problem people in the petit bruit by rauf de boun

Problem people in the Petit Bruit by Rauf de Boun

Diana B. Tyson

The Petit Bruit, a short Old French prose history of the kings of England from Brutus to Edward I, was written in 1309. It differs from other short Bruts in that it survives in a single sixteenth-cen-

tury manuscript, with many pu&ing readings and a text which often departs significantly from that of the other versions. It cites a source, le grant

Bruit, which has not so far been identiJied. Among its bafJng aspects are many traditional historical and legendary characters in non-traditional guises,

a large number of very plausible fictitious person-

ages, and a chronology which, particularly in the section from the Heptarchy to the Conquest, is so confused as to almost defy analysis. This paper looks at these problems, attempts some difficult

identifications, and compares aspects of the text to some of the more major other Brut versions. Many questions remain unresolved; it is hoped that the discussion may spark off ideas in other scholars’ minds.

Among the many old French prose histories

about the kings of England, commonly

known as Bruts, the Petit Bruit written by

one Rauf de Boun in 1309 might be called

the joker in the pack.’ The single surviving

manuscript, BL Harley 902, fos. lr-llv,

dates from the late sixteenth century, a cir-

cumstance which already sets PB apart

from other Bruts which generally survive in

manuscripts of much earlier dates. The

many extremely corrupt readings show that

the scribe must have been working from an

already very imperfect model, far removed

from the original, so that what we have be-

fore us gives only a blurred picture of the

work. However, the essential differences be-

tween PB and other Bruts go deeper than

this surface appearance, into the very fabric

of the text itself. It is my aim in this paper

to examine some of the differences which

concern the people featured in the text, and

to try and solve some identification prob-

lems.

Whatever the modern reader may think

of PB, to the author it was an accurate and

reliable piece of historiography, painstak-

ingly distilled from his source which in his

incipit he calls the grant Bruit:

Cy comence le Bruit d’Engleterre, qi vous dirra de

roy en autre, pav[e]ne et chrestien, jekis roy Edward

de Carnarvan qe ore est, solome la ordinaunce

meistre Rauf de Boun, qi a la requeste monseignur

Henry- de Lacy, count de Nichole, ceste chose ad novelment abbreggt hors du grant Bruit, en l’an du

reigne nostre seignur le roy Edward de Carnarvan le

tiers en entraunt.’

The fact that this grant Bruit has not so far

been discovered or identified constitutes one

of the main difftculties in the study of PB, all the more so in view of the author’s rela-

tively frequent and always very confident

reference to it, in a number of guises: le Bruit

Journal of hledieval History 16 (1990) 351-361 0304-4181/90/$03.50 0 1990 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland) 351

is mentioned six times, l’autre Bruit four times, le grant Bruit and le Bruit delayens once each.” Rauf de Boun mentions three other sources in addition to these Bruit ones, each of them once: Seint Gmal, which records the death of king Eboracus in the Chaste1 de

Puce&; Launcelet du Lake, from which he deri\.es the account of Adeluf III’s institution of the Rome pe?Ly, a tax paid to Rome in per- petuity to placate the Atmight)- who had sent seven rain). years which ruined the har- \.ests (what is meant is no doubt Peter’s pence); and 1 ‘estorie de Grimesb_~l. which tells how Grime cared for the young Havelok \vhen he was expelled from Denmark. All source mentions occur in the first tkvo-thirds of the text, the last one at the Conquest. From that point, the text becotnes both more detailed and more accurate and it is possible that the author follo\ved anothet source from there.

Rauf de Boun clearly betie\.es in the trust\\-orthiness of his sources. His akvare- ncss of the need for a true account umnised with flights of poetic fanc). is brought into fi,cus kvhen, at the end of the reign of Ar- thur, he states that he has not narrated Ar- thur’s conquests. partly because this wwutd make his histor) too length!, but also because his source, I’autre Bruit. holds that the)- are tinged ivith c/lose jni and n’est /~a.c

joce amiable de mettre J&yer[ije en esrribtur-e au.vi

come ar~aunt [dite] chose dount i ad certque auto-

ritd. There can he no doubt that kvhat was intended \\xs an accurate historical narra-

ti1.c.. \‘et to the reader PB looks, certainly at

tirsc sight, like a \‘er)- confused compilation, wit11 Iictitious persons and episodes added 1Mt’l~azardly to an all-cad). far from tradi- ti(,nal li-amtw.ork, in one great nightmarish

muddle. In considering how it differs from other Bruts, we ma)- identify three main elc- ments: first, non-traditional names, guises, aspects or actions tent to personages kvho also appear in other Brut texts and/or who are known historical figures; second, the addition of fictitious persons and episodes which do not, as far as I could discover, appear in other Bruts at all; third, a Mildly inaccurate chronology in the period from the Heptarchy to the Concluest. (A furthcl striking difference, the unusuall>- high pro- portion of nIiddlc English kvords and cx- pressions found in PB, will be the subject of a separate stud!..)

Let us look first at sotnc traditional legendary p x.. c 1 sonages appearing in non- traditional guises. The discrepancies in names start immediately with the bvife of Brurus who is not, as in HRB, \Yace and LRB, the Greek-horn Ignoge but Galiene.

descended from the 5011s of Israel. Theil sons are not. as in the other tests, Locrinus, Kamber and Albanactus but Silu,’ Logrius

and Ilkl.ctmu.v. The son of king Rubundibraz

(Rud Hud Hudibras in HRB) and builder of‘ the to\vn of‘ Bath is not Bladud but Bacows.

Similarly, later in the narrati\.e, the duke of‘ Oornwall \zhosc Mife gives birth to Ar- thur is not Gorlois but Bodemound.

Some characters have the traditional names but their fimcrions or actions ctifrel

firom tvhat the)- are in the other Lvorks. Gog

and Gogmagog, the giants \vllo kill

Eboracus’s t\vo sons in the castle Sidemound

D0l0~01L~ and kidnap his w4fe in PB,

clseivhere are respecti\.el>. king of Africa and leader of’ a group of giants fighting Brutus. Lud, in PH the giant \\xrring qainvt king Rubwldibw: and killed, togethel

352

with the king, at Castle Baynard, is in HRB

simply a king in the sequence, elder brother

of Cassivelaunus and successor to HCli.

PB’s Leirius has no daughters and is

poisoned by his son Belin, while in the other

texts he is the familiar figure later found in

Shakespeare.

These discrepancies seem too major to be

blamed simply on manuscript corruption

and faulty copying. It seems more likely

that Rauf de Boun or the compiler of his

exemplar added from another source.

Identification problems are more com-

plex in the case of historical personages in

non-traditional guises. Some are easily

identifiable but their lives or actions differ

in some way from those in recorded history.

Thus, Saint Alban in PB is martyred for his

faith during the reign of Ethelred instead of

around 303 A.D. Saint Augustine baptizes,

not the sixth-century king Ethelbert as in

reality, but king Lucius, ray de Bretouns (in

HRB baptized in the second century b)

Faganus and Duvianus, emmisaries of pope

Eleutherius). This telescoping of time oc-

curs elsewhere too, as we shall see.

An error of a similar kind is the inter-

mingling of the functions and order of

Knut’s two sons: Harold Harefoot is pre-

sented as the younger, who never occupies

the English throne but a qi son pert? Knout

dona la terre de Danmarche, while Hardaknut

is the elder who succeeds his father as king

of England.

Some historical persons are confused with

other historical persons from whom the)

have borrowed a sobriquet or a function.

Thus, when we are told that Richard I went

on crusade with un Lozys, roy de Fraunce a

1%7oure, the author may be confusing

Philippe Auguste, whom Richard joined on

the third crusade, with his predecessor

Louis VII who went on the second one. A

similar case is king Ethelwulfs Frankish

bride, given as Elianore, file a roy Charl[e]s,

cely qi fuit le fit< Charlemayne le Kauf, when

she was in fact Judith, daughter of Charles

the Bald. The addition of mayne to the name

Charles may have been an automatic reac-

tion or even a genuine slip of the pen

(perhaps by a scribe) while the confusion of

Judith and Eleanor may have arisen be-

cause there had been other royal brides

named Eleanor in the recent past.”

Then there are historical persons whose

names are garbled but whose identity may

be discovered from the context: Etheldred,

Ethelred Unraed’s mother, is Aelfthryth;

Adelstan I, Alfred’s predecessor, is

Aethelred; Edgar, father of Egbert, is

Eahlmund. Odd spellings like Adeluf for

Ethelwulf, Adelbaud for Ethelbald, Adilbrit

for Ethelbert and Edbright for Egbert are

quite usual in Anglo-Norman Bruts and pre-

sent no special problem. More intriguing is

Brithred roy de Kent, who founded an abbey

of black monks at Canterbury, so that iden-

tification points to Ethelbert; is there confu-

sion here with Egbert’s predecessor

Beorhtric? On the whole, these garbled

names can probabl?- be attributed to visual

(or even aural, if the author or scribe was

muttering the names as he went along) con-

fusion, resulting in the writing of a royal

name that sounded or looked right but was

in fact corrupted.

In this group of historical persons whose

names are incorrect or insufficient can also

be included some post-Conquest figures for

whom I can suggest identifications on the

basis of the context. The rqy d’illlemayne

who, for a large payment, joins forces with

353

Edward I against the French king must be Adolf of Naussau who did so in 1294. He is joined in the venture by the ray d’ilmgon

\v110, given the date, must be James II of Aragon, though I have not found any firm historical evidence which shows him in this role.” The prince de ,Uoryye imprisoned b) king Peter III of Aragon, for the release of ivhom Philippe le Be1 asked Edward I’s help in 1286-88, can only have been Charles II of Anjou, king of Sicily, also known as Charles of Salerno, who was captured in the battle of Naples in 1284 and eventually re- leased under the provisions of the treaty of Canfran in 1288.’ He is described as prince of IMorea (the old appellation for the Peloponnese) where he and his father had interests though such a title was not used 1,). them.” Bernard de Blyzez, one of Henr) III’s two main adversaries in Gascon), (the other being Gaston de Beam), has proved particularly difficult to identif).. I have not found this name in an>. of the main accounts of the Gascon troubles.” The most likel? person here is Amanieu V d’Albret, a powerful local nobleman and one of the leaders of the revolt. Bernard as a first name could be due to confusion Lvith several later mem- bers of the d’Albret family called that, while Bln_rnez could perhaps just possibly have a connection xvith the town Blaye near Bor- deaux, the region at the heart of the trouble.

Even harder to deal with are those historical persons whose names or titles are at variance with anything that fits the contest. Egbert’s third (fictitious) son Aluf is given the counties of Chester and Huntingdon: Et

tut en.y dona ii a ce&v tiersJjte Aluf le countb de

Huntedoun qi udonkes feut, dount meintjour apt?

fuit le nom btyseller, si [Ijupelle homme count de

Garenne. It is not clear why the earl of Hun-

tingdon should be called earl of Garenne. \Ve could emend count to count&, an error which occurs elsewhere in the manuscript, but the problem of a county named Garenne is no easier to solve. \Yilliam I granted the earldoms of Huntingdon and Northampton to \\‘altheof, earl of North- umberland” - did the author make a muddled connection between \\‘altheof and Alum? \l:altheofs eldest daughter and coheir Maud married David I of Scotland, and their son Henry, earl of Huntingdon, married Ada, daughter of \t’illiam de 12Tarenne, earl of Surrey.” Did the name I\:arenne, in the \rariant form Garenne, creep into the author’s appellation for the earls of Hun- tingdon because of this marriage? An earl of Huntingdon crops up later in the test, too, namel>, le count Edwen de Huntindoun,

father of king Edgar who ascends the throne after a period of anarchy. Edgar’s historical predecessor was his elder brother Edw)., and corruption of Edw). into Edulen is con-

ceivable, but the Huntingdon connection is baffling.

There is a similar muddle about the earl of Chester, though identification here is easier. Of the county of Chester, PB says: ore est ceste chore desmembre’ tout en barounnis, et

ceo ,fit par encheson un Randolf, counte jadis de

Chestre, qi n’uzjoit nul heire de so_r fors qe .iiii.

filis, us queux~filisfiit ceste choce puis desmembre’.

The reference must be to Ranulf de Blun- deville, earl of Chester 1180-1232, who died without issue so that his estates passed to his four sisters and coheirs or their descen- dants.” Later in the text, PB tells us that Gurmound, a fictitious son of Hardaknut, was murdered par counsel un Randolj; count de

Chestre u 1 ‘houre, qi &it le plus riche count qi

adonkes j&it en Engleterre. The mention of

354

wealth points to this same Ranulf de Blun- deville, one of the richest men of his time, but he lived long after the event described here - another example of PB’s telescoping of time.

\Yelsh historical figures have names garbled almost beyond recognition. Rhys ap Mareddud, lord of Dryslwyn, becomes simply Risamer, apparently a case of contrac- tion. And in the reign of Henry III morust Grzy&n, jitl Risaranha, prince de North Gales a

l’hour, qi avoit deux fitz: I’un LetelJvn, l’autre David. Grlj$yn must be Gruffudd ap Llewe- lyn ap Iorwerth, father of Llewelyn and David who were executed for treason by Ed- ward I. His father Risaranha must therefore be Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, or Llewelyn the Great. The first part of the name may stand for Rhys ap (we have seen how Rhys ap Mareddud became Risamer) but why Llewe- lyn should be called Rhys is unclear, and the ending -ranha seems impossible to account for.

It seems clear that all these historical figures were meant to be described accurately, though the corruption and confusion makes it difficult for the modern reader to recognize each one. I have not been able to find a rationale in this welter of corrupted names and interchanged identities. Given the undoubtedly multiple copying, it is perhaps unfair to lay the blame for the entire muddle at the door of Rauf de Boun. Intermediate scribes must assume part of it, and certainly some confusions can be ac- counted for by similarities in names. But the extent and the variety of the discrepancies do suggest that, at least in some in- stances, recourse was had to sources other than the ones known to us. The suspicion that Rauf de Boun, so scrupulous about

acknowledging and following his sources, did have one (or more?) different from those of other Bruts is reinforced when we look at my second category, that of fictitious persons and episodes which do not appear in the other texts.

What strikes one immediately here is the large number of ‘extra’ kings and royal sons. The first appears after the death without issue of Cassibelin: while LRB has Lucius as its next king and HRB, after some other rules, also gives Lucius, PB features a Dane, Gurmound, son of the eldest daughter of Belin who had married one Toraud, king of Denmark. In the 57th year of his reign, Gurmound is defeated by his baronage at Huntingdon and chased to Gurmoundcestre. His son Frederik, who succeeds him, has as his aim to oust all native holders of high offtce and to surround himself with Danes. This makes him an object of hatred, and his barons rise up in revolt and expel him, together with his four sons. It is an entirely plausible story but neither figure occurs in HRB or LRB (though both texts feature a Gormond, king of Africa and an entirely different personage, much later in the sequence); PB’s Gurmound is also quite dis- similar to the Gurmund who occurs in Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis.13 Then Lucius duly follows but he, too, dies without issue; three fictitious kings now claim joint sovereignty: Erkenwald, king of Mercia (perhaps loosely identifiable as the historical king Ethelbald of Mercia), Waleys who holds the north, and Morgan le3tz Davit who holds the south, the west and East Anglia. They are called ceux trois roys wales and together they rule the country, warring con- stantly among themselves until Engel, un Breton hors de Bretaigne, conquers the whole

355

of England with the help of a powerful giant, Scardius. This episode, and its characters, is entirely missing from the other texts I have studied.

Engel has seventeen sons and divides the country into seventeen portions, and En- gland remains ruled bl- seirenteen kings for three years. Here we come upon Saint Ed- mund, king of East Anglia, who holds one- seventeenth portion and whose arrival from Saxon), and martyrdom in the forest of Hosne are correctly recorded. Another se\,enteenth portion is held by Brithl-ed rq de Kent, identifiable as Ethelbert. After the death of Saint Edmund, Edbright Ie ifit,- Edgar, who holds Iiorthumbcrland as his portion, comes upon the scene. He defeats all the others and, like the historical Egbert \vith whom \\-e ma)- loosely identify him, unites England under one ruler. \Vc should note that Ethelbert died in 616. that Eg- belt’s reign \vas from 802-839. and that Saint Edmund became king of East Xnglia in 855, so that though these three figures are historical, PB’s making them contemporary \vith each other is another instance of its telescoping of time. I\‘r should also note here how closel), intert\vined are realit! and fiction: Engel is fictitious but his sons

can be identified as historical pcrsonagcs. Egbert’s three sons are Adeluf‘Z (the his-

torical Ethelwxlf), and Outwde and 2+lI~f; both fictitious. Adeluf Z has t\vo sons: the fictitious AdeluJ‘ ZZ and Uthcrpendragon. Then follo\vs the traditional star\. of the conception, birth and reign of Arthur ~.ho dies (contrary to the tradition) in the castle of Ke~liouns (Caerleon-on-Usk?) and is buried in Glastonbury.

The division of England into sel’enteen parts may be taken as the eyui\.alcnt of the

Heptarchy. It also features in the other short Bruts I have studied though, except for LRE, the di\.ision is always into five instead of the usual seven. But there are two important differences betkveen PB and the others: PB is the only text where the Hep- tarchy is not followed b!, an accurate historical sequence of kings, and the only one to include Arthur so late in the narrative. HRB

and \\:ace do of course feature Arthur but he occurs much earlier in the sequence and there is not the problem of fitting him into a historical ninth-century context. PB man- ages this neatl!.: having used the historical Ethelbvulf (.4deluJ‘Z) as the starting point of the sequence L‘ldeluJ‘ I. Adeluf‘ II, Utherpen- dragon, Arthur, it gives Arthur three fictitious sons: AdAef ZZZ \vllo succeeds him, L210~- garr le ;Voiy ~vho gets \\‘alcs, and Patrikes le

Rous \vho gets Scotland (there is a parallel here \\.ith Brutus’s three sons who also suc- ceed their f‘ather in England, \\‘ales and Scotland). PB then tells us that Adeluj‘ ZZZ marries the daughter of Charles the Bald and the)- ha\.e four sons: ddelbaud, ildilbrit, Adelstan. :I(fied. ” This enables us to identif) rldeluj’ ZZZ as the historical king Ethelwulf, son of Egbert, \t-horn we have already met as L-ldelzd‘ Z and \vho thus occurs t\vicc. In other Lvords, the entire Arthurian episode is a circular diversion, starting and ending bvith the historical king Ethel\vulf. The author rather spoils this neat operation b!, making Ethel\vulf (839-58) contemporar)- lvith Pope Honorius I (62538), telescoping time ).et again.

The pattern of intercalation of legendal-) episodes in the historical narrative con-

tinues kvith the insertion of the story of Havelok the Dane, \vhich does not feature in an)- other Brut text I ha\-e seen.‘” :jgain

356

it is managed cleverly: king Edmund is suc-

ceeded, not by his brother Edred as in real-

ity, but by Adelwold who, in the romance of

Havelok the Dane, is the father of Havelok’s

wife Goldburgh. Their tale is told according

to the established tradition, but whereas the

romance ends with Havelok triumphant as

king of Lincoln and Lindsey but without

any details about his progeny, PB gives him

four sons: Gurmound, intended for the succes-

sion but killed when thrown by a testy

horse; the historical Knut; Godurd who re-

ceives the seneschalship of England; and

Thoraud who marries la countesse de Hertonwe

en Norw~p.

There are also some fictitious royals

whom it is hard to connect with any known

theme. One such is Schotus, le$tz Patrikes, who conquered the land of Logriene, named

after Brutus’s second son, and renamed it

Scoteland. Madoc ap Llywelyn, who leads

the uprising against Edward I in 1294-95,

is described as L21adokes lejtz :Vorgan, but I

cannot identify this .Morgan. And there is

ddelstane, also called Adelstanus quartus et ul-

timus, son and successor to Ethelred Un-

raed. He is at war with the invading kings

Gunelaf of Denmark and Anelaf of Norway,

who based their claim to the English throne

on those fictitious interlopers Gurmound and

his son Frederik, whom we have already met.

It is tempting to identify Adelstane as

Athelstan, but he has already appeared

much earlier, in the historically correct

place in the sequence. Could there be confu-

sion with Athelstan, son of Ethelred Unraed

and Aelfgifu (and brother of Edmund Iron-

side) ~~110 never came to the throne?‘”

\\‘e also have Gurmound, fictitious son and

successor to Hardaknut, slain by the order

of Randolf earl of Chester as we have al-

ready seen, because of his declared aim of

re-establishing Danish supremacy in En-

gland. PB records that he is thrown into the

Thames from a window at Castle Baynard;

there could be an echo here of the fate of

the historical Edric Streona, ealdorman of

the Mercians, who, as recorded in another

Brut, meets his end in the reign of Knut in

the same way for the same reason.”

Finally, there is the fictitious Miles, mid-

dle son of Edgar and brother of Edward the

Confessor and Harauld le Mauvays (in whom

we recognize Harold Godwinson). So gentle

that he is known as man althermq,ldest,” he is

no match for his nasty brother Harold who

poisons him on the death of Edward in

order to usurp the throne.

About the fictitious persons we should

note two things. First, the author of the

source had a flair for giving the appropriate

‘regional flavour’ to the various names: the

Danes are called Frederik, Gurmound,

Godard and Toraud, the \Velsh Morgan,

the Scottish Patrick and Schotus. Second,

several of the names are used for more than

one person: there are three Gurmounds,

three hIorgans, two Patricks and two To-

rauds, and none of these namesakes are re-

lated to each other.

It is virtually impossible to create any

order in this veritable maelstrom of fictiti-

ous personages, and very difficult to present

the problem in an intelligible fashion. Yet I

can only repeat that, here also, Rauf de

Boun’s attitude to his source(s) was clearly

one of complete trust and reliance. Nowhere

do we sense the slightest doubt on his part

about the truth of what he recorded. He

does not seem to have consulted any of the

available histories which could 1lav.e given

him a more accurate picture and presum-

357

ably did not feel the need to do so. It remains for us now to look at the

chronology. Though there are irregularities before the Heptarchy, it is really at that point that what can reasonably be described as chaos sets in. \\Te have seen how Engel’s seventeen ruler-sons are follobved by Ed-

bright (Egbert) as sole ruler; then come, from father to son, Adeluf Z (Ethelwulf) ,

Adelqf II, Utherpendragon, Arthur, and Adeluf III (second incarnation of Ethelwulf), followed accurately by Adelbnud (Ethel- bald), Adilbrit (Ethelbert), Adelstan I

(Ethelred), Alfred, Ed\vard the Elder, Xthelstan, and Edmund. Edmund’s fictitious son is Adelwold who is succeeded 1,~. his son-in-law Ha\,elok the Dane and daughter Goldburgh; they are followed by their scc- ond son Knut, after whom comes Harda- knut. His successor is not Ed\vard the Con- fessor but the fictitious Gurniound, who heralds total confusion. His son and heii (and thus Hardaknut’s grandson) is Ed- mund Ironside, in reality the son of Ethelred Unraed, crowned tlventy-four years before the accession of Hardaknut. Ed- mund Ironside’s son and successor is Ed- Lvard the hslartyr, in reality his uncle, \vho became king some sixty years beJbre the accession of Hardaknut. So instead of going forward in time from Hardaknut’s reign, u-e go backward. Edward is murdered b>- his stepmother Etheldred (Aelfthr)~th) so that the sceptre ma)- pass to her son Z3heMrede (Ethelred Unraed).‘” He is followed 1~). ddelstnnus quartus et ultimus, whose two sons

drown in the Medway, lealing him without an heir. Chaos reigns for two and a half years, then the crown passes to Edgnr,fitz le count Edwen de Huntindoun during whose reign Saint Dunstan hears the angels’ pronounce-

ment that peace and plenty will be En- gland’s lot while Edgar and his son Edward reign. Now this heavenly message to Saint Dunstan is also recorded in other Bruts, where the reference is to the historical king Edgar, though without mention of his son.“’ So \ve can perhaps identify PB’s Edgar as the historical one, appearing out of chronological order (we continue to go backlvard in time) and count Edxlen de Hun- tindoun as his predecessor Ed\v>- (who in realit). was his elder brother, not his father). The real Edgar’s eldest son was an Edward, and YB ,gi\.es us an Edward, too: the Con-

fessor ~~110, in one leap so to speak, takes us forward in time to where we w-ere before, the succession to Hardaknut.

Harold Godwinson, as \ve have seen, succeeds Edward (in PB his brother), to be ousted in the sixth )-ear of his reign 1~). \Z’illiam the Bastard. After this, PB gi\.es us accurately the sequence of Norman and Plantagenet kings, and the test ends with the death of Edward I.

None of the other Bsuts has anything re- motely like this astonishing jumble of rulers. Yet there seems to he a faint connection with reality: most of England’s rulers are there, even though some are wildly out of sequence or with the wrong family comiec- tions. Only two are actually missing: Edred and Swegn Forkbeard. The construction is, in fact, quite neat. \Ve have seen how man) of the fictitious figures lia\e names suitable for them, and there are no unexplained gaps or illogical sequences. If one did not knob\ better, it might seem an acceptable historical narrative, and perhaps it appeared so at the time.

This extraordinary game of musical chairs, played by England’s rulers as set

358

down in PB, is paralleled, in a sense, in their burial locations, which warrant a rapid sur- vey.

For the early kings they are not given and the author points out that, Brutus and many of his successors being unbaptized pa- gans, his source does not record them. Leirius is the first whose burial place (!t:in- Chester) is indicated: en91 fuist cil roy Leyrius

le premier rq dount le Bruitfait mention de entere-

ment, ou de payen ou de crestien.

PB gives burial locations for six fictitious kings who do occur in other histories or legends; for Havelok the other sources give no burial place while for Leirius, Belin, Lucius, Arthur and Utherpendragon they give a different one from PB. Three fictitious kings who do not occur elsewhere (Adelstan IV, Adeluf I and Adeluf II) are all given as buried in \l’inchester, and we have seen how Gurmound was thrown in the Thames. There is no special pattern here though we should note the author’s predilection for 12’inchester as a royal burial place.

However, the real interest lies in the burial locations of the historical kings. For Ethelwulf, Edmund Ironside and Harold Godwinson PB gives none. Eight of the ones which it does give are correct: Edward the Confessor, Edward I and Henry II in \t:estminster, John in \l’orcester, Alfred and \t:illiam Rufus in Jvinchester, Athelstan in Malmesbury-, and Saint Edmund in Bury St Edmunds. Egbert and Edmund, for whom there does not seem to be a recorded burial place, in PB are in 12’inchester and Chichester respectively. The other fourteen PB locations are incorrect: Ethelbert, Ethel- bald, Ethelred and Edward the Martyr in \l:inchester (should be Sherbourne, Sher-

bourne, Wimborne and Shaftesbury); Ed- ward the Elder and Ethelred Unraed in Exeter (should be 1Yinchester and London); Edgar in Fontevraud (should be Glaston- bury); Knut and Hardaknut in Reading and \Yorcester (should be 1Yinchester); Henry I in Chichester (should be Reading); Stephen in \Valtham (should be Faver- sham); Henry II in Faversham (should be Fontevraud); Richard I in Caen (should be Fontevraud); 12:illiam I in Rouen (should be Caen).

Now most of the PB locations are indeed the burial places of one or more of these kings (only Chichester, Exeter and Rouen are not) but the people and the locations are muddled: the king whose grave PB lo- cates in \Yaltham is Stephen, not Harold; Caen has Richard I, not \t’illiam I; Reading has Knut, not Henry I; Fontevraud has Edgar, not Henry II and Richard I; Faver- sham has Henry- II, not Stephen. It is hard to see how this changing around of kings and their graves, so to speak, could be due simply to faulty copying. It is almost as if all the data have been put into a hat and mixed up, then taken out and set down rather haphazardly. Yet, as with the sequence of rulers, there are elements of truth and logic in it.

Any attempt at analysis in the study of PB always brings us back to the problem of the missing source. Did it include the romance material and all the additional Iictiti- ous people, or was this added from elsewhere? Did these extra-historical addi- tions make the work more attractive to a contemporary audience in terms of credibil- ity or retention? There were by this time a number of good histories in the vernacular in existence, and the tradition of reliable

359

Old French historiography written at the request of a patron had been established for a long time, both in England and on the continent (Tyson 1979, 1986). To make a history popular or even acceptable it was not necessary to dress it up with glittering episodes or romantic figures (though there does seem to be some evidence that the use of Arthur’s name as a St)--1istic device ma)- 1lax.e helped the popularity and credihilit). of some fourteenth-centur! histories - Tyson 1981). The author may have mis- judged the tastes of his time in adding such elements (if he did add them) or in choosing his source history.

As for the faulty chronology, this could well partly be the result of the author (or indeed the source) mistaking one EdLvard for another, to take an obvious example, an eas)- thing to do kvhen kvorking from a muddled exemplar. But the sequence of rulers as a whole, confused as it is, is almost too ingenious to be the product of ignorance, carelessness or confusion. And the fictitious people, or at least Some of them, arc not totally incredible in the light of English history of their time - indeed, some fit in re- markably well.

It remains to be seen what all this adds up to. hladden called PB “a collection of

Notes

.lDbrwii//io,~s: 1’U. Tyon 1987; HRB. -hxpc 1966; \\‘a~. .hwlcl 1938 md 1940; LRB, Glovrr 1865: LRE. Foltys 1962. I Ser T> son ( 198i): hleyer / 1878): \.ising

(1923:74): Maclclen ( 1928:sis-k.xsi~.); L rv t 1963:2X-3). For a discussion of short 61,/h, see

Tyson ( 197.5).

For a discussion of author and patron. see

‘I‘vson ( 1986: 106) anti Tyson (1987: 1). i

It is probable that the originnl rend .Sihicts and

that in copying an rlhbre\Aation mark \vns otnittetl. i Eleanor of Pro\.encr. clown of Henr\, III:

Eleanor dc hlonthrt. sistrr of Henry III; Elennor 01‘

C:astilc, cluren of Ecl\+arcl I: Eleanor countess of‘ Bar.

claughtcr of Edward I. II SW Po\vickr ( I9.53:659ff.). ; see Pouiclw I l9.i3:253tE) .ulcl Runciman

t I958:247-8. 263-i). :3 I ~11 intlcbtrd to Dr D. S. H. ;\hulafia for this

cy’lanatioll. ‘/

See .1Iarsh I 1912) and Ludge ( 1926). II/ Banks I 1809:388) ancl Cbnlplete Peerage

ll926:638-9). II Blanks I 1809:390-l ). Dugdalc I 1673:608-9).

Complvtc Pwrag:e ( 1926:642) and C:omplctr Pccrqc I 1936:706). On Hrnr)-‘s dwth, thr carlclom rc\-cl-ttd

to thr St I,is filmil), tlrsc~nclrd f-om hlnucl through

Ilcr lirst marriaqv to Simon dr St Lis. I>

Brll (1960: 11.3229-3308). I /

historical notices chiefl). deri\red from apoc- / i Fol- a full discussion of the clitfu-cnt wrsions of

ryphal sources, and put together in so con- this. 5cc‘ Skcnt and Si5am (lOi9). Gaimar inrludccl

fused and ignorant a manner, in defiance of thv Icg-rncl in his k/oirr c/es Engleir (Bell 1960:1 1.8%

816). ~laddcn prints Gaitnar‘s \.ersion and the otllu

chronology, as to baflle all ingenuity to rec- vutnnt Old Frcncll \-crsion, Lr lui d’Hnw/ok I 1928: I -19-

oncile them to each other” and its author a 110. lO.i-46). Skrat and Sisam sho\v that tile PB Iv-

‘*miserable history-monger” (1928:xX). It is sion is basccl on thv English I~crsion, not on either ot thr Old Frrnch ones ( 19i9:sinpss).

admittedly very hard to find some order in I0 Ewcrt rrcount\ tllis episode, but hcrc Gunclnf

the work, but I hope to have shobvn that is king of S\L-eclrn anti rinlnf king of Denmark

there does seem to be some method in PB’s I 1932: 11.10780-1 12781. C:oulcl there Ix contilsiun

madness and that among Bruts it is indeed \\ith .\nlaf. the IrishNorsc king of York iPo1vickc and Frvde 1961 :27)’ Cornpart. also 11ictionnr\ ol‘Nn-

in a category of its own. tied ki~qnphy I I92 l-2: I. 688). in tllc scctic)n on

360

:\thelstan: “one Anlaf. of whom nothing certain is

known, came from Ireland with a fleet of longships”

and was defeated by Xthelstan at Brunanburh. Ii See Tyson (1975:18): Iloec a veire luy fist lier

peez e meins sanz noise, e geter hors par une fenestre

en Thamise. Dictionary of National Biography says

he was “slain in the palace by the king’s orders His

body was thrown over the wall of the tit!, and was

left unburied” (1921-2:6. 418). I8 For a discussion of m_ylde. see Roberts and

cson (1989). Stenton (1971:373) states: “There is nothing to

support the allegation. which first appears in writing

more than a centuy later, that Queen Aelfthryth had

plotted her stepson s death.“ LO See Tyson (1975:17): Pes tant cum cestui

rcgnerat, c nostre Dunstan vivcrat.

Literature

Arnold, I. (ed.) 1938 and 1940. \l’ace, Le roman de

Brut. 2 ~01s. SociPtC des anciens testes fran$ais.

Paris. Banks, T.C. 1809. The dormant and extinct baron-

age of England, 3. London.

Bell. h. (ed.) 1960. Geffrei Gaimar. L’estoire des en-

gleis. Anglo-Norman Text Society. London.

Complete Peerage 3. 1913. London.

Complete Peerage 6. 1926. London.

Complete Peerage 9. 1936. London. Dictionary of National Biography 1. 1921-2. Oxford.

Dictionary ofNational Biography 6. 1921-2. Oxford.

Dugdale, Sir \Y. 1675. The baronage of England. 1.

London. Ewert, :\. (ed.) 1932. Gui de \\Tarewic. Classiques

fran$ais du moyen %ge. Paris.

Foltys. C. 1962. Kritische Ausgabe der anglonorman-

nischen Chroniken: Brutus, Li rei de Engleterre,

Le livere de reis de Engleterre. Berlin.

Glover, J. (ed.) 1865. Le Ii\-ere de reis de Brittanie e

Le livere de reis de Engleterre. RS. London.

Legge. M. D. 1963. Anglo-Norman literature and its

background. Oxford.

Lodge, E. C. 1926. Gascony under English rule. Lon-

don. X’Iadden. Sir F. 1928. The ancient English romance

of Havelok the Dane. Roxburghe Club. London.

Marsh, F.B. 1912. English rule in Gascony l199- 1259. Ann Arbor.

Meyer, P. 1878. Le livre des rois de Bretagne; Le

Brut d’Xngleterre, par Raouf de Boiin. Bulletin de

la Societe des anciens textes fran$ais 4: 108-I 13.

Powicke, Sir F. M. 1953. The thirteenth century. Ox-

ford.

Powicke, Sir F. M. and E. B. Fryde 1961. Handbook

of British chronology. Second edition. London.

Roberts, J. and D. B. Tyson. 1989. Notes and queries,

continuous series. 234/3:299-300. Oxford.

Runciman. S. 1958. The Sicilian vespers. Cambridge.

Skeat, \Y.I\‘. and K. Sisam. (eds.) 1979. The la); of

Halrelok the Dane. Reprint of second edition. Ox-

ford. Stenton, F. 51. 1971. Anglo-Saxon England. Third

edition. Oxford.

Thorpe. L. (transl.) 1966. Geoffrey of Monmouth,

The history of the kings of Britain. London.

Tyson. D.B. 1975. An early French prose history of

the kings of England. Romania 96: 1-26.

Tyson. D. B. 1979. Patronage of French x,ernacular

history writers in the twelfth and thirteenth cen-

turies. Romania 100:180-222.

Tyson. D. B. 1981. King Arthur as a literary dexrice

in French vernacular history writing of the four-

teenth century. Bibliographical bulletin of the In-

ternational Arthurian Society 33:237-257.

Tyson. D. B. 1986. French vernacular history writers

and their patrons in the fourteenth century.

A\ledie\ralia et humanistica, new series, 14: 103-124.

Tyson. D. B. (ed.) 1987. Raufde Boun, Le petit Bruit.

Anglo-Norman Text Society, Plain Tests Series, 4. Vising, J. 1923. Anglo-Norman language and litera-

ture. London.

361

problem people in the petit bruit by rauf de boun

Documents