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Updated: June 18, 2025
He and Layamon agree in calling it a tale of the Britons, and in saying that Arthur had it made to prevent rivalry as to place among his vassals when they sat at meat. Ancient sources prove that the Celts had a grievous habit of quarrelling about precedence at banquets, probably because it was their custom to bestow the largest portion of meat upon the bravest warrior.
What is meant by the Riming Chronicles? What part did they play in developing the idea of nationality? What led historians of this period to write in verse? Describe Geoffrey's History. What was its most valuable element from the view point of literature? What is Layamon's Brut? Why did Layamon choose this name for his Chronicle? What special literary interest attaches to the poem?
But this intellectual fertility is far from ceasing with Henry the Second. The thirteenth century has hardly begun when the romantic impulse quickens even the old English tongue in the long poem of Layamon. The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes and an "Itinerarium Regis" supplement Roger of Howden for Richard's reign.
It was what is called Early English or even sometimes Semi-Saxon. If you opened a book of Layamon's Brut you would, I fear, not be able to read it. We know very little of Layamon; all that we do know he tells us himself in the beginning of his poem. "A priest was in the land," he says: "Layamon was he called. He was Leouenathe's son, the Lord to him be gracious.
For Layamon in his retired parish, performing the monotonous and far from engrossing duties of a reading clerk, lived in reality a stirring life of the imagination. Back in the Saxon past of England his thoughts moved, and his mind dwelt on her national epic heroes.
Geoffrey of Monmouth recognised it as a fairy sword, and says that it was made in Avalon, namely, the Celtic otherworld. Layamon adds further information about Arthur's weapons. These facts are mainly important as testimony to the Celtic element in Arthurian romance, and especially to Layamon's use of current Welsh Arthurian tradition.
WORKS ON LAYAMON Introduction, Madden's ed. of Brut. H. Morley, English Writers, London, 1888-1890, III, 206-231. L. Stephen and S. Lee, Dictionary of National Biography, London, 1885-1904, under Layamon. WACE, Roman de Brut, ed. Le Roux de Lucy, 2 vols, Rouen, 1836-1838. Roman de Rou, ed.
You see by this last line that Layamon has forgotten the difference between Briton and English. He has forgotten that in his lifetime Arthur fought against the English. To him Arthur has become an English hero. And perhaps he wrote these last words with the hope in his heart that some day some one would arise who would deliver his dear land from the rule of the stranger Normans.
As the matter which Layamon added is the best in the poem, he is, in so far, an original author of much imaginative power. He is certainly the greatest poet between the Conquest and Chaucer's time. A selection from the Brut will give the student an opportunity of comparing this transition English with the language in its modern form:
Drayton is the most voluminous and, to antiquarians at least, the most interesting of the minor poets. He is the Layamon of the Elizabethan Age, and vastly more scholarly than his predecessor. His chief work is Polyolbion, an enormous poem of many thousand couplets, describing the towns, mountains, and rivers of Britain, with the interesting legends connected with each.
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