And this battle-song was the
bold manifesto of Norman poetry invading England. It found an echo
wherever William triumphed on English soil, and played an important part
in the formation of the English language and English literature. New
scenes and new victories created new inspiration in the poets; monarchs
like Henry I., called from his scholarship _Beauclerc_, practised and
cherished the poetic art, and thus it happened that the Norman poets in
England produced works of sweeter minstrelsy and greater historical value
than the _fabliaux_, _Romans_, and _Chansons de gestes_ of their brethren
on the continent. The conquest itself became a grand theme for their
muse.
RICHARD WACE.--First among the Anglo-Norman poets stands Richard Wace,
called Maistre Wace, reading clerk, (clerc lisant,) born in the island of
Jersey, about 1112, died in 1184. His works are especially to be noted for
the direct and indirect history they contain. His first work, which
appeared about 1138, is entitled _Le Brut d'Angleterre_--The English
Brutus--and is in part a paraphrase of the Latin history of Geoffrey of
Monmouth, who had presented Brutus of Troy as the first in the line of
British kings.
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