Henry Blois and his impostoring of Wace when writing thr Roman de Brut

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Wace and the Roman de Brut

In the composition of the Roman de Brut, Henry Blois has employed similar devices to those which we have discussed already by the impersonation of Wace. The stamp of Henry’s authorship is on the Roman de Brut. Henry Blois has usurped the persona of Wace; just as he did with Gaimar, Geoffrey, Caradoc, William of Malmesbury etc. The genuine writer of the Roman de Rou and the hagiographic accounts of Lives of Sainte Marguerite, St Nicholas and the Conception de notre Dame were written by a genuine person called Wace.

 It is commonly accepted by modern scholarship that the reason why L’estoire des Bretons, (purportedly written by Geffrei Gaimar), has been overshadowed, is because of the superiority of Wace’s poetry, as Gaimar’s L’estoire des Bretons was supposedly of similar material. This, we are lead to believe, is because ‘Geoffrey’s’ HRB, from which the versified Roman de Brut is derived, is thought to stem from the same source book as the mythical L’estoire des Bretons. It is rationalised by modern scholars as adequate explanation as to why L’estoire des Bretons is no longer extant. The presumption is that L’estoire des Bretons was supposedly derived also from the Oxford book. This conclusion is deduced from the fact that there is no part of ‘Geoffrey’s’ pseudo history (except the few anecdotal interpolations) in Gaimar’s l’Estoire des Engles. Therefore L’estoire des Bretons is assumed to have contained much of ‘Geoffrey’s’ material.

 As I have noted, in all four manuscripts of Gaimar’s l’Estoire des Engles, Wace’s Roman de Brut has supposedly taken the place (or substituted) L’estoire des Bretons’ supposedly written by Gaimar as stated in the interpolated/added epilogue in Gaimar’s l’Estoire des Engles. It is rather the case that there was never any L’estoire des Bretons and Henry’s work of Roman de Brut has been added as a complimentary work. As I have made plain, the point of Henry Blois using Gaimar’s work was to implant the ‘epilogue’ and a few corroborative Arthurian interpolations in l’Estoire des Engles. Now, if ‘Geoffrey’s’ Historia was already versified by Henry Blois (as we know it was because Roman de Brut commences mirroring the First Variant and therefore was commenced before 1155), in reality, there would be little to be gained by composing another version in French vernacular i.e Gaimar’s Brut. Especially if Gaimar had written it much earlier as we are led to believe.  We are led to believe the Roman de Brut by Wace and the L’estoire des Bretons by Gaimar were both derived from the same ancient source book (one as a versified account of Geoffrey’s work .... the other supposedly having been obtained by Gaimar).

 We know, Henry Blois started his versification (apparently written by Wace) at an early stage (i.e. around the time Alfred of Beverley is recycling ‘Geoffrey’s’ work c.1150)…. as he is using the First Variant version as the template at the beginning of the Roman de Brut.  Not forgetting that the latter half follows the Vulgate Version of HRB which was only completed in 1154-5 (or at least that is when the updated Merlin prophecies which included the ‘Sixth in Ireland’ were added). It seems highly unlikely that all four of the present manuscripts containing Gaimar’s work (from different institutions) would have expunged L’estoire des Bretons in favour of Wace’s Roman de Brut in such a synchronised fashion. This specific conundrum can only reasonably be solved if the Gaimar MSS all derived from one exemplar. If so, is it not more likely that the substitution was purposeful?.... accepting that no L’estoire des Bretons has ever turned up and the epilogue of the L’estoire des Engles makes us believe that Gaimar’s other work started with Brutus. It is far more plausible if a versifier of the Historia  (like ‘Wace’) composed his work after the ‘original’ author’s death (i.e.’Geoffrey’); and this is why Henry Blois has ostensibly given us the date of composure for Wace’s work where he concludes with a date of completion in the year 1155.[1]  However, Wace is not the author of the Roman de Brut, but he is in reality the author of the Roman de Rou. It should be noted that if the Roman de Brut was genuinely completed in 1155, it must have been started in Stephen’s reign and indicates Henry’s intention to propagate his Historia on the continent before his brother’s death.

 Henry Blois, again, as in his impersonation of the invented persona of ‘Geoffrey’, provides us with the impression of a poet looking for wealthy patronage; but this time it is genuine in the guise of Wace. Wace really was a struggling versifier and translator into vernacular of previous Latin chronicles: I address myself to rich people who possess revenues and silver, since for them books are made and good words are composed and well set forth.[2]

In reality events concerning Wace are very different from that perceived by modern scholarship. What we know of Wace is derived from his Roman de Rou (i.e. Rollo), where he says: “If anybody asks who said this, who put this history into the Romance language, I say and I will say to him that I am Wace of the isle of Jersey, which lies in the sea, toward the west, and is a part of the fief of Normandy. In the isle of Jersey I was born, and to Caen I was taken as a little lad; there I was put at the study of letters; afterward I studied long in France. When I came back from France, I dwelt long at Caen. I busied myself with making books in Romance; many of them I wrote and many of them I made.”

One supposes by Wace’s comments in the Roman de Rou that he was a clerc lisant before 1135.[3] In time, presumably his writings won for him preferment to the position of canon at Bayeux from Henry II. It is an odd coincidence that Rouen (the founder is Rou) and Caen (where Henry’s Grandfather and Grandmother were buried, and where the treasury of the Ducal house of Normandy was situated) are not mentioned by Henry Blois when writing as ‘Geoffrey’ and passed over in preferment in favour of Bayeaux.  Bayeaux is given the special privilege of being the city of the Dux of Normandy by ‘Geoffrey’ but this is totally against the obviously known facts. Just as the entire Historia never once mentions Glastonbury it is Henry’s ploy not to seem connected or be seen to promote anything which links his family relationships to his authorship. It is not by coincidence that Henry Blois chose Wace as the person who was to have written the Roman de Brut. It is obvious from what is portrayed in the Roman de Rou that the real Wace has read the Historia and the prophecies. We can discount the reference in the Roman de Brut to ‘Wace’s’ unwillingness to translate them. That Wace has genuinely read the Historia is made clear from the decasyllabic appendix (in Holden’s edition) which used to preface Holden’s part II until Henry Blois interpolated the Roman de Rou by adding the current preamble known as the Chronique Ascendante. As we shall cover shortly, Henry Blois also interpolated and reconstructed the introduction to part III of the Roman de Rou also.

Wace was approximately the same age as Henry Blois. He received a prebend at Bayeux by King Henry II which he refers to twice. As to Wace’s existence, we have four documents which contain reference to him. One is a charter which Bishop Henry II of Bayeaux (1165-1204) signs and Wace is one of the witnesses as Magister Wascius. Another is an agreement c.1169 between the bishop of Bayeux and abbot Gilbert of Troarn where Wace is designated as Cononicus. So it would seem he was appointed cannon sometime between 1165-1169. Wace’s name is also on a document confirming possessions and privileges for the abbey at St Etienne in 1172, and lastly in another charter in 1174.

 It is plain therefore that Wace outlived Henry Blois so the usual backdating process which Henry Blois employed in the past is not applicable here. There are two factors which need to be taken into account before we can determine the precise manner in which Henry Blois introduced and propagated the Roman de Brut into the public arena. Firstly, as we shall see, when we cover the Roman de Brut that the writer of the Historia has the same mental image on several occasions as the writer of the Roman de Brut yet the words are different. So, the Roman de Brut is not an improvised and versified translation of the Historia with a few points expanded or introduced as is commonly thought. It is not written by Wace, but the several additions or changes from the First variant and Vulgate are Henry Blois’ own additions. Secondly, if Henry was impersonating Wace, we must look at the Roman de Rou to find out what changes he introduced into that text and for what reason; and how is it that in the 1160’s we hear no objection from Wace. The relationship between Henry Blois and Wace is unsure, but given their mutual interests and the fact that Henry would have passed by Caen several times before 1160 it is not silly to assume they knew each other or their paths crossed. The permutations and possibilities are endless as to what their relationship was and whether Wace was aware that his work had been interpolated while he was alive. Let us assume for the moment that the date given for the Roman de Brut of 1155 is fallacious and meant to misdirect.

The most propitious method of determining what might have transpired given the amount of permutations possible is to describe a viable scenario of events before we look at the interpolations in the Roman de Rou. Without going over that which G.S Burgess[4] has adequately covered in the history of the manuscripts we shall refer as he has done (like Holden before him), to the four portions of what constitutes the Roman de Rou: The Chronique Ascendante classified as Part I, Part II, Part III and what Holden called the Appendix. The Chronique Ascendante is written in twelve syllable lines arranged in stanzas known as Laisses. Part II is written in the same using ‘Alexandrines’, but slightly different in that he employs assonance rather than rhyme. The Appendix and Part III are written in octosyllabic. The Appendix and Part III were once part of the same work i.e. Wace’s continuation due to his commission from Henry II, but the Appendix has been set aside by an interpolator.

What I believe transpired next is the crux of the puzzle to unravelling the various puzzling comments made by Wace in the Roman de Rou. It is my guess that Henry Blois met Wace returning to England in 1158. Henry while passing through Caen meets Wace, a struggling clerk who has written a few hagiographical pieces and Henry Blois offers to try to find a patron for Wace’s newly completed Le Romanz de Rou et des Dus de Normendie i.e. Part II both written in Alexandrine verse.

 Henry Blois presents this to King Henry II who rewards Wace with a prebend and asks for the history to be updated from where Wace had terminated his chronicle in part II at the confirmation of peace between King Lothar of France and count Richard I of Normandy. Henry Blois would have had especial interest in this work as it gives account of the history of his family name and the struggles of his forebears on his father’s side in the foundation of the region of Blois and mother’s side through William the Conqueror.  The family of Blois was associated with Champagne Province, the House of Châtillon the Dukes of Brittany and, later, with the French royal family, but the family resided in Blois.  Wace’s chronicle recounts the disputes between Theobald I, Count of Blois and King Richard I. Theobald I, served as Regent to Drogo, Duke of Brittany. Bertha of Blois, the daughter of Odo II of Blois as we have covered earlier, became Duchess Consort of Brittany through her marriage to Alan II, Duke of Brittany. Many commentators on HRB have never understood why ‘Geoffrey’ so favoured Brittany in the Historia (apart from the fact that the true residue of the ‘heroic’ Britons resided now in Brittany.  ‘Geoffrey’ or rather Henry loathed the Welsh as is evident in his authorship of GS, referring to them as savages.

Anyway, news arrives to Wace of the favour bestowed upon him along with a gift and payment and a request (commission) to further his work. Wace in his own words was not at court.[5]

 Wace then continues the enterprise by composing part III in octosyllabic rhymed couplet verse up to the battle of Tinchebray in 1106. Originally it existed with what is now the appendix, but as we shall see shortly Henry Blois has concocted his own preamble to Part III up to the point where Wace’s original script starts: We have dealt with the history of William Longsword….

One problem for Wace has arisen in the interim between Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine promising further reward for a continuation to Part II. Henry Blois, who originally started composing his versified Historia of the Roman de Brut some years previously…. now completes it, finishing the work with the Vulgate version of the Historia. Henry impersonates Wace as the author; and based on the title of Wace’s original work, (the Roman de Rou) calls the poem Le Roman de Brut. This finds its way to court. Because of the incitement to rebellion which was found in the Merlin prophecies which enticed rebellion against Henry II (which were evident in ‘Geoffrey’s’ Vulgate HRB), Le Roman de Brut is not well received (even without the prophecies[6]) and Wace not knowing his ‘fault’ is shunned as versifier for the further commissioned history which he has been working on (as promised) and King Henry’s patronage goes to Maistre Beneeit.[7]

We might suppose that Wace hears this news via Henry Blois who then procures his unfinished journal into which he then interpolates. Henry interpolates and intertwines what was a preamble to Part III i.e. Holden’s Appendix and constructs a piece which now replaces that, but still is a reworked preamble to part III.  In effect Henry Blois employs parts of the material (Trinovantum, Neustria, etc.) which Wace had derived from the Historia which originally had been part of what is now termed the Appendix. He creates a preamble to Wace’s part III. Thus, corroborating through Wace’s chronicles certain aspects of the pseudo-history posited in the Historia. 

Henry Blois now composes The Chronique Ascendante as an introduction to Part II. It is my belief that this was constructed from a dedicatory or edificatory piece by Wace which somewhat was intended to flatter Henry II which is no longer extant while mixing it with material found in the Appendix.  The strange thing is that if we look at the last few lines of the Appendix, we shall see that it might have been connected to what Holden has called part II: Bjorn set off with his ships, I do not know whether to Scythia or to Hungary, and Hasting came to the King of France and took up residence with him. The King, on the understanding that he would maintain peace, and defend him against other peoples, gave him Chartres and the Chartrain which he had in his power at the time. Hasting remained there for a long time, and France had been at peace for some time when Rou arrived in Rouen, bringing men from the north; they were called Normans because they had been born in the north.

If we remove the interpolated bridge which is the first five lines of Part II which reads: We have reached the figure of Rou and we will speak to you about Rou; the tale we have to tell begins at this point, but to speed our task, we will reduce the number of lines in each Stanza; the road is long and hard and we fear the toil; the last line of what is deemed the appendix runs straight into the start of Part II which begins: Hasting, who never did anything but harm was in France….

It is plain to see that someone has been interpolating the text and has purposefully given a bogus reason for the Chronique Asendante (now in Alexandrine which was constructed from the dedicatory or eulogy note and preamble to what was part III originally in octosyllabic) inordinately changing to the Alexandrine of part II.

The last sentence to Part III also seems to be based on what Wace might have written or on how someone knew he felt. I am very suspicious that the author of the last paragraph is attempting to have us believe that Wace is writing after 1170[8] with reference to Henry the young King[9]: Let he whose business it is continue the story. I am referring to Master Beneeit who has undertaken to tell the affair, as the King has assigned the task to him; since the King has asked him to do it, I must abandon it and fall silent. The King in the past was very good to me. I could not have it, it did not please the King; but it is not my fault. I have known three King Henry’s and seen them all in Normandy; all three had lordship over Normandy and England. The second Henry, about whom I am talking, was the grandson of the first Henry and born to Matilda, the empress, and the third was the son of the second. Here ends the book of Master Wace; anyone who wishes to do more, let him do it.

The last paragraph does not seem natural, but seems to be giving a free permission (to whom it may concern) to take up Wace’s text.  There is another puzzling insertion in Part III where verse 5296 reads When the King had died, it was Philip, his eldest son, who was crowned after him; the Duke was a very close friend of his. The verse chronicle would then naturally lead into the next section at verse 5319: The story is a long one before it comes to an end, about how William became King….

Instead, midway through Part III for no apparent reason ‘Wace’ has seen it necessary to implant his personal details in what seems to be an interpolation with seemingly innocuous details concerning the composition of his many other works from verse 5297-5318:The history of the Normans is a long one and hard to set down in the Vernacular. If one asks who said this, who wrote this history in the vernacular, I say and will say that I am Wace from the Isle of Jersey, which is in the sea toward the West and belongs to the territory of Normandy. I was born on the Island of Jersey and taken to Caen as a small child; there I went to school and was then educated for a long time in France. When I returned from France, I stayed in Caen for a long time and set about composing works in the vernacular; I wrote and composed a good many. With the help of God and King- I must serve no one apart from God- a prebend was given me in Bayeux (may god reward him for this). I can tell you it was Henry the second, the grandson of Henry and the father of Henry.

This, in my opinion, seems highly suspect, not only by its position in the text but by the facts that it ostensibly portrays. The most essential piece of the Roman de Rou which clearly shows an interpolator has been at work is witnessed at the beginning of Part III. Originally Part III began with some sort of dedicatory piece some of which has been absorbed into the present preamble which is mostly composed of what is now termed the Appendix. Originally Wace started part III with the Appendix but it has been reworked to the point where the story resumes from part II: We have dealt with William Longsword, up to the time when the Flemish, as the wicked do, killed him treacherously.

The Chronique Ascendante and part II were separated from Part III and it was Andre Duchense in the early seventeenth century who rescued them from oblivion by copying them in his own hand from a now lost manuscript.  So, it may be that Henry Blois only tampered with part III.

Just to be clear, the introduction to part III is constituted from what was Wace’s original dedication to Part III and the first part of the Appendix, which as we have covered, was Wace’s original preamble and introduction to what is Holden’s part II.

In the part which Holden has now termed the Appendix it is evident that Wace has read the HRB. He regurgitates Geoffrey’s invention that London was called Trinovant and before that New Troy along with other previous names of places. However, in the new composition to Part III (written by Henry Blois) and rearranged from Wace’s original work we have some startling new additions which are clearly not elucidated in the HRB. But the mind which composed the introduction of Part III has a good grasp on the geography of Wales. He states that Demetia was southern Wales and North Wales was Venedocia, just as ‘Geoffrey’ had understood it, but never clearly defined it in HRB. Also, the area of Burgundy is made clear to be that of the Allobroges which is defining the region of Blois. The Allobroges were definitively the Burgundians, but for the reason of secreting Henry’s authorship, it was not made clear in the HRB either. Why Autun is equated with ‘Cacua’ is obvious in the fact that nowhere in the Roman annals was a great battle fought at Autun as ‘Geoffrey’ posits in Arthur’s continental campaign. This anomaly is Henry Blois’ biggest deviation to known history, because when he composed the Primary Historia and invented the Arthurian campaign in Autun (while he was in Normandy in 1138); Henry never once thought that he would need to corroborate his epic battle scene near Autun to coincide with the annals. He never envisaged a First Variant being scrutinised by Rome.

 Henry, obviously can’t rewrite the Roman annals so that they concur with the continental battle at Langres and Autun in his original Primary Historia…. so he does the next best thing. In Wace he posits that Autun is synonymous with Cacua. It never was nor could be; but in the annals in 151 BC (Second Spanish War), the Roman general Licinius Lucullus (not quite Lucius Hiberius) attacks and captures the town of Cauca, of the tribe known as the Vaccaei.

Also found in the introduction to Part III is the same sentiment found that Wace had commented upon in the original Appendix when talking of Caesar and Alexander: Only what people say about who Alexander and Caesar were, according to what they have found in books; all that remains of them is their names.

 Now, when Henry Blois, reiterating the same sentiments as Wace, lays bare his real reason for why he has gone to such great lengths to create his pseudo-history: I understand completely and am fully aware that all men die, cleric and lay, and after their death their fame is short lived unless it is set down in a book by a cleric; it cannot survive or live on in any other way. (v.113-42)

Essentially, what Henry Blois has done is concoct the preamble to Part III using much of Wace’s original text from what is now termed the Appendix to make it seem as if it is Wace’s own preamble to Part III. It is possible he has also done likewise with the construction of the Chronique Ascendante, however, some later redactor has added in the later interpolation regarding the siege of Rouen. Logically these could not be Wace’s words if he had resigned himself to letting Beneeit resume his chronology if Beneeit died in 1173 and the siege of Rouen took place in 1174. Why would Wace revise his text to incorporate this event?

Henry interpolating or rather composing the Chronique Ascendante from Wace’s words on the subject of Matilda and Stephen has also reiterated his feeling from GS.  Henry’s assessment is now put into the mouth of Wace as to why Stephen’s reign failed: he accepted bad advice and bad advice harmed him.[10] However the very next sentence is so wholly inaccurate that it could only be an apologia written by Stephen’s brother: The King so harried her that she recognised his right and gave him the Kingdom as an inheritance; this was greatly to the advantage of both those whom the war pleased and those whom peace pleased; he was King for nineteen years, after which time he died.

The main point of the rearrangement of the Roman de Rou is so that the authorship of the Roman de Brut is never left in any doubt in that it is made to seem as if Wace had written it in 1155. The date given for the Roman de Brut seems highly unlikely because the VM had not been written yet. In the Roman de Brut ‘Teleusin’ is introduced foretelling of Christ’s birth. Henry had just based much of the VM on old Welsh material and Taliesin is introduced to interact with Merlin Celidonius/Sylvestris. To aid the many anachronisms concerning Merlin and Taliesin, Taliesin is now able to appear at different points in time and therefore ‘Wace’ has him predicting Christ’s birth.

 

The Roman De Brut

It was Henry Blois who gave the Roman de Brut to the English court. This is how Henry managed to disseminate the popular Historia in England and on the continent. Neither ‘Geoffrey’ nor ‘Wace’ would have had such access to nobility and have had the capacity to spread the Arthuriana quickly through the Crusader community and Royal courts on the continent.  Henry Blois had started the Roman de Brut or his vernacular Historia with the First Variant (as template) which points to the fact that it was in progress before the Vulgate version reached its final completion. As we have maintained throughout, the Vulgate HRB only started to disseminate after 1155 when the dedications, mention of Archdeacon Walter and the updated prophecies were added. ‘Wace’ claims he was not the source of the Round Table. Supposedly Wace credits its story to the Bretons and Layamon follows. Throughout the Roman de Brut, Henry makes out that the tales of Arthur are everywhere, but it was only through the HRB that the ‘chivalric’ Arthur found renown. Hence, for ‘Wace,’ who is using the First Variant to make the claim, while understanding that the First Variant was not circulated widely, can only mean that ‘Wace’ and ‘Geoffrey’ have something in common in their promotion of Arthur. We now know it is Henry Blois. 

 Layamon’s claim of Cornish carpenters for the ‘Round Table’ might have some weight if my assumption is correct that Henry Blois went over to Mont St Michel in 1155 from Cornwall when leaving the country without the King’s permission to avoid Normandy. It was here we recall that he met Robert of Torigini to give him the news of ‘Geoffrey’s’ elevation to the Bishop of Asaph.

The fact that the Wace version of the Historia seems to follow the First Variant for the first half indicates that Henry Blois was composing the versified French version probably before he left in 1155 and thereafter finished off the Arthuriana section when he had already completed the Vulgate HRB, since he had recently re-worked it. Henry then presented the Roman de Brut, so named in contrast to Wace’s unfinished original Roman de Rou, (even though ‘Wace’ refers to it as the Geste des Bretons (“History of the Britons”), and probably presented it innocuously to either Eleanor or Henry II on his return.

To me, it seems strange that throughout Henry Blois’ façade in secreting his authorship where he has chosen only dead people to implicate as witnesses, he should now turn to someone alive. Why, if he is responsible for rearranging the text of the Roman de Rou is he bent on backdating the Roman de Brut to 1155, if Wace was alive and still signing charters as we discussed above. It is a puzzle…. as it is the complete opposite of what we have been used to.

However, commentators are convinced by Wace’s long life simply because of what is written in the Roman de Rou (concerning the siege of Rouen and this cannot be accountable to Henry Blois) and the fact that there is also a charter witnessed by Wace at Frécamp. We have already seen the use of charters to substantiate the created persona of Geoffrey of Monmouth. It would not be surprising then that a charter would be signed at Frécamp abbey in 1162 to substantiate a living Wace where Henry’s Nephew Henry de Sully was abbot.[11](Eustace at one stage was the favoured nephew as he was being groomed for when he eventually became King, but he was now dead). However, on balance, since Wace is still signing charters after Henry Blois is dead, we might assume that Henry Blois propagated the Roman de Brut without Wace’s knowledge or Wace was not in a position to deny such a work. It would seem that Wace had given up on the Roman de Rou and since we can see interpolation regarding material concerning HRB within it and we can conclude Henry wrote the Roman de Brut…. it is not silly to suppose Henry Blois bought or obtained the Part III and rearranged the whole work.

The point of this charade and impersonation of Wace was bringing the Historia to an entirely new continental audience, the whole pseudo-history was now able to be enjoyed (and propagated) by an Anglo-Norman audience who would not have read the more formal Historia. In its vernacular form, it vastly increased the insular audience in Wales and on the Continent.

It really makes no sense that for some unknown reason King Henry II later transferred the honour of that which was obviously a commission to another poet. We know that King Henry would have read Part II in order to commission Part III and if our speculation is correct about Henry Blois being the interpolator of the Roman de Rou we might assume that Henry Blois is somehow the go between. Maybe Wace and the King never met. Wace’s comment that Eleanor and Henry II do not let me waste my time at court may imply this.

We are led to believe Wace laid aside his pen, left his work incomplete, and probably soon after died:“Since the King has asked him to do this work, I must leave it and I must say no more. Of old the King did me many a favour; much he gave me, more he promised me, and if he had given all that he promised me, it had been better for me. Here ends the book of Master Wace; let him continue it who will.”

It is silly to think that after his efforts he was going to hand it over to an anonymous continuator. In Henry’s mind however, it was not about the money…. and the Roman de Rou was drab and really not worthy of a continuator. We might suggest that Wace’s only claim to fame is that fortuitously the Roman de Rou fell into Henry Blois’ hands.

The Roman de Brut, was based initially on the First Variant, but Henry Blois at the time he impersonated ‘Wace’ c.1160, is no longer interested in the campaign for Metropolitan. He is interested in propagating the Arthuriana which he had invented back in 1138 and had developed over the years.

‘Wace’ in the Roman de Brut abridges passages originally devoted to gaining Metropolitan status in the production of the First Variant. Passages on religious history are therefore shortened in the Roman de Brut including the evangelisation of Britain (which had featured so much to coincide with DA) and when speaking of Vortigern there is no mention of the Pelagian heresy which became such a vital part of the First Variant’s use at Rome in evidence of the Briton church’s early establishment. Henry omits details concerning the martyrdom of St Alban where he sacrificed his life for the founder of Winchester, his confessor Amphibalus and the list of bishops etc.

 Much of Henry Blois’ artistry is in the fact that he has never been discovered as the author of so much material which constitutes the Matter of Britain. So that Wace appears entirely independent of ‘Geoffrey’, Henry Blois calls the Severn Habren and the river Avon which he knew so well (which met the sea at Christchurch), the Avren. All of these tricks confuse commentators, but were employed ostensibly to give the aura of independent authorship. ‘Geoffrey’ in the Historia makes a pretence of not knowing the distance from Barfleur to Mont St Michel where he takes on the Giant (because supposedly he is Welsh), but Wace assigns a full night for the journey as Wace should have known. Henry Blois takes on the character of the author he is impersonating. It has been remarked that Wace knew many nautical terms probably learnt from living in Jersey, but Henry Blois crossed the channel at least twenty times if not more and so he would have a good grasp of the sea. Henry would have been as able as Wace to describe a storm at sea. It is often remarked upon that ‘Wace’ was able to describe so vividly the hustle and bustle of the scene at Southampton or ‘Geoffrey’s’ Hamo’s port.   More importantly legend has it that in 1144 Gosport received its name from Henry Blois landing there after a storm at sea. Henry allegedly after inquiring of the name of the town decreed that from then on it should be called ‘God’s port’. If Wace was not as well travelled by sea, certainly Henry Blois was.

That Wace was a translator into vernacular is clearly established in his Life of St Nicholas: For those who have not learned their letters and have not been intent upon learning them, for those people the clerks must demonstrate religion, telling why the feast of each saint has been established. Also: I wish to write a little romance about something we hear in Latin, so that lay people may understand this, people who cannot understand Latin.

We can see that the Roman de Rou is written by a genuine Wace who is less inspired to put it mildly than the writer of the Roman de Brut. In the forest of Broceliande, where fays and many another marvels were to be seen, a genuine Wace determined to visit it in order to find out the truth of these stories. I went there to look for marvels. I saw the forest and I saw the land; I sought marvels, but I found none. A fool I came back, a fool I went; a fool I went, a fool I came back; foolishness I sought, a fool I hold myself.

So mundane an attitude makes us wonder whether Wace ever composed truly imaginative verse in the Romanz.[12] Does not the Roman de Brut run contrarily to this prosaic attitude toward imaginative detail like the Round Table?

If one connects all the dots we can see for instance Broceliande forest, with its fountain is first related by the genuine Wace in the Roman de Rou. Chrétien de Troyes then uses this in Yvain, but as we will see in part III of this enquiry, Chrétien de Troyes has heard of Henry’s propaganda concerning Arthur and the Grail. Robert de Boron, likewise at the same court, has heard Henry’s tales and then employs Henry Blois’ own invention of the ‘round table’ from ‘Wace’s’ Roman de Brut. Henry Blois is not bothered with consistency or accuracy as each troubadour apparently develops Henry’s original stories in his own way. The overall effect has been that our scholars have believed many of Henry’s inventions to have substance seemingly having derived from such varied accounts.

The Round Table, out of the many places it could surface, just happens to turn up at Winchester and no-one can say who put it there or when it arrived.[13] Our Scholars have puzzled over its sudden appearance. It is not silly to suppose that the inspirational idea for the Round Table as an icon was derived from Henry’s own experience at court witnessing the pecking order of the barons. He simply wanted to find an idealistic solution and found it in the Round Table.

Henry’s ideal Arthurian world was to prevent a hierarchy by all barons having an equal place…. as he presents it in the Roman de Brut: Arthur made the Round Table, so reputed of the Britons. This Round Table was ordained of Arthur that when his fair fellowship sat to meat their chairs should be high alike, their service equal, and none before or after his comrade. Thus no man could boast that he was exalted above his fellow, for all alike were gathered round the board, and none was alien at the breaking of Arthur’s bread. At this table sat Britons, Frenchmen, Normans, Angevins, Flemings, Burgundians, and Loherins. Knights had their plate who held land of the King, from the furthest Marches of the west even unto the Hill of St. Bernard.

That the Round Table was an emblem of some Pan Celtic tradition as many commentators have determined, because of the various references of supposedly independent source, is pure piffle. It was Henry Blois who had witnessed the ingratiating favour shown by barons toward the king at banquets who thought; ‘what if’ all the barons had not competed with each other there may not have been a nineteen year Anarchy.

‘Wace’ would have us believe that most of the account Geoffrey has told is not without foundation but based on history: 'I know notif you have heard tell the marvellous gestes and errant deeds related so often of King Arthur. They have been noised about this mighty realm for so great a space that the truth has turned to fable and an idle song. Such rhymes are neither sheer bare lies, nor gospel truths. They should not be considered either an idiot's tale, or given by inspiration. The minstrel has sung his ballad, the storyteller told over his tale so frequently; little by little he has decked and painted, till by reason of his embellishment the truth stands hid in the trappings of a tale. Thus to make a delectable tune to your ear, history goes masking as fable.[14]

The evidence is all there when Master Blehis is at last recognised as Monseigneur Blois, the propagator of the Grail stories. ‘Wace’ says he omits the prophecies of Merlin from his narrative, because he does not understand them. I am not willing to translate his book, because I do not know how to interpret it. I would say nothing that was not exactly as I said. Many have thought by this passage that Wace has a scrupulous regard for the truth. Henry simply has no use for the prophecies anymore post 1158. This is pure misdirection as Henry Blois uses the same gambit of seeming probity in DA while interpolating William of Malmesbury. In the DA he crucially says, he omits to tell of Arthur, but lets the world know that Arthur lies between the pyramids at Glastonbury. How is this possibly reconcilable with the William of Malmesbury in GR 1,[15] who states he has no idea where Arthur’s grave is? For this reason our scholars have thought any mention of Arthur in DA is an interpolation after his disinterment. This is simply not correct as Giraldus plainly attests.

Wace, the writer of the ‘Lives’ and the Roman de Rou, is doubtless a different writer from the Roman de Brut. Such sedentary plodding reflections with which he begins his Life of St. Nicholas are not worthy of the inspirational or poetical writer of the Brut: Nobody can know everything, or hear everything, or see everything … God distributes different gifts to different people. Each man should show his worth in that which God has given him.

‘Wace’ makes some few additions to ‘Geoffrey’s’ Arthurian history; a liberty which would not have been taken if ‘Wace’ was really composing the Roman de Brut in 1154 while the fictitious Geoffrey of Monmouth was supposedly still alive. The common understanding that parts of these tales originated with Breton poets is pure misdirection.  I shall cover this in the chapter on Marie de France where the same mis-direction is used for the same reasons.  ‘Wace’s’ real contribution to the Arthurian legend is the new spirit which enabled French conteurs to transmit the chronicle of Arthuriana in the swift-moving metrical octo-syllabic couplet. In Arthur’s ‘European’ campaign, the continental forces were aligned with Arthur. The HRB was therefore opened to a wider audience (with a common anti Roman sentiment)….more than ‘Geoffrey’s’ high-sounding Latin prose which propagated through the monastic system.  ‘Geoffrey’s’ VM and the Roman de Brut of ‘Wace’, bridge the transformation between the prose Vulgate HRB and the later Romances. It is these later Romances which occupy Henry Blois and I shall refer to his involvement in their propagation as his ‘second agenda’, on which he worked in the latter half of his life post his return in 1158.

While impersonating Wace, Henry Blois is always aware to hide the fact that he himself is the main propagator of Arthuriana; but he has us believe that Wace was conversant with stories of ‘chivalric’ Arthur quite independent of the Historia. Fables about Arthur he himself says that he had heard.  Henry Blois’ craft is a pretence that he is merely adding to an existing body of material. ‘Wace’ highlights the ‘Hope of the Britons’ which Huntingdon alluded to in regard to the Bretons. This may have been implied in the original Primary Historia or it is merely commented on by Huntingdon in EAW.

What modern scholars have misunderstood is the fact that Henry Blois is merely the embellisher of oral fables which William of Malmesbury refers to in GR1. Apart from the Life of Cadoc and a few other saints’ lives, Arthur barely featured in writing before Henry Blois came up with the idea of a chivalric Arthur.  We are led to believe that just at the time ‘Geoffrey’ considers writing about the history of the Kings of Britain, low and behold, Archdeacon Walter turns up with just such a book. It is a marvel to me, as I mentioned before, that the scholastic community has rarely discussed this absurd coincidence…. supposedly ‘Geoffrey’ did not make it all up, but found it in a book…. which merely needed translating: Often at times turning over in mine own mind the many themes that might be subject-matter of a book, my thoughts would fall upon the plan of writing a history of the Kings of Britain, and in my musings thereupon it seemed to me it a marvel that, beyond such mention as Gildas and Bede have made of them in their luminous tractate, nought could I find as concerning the Kings that had dwelt in Britain before the Incarnation of Christ, nor nought even as concerning Arthur and the many others that did succeed him after the Incarnation, albeit that their deeds be worthy of praise everlasting and be as pleasantly rehearsed from memory by word of mouth in the traditions of many peoples as though they had been written down. Now, whilst, I was thinking upon such matters, Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, a man learned not only in the art of eloquence, but in the histories of foreign lands, offered me a certain most ancient book in the British language….

Our scholars know HRB is a fraudulent pseudo-history, yet still discuss the relevance of Archdeacon Walter’s book as if it were independent of the fraud. Of course they are easily misled because their naivety leads them to believe that Gaimar’s testimony in his epilogue refers to the book. That is the point of the impersonation of Gaimar and the interpolations into his text.  What scholars should have scrutinized is why there is no mention of Walter in the First Variant or EAW.  Of course there is no book…. and therefore, Gaimar’s epilogue is also part of the fraud. How can one reconcile, knowing that HRB is a constructed pseudo-history (as Tatlock clearly demonstrates), with the existence of a book in which is all that information ready to be translated, and exists prior to ‘Geoffrey’.  The most balanced scholar in his approach to Geoffrey’s work is Prof. O.J.Padel: What is certain is Geoffrey’s subtlety and the complexity of his work: the gravest error that we students can commit is to underestimate it. The more one learns about his work, the more one feels that Geoffrey was always one step ahead of his twentieth-century readers: anything that we may establish, by dint of hard work and detailed scholarship, is open to revision by some future discovery.

Does it not seem strange that the author of Roman de Brut starts to versify with the First Variant Historia and then finish composing the Arthuriana of the Roman de Brut with the Vulgate prose version? This to me indicates the Roman de Brut was completed in two phases. It would not take a cryptologist to work out that the First Variant preceded the Vulgate. If scholars were correct in their assessment of the Vulgate preceding First Variant….  why, one must ask, would ‘Wace’ compose his work with an existing Vulgate version (half way through a work) and then swap to a (supposedly) later but inferior exemplar to record the beginning of the account? Roman de Brut was started before Henry had to leave England in 1155 and subsequently finished with the Vulgate version after Henry had encountered Wace at Caen on his return in 1158.

We could speculate that in Wace’s Roman de Brut, Henry Blois introduces Guerguesin Count of Hereford because he realises that there is no noble at Arthur’s coronation from Southern Wales where Arthur supposedly has his stronghold and powerbase. This invented anomaly could have something to do with the death of Henry’s arch enemy Miles. Miles, who became the Angevin grandee of the region after the death of Robert of Gloucester was, 1st Earl of Hereford. We can see from GS, Henry dislikes Miles intensely and therefore is using the same ploy as used in the dedications by introducing people with whom he is actually at odds.

Unlike the HRB, ‘Wace’ starts his Roman de Brut with Constantine at Totnes. Constantine takes a wife and has three children the eldest was called Constant who he caused to be nourished at Winchester, and there he made him to be vowed a monk. The other two sons were Uther and Aurelius whose surname was Ambrosius. We know why Aurelius has a surname Ambrosius…. so that he parallels with the insular annals of Bede and Gildas. Ambrosius Aurelianus is one of the few people that Gildas identifies by name in his sermon De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Now we have also understood the First Variant was used as a basis for the first half of the Brut, we can safely assume the Roman de Brut was started earlier than the completion of the Vulgate. Therefore, given the early date that Henry first started to compose the Roman de Brut, we can see Henry Blois is following his own creation of the First Variant which was aligned with his desire of metropolitan. He had undertaken to versify it before completion of a Vulgate addition.

We see that Constant was a monk at Winchester and Henry establishes that Christianity flourished in England.  The logic is that Winchester should be granted metropolitan if monks were there long before Augustine’s arrival in Britain.

There should be no doubt that Henry Blois is impersonating Wace as the author of the Roman de Brut. Henry Blois dates Constantine to Vortigern’s era by having Wace say: But many a time have I heard tell that it was Vortigern who caused Constantine to be slain. In HRB Constantine aligns with the dates in the annals.

Henry Blois, posing as Wace, purposefully informs us in a seemingly innocuous deliberation about who Constantine’s successor should be; that the eldest in that era was residing at the existing abbey, which, without overstating his case, is at Winchester: As to Constant, the eldest son, who was of more fitting years, they dared not to pluck the habit from his back, since all men deemed it shame and folly to hale him forth from his abbey.

We would be naïve if we did not realise that there is only one person who is intent upon having us believe that there was an abbey at Winchester in the sixth century. We would be silly to believe this is not the same man who inserted the biblical allusions in the First Variant Historia. The most prominent interpolator of DA is the same as the man requesting a metropolitan in 1144 from the pope; the very same man to whom the DA is dedicated.

Henry’s gambit is to highlight Winchester as an existing Abbey in the time of Vortigern: Vortigern, purposing evil in his heart, took horse, and rode swiftly to Winchester. He sought Constant at the abbey….. If anyone should be in doubt that Winchester was well established as a bishopric long before Augustine’s arrival, Arthur’s dragon supposedly resided there: One of these dragons he caused to be borne before him when he went into battle. The other he sent to Winchester to be set up in the church of the bishop.

The next piece may even be semi-autobiographical, reflecting the very sentiments of Henry Blois, as Constant is offered the Kingship: Very desirous was Constant of the lordship, and little love had he for his abbey. Right weary was he of choir and psalter, and lightly and easily he made him ready to be gone.

The story is close to Henry’s heart as it involves the usurpation of a crown: Constant reigned in his father’s stead. He who had betrayed the commandment of God, was not one to hold his realm in surety; and thus he came to an evil end. This sentiment was held about his own brother and the author of GS makes this very clear. There are also other traces of experience from Henry’s time in the Anarchy where it is evident in GS that Henry laments his brother’s actions: Draw now together thy men, to guard the realm and thee. Set food within the strong places, and keep well thy towers. Above all, have such fear of traitors that thy castles are held of none save those true men who will hold them to the death. If you act not after this counsel right speedily there must reign another King.

‘Wace’ expands upon how it was that the mother of Merlin became pregnant by an Incubus and expands upon how these spirits live, but when ‘Wace’ comes to the prophecies, he deals with it in a different way than ‘Geoffrey’. It should not be forgotten that the first draft of prophecies were initially written while Stephen was King. Merlin dealt in generalities foreseeing the future and the advent of the Normans. Later, Henry Blois expanded and got more specific in the Vulgate HRB by enumerating the Kings. ‘Wace’ completes Roman de Brut after Stephen is dead and post 1158, therefore, Henry has no political advantage of the Merlin prophecies to include them in the Roman de Brut. His hope of a seditious Celtic uprising has now been extinguished, but this is not to say that the Durham versified prophecies were not at one time to accompany Wace’s work.

 In the Roman de Brut, he therefore chooses not to translate them with the pretence of not understanding them. One thing he does understand is that they are about the various Kings but it is highly probable that what was obtuse skimble skamble in prose would be difficult to transpose into meter except by giving away some unintended understanding of the sense. For whatever reason, Henry chose not to include the prophecies. The most likely explanation is that Henry published his Roman de Brut c.1159-60 when the prophecies were no longer relevant to his political agenda. King Henry II was established and any thought of unseating him was now lost…. so why not just propagate his invented Historia through the impersonation of Wace to the insular and continental courtly aristocracy.

However, in the Vulgate HRB, it was the dragons which symbolised the Saxons and the Britons; the dragons did not prophecy in HRB. In the Roman de Brut: These dragons prophesied of Kings to come, who would yet hold the realm in their charge. I say no more, for I fear to translate Merlin’s Prophecies, when I cannot be sure of the interpretation thereof. It is good to keep my lips from speech, since the issue of events may make my gloss a lie.

‘Wace’ makes a statement entirely contrary to his deeds. If ‘Geoffrey’ was still alive and the Roman de Brut was supposedly in composition prior to 1155; how does ‘Wace’ take such liberties with another man’s work and declares what he does above? Only a fool would believe there is any truth in the statement, yet scholars for years have lauded ‘Wace’ with praise for his honesty. ‘Wace’ cannot even follow ‘Geoffrey’s’ rendition of events without embellishing. It is bizarre that by using this method, Henry Blois has persuaded us that ‘chivalric’ Arthuriana in the form in which he presents it in the Roman de Brut and HRB was widespread. The only person propagating his own personal edifice of fabrication is Henry Blois himself.

Wace in reality was a clerk at Caen, yet Henry Blois was a bishop knight who saw so much carnage and witnessed many sieges in the Anarchy alongside his brother. He even saw Winchester burn!! It seems a bit odd that our clerk lisant is so able to embellish what was already written by a man who had witnessed warfare first hand.  Henry Blois is the author of the Roman de Brut composing for a different audience and in a different style from the prose version of ‘Geoffrey’; but at all times secreting his identity as author: Aurelius and Eldof laced them in their mail. They made the wild fire ready and caused men to cast timber in the moat, till the deep fosse was filled. When this was done they flung wild fire from their engines upon the castle. The fire laid hold upon the castle, it spread to the tower, and to all the houses that stood about. The castle flared like a torch; the flames leaped in the sky; the houses tumbled to the ground.

When Henry first wrote the Primary Historia he had no notion that he would be facing a power struggle in the church or even contemplating the necessity of fabricating evidence in the case for a metropolitan. However, he did want to add credence in as many ways as possible to the myth he had created around the chivalric Arthur in his pseudo-history.  Huntingdon’s explanation in EAW of Uther Pendragon is just remarked upon as a name denoting Dragons head. In the interim period between the Primary Historia and the production of the First Variant version, it is not silly to speculate that Henry Blois had a Gold dragon fabricated of some description, cast from gold which was housed in the Cathedral to add witness to Uther’s supposed two dragons in the First Variant and HRB. One was supposedly kept at Winchester as we see in the Roman de Brut:

In remembrance of the dragon, and of the hardy knight who should be King and a father of Kings, which it betokened, Uther wrought two golden dragons, by the counsel of his barons. One of these dragons he caused to be borne before him when he went into battle. The other he sent to Winchester to be set up in the church of the bishop. For this reason he was ever after called Uther Pendragon. Pendragon was his name in the Britons’ tongue, but Dragon’s head in that of Rome.

In HRB we have the same story: From that day forth was he called Uther Pendragon, for thus do we call a dragon's head in the British tongue. And the reason wherefore this name was given unto him was that Merlin had prophesied he should be King by means of the dragon.

This then becomes Arthur’s battle standard in the continental campaign: he set up the golden dragon he had for standard…

We should only look to John of Worchester to find out where Henry obtained the gold to fabricate the dragon which one must assume he placed in the cathedral at Winchester. After the burning of Winchester (which John reports was on Henry Blois’ orders[16]): After these events, bishop Henry’s anger was slightly appeased, though his greed knew no limits, and at the suggestion of the prior of the recently-burned down New Minster, recovered from the ashes of the burnt cross fifty pounds of silver, thirty marks of Gold…

 In 1141, after the Rout of Winchester, it is the most likely time that the dragon was fabricated as physical evidence at Winchester. This would have corroborated the story which was subsequently to surface in the First Variant and thereafter in the Vulgate.

We have maintained that Henry went to Southern Wales in 1136 to help Stephen subdue the Welsh rebellion. Modern commentators have been confused by ‘Geoffrey’s’ contradictory attitudes concerning the Welsh. G.S is ample witness to Henry’s thought about the wild and savage Welsh. ‘Geoffrey’s’ distaste for the Welsh came from supressing the uprising; and it was Henry’s advice to his brother to let them fight against themselves rather than trying to quash them outright and spending a fortune on the endeavour. ‘Geoffrey’ portrayed the current Welsh in his day as unworthy descendants of the Britons in HRB. Henry Blois could not supress his own feelings about the Welsh.  Therefore, there is a conflict as he set his glorious (but fabricated) Arthurian epic in Wales….which, in his mind, was now full of savages.  

We can understand from GS that Henry was at Kidwelly and this is his Lidelea. But the writer of the First Variant and the Roman de Brut could not know the lay of the land unless the same author is common to both. How possibly (if Wace were not Henry Blois) could Wace know of the lay of the land not spelled out in the First Variant or Vulgate HRB? Yet ‘Wace’ understands the topography also: ’fields round about are hid’. What Henry Blois (posing as Wace), is subconsciously describing is the miles of tidal marshes south of Kidwelly in the marsh flats.  However, Wace could not know this….. as his description (if he were genuinely copying Geoffrey’s work) is not in HRB: ‘Moreover,' he said, 'another lake is there in the parts of Wales nigh the Severn, which the men of that country do call Linligwan, whereinto when the sea floweth, it is received as into a whirlpool or swallow, in such wise as that the lake is never the fuller for the waters it doth ingulf so as to cover the margins of the banks thereof. Nonetheless when the sea ebbs again, it spouts forth the waters it hath sucked in as it were a mountain, and slashes over and covers the banks. At such a time, were the folk of all that country to stand nearby with their faces toward the lake and should be sprinkled of the spray of the waves upon their garments, they should scarce escape, if indeed they did at all escape, being swallowed up of the lake. Nonetheless, should they turn their back to the lake, they need have no fear of being sprinkled, even though they should stand upon the very brink.'[17]

Wace’s description unwittingly portrays eyewitness details which could only be known by someone having visited the same spot as ‘Geoffrey is describing: This lake is close by the Severn in the land of Wales. The sea pours its tide into this lake. Yet empty itself as it may, the waters of the lake remain ever at the same height, never more and never less. The ocean itself may not suffice to heap its waters above the lake, neither to cover its shores. Yet at the ebbing of the tide, when the sea turns to flee, then the lake spues forth the water it has taken to its belly, so that the banks are swallowed up, the great waves rise tall in their wrath, and the wide fields round about are hid, and all is sodden with the foam. The folk of that country tell that should a man stare upon the wave in its anger, so that his vesture and body be wetted of the spray, then, whatever be his strength, the water will draw him to itself, for it is mightier than he. Many a man has struggled and fallen on the brink, and been drowned in its clutch. But if a man turn his back upon the water, then he may stand safely upon the bank, taking his pleasure as long as he will. The wave will pass by him, doing him no mischief; he will not be wetted even of the flying foam.

Regardless of the local superstition, it seems improbable that ‘Wace’ would know that there were fields/fens in the same location ‘Geoffrey’ is describing. As ‘Wace’ is using the First Variant, we expect to find Dubricius as one of the three Archflamens: being Archbishop of Caerleon and Legate of Rome….. as this was highly relevant to why the First Variant was composed.  We know that when the Primary Historia was completed in early 1138, Henry was not concerned with metropolitan issues and does not mention the Archflamens. Huntingdon in EAW just relates: He established twenty-eight bishops in Britain, following the number of pagan priests…. based on Gildas’ number of cities. Now, as we have discussed, Huntingdon travelling with the Archbishop of Canterbury would have found it worthy of mention that there were three archbishoprics in Britain, if it had been written in the Primary Historia found at Bec. The three archbishoprics were not found in the storyline of the Primary Historia simply because Henry Blois thought he was archbishop of Canterbury in waiting at the time. There was absolutely no agenda for the inclusion of three Archflamen’s which were only latterly posited in the First Variant, when Henry took his case to Rome.

 The Historia was evolving and Avalon and Arthur’s last whereabouts, are not developed as yet. If Avalon had been mentioned in the Primary Historia, Huntingdon would have mentioned it out of fascination because of his ignorance of its location. Avalon is however mentioned in the First Variant, yet there is still no mention of Walter simply because he is still alive. We need to understand that by 1153-4 people were starting to wonder who Galfridus Arthur was and how he knew so much British history that no previous historian had recorded. Hence the verification by signing charters of a person named Galfridus Arthur. It is only when the source book is needed to explain Galfridus’ insight into insular history that Walter’s name is presumed upon; and therein is the explanation of why Walter is not in the First Variant version. The good book of Oxford nor the Archdeacon of Oxford who supplies the old source book are not mentioned in First Variant in 1144.  It is only while Henry is at Oxford while signing those seven charters, that ‘Geoffrey’ obtains his Monmouth connection because Henry sees Ralph’s provenance; and therein also lies the explanation as to why only in the Vulgate HRB is Galfridus named as Geoffrey of Monmouth and thus that particular appellation dates after 1153.

As we have previously discussed, The First Variant has no Alexander dedication, but this does not negate the fact that the early set of prophecies existed in the First Variant. Once Merlin was spliced into the First Variant version, it is easy to see without any change to the structure of the text how up-dated prophecies were added after 1155 to replace the old set. We can see the progression of reasoning to the First Variant version which is here recorded and paralleled in Wace as the metropolitan issue becomes the main agenda for Henry. But there is no mention of Faganum and Duvianum in the Roman de Brut as Henry had long since given up the quest for metropolitan by the time he had finished the version c.1158-60.

We could possibly speculate that in the Vulgate HRB was Henry’s final attempt at Metropolitan, where the unabashed Briton polemic is aimed at the only English pope in 1154 where Dubricius is incontestably Primate: Dubric of the City of Legions. He, Primate of Britain and Legate of the Apostolic See…

There were no legates to sixth century Britain but Henry himself was Legate from 1139-43. It was in fact Henry’s own persistent use of Legatine councils and their powers which he had instituted in referring problems to the pope, which eventually backfired on him and he became subject to, once he had lost the Legation when Innocent II died.

‘Wace’ (as in the Vulgate), tells of the coincidental similarities at Arthur’s crowning to another circumstance where Henry Blois and Bernard similarly escort Matilda as bishops, one each side, as in GS.[18]

Now telleth the chronicle of this geste, that when the morning was come of the day of the high feast, a fair procession of archbishops, bishops, and abbots wended to the King’s palace, to place the crown upon Arthur’s head, and lead him within the church. Two of these archbishops brought him through the streets of the city, one walking on either side of his person. Each bishop sustained the King by his arm, and thus he was earned to his throne.[19]

We might speculate that if there were no Archbishops in the Primary Historia and no Phagan and Deruvian in the passage where Lucius is mentioned, the processional of Arthur’s crowning would not be present either…. as Matilda’s crowning had not yet taken place when Primary Historia was written and we can speculate that Henry based the version of the crowning on this incident.

So as to appear an independent author, ‘Wace’ has Lucius, the Emperor and lord of Rome in his decree to King Arthur saying: I will cross the Mont St. Bernard with a mighty host, and pluck Britain and France from your hand.  Earlier ‘Wace’ had alluded to: Knights had their plate who held land of the King, from the furthest Marches of the west even unto the Hill of St. Bernard. The Hill or Mount St Bernard is mentioned 5 times in Wace and not at all in HRB. The Mont Bernard pass is just over 100 miles from Clugny and after one has passed through the ‘Aravian range’ (which ‘Geoffrey’ prefers to use as the border description), it was the main track to Rome. The point is, if Wace is a clerk lisant at Caen and ‘Geoffrey’ is a magister at Oxford, it seems too coincidental that both of their defining geography involves descriptions of Arthur’s empire north of the Alps. We know that Henry must have gone this route approximately 10 times to get to Rome and we should recall ‘Geoffrey’s’ allusion to Matilda and the reference of her marriage to the Emperor of Rome as pertaining to this border with Rome: Eagle build her nest upon Mount Aravius…

 It is no coincidence ‘Wace’ and ‘Geoffrey’ appear to think in similar terms geographically yet both use different terms to define the same border of mountains. We should also consider Geoffrey’s shadow of him that weareth a helmet is himself as legate to the pope…. on the other side of the mountains, to which ‘Wace’ is also using as a Geographical divide. We may assume that Mont St Bernard is being employed mentally as the equivalent of the Aravian/Alps Mountains. Some commentators have been foolish enough to think Mont St Bernard is Mont St Michel, but Wace confirms his geography: Maximian, King of Britain, after he had conquered France and Germany, passed the Mont St. Bernard into Lombardy.

It just seems beyond coincidence that ‘Wace’ defines the border of the Alps just as ‘Geoffrey’ does, but with a different name. If ‘Wace’ is following the First Variant where Mont Bernard is never mentioned, how is it that he thinks just like ‘Geoffrey’? (Thankfully we know…. ‘Geoffrey’ is constructor of the Merlin prophecies and Wace’s Roman de Brut was written by Henry Blois).  While on the subject from this oft made journey to Rome: if we mark the points on the map…. we will see that there are two routes that Henry Blois has taken to and from Rome. After leaving Rome and passing through Modena and then across the Alps…. the right hand route is the one discussed by Henry Blois in the letter with Abbot Suger (through Flanders)[20] and goes through Montbéliard where Robert de Boron supposedly comes from; Meuse, where Henry commissioned the Mosan plates and Tournai from where the many marble fonts[21] derive…. and onto Froidmont where Helinand resided. The left hand route would bring Henry up through the Aravian range to Clugny, Autun, Langres Troyes and on up to Bec and Caen before crossing to England. As one can see in note 4 the chance of Wace and Geoffrey referring to two different places so close to each other…. both defining what Henry sees as a geographical border is a coincidence too far. Great St. Bernard Pass is the most ancient pass through the Western Alps and is the route one takes from Clugny through the Aravian range and on through the St Bernard pass (so named by Mont St Bernard) on a journey to Rome.

At this point in the investigation, it is worth reiterating that the Merlin prophecies were in a state of flux. As we have discussed, there were changes in nuance and the updating witnessed between Suger’s Libellus version, the JC version, the Vulgate version and those in the VM are seen to be squewed by Henry Blois. Eckhardt’s three modes of transition are basically correct in that there was a separate ‘first’ set of prophecies which circulated separately. Abbot Suger, amongst others, would have possessed a set. These came out while Stephen was alive. 

 These were then updated after the death of Stephen to include such updates as found in the Vulgate (with the incitement to rebellion and the Sixth in Ireland prophecy) while the sense of some of the original verses were twisted, so that these looked like the previous prophecies. These were added to and updated in VM where some prophecies concerning the anarchy which were not in the first set were included (specifically those by Ganieda). Some were malicious in intent with the usual skimble skamble imagery. Some, which were previously established to apply to historical events and personages of known history in the original set, were subtly changed to apply to current events. Numbers were added to identify the Kings from William the conqueror.  Cadwallader and Conan were being employed in the modern era of 1155, where most probably, previously, Cadwallon would have referred to Cadwallonap Cadfan (died 634). As we have learnt Henry Blois was trying to unite and incite the Celts to rebellion against Henry II as can be seen clearly here: Cadwallader shall call unto Conan, and shall receive Albany to his fellowship. Then shall there be slaughter of the foreigners: then shall the rivers run blood: then shall gush forth the fountains of Armorica and shall be crowned with the diadem of Brutus. Cambria shall be filled with gladness and the oaks of Cornwall shall wax green. The island shall be called by the name of Brutus and the name given by foreigners shall be done away. The fact that Henry referred to the Normans as foreigners was the ultimate cover. In this instance we can tell this prophecy dates from 1155 -1158, where he is trying to unite the Bretons, Scots, Cornish and Welsh. What is plain is that in none of the prophecies discussed by Abbot Suger (shown below) is there any hint of sedition. Why would there be. Henry was not exiled and his brother was King when these prophecies were published: The Lion of Justice shall succeed, at whose warning the towers of Gaul and the dragons of the island shall tremble. In those days shall gold be wrung forth from the lily and the nettle, and silver shall flow from the hooves of them that low. They that go crisped and curled shall be clad in fleeces of many colours, and the garment without shall betoken that which is within. The feet of them that bark shall be cropped short. The wild deer shall have peace, but humanity shall suffer dole. The shape of commerce shall be cloven in twain; the half shall be round. The ravening of kites shall perish and the teeth of wolves be blunted. The Lion's whelps shall be transformed into fishes of the sea, and his Eagle build her nest upon Mount Aravius. It should be understood that the copy of prophecies which Abbot Suger possesed were merely established to show that Merlin had seen into future and the prophecies were in essence innocuous. Their main purport was to establish that the Normans (as saviours) had been foreseen and therefore, so had Stephen’s reign. This as we discussed gave the appearance that Stephen’s reign was fated and so was the loss of the crown by her of the ‘broken covenant’. Modern scholars should grasp that the prophecies in the Vulgate HRB were not finalised until 1155. The incitement to rebellion and its intent, so clearly defined in JC’s prophecies, could only benefit one ‘adopted son’ and that is Henry Blois; who, at the time, was in self-imposed exile. John of Cornwall’s set of prophecies were full of malicious intent, but end with a vision of Henry returning gloriously as an adopted son to Britain.  

One might suggest that a set of prophecies which originally accompanied the text of the Roman de Brut may be the explanation as to why Henry II puzzlingly withdrew his patronage from ‘Wace’ but this seems doubtful considering the date of publication c.1159-60.

There are a set of twelfth century prophecies which it is worth covering. Of the 19 MSS of the Roman de Brut, 9 are Anglo Norman and 10 French. But, it is 3 of the Anglo-Norman texts which have the set of prophecies written in meter attached. These may be the residue of prophecies which were originally destined to be attached to the early copy of Wace which Henry had prepared before Stephen died. There is a fragment of these verses in octosyllabic rhymed couplets which would tie in with ‘Wace’s’ Roman de Brut.

‘Wace’s’ claim concerning his reluctance to reiterate the prophecies in essence is self-evidently ingenuous[22] as many other of his fabrications in the Roman de Brut expand on top of ‘Geoffrey’s’ fabrications. So, the versifier of these prophecies seems to have an uncanny precise understanding of the meaning of the prophecies given that they were in their original form oblique and vague at best to the average reader. If these had indeed been part of the original ‘Wace’ Roman de Brut they would certainly have caused offence to Henry II[23] as the interpretation in translation is more clearly detrimental to Matilda and King Henry than those by Merlin in the Historia. Subconsciously also the versifier seems to have an uncanny likeness of understanding of Henry Blois’ agenda. I will use Jean Blacker’s[24] Durham MS translation of some of these prophecies to highlight my point.

When speaking of Arthur as the boar of Cornwall:

Rome will tremble from his cruelty;

He will have a truly mysterious end.

He will have honours from the mouths of nations;

His deeds will be food for storytellers,

Six men will follow his sceptre;

They will be those of his line.

Of course there is nothing that resembles this in HRB directly but each line can be linked to Henry through JC or Wace or the hope of the Britons, the six kings etc.  Again, concerning Henry Blois’ argument that the Briton church was long established before Augustine, our versifier seems to avow the same position:

Among the seats of primacy there will be change:

Canterbury will be decorated

In the dignity that belongs to London.

Our master Gregorius was intent on having us believe that the unknown bronze horseman at Rome was Maximian. Our versifier also paints a similar picture of possibility:

He who will do this will occupy London

As a Baron of bronze and will sit proudly

On a horse of bronze.

Our versifier is even clearer than Merlin in his meaning. This man understands the meaning of the prophecies:

The offspring this Lion will have

Will be turned into fish in the sea

And a female Eagle which will be born from him,

Will make her nest on Mount Aravius.

Until it is understood that the prophecies of Merlin in their various forms were manipulated by Henry Blois over time, they will never be understood definitively as they are never consistent. We cannot cover all the prophecies in the Durham MS; but one thing is clear, the time of Henry’s previous set of prophecies are past. Insurrection is no longer an option. If I am correct that these once were destined to coexist with Wace’s Roman de Brut, before they were separated and ‘Wace’ declared he did not understand them, we can see that Henry Blois refers to his futile beginning (i.e. crowning his brother) but has not given up on the idea that he might unite the Celts and be crowned with the head of a lion and will make a metropolitan of Winchester and St David’s.

This one will arrange the parts in one whole

And will be crowned with the head of a Lion

For a time his beginning will be futile,

Then his end will soar to the highest ones,

For he will renew the holy sees;

He will put pastors in suitable places.

He will clothe two cities in archbishop’s palls.

Further, after what happened at the rout of Winchester Merlin now cleverly predicts (which he does not in Vulgate prophecies) about what happens to the pastoral see:

Of Winchester: all will fall down

And the earth will swallow you up

The pastoral see there will be razed.

As we have noted before, The Hedgehog is Henry’s own reference to himself:

A hedgehog which will be loaded with apples

Will rebuild her (Winchester)

To their odour sweetly, for they will smell sweet,

Birds from many woods will fly

And a grand palace will be built

Which will be surrounded with six hundred towers

Nowhere else in the various formats or versions of the prophecies are the next two lines found. I believe they were put there to deflect the notion that many suspected the Bishop of Winchester of having fabricated the Merlin prophecies as just possibly his castle at Winchester had six hundred crenulations.

Each tower will have six guards,

Who will give laws to those of their charge.

Even though the Roman de Rou was probably put out in 1160, if these prophecies originally accompanied the Roman de Brut, we would now see why it was necessary to assert that the Brut was written in 1155.

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[1] Roman de Rou 14865-6

[2] Roman de Rou.

[3][3] Roman de Rou. I saw and Knew three King Henry’s; in their time I was clerk lisant.

[4] The History of the Norman people- Wace’s Roman de Rou. Boydell press

[5] Speaking of the King and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Wace says at the beginning of the Chronique Ascendante: They do not let me waste my time at court; each of them rewards me with gifts and promises.

[6] The Durham Cathedral Chapter Library MS.C.IV.27 may at one stage have been attached to the Roman de Brut. The preamble and many of the prophecies are written in decasyllabic rhymed couplets and show an uncanny ability to change the sense of the prophecies. For example Les Venedoz entisant de Bataille (v.454) is a slant on the HRB prophecies we have not encountered before i.e. enticing the Venedoti to make war. We have already discussecd that Henry Blois is the driving force behind the enticing, but it is odd that it is explicitly exposed.  In Fact once the sense of the ever morphing ‘font Galaes’ Galabes or Fontes Galahes is realised as Henry’s original hocus pocus appellation for the region of Gwent, we can see in these prophecies (which are sometimes much clearer than the HRB prophecies) that Henry might well be trying to slander his arch enemy Matilda even in the 1160’s: She will join herself to the spring of Galabes full of treachery and wickedness. From her will be born, without a doubt many treasons, enticing the Venedoti to make war (v.450-454).  Certainly the Merlin of HRB never spoke of the Welsh being ‘enticed’, but it was the author of John of Cornwall’s prophecies who can be clearly seen as the instigator. Another such example which shows the composer of the verse prophecies might have been Henry Blois himself (calling himself Helias), is seen in depicting the standoff at Wallingford where he, as the Bishop, along with Theobald (the staffs) intervene:  Two Kings will fight and struggle dealing each other blows like champions at the Ford of the Staff for the sake of the Lioness.  Most importantly of all in that the invasion of Ireland did not take place as Henry Blois had envisioned after the conference at Winchester in 1155 ; we now see the prophecy written probably sometime c.1160stating : the Sixth will be banished from Ireland (v.164)

[7] The writer referred to isBenoît de Sainte-Maure who died in 1173 and composed in the 1160’s the lengthy Roman de Troie or what we now call the Chronique des Ducs de Normandie.

[8] Wace in the Chronique Ascendante supposedly dates the work in the first sentence: One Thousand, one hundred and sixty years in time and space had elapsed since God in his grace came down in the Virgin when a clerk from Caen by the name of Master Wace undertook the story of Rou and his race….

[9] He was known in his own lifetime as "Henry the Young King" to distinguish him from his father. His Coronation was in 1170 and ‘reigned’ until 1183. Because he predeceased his father, he is not counted in the numerical succession of Kings of England. Nonetheless, he was an anointed King and his royal status was not disputed.

[10] Henry Blois’ reference to the Beaumont twins.

[11]We should remember Henry de Sully was nominated in 1140 by Henry of Blois to be Bishop of Salisbury, but the nomination was quashed. As compensation, Henry of Blois then named Henry de Sully the abbot of Fécamp Abbey. Again in 1140, Henry de Sully was nominated to become Archbishop of York by Henry Blois but his election was again quashed by Pope Innocent II.

[12] Mathews. Norman literature and Wace p.63

[13]In 1976, the Winchester Round Table became the subject of scientific investigations. It was first recorded at Winchester in 1463 and had probably been painted with a likeness of Henry VIII in 1522. Our tree-ring ‘experts’ and radiocarbon dating methods and a study of carpentry practices reveal by expert consensus that the table was constructed in the 1270’s. Winchester Castle dates from the reign of William the Conqueror (1066-1087). By the end of King John's reign in 1216 the castle and its royal palace needed extensive repair. It was where Matilda was besieged at the rout of Winchester. Between 1222 and 1235 the Castle's hall was replaced by the building which stands today. And yet of any possible town in Britain, Arthur’s Round Table exists in Winchester. It is inside the magnificent Great Hall, the only part of the former Winchester Castle that remains intact. It has this inscription: "This is the round table of Arthur with 24 of his named knights." Are the ‘experts’ right? They could well be a hundred years out. It would not be the first time expert opinion fitted with perceived historical convention.

 It just seems a coincidence too far that Wace’s Roman de Brut evidently written by Henry Blois, just happens to posit a round table and then it appears at Winchester where Henry was Bishop without any record of how it got there.

[14] Wace Roman de Brut

[15] GR 287, Arthur's grave however, is nowhere to be found, whence come, the traditional old wives’ tales that he may yet return.

[16] John of Worchester …the bishop is reported to have said to the earl of Northampton, ‘Behold earl, you have my orders, concentrate on razing the city to the ground.’

[17] HRB. IX, vii

[18] Gesta Stephani: Matilda was publicly welcomed into Winchester. She took up residence in the Castle and Bishop Henry handed over to her the keys to the Treasury and the Royal Crown. He then arranged a large meeting of the citizens of Winchester in the Market Place so they could salute her as "their Lady". From here, the party entered the cathedral with great pomp. Matilda led the procession with Henry of Blois to her right and the Bishop of St. David’s to her left. Relatives of the Bishops of Salisbury, Ely and Lincoln were also present and Henry sent for Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury who arrived a few days later.

[19] Wace. Roman de Brut

[20] See Note 4

[21]There are only seven in England. The fact that four of the seven are in Hampshire leads to the conclusion that they were the gift of Henry de Blois; the finest being at Winchester

[22] In the Roman de Rou a genuine Master Wace mentions an epic tale but does not continue it: I have heard minstrels in my childhood who have sung about William long ago blinded by Osmunt and dug out the eyes of Count Riulf and how he caused Ansketil to be slain by trickery, and Blazo of Spain to be guarded with a shield. I know nothing about these, nor can I discover anything further about them. When I have no corroboration of detail I do not care to repeat, nor do I wish to affirm that lies are true. This hardly sounds like the composer of the Roman de Brut and it is for this reason Henry Blois adds comments seemingly written by Wace.

[23] One other reason Wace might have had his patronage withdrawn may be that after reading the Roman de Brut, an interested patron such as Henry II would expect a lot more than what is found in the prosaic and rather monotonous Roman de Rou.

[24] Anglo-Norman verse Prophecies of Merlin.