Layamon

Layamon (lā`əmən, –mŏn, lī`–), fl. c.1200, first prominent Middle English poet. He described himself as a humble priest attached to the church at Ernley (Arley Regis) near Radstone. His Brut is a chronicle in 32,341 short lines on the history of Britain, from the fall of Troy to the arrival of Brutus in Britain and continuing through the death of Cadwaladr. Layamon freely adapted the Brut of Wace and added material from other sources. His Anglo-Saxon narrative meter foreshadows the Middle English metrical system. This chronicle, important in the development of the Arthurian legend, gives one of the finest renderings of King Arthur as a national hero. It also contains the first mention of Lear and Cymbeline.

Bibliography

See his Brut, ed. by G. L. Brook and R. F. Leslie (1963).

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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.

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Layamon, Lawman

12th-century English poet and priest; author of the Brut, a chronicle providing the earliest version of the Arthurian story in English