En mund ne est, (ben vus l'os dire)
Pais, reaume, ne empire
U tant unt este bons rois
E seinz, cum en isle d'Englois,
Ki apres regne terestre
Or regnent reis en celestre,
Seinz, martirs, e cunfessurs,
Ki pur Deu mururent plursurs;
Li autre, forz e hardiz mutz,
Cum fu Arthurs, Aedmunz e Knudz.

"Lives of Edward the Confessor," ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls), 1858;
beginning of the "Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei."

[151] These three poets, all of them subjects of the English kings,
lived in the twelfth century; the oldest of the three was Gaimar, who
wrote, between 1147 and 1151 (P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xviii. p. 314),
his "Estorie des Engles" (ed. Hardy and Martin, Rolls, 1888, 2 vols.,
8vo), and, about 1145, a translation in French verse of the "Historia
Britonum" of Geoffrey of Monmouth (see below, p. 132).--Wace, born at
Jersey (1100?-1175, G. Paris), translated also Geoffrey into French
verse ("Roman de Brut," ed. Leroux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836, 2 vols. 8vo),
and wrote between 1160 and 1174 his "Geste des Normands" or "Roman de
Rou" (ed. Andresen, Heilbronn, 1877, 2 vols. 8vo). He wrote also
metrical lives of saints, &c.--Benoit de Sainte-More, besides his
metrical romances (see below, p. 129), wrote, by command of Henry II., a
great "Chronique des ducs de Normandie" (ed. Francisque Michel,
"Documents inedits," Paris, 1836, 3 vols. 4to).

[152] Even under the Roman empire, nations had been known to attribute
to themselves a Trojan origin. Lucanus states that the men of Auvergne
were conceited enough to consider themselves allied to the Trojan race.
Ammianus Marcellinus, fourth century, states that similar traditions
were current in Gaul in his time: "Aiunt quidam paucos post excidium
Trojae fugientes Graecos ubique dispersos, loca haec occupasse tunc vacua."
"Rerum Gestarum," lib. xv. cap. ix. During the Middle Ages a Roman
ancestry was attributed to the French, the Britons, the Lombards, the
Normans. The history of Brutus, father of the Britons, is in Nennius,
tenth century(?); he says he drew his information from "annalibus
Romanorum" ("Historia Britonum," ed. Stevenson, Historical Society,
London, 1838, p. 7). The English historians after him, up to modern
times, accepted the same legend; it is reproduced by Matthew Paris in
the thirteenth century, by Ralph Higden in the fourteenth, by Holinshed
in Shakesperean times: "This Brutus ... was the sonne of Silvius, the
sonne of A