WACE, whom most modern writers without any authority call Robert, but who simply calls himself “Maistre Wace,” was a clerk (“clerc lisant”) and trouvère of the 12th century, who was born in Jersey, studied at Caen, and received from Henry II. a prebend at Bayeux with other gifts. Nothing is known certainly of the dates of his birth or death; but the one is conjecturally put at about 1120 and the other at about 1180. He seems to have been much about the reigning house of Normandy and England: he boasts of the kindness of Henry to him (he knew, he says, three Henrys, the third being Prince Henry, the eldest son of Henry LL), and is said by Layamon to have dedicated his Brut to Eleanor of Aquitaine. This shadowy personality is partly compensated by a considerable literary work. Wace has left two long romances, the Roman de Brut and the Roman de Rou, both of which are interesting monuments of Norman French, while the latter is a document of some importance for English history, the writer informing us that he got some direct information from his father, who no doubt was not his only source. The Roman de Brut, the longer of the two, is in octosyllabic couplets of a facile and somewhat undistinguished kind. It has generally been regarded as a mere versifying of Geoffrey of Monmouth, a point which turns to some extent of course on the vexed question of Geoffrey’s own originals. The Roman de Rou, a chronicle of the Norman dukes, is much more interesting and much more vigorously written. The greater part of it is also in octosyllables, but there is a large insertion of assonanced alexandrines in something like the form of the chansons de geste. Wace is not in mere poetical value a very good example of the trouvères, but his subjects give him interest, especially for ...