Wace 2025
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Robert Wace
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Poet, born at Jersey, about 1100; died at Bayeux, 1174. His maternal grandfather, Toustein, was a chamberlain to Duke Robert, and his family belonged to the nobility. When very young, as he was destined to the Church, he was sent to Caen to make his studies, and afterwards to Paris. Between 1130 and 1135 he returned to Caen, where he was appointed clerc lisant (reader) to King Henry I. Being in straitened circumstances, he began to write to increase his resources. The first one of his works that have come down to us are; "The Life of St. Nicholas"; "The Life of St. Margaret"; and the "Brut", better known under the title of "Geste des Bretons". The latter poem, presumably finished in 1155, was presented to Alienor, Queen of England; the two other works had been written for wealthy lords who had books translated from Latin for their personal instructi
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Wace
12th-century Norman poet and chronicler
This article is about the Norman poet. For other uses, see Wace (disambiguation).
Wace (c. 1110[1] – after 1174[2]), sometimes referred to as Robert Wace,[3] was a MedievalNormanpoet, who was born in Jersey and brought up in mainland Normandy (he tells us in the Roman de Rou that he was taken as a child to Caen), ending his career as Canon of Bayeux.
Life
All that is known of Wace's life comes from autobiographical references in his poems. He neglected to mention his birthdate; some time between 1099 and 1111 is the most commonly accepted period for his birth.
The name Wace, used in Jersey until the 16th century, appears to have been his only name; surnames were not universally used at that time. It was quite a common first name in the Duchy of Normandy, derived from the Indo-European personal name Wasso. The spelling and the pronunciation of this name were rendered different ways in the texts, according to the place where the copyists were from. In the various versions of th
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Robert Wace was a 12th century French poet and holy man who eventually became the Canon of Bayeux. He is often referred to simply as Wace although there have been a number of variations on that name throughout history. Depending on where you come from it could be pronounced or written as Wasso, Gace, Vace or Vacce.
Details of his life are, understandably, a little confused, often relying on supposedly autobiographical notes to be found within his poems. It is believed that he was born sometime between the years 1099-1111 on the island of Jersey which is one of the cluster now known as the British Channel Islands, lying just off the coast of French Normandy. He was sent to the mainland as a boy and was educated in the town of Caen. Speculation exists that he may have come from an aristocratic family as it is unlikely that he would have been sent away to be educated otherwise.
He seems to have returned to Jersey for a while before travelling once more to Caen to take up teaching and, thus, beginning his ecclesiastical journey. He wrote two major pieces of work that some migh
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