovery of the island by the great grandson of a
Trojan warrior, through the reigns of other legendary kings such as Lear, Arthur and
Havelok, to contemporary times. These histories, known as Bruts both then and in our
times1, after the eponymous founder of Britain, are defined by Diana Tyson in her
handlist of Brut manuscripts as, “factual historical narratives, or genuine attempts thereat,
of the era from the Heptarchy into the Plantagenet period, or a section thereof.” These
manuscripts are a heterogeneous group, differing significantly in character and in content
and incorporating a smaller group that is more closely related to one another than to the
rest of the Bruts? This family of manuscripts is known as the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut,
three examples of which are the subject of the present thesis.
1 In a note concerning a manuscript of Le Livere de Reis de Brittanie which has the rubric of “Le Bruth de
reys de Engleterre pus la venue Brut” it is suggested “that the word ‘brut’ had become a common noun
meaning history by ca. 1300; the example of this meaning given in the AND, fasc. 1 (1977), p. 77, is from
later MSS., with the spelling ‘Bruyt’”. Ruth Dean and Maureen Boulton in Anglo-Norman Literature: A
Guide to Texts and Manuscripts. Anglo-Norman Text Society Occasional Publications Series No. 3.
London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999, p. 15. The current, online version of the Anglo-Norman
Dictionary ( ) gives the definition account, chronicle, tale as the fourth sense of
bruit, also defined as noise or crowd.
2Diana B Tyson. “Handlist of Manuscripts Containing the French Prose Brut Chronicle.” Scriptorium. 48
(1994): 333-44, p. 334.
’ Some manuscripts, listed as Bruts in catalogues, may have a closer relationship with the Anglo-Norman
Prose Brut than previously suspected. For example, Cambridge, Univ. Libr. Dd 10.32, a manuscript
containing Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and an Anglo-NormanProse Brut to 1272
with an abbreviated (one paragraph) summary of the life of Edward I, has not been included in the list of
Anglo-Norman Prose Bruts by Lister Matheson, and is given a separate entry in Anglo-Norman Literature.
1
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The purpose of the present work is to make more readily available a version of the
family of 50 manuscripts4, known as the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut. The version edited
here is known as the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut to 1332, found in only three manuscripts:
London, British Library, Harley 200, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 128 (21702) and
Cambridge, Trinity College, R.5.32 (723).
In order to avoid confusion between the text edited here and the family of texts to
which these three manuscripts belong, the edited text will be referred to as the Anglo-
Norman Prose Brut to 1332 or ANPB to 1332 while all other manuscripts containing the
Anglo-Norman Prose Brut will be referred to generally as the ANPB. All line numbers in
the introduction refer to the edited text that follows.
A comparison of this manuscript to those here edited shows that the text is identical to those of the Anglo-
Norman Prose Brut, though somewhat abbreviated at certain points. The verbal parallels between the texts
are striking and it is unlikely that the one was not written in consultation with the other, though a fuller
comparison to other manuscripts ending in 1272 would better establish if the Cambridge, Univ. Libr. Dd
10.32 manuscript presents a variant form of the common text or if it is in fact representative of these texts
and should be included in the group.
4 A precise count of the number of manuscripts containing the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut is problematic.
Dean does not include London, Brit. Libr., Add. 10622 or London, Brit. Libr., Royal 20 A.XVIII but lists
them under the heading of 47 The Anonimalle Chronicle. The third manuscript of the Anonimalle
Chronicle, Leeds, Univ. Libr., Brotherton 29 is listed under both the Anonimalle Chronicle as well as 46
Prose Brut (Long Version). Lister Matheson (The Prose Brut: The Development of a Middle English
Chronicle. Arizona : Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998) includes the Royal and
Brotherton manuscripts in his location list but not the Additional manuscript. He also does not include
Aberystwyth, National Libr. of Wales, 5028C in his list. It seems best not to include the manuscripts of the
Anonimalle Chronicle with those of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut, though they are undoubtedly related, as
the editor of part of the Brotherton manuscript has noted, “it is not... a characteristic French Brut." (Childs,
Wendy R. and John Taylor, eds., The Anonimalle Chronicle 1307-1334 From Brotherton Collection MS 29,
Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series 147, Leeds: 1991. p. 17). Therefore, the number of
manuscripts amounts to 48 with one manuscript (London, Brit. Libr. Add. 18462) containing two copies-
the long version, followed by the short.
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3
II. Description of the Manuscripts
The three manuscripts known as the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut to 1332 which are
studied in this edition are5:
H = London, British Library, Harley 200
Saec. XIV/XV6
fos 208 leaves
CONTENTS
la blank
lb Signature of Simonds d’Ewes, February 14, 1626 and writings in Hebrew
2a Illustration
2b “bilongs to 36.B.2” written at top centre
3a Title page “Cronikes de tout Engleterre sive Cronica Gallice cuiusdam Anonimi a
primis incolis Britannice usque ad initium Regni Regio E3 vulgo nuncupati Fructus
Temporum et Robertus de Avesbury Curiae Cantuarensis Registricustos Cronica Regno
et gestis E3 Regis et Eathelredus Rievallis de vita Regis Confessoris”7
3b blank
4a - 6a Dez Grantz Geanz
6a - 79b Anglo-Norman Prose Brut to 1332
5 The style of manuscript description shown here was inspired by that of Julia Crick in The Historia Regum
Britannie of Geoffrey ofMonmouth: A Summary Catalogue of the Manuscripts. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer,
1989.
* The dating given for the three manuscripts is that of Ruth Dean in Anglo-Norman Literature (1999).
Georgine E. Brereton, (Des Grantz Geantz, An Anglo-Norman Poem. Medium Aevum Monographs. 2.
Oxford, 1937), p. vii. dates Harley to the fifteenth century and Thompson (Avesbury, Robert of. De gestis
mirabilibus regis Edwardi Tertii. Ed. Edward Maunde Thompson. London : Rolls Series, No. 93, 1889, p.
xxiii) to the beginning of the fifteenth century.
7 The Chronicles of all of England or the Anonymous French Chronicle from the first inhabitants of Britain
to the beginning of the reign of Edward III, commonly called Fructus Temporum and Robert of Avesbury,
registrar of the court of Canterbury, his Chronicle of the deeds and reign of king Edward III and Aelred of
Rievaubc’s Life of king Edward the Confessor.
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4
79b - 139b Robert of Avesbury's Chronicle 8
The chronicle ends incomplete,9 followed by 16 blank leaves.
140a - b A list of the French killed and prisoners of the battle of Poitiers (1356) after
which is written the following:
1. Descent of Arthur from Joseph of Arimathea, etc.10 fol. 141a
fol. 141b is blank
2. On tribulation. French fol. 142a
3. Versus de regimine regis. “O rex, si rex es”11 fol. 142b
4. Mulier praefertur homini. “In IIIIor modis mulier praefertur homini”
ibid.
12
5. De prima pestilencia versus. “Mors prima communis” ibid.
6. De civitate Romana versus. “Servierunt tibi Roma”13 ibid.
7. De episcopis versus. “Pontifices primi”14 fol. 143
8. Versus de papa Benedicto XIme. “A re nomen habe”15 ibid.
8 Thompson (1889), p. xxiii indicates that Avesbury's chronicle begins at fol. 76b. The folio numbering of
the manuscript has been changed since Thompson’s time. Initially, the numbering started on what is now
fol. 4a where Dez Grantz Geanz begins but has now changed to incorporate the initial three folios. I will
use the later numbering and so the numbering will differ from that indicated in Thompson’s edition.
9 Thompson (1889), p. xxiii feels that the chronicle is missing one final leaf. It is unclear why the sixteen
blank leaves follow Avesbury’s chronicle. Perhaps the work was intended to be continued at some point.
10 This genealogy is also found in John of Glastonbury’s Cronica (Carley, 1985, p. 56). C.T. Wood (1987,
427-9) has claimed that the genealogy was copied by Avesbury from John of Glastonbury and can be used
to confirm an earlier dating of the Cronica. Wood’s theory is based on a number of faulty assumptions,
which have been discussed by Antonia Gransden (1992, p. 297-8).
11 The verses are also found in Paris, Bibl. nat. de France, fonds lat. 11867. They have been printed in
Thomas Wright. Political Poems and Songs relating to English History. London: Rolls Series, No. 14, vol.
1, 1859. p. 278, where the lines follow the poem On the times (1388), which is also found in the following
manuscripts: Dublin, Trinity Coll. E.5.10, London, Brit. Libr., Harley 536 and London, Brit. Libr., Harley
941.
12 The verses are also found in London, Brit. Libr., Harley 3362
13 These verses are printed in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera. Ed. J.S. Brewer. London: Rolls Series, No. 21,
vol. 4 (Speculum Ecclesiae), 1873. p. 297.
14 Also found in London, Brit. Libr., Harley 315
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Description:Recounting the history of the kings of England from the discovery of the island by Brutus to the reign of Edward III, the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut was one of the most popular texts of its time. Subsisting in fifty manuscripts, the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut has not been the subject of a published editio
