The anonymous verse
Brutin the early 14th c. Anglo-Norman MS, British Library, Royal 13.A.xxi, known as the Royal
Brutor the Anglo-Norman
Brut, is the longest fragment, containing 6,237 octosyllabic lines. In its current codicological situation, the Royal
Brut, quite possibly originally part of a complete
Brut, is preceded by the first 52 lines of Wace’s
Brut, and followed by the remainder of Wace’s 14,866-line poem; the 6,237 lines are thought to have “substituted” for Wace’s lines 53–8728, hence the label of interpolation, though the poem’s editor, Alexander Bell, suggests that Wace’s poem may have been used to fill out the missing parts of the Anglo-Norman poem, and not vice versa (Bell 1969, x; see also Bell 1963); based on a number of omissions in comparison with…
244 words
Citation: Blacker, Jean. "Anonymous Verse Bruts: Royal Brut". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 April 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41553, accessed 12 December 2024.]