Lawamon

Lawamon

 or Layamon

(flourished 12th century) Middle English poet. A priest who lived in Worcestershire, he is the author of the romance-chronicle the Brut (c. 1200), the outstanding product of the 12th-century English literary revival and the first work in English to treat the Arthurian legend. His source was Wace's Roman de Brut. In some 16,000 long alliterative lines, the Brut tells of Britain from the time of the landing of Brutus, great-grandson of the Trojan Aeneas, to the final Saxon victory over the Britons in 689.