author
active 1200 Layamon
One of the earliest known poets to write in Middle English, this Worcestershire priest helped bring the legends of Britain and King Arthur into English verse. His great work, Brut, stands near the beginning of the English literary tradition and still feels important for the language it preserves.
1 Audiobook
Layamon's Brut
by active 1200 Layamon
About the author
Layamon, also written as Laȝamon or Lawamon, was an English poet and priest active around the turn of the 13th century. The little that is known about him comes mostly from his own writing, where he describes himself as a priest at Areley Kings on the River Severn in Worcestershire.
He is remembered for Brut, a long verse chronicle of Britain based in part on Wace's Anglo-Norman Roman de Brut. Layamon retold the story in English at a time when much elite writing in England was still being produced in French or Latin, which makes his work especially notable.
Brut is famous for helping carry the legends of King Arthur and the Round Table into English poetry, and for preserving the sound and movement of early Middle English. For many readers, Layamon matters not only as a storyteller but as a witness to a language and literary culture in transition.