Finding Time for Britain

The manuscript BnF fr. 17177 (now available to compare with other Histoire ancienne manuscripts using the TVOF Alignment tool) presents a substantial variation on the first redaction of the Histoire ancienne. In this copy, the earliest continental French prose translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie is inserted just after the Eneas section – you can read about the material insertion in Maria Teresa Rachetta's blog post. The Histoire ancienne curiously lacks any information about that great king, Arthur; it is perhaps this absence that motivated the insertion of Galfridian material. A different British history, plausibly translated from the Historia Brittonum, does appear in a few chapters of the universal history, however. Because of this other British material, the text that results from the interpolation of the Estoire de Brutus within the Histoire ancienne generates a number of contradictions, deferring the task of providing a coherent British history to the audience.

The very Brutus whose history is interpolated into the Histoire ancienne in BnF fr. 17177 proves to be a slippery character. Is he a Roman consul, as the Histoire ancienne posits, or a descendant of Aeneas, as the Estoire de Brutus insists? Is he in Britain on Roman business, or does he arrive in Britain with other exiled Trojans to fulfill a prophecy of Diana by settling there? Is he killed by Tarquinius’s son in the heat of battle, or does he die peacefully after ruling Britain for twenty-four years? BnF fr. 17177 offers the reader all of these choices; one could be forgiven for wondering if the name Brutus refers to two different people. The text forecloses that option, however, by insisting in both cases that this is the Brutus after whom Britain is named.

The contradictions extend beyond simple choices between alternatives to the manner in which the narrative is constructed. The British section of the Histoire ancienne presents a genealogical vision of time. The mention of Brutus’s death at the hands of Etargus Tarquinius provokes a narrative intervention that presents the consul as a descendant of Noah. 

In a list of fifteen ‘begats,’ Brutus is linked to a distant Biblical ancestor. His nobility is assured by a connection to the lineage of Noah, hero of the Hebrew Bible and prominent figure in the Genesis section of the Histoire ancienne. Brutus is defined by generations of patronyms; in keeping with the Christian morality that the author of the Histoire ancienne imposes upon pagan history, Brutus’s lineage marks him as a proto-Christian.

A la parfin, quant Eneas fu mors, Ascanius fu roys … et engendra I fill qui fu apeléz Silinus. Cil ama celeement une niece Layvine et l’enceinta. Et quant Ascanius le sot, il commanda ses enchanteeurs enquerre de quoy la pucele estoit grosse, ou de malle, ou de femele. Cil encerchierent la verité et distrent qu’elle estoit enceinte d’un emfant qui son pere et sa mere ocirroit, et qant il aroit plusseurs terres cerchiees, il seroit roys de grant honor. La devinaille ne failli mie, car la damoisele enfanta l’enfant, si en fu morte. Il fu bailliéz a norrir et fu apeléz Brutus. Quant il ot XV ans, il ala o son pere chacier, si l’ocist d’une saiete…

Estoire de Brutus, ed. Géraldine Veysseyre, p. 237.

[At last, when Aeneas died, Ascanius became king … and fathered a son called Silinus, who secretly loved one of Lavinia’s nieces and got her pregnant. And when Ascanius learned of this, he ordered his mages to find out whether she was pregnant with a male or female child. They searched for the truth of the matter, and they said that she was pregnant with a child who would kill his father and mother, and after searching in many lands, he would become a very honored king. The prophecy in no way failed, for when the woman gave birth to him, she died in the process. He was given to nurse and called Brutus. When he was fifteen years old, he went hunting with his father and killed him with an arrow…]