Layamon

<h2 id="life-and-influence">Life and influence</h2>
Layamon describes himself in his poem as a priest living at <a href="/facts/Areley_Kings/G5Hy7DI6">Areley Kings</a> in <a href="/facts/Worcestershire/EpkMSBnL">Worcestershire</a>. His poem had a significant impact on medieval history writing in England and the development of <a href="/facts/Arthurian_literature/w6wCu1wz">Arthurian literature</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2">2</a> and subsequently provided inspiration for numerous later writers, including Sir <a href="/facts/Thomas_Malory/UvGhWNkB">Thomas Malory</a> and <a href="/facts/Jorge_Luis_Borges/UgfVLqdk">Jorge Luis Borges</a>.

<h2 id="brut">Brut</h2>
Main article: <a href="/facts/Layamon%27s_Brut/lujMERM3">Layamon's Brut</a>
<a href="/facts/Layamon%27s_Brut/lujMERM3">Brut</a> (ca. 1190) is a <a href="/facts/Middle_English/dj1wHvwd">Middle English</a> poem compiled and recast by Layamon. It is named after <a href="/facts/Great_Britain/TNgGQRPj">Britain</a>'s mythical founder, <a href="/facts/Brutus_of_Troy/dMDjLUy4">Brutus of Troy</a>. It is contained in the manuscripts <a href="/facts/List_of_manuscripts_in_the_Cotton_library/5Xh40Gg0">Cotton Caligula</a> A.ix, written in the first quarter of the 13th century, and in the <a href="/facts/List_of_manuscripts_in_the_Cotton_library/5Xh40Gg0">Cotton Otho</a> C.xiii, written about fifty years later (though in this edition it is shorter). Both are kept at the <a href="/facts/British_Library/p01eBQ5A">British Library</a>.
The Brut is 16,095 lines long and narrates the history of Britain. It is largely based on the <a href="/facts/Anglo-Norman_language/GmwkRAzQ">Anglo-Norman</a> <a href="/facts/Roman_de_Brut/lcrjNnpK">Roman de Brut</a> by <a href="/facts/Wace/VQ40R6U8">Wace</a>, which is in turn inspired by <a href="/facts/Geoffrey_of_Monmouth/yMVqeVR3">Geoffrey of Monmouth</a>'s <a href="/facts/Historia_Regum_Britanniae/BU5ldaDX">Historia Regum Britanniae</a>. It is, however, longer than both and includes an enlarged section on the life and exploits of <a href="/facts/King_Arthur/JDyRQ8gx">King Arthur</a>. Among the new material Layamon provided were an account of the birth of Merlin and one of the origins of the <a href="/facts/Round_Table/5JuCHaFU">Round Table</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3">3</a> as well as details of Arthur's departure by ship to <a href="/facts/Avalon/WYNTzPfJ">Avalon</a> to be healed by the elf-queen.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4">4</a>
It is written in a combination of <a href="/facts/Alliterative_verse/ElXUR9ry">alliterative verse</a>, deriving from Old English, and rhyme, influenced by Wace's <a href="/facts/Roman_de_Brut/lcrjNnpK">Roman de Brut</a> and used in later Middle English poetry.

<h2 id="spelling-of-name">Spelling of name</h2>
Print-era editors and cataloguers have spelled his name in various ways, including "Layamon", "Lazamon", or "Lawman". Brown University suggests that the form "Layamon" is etymologically incorrect; the Fifth International Conference on Laȝamon's Brut at Brown University stated, "BL MS <a href="/facts/Cotton_Caligula/5Xh40Gg0">Cotton Caligula</a> A.ix spells it 'Laȝamon' (the third letter is called a "<a href="/facts/Yogh/Lyxte1LY">yogh</a>"). BL MS <a href="/facts/Cotton_Otho/5Xh40Gg0">Cotton Otho</a> C.xiii spelled it 'Laweman' and 'Loweman'."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5">5</a>

<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Alliterative_Morte_Arthure/C0vXdw89">Alliterative Morte Arthure</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/The_Fall_of_Arthur/sxcpv5XA">The Fall of Arthur</a> by <a href="/facts/J.R.R._Tolkien/41HPhk5C">J.R.R. Tolkien</a></li></ul>
<h2 id="notes">Notes</h2>

<ul><li>Ackerman, Robert W. (1966), <a href="https://archive.org/details/backgroundstomed0000acke">Backgrounds to Medieval English Literature</a>, New York: Random House.</li>
<li>Barron, W. R. J., ed. (2001), <a href="https://archive.org/details/layamonsarthurar0000laya_h8o5">Layamon's Arthur: The Arthurian Section of Layamon's Brut (lines 9229–14297)</a>, translated by Weinberg, S. C., Exeter University Press, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0-85989-685-6.</li>
<li>Cannon, Christopher (2004), The Grounds of English Literature, Oxford University Press, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-19-927082-1.</li>
<li>Everett, Dorothy (1978), "Laȝamon and the Earliest Middle English Alliterative Verse", in Patricia Kean. (ed.), Essays on Middle English Literature, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/C._S._Lewis/hELtVT9R">Lewis, C. S.</a> (1964), The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Roger_Sherman_Loomis/WEprLh55">Loomis, Roger S.</a> (1959), "Layamon's Brut", in Roger S. Loomis (ed.), Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, Clarendon Press, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-19-811588-1.</li>
<li>Solopova, Elizabeth; Lee., Stuart D. (2007), Key Concepts in Medieval Literature, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.</li>
<li>Tiller, Kenneth J. (2007), Layamon's Brut and the Anglo-Norman Vision of History, University of Chicago Press, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0-7083-1902-4.</li></ul>

<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>

Wikiquote has quotations related to Layamon.

<ul><li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/5461">Works by Layamon</a> at <a href="/facts/Project_Gutenberg/2l0R6GgQ">Project Gutenberg</a></li>
<li><a href="https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%22Layamon%22+OR+%22Laȝamon%22+OR+%22Laz%CCamon%22+%29">Works by or about Layamon</a> at the <a href="/facts/Internet_Archive/PHStU8Lo">Internet Archive</a></li>
<li><a href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-old?id=LayBruC&tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed&part=0">Brut</a> by Layamon (British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix <a href="/facts/Manuscript/A6XNmrTd">manuscript</a> version)</li>
<li><a href="http://layamon.free.fr">Le </a><a href="http://layamon.free.fr">Brut de Layamon</a> by Marie-Françoise Alamichel</li>
<li>Layamon (1847) [c. 1215], <a href="/facts/Frederic_Madden/yxa7Hkg6">Madden, Frederic</a> (ed.), <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DOJRHk2MM9YC">Layamons Brut, or Chronicle of Britain; A Poetical Semi-Saxon Paraphrase of The Brut of Wace</a>, vol. I, translated by Madden, London: The Society of Antiquaries of London. Also, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0xE7AQhSPuMC">Vol. II</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AIIlAAAAMAAJ">Vol. III</a>.</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1">T. Shippey, The Road to Middle-Earth (1992) p. 300 and p. 57 <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:2">I. Ousby ed, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (1995) p. 536 <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:3">J. R. Tanner ed., The Cambridge Medieval History VI (Cambridge 1929) p. 826 <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:4">C. Tolkien ed., The Fall of Arthur (2015) p. 146-8 <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:5">program Medieval Studies Department, Brown University Retrieved October 21, 2006 <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Medieval_Studies/lawman_conference/program.html" target="_blank">http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Medieval_Studies/lawman_conference/program.html</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Layamon open-in-new

Layamon