HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

408 PETER AINSWORTHA jugleours oï en m’effance chanterQue Guillaume fist jadiz Osmont essorber,Et au conte Riouf lez deus oilz crever,Et Anquetil le prouz fist par enging tuer,Et Baute d’Espaingne o un escu garder;Ne sai noient de ceu, n’en puiz noient trover,Quant je n’en ai garant n’en voil noient conter.De la mort Anquetil ai ge oï parler,Ochiz fu, ce soit on, n’en quier homme escouter,Mez je ne sai comment, ne qui face a blasmer;N’en voil por verité la menchonge affermerNe le voir, se jel sai, ne voil ge pas celer.(Holden edn., vol. 1, ll. 1361–72)The composition and writing of the Rou must have presented Wacewith forbidding challenges. We possess an initial version, quicklyabandoned for another written in a different meter (see the passagequoted above) and known today as the Chronique ascendante des ducsde Normandie. A second part also, written in the same style, was, inturn, quickly abandoned, with the Anglo-Norman clerk only returningto his pen to finish it around 1170. These hesitations may explainwhy Henry II was soon to charge Benoît with the task of writing anew account of the gestes of his Norman ancestors. 69 The edition ofthe Rou used today by specialists is that prepared by Tony Holdenfor the Sociéte des Anciens Textes Français. 70 Anglophone readersnow have the opportunity to consult the annotated translation intoEnglish prepared by Glyn Burgess for the Société Jersiaise, 71 whilstfrancophone non-medievalists can consult extracts from the Holdenedition, accompanied by notes, plates, and a translation by RenéLepelley, 72 a brief quotation from which tells us more or less everythingthat is known about the life and career of Master Wace:Si lon demande qui ço dist,qui ceste estoire en romanz fist,jo di e dirai que jo suiWace de l’isle de Gersui,69See Van Houts (1984); Gouttebroze (1991), and Brut ed. & tr. Weiss, xii.70Wace, Roman de Rou, ed. A. J. Holden.71The Roman de Rou of Wace, ed. and trans. G. S. Burgess, Société Jersiaise (St.Helier, 2002).72Wace, Guillaume le duc, Guillaume le roi. Extraits du Roman de Rou de Wace, poètenormand du XII e siècle, présentés et traduits par René Lepelley (Caen, 1987).