author
active 1200 Layamon
A priest-poet writing around 1200, he helped bring the legendary history of Britain into English verse at a time when French and Latin still dominated literary culture. His Brut is especially remembered for giving early English readers a vivid version of the Arthurian story.
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Layamon's Brut
by active 1200 Layamon
About the author
Layamon, also written Lawamon or Laȝamon, was an English poet of the late 12th and early 13th century. Very little is known about his life, but he identifies himself in his own work as a priest from Areley Regis in Worcestershire.
He is known for Brut, a long Middle English poem that retells the legendary history of Britain. Drawing on Wace's Anglo-Norman Roman de Brut, and ultimately on Geoffrey of Monmouth, Layamon reshaped the material in a more forceful English style and became the first poet to present Arthur and the Round Table tradition in English verse.
Because of that, Layamon holds an important place in literary history. His writing stands near the beginning of Middle English literature and shows English re-emerging as a language for ambitious storytelling after the Norman Conquest.