Reading La3amon’s Brut: Approaches and Explorations

For La3amon, or Lawman (both forms are used), a parish priest living on the Welsh March c.1200, the criteria of language, race and territory all provided ways of defining the nation state, which is why his Brut commands a diverse readership to-day. The range of view-points in this book reflects the breadth and complexity of La3amon’s own vision of the way his world is moulded by past conquests and racial tensions. The Brut is an open-ended narrative of Britain, its peoples, and its place-names as they changed under new rulers, and tells, for the first time in English, the rise and fall of Arthur, highlighting his role in the unfolding history of Britain. Beginning with its legendary founder, Brutus, the story is imagined anew, and although it concludes with an Anglo-Saxon kingdom, La3amon’s closing words remind us that changes will come: i-wurðe þet iwurðe: i-wurðe Godes wille. Amen. This book offers detailed discussion and new perspectives. Its contributors explore aspects of behaviour and attitudes, personal and national identity and governance, language, metre, and the reception of La3amon’s Brut in later times. Comparisons are made with Latin writings and with French, Welsh, Spanish and Icelandic, placing La3amon firmly within a European network of readers and redactors. The book will interest those working on medieval chronicles, as well as specialists in medieval law, custom, English language and literature, and comparative literature.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Abbreviations List of figures Rosamund Allen, Jane Roberts and Carole Weinberg: Introduction Approaching the Brut Rosamund Allen: Did Lawman Nod, or Is It We that Yawn? Haruko Momma: The Brut as Saxon Literature: The New Philologists Read Lawman Simon Meecham-Jones: “þe tiden of þisse londe” – Finding and Losing Wales in La3amon’s Brut Andrew Wehner: The Severn: Barrier or Highway? Behaviour and Customs Eric Stanley: The Political Notion of Kingship in La3amon’s Brut John Brennan: Queer Masculinity in Lawman’s Brut Kenneth J. Tiller: La3amon’s Leir: Language, Succession, and History Joseph D. Parry: Losing the Past: Cezar’s Moment of Time in Lawman’s Brut Daniel Donoghue: Lawman, Bede, and the Context of Slavery Andrew Breeze: Drinking of Blood, Burning of Women Charlotte A.T. Wulf: The Coronation of Arthur and Guenevere in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, Wace’s Roman de Brut, and Lawman’s Brut Barry Windeatt: La3amon’s Gestures: Body Language in the Brut Words and Meanings Hannah McKendrick Bailey: Conquest by Word: The Meeting of Languages in La3amon’s Brut Ian Kirby: A Tale of Two Cities: London and Winchester in La3amon’s Brut Margaret Lamont: When Are Saxons “Ænglisc”?: Language and Readerly Identity in La3amon’s Brut Joanna Bellis: Mapping the National Narrative: Place-name Etymology in La3amon’s Brut and Its Sources Christine Elsweiler: The Lexical Field “Warrior” in La3amon’s Brut – A Comparative Analysis of the Two Versions †Deborah Marcum: The Language of Law: lond and hond in La3amon’s Brut Scott Kleinman: Frið and Grið: La3amon and the Legal Language of Wulfstan Erik Kooper: La3amon’s Prosody: Caligula and Otho – Metres Apart Jane Roberts: Getting La3amon’s Brut into Sharper Focus Sources and Explorations Carole Weinberg: Julius Caesar and the Language of History in La3amon’s Brut Neil Cartlidge: La3amon’s Ursula and the Influence of Roman Epic Gail Ivy Berlin: Constructing Tonwenne: A Gesture and Its History Judith Weiss: Wace to La3amon via Waldef Sarah Baccianti: Translating England in Medieval Iceland: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie and Breta sǫgur Jennifer Miller: La3amon’s Welsh M. Leigh Harrison: The Wisdom of Hindsight in La3amon and Some Contemporaries Gareth Griffith: Reading the Landscapes of La3amon’s Arthur: Place, Meaning and Intertextuality Elizabeth J. Bryan: La3amon’s Brut and the Vernacular Text: Widening the Context Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index