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It is probable that Geoffrey was not particular whether he obtained his materials from old chroniclers, Welsh bards, floating tradition, or from his own imagination. His book left its impress on the historical imagination of the Middle Ages. Had it not been for Geoffrey's History, the dramas of King Lear and Cymbeline might never have been suggested to Shakespeare. Layamon's Brut.
Like Wace, Layamon called his book the Brut, because it is the story of the Britons, who took their name from Brutus, and of Arthur the great British hero. This book is known, therefore, as Layamon's Brut. Layamon took Wace's book for a foundation, but he added a great deal to it, and there are many stories in Layamon not to be found in Wace.
We do not cast an English professor out of his chair, because he announces that there are two manuscripts of Layamon's Brut, and that the text of Beówulf has been many times worked over, before we have received it in its present form. Yet there are accredited professors of English who do not know these facts, and who, if called upon, could neither prove them nor disprove them.
Layamon's Brut is in thirty thousand lines, partly alliterative and partly rhymed, but written in pure Saxon English with hardly any French words. The style is rude but vigorous, and, at times, highly imaginative. Wace had amplified Geoffrey's chronicle somewhat, but Layamon made much larger additions, derived, no doubt, from legends current on the Welsh border.
You can see this for yourself if you compare Surrey's poetry with Layamon's or Langland's, and then with some of the blank verse near the end of this book. It was in translating part of Virgil's Aeneid that Surrey used blank verse.
About 1155 a Frenchman named Wace translated into his own language Geoffrey of Monmouth's works. This translation fell into the hands of Layamon, a priest living in Worcestershire, who proceeded to render the poem, with additions of his own, into the Southern English dialect. Wace's Brut has 15,300 lines; Layamon's, 32,250.
In our study we have noted: Geoffrey's History, which is valuable as a source book of literature, since it contains the native Celtic legends of Arthur. The work of the French writers, who made the Arthurian legends popular. Riming Chronicles, i.e. history in doggerel verse, like Layamon's Brut. Metrical Romances, or tales in verse. The best of these romances is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
The reader will notice here two things: first, that though the poem is almost pure Anglo-Saxon, our first speech has already dropped many inflections and is more easily read than Beowulf; second, that French influence is already at work in Layamon's rimes and assonances, that is, the harmony resulting from using the same vowel sound in several successive lines: And ich wulle varen to Avalun: And I will fare to Avalun, To vairest alre maidene, To fairest of all maidens, To Argante there quene, To Argante the queen, Alven swithe sceone.
Alfred. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. The Normans. The Conquest. Literary Ideals of the Normans. Geoffrey of Monmouth. Work of the French Writers. Layamon's "Brut." Metrical Romances. The Pearl. Miscellaneous Literature of the Norman Period. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. History of the Period. Five Writers of the Age. Chaucer. Langland. "Piers Plowman." John Wyclif.
Layamon's contributions to our knowledge of the Arthurian material are, however, comparatively small, since he augmented his original in the main by passages inspired by his own imagination. His additions may be called poetic rather than legendary.
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