WACE, ROBERT, an Anglo-Norman poet of the 12th century. Many different ver sions of his name are given in his own books, as well as in the other books which mention him. He is styled Vace,Wace,Waece,Waice,Waicce,Waze; Gasse, Gaice, Guaee, Guazi, Guaze, Guascoe, Gazoe; and again, Wistace, Huistace, Huace. It has been supposed that there were really two poets, the one named Wace or Guam, the other named Wuistace; the one the author of Le Roman du Ron, the other of Le Roman du Brut. But variety in writing names was very common in the middle ages, and it does not seem necessary to resort to this supposition. About his Christian name there is even more doubt than about his surname. It is never mentioned in his poems, from which the little that is known about him is mostly derived. An old writer speaks of him as Matthew; and it seems that be was first called Robert in the Origins de Caen by Huct, whom subsequent authors have followed.
Wace was born in Jersey, in the reign of Henry I., and it is probable that the date of his birth lay between the years 1112 and 1124. Ile was taken to Caen as a child, and there be received the early part of his education. He was afterward sent into the neigh boring kingdom of France; but lie returned to Caen, and having entered into holy orders, became a reading-clerk in the royal chapel there. At Caen it was that he com
posed his works. Henry II., to whom he dedicated Le Roman du Rou, gave him a canonry at Bayeux, apparently about the year 1160. He died in England about the year 1180, certainly before the year 1184.
Five separate works are attributed to Wace ; but three are slight, short performances, and it is only necessary to notice the two principal—Le Roman du Brat d' Angleterre and Le Roman du Rou. The former premises that a certain Brutus, a son of Ascanius, and grandson of 2Eneas, settled in Britain, and became its first king. The book continues the history of the British kings from Brutus to Cadwallader, who died at Rome shortly before the year 700. It is little more, however, than a literal translation into the French from the Latin of Geoffry of Monmouth (q.v.). This poem seems to have been com pleted in the year 1155. Le Raman du Roe (Rollo) is a sort of history of the dukes of Normandy and of the Norman monarchy in England. Neither of these works has the slightest poetical merit. They are both interesting only as the state of the French language in the 12th c., and as supplying occasional facts and social traits to the historian.