The anonymous verse

in the early 14th c. Anglo-Norman MS, British Library, Royal 13.A.xxi, known as the Royal

or the Anglo-Norman

, is the longest fragment, containing 6,237 octosyllabic lines. In its current codicological situation, the Royal

, quite possibly originally part of a complete

, is preceded by the first 52 lines of Wace’s

, 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 22 November 2024.]