- Roman de Rou
Roman de Rou is a verse chronicle by
Wace in Norman covering the history of the Dukes of Normandy from the time ofRollo of Normandy to thebattle of Tinchebray in 1106. It is anational epic ofNormandy .Following the success of his "
Roman de Brut " which recounted the history of the English, Wace was apparently commissioned byHenry II of England to write a similar account of the origins of theNormans and their conquest of England. Wace abandons his tale before bringing it up to date, telling the reader in the final lines of Part III that the king had entrusted the same task to a "Maistre Beneeit" (believed to beBenoît de Sainte-More ).The work was started in the year
1160 and Wace seems to have performed his last revisions in the mid-1170s .The work consists of:
* a 315-line account of the Dukes in reverse chronological order known as the "Chronique Ascendante". This is believed by some scholars not be an original part of the "Rou", but a separate work by Wace.
* a 4,425-line section inalexandrine s known as Part II
* an 11,440-line section inoctosyllable s known as Part IIIA 750-line section known as "Le Romaunz de Rou et des dus de Normendie" appended in some editions appears to be an early draft, abandoned and later reworked into the final redaction.
ources
Wace used as sources for his history of the Dukes of Normandy:
*"Gesta Normannorum Ducum "
*"De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum" byDudo of Saint-Quentin
*"Gesta Guillelmi" byWilliam of Poitiers
*"Gesta regum Anglorum" byWilliam of Malmesbury
*"Brevis relatio de Guillelmo nobilissimo comtie Normannorum"
*oral tradition , including information from his father, and his own eyewitnessee also
*
Anglo-Norman literature References
* "The Roman de Rou", Glyn Burgess, Jersey, 2002, ISBN 0-901897-34-5
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